Planetary system: Difference between revisions

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{{GZ|The Sun had highly exalted beings who were creatively so far advanced that they could send light into the space of the world. Now I have often mentioned that one cannot remain seated only in school, but also in cosmic evolution. Man had come so far that he could bear the earth, the high beings so far that they could bear the Sun. Now, these beings who now inhabit the sun had previously been human beings, but in this evolution beings remained behind for whom it was impossible to complete their work, they could not easily inhabit the sun. If they had entered, they would have fared badly; man would not have been able to bear it either. But these entities stood between the sun gods and man. So they had to be given another world body, so to speak, where the conditions were in accordance with their existence. In the cosmic evolution provision was indeed made for these beings. Even before our Sun had separated from the Earth, at about the same time, our Jupiter separated from the Sun. Later, after the sun had already separated the earth, our present Venus separated from the sun; and still later, again by separation from the sun, the present Mercury.|98|196f}}
{{GZ|The Sun had highly exalted beings who were creatively so far advanced that they could send light into the space of the world. Now I have often mentioned that one cannot remain seated only in school, but also in cosmic evolution. Man had come so far that he could bear the earth, the high beings so far that they could bear the Sun. Now, these beings who now inhabit the sun had previously been human beings, but in this evolution beings remained behind for whom it was impossible to complete their work, they could not easily inhabit the sun. If they had entered, they would have fared badly; man would not have been able to bear it either. But these entities stood between the sun gods and man. So they had to be given another world body, so to speak, where the conditions were in accordance with their existence. In the cosmic evolution provision was indeed made for these beings. Even before our Sun had separated from the Earth, at about the same time, our Jupiter separated from the Sun. Later, after the sun had already separated the earth, our present Venus separated from the sun; and still later, again by separation from the sun, the present Mercury.|98|196f}}
{{GZ|Thus there were beings who in the beginning, when our evolution on Earth began, were hardly suited to take part in the further evolution, who were still so young in their whole evolution that every further step would have brought them ruin. They had to be given a stage, so to speak, where they could preserve their complete youthfulness. All other scenes are there to give dwelling-places to those who are already further along. For the beings who came into being last of all during the moon's existence, and who therefore remained at a very early stage of development, a scene had to be created which therefore has only a slight connection with our earthly existence: that world body which we call Uranus was formed. This became a scene for such beings who had to remain on a very far backward level.
Then the evolution continued. Everything that is in our world system, apart from Uranus, is now contained in a urbaceous mass. Greek mythology calls what was there before Uranus emerged "chaos". Now Uranus has taken shape; the other is, so to speak, still left behind in the chaos. Beings are now still connected with it which, in their development at that time, stood just on the level on which we human beings stood when our earth had passed through the state of Saturn. And for those who, precisely because they stood on this level, because they had only just begun their existence, could not take part in everything that came later, a special arena, "Saturn", was created for them. So a second world body split off, Saturn, which you can still see in celestial space today. It came into being because beings were on the same level as human beings were at the time of Saturn's existence on Earth. So while this Saturn came into being as a special world body, everything else that belongs to our present planetary system was present apart from it. The Earth, too, with all its beings, was still in this primordial mass. Only Uranus and Saturn were already outside.
The next thing that happened was that another planet split off, which had to become the scene for a certain stage of development. This is now "Jupiter", the third planet to split off from the nebular mass, which for us is actually the Earth. While Jupiter and the other planets we already know are outside, the Sun and Moon are still united with the Earth. These planets were indeed split off from the chaos when there was still in the Earth what is now also in our Sun, when our Earth was still completely one with the Sun and the Moon. At that time, when Jupiter split off, the forerunners of today's humanity gradually came into being, that is, today's human beings emerged again, just as a new plant emerges from a seed. These human seeds had gradually formed during the Old Saturn state, during the Old Sun state and during the Old Moon state. Now - the sun was still connected with the earth - these human seeds came forth again.
But now human beings could not have developed further in this way; they could not stand this pace when the earth was still together with the sun. And now something is happening which we understand well when we are clear about the fact that those entities which we have addressed as "fire spirits" are taking their scene out of the earth. The Sun pushes itself out of the Earth, and we now have Sun and then Earth and Moon together. During this time, in some way, which we shall not describe in detail now, because it would go too far, Mars remained as a setting for special beings, which then actually passes through the earth and moon and, as it passes, leaves behind in the earth with the moon what we know today as iron. Therefore it is also the cause of everything that is deposited as iron particles in the living beings, that is, in the blood. Now someone could say: Iron is everywhere, also in the sun and so on. - This is not surprising, for just as other bodies were in the primeval nebula, so Mars was everywhere in it with its iron, which it left behind; this is also in all the other planets! Here again we have the fact that scientists today are already producing marvellous proofs that the matter is as it is presented here by the spiritual-scientific teaching. You will remember that I once explained to you how one symbolically passes from the green sap of plants, the chlorophyll, to the blood of man. The plants came into being as such before this Mars passage took place, and they have preserved their quality. Then, in the beings which are now more highly organised than the plants, the iron has been deposited which fills the red blood. It is quite consistent with these spiritual-scientific facts when it was recently found in a laboratory in Berne that the blood cannot be compared with chlorophyll. That is precisely because it is stored later. We must not imagine that blood depends on the substantiality of the chemical element "iron". I say this particularly because someone might say that one cannot speak of a connection between chlorophyll and the blood. Today science has discovered that blood is due to the element "iron", whereas chlorophyll contains no iron at all. This, however, is in full accord with what spiritual science has to say; it is only a question of looking at things in the right light.
Now, for reasons which we have already mentioned, the "Moon" separates itself, so that we have the Earth for itself and the present Moon as its secondary planet. All beings are drawn to the sun, which are essentially of a higher nature than man and which we have called the fire spirits. But now there are certain beings who have not risen so high that they can really bear to be on the Sun. Realise what these entities are: they are entities which are very elevated above man, but which have not yet reached the point where they can live on the Sun, like the fire spirits. For these beings places had to be created. All the other places would not have served them, for they are for beings of a different kind, which have not reached the high age of those beings, which can be counted among the fire spirits, but have not quite completed the cosmic course. In the main, there were two types of beings that remained behind; for these, two special settings were created by the fact that two other planets split off from the sun, "Mercury" and "Venus". Mercury and Venus are two planets that split off from the sun as the scenes for those fire spirits who are far above human existence, but who could not have endured being on the Sun. Thus you have Mercury near the Sun as the scene for those entities which could not have lived on the Sun with the fire spirits, and Venus as the scene for entities which were in some respects behind the Mercury entities, but which were still far above man.
[[File:Planetensystem.gif|center|600px|Drawing from GA 102, p. 56]]
Thus, for inner reasons, for spiritually working activities, you have seen these different world bodies arise out of the primordial mist.|102|53ff}}
{{GZ|And now I want to tell you something as a supplement to what we were already able to touch upon yesterday, to the fact that the sun separated from the earth plus the moon, and that then in turn the moon separated from the earth. That is correct in the main relationship, but this picture must be supplemented.
Before the sun was able to separate, it was already necessary for certain beings to separate particular places. That which they separated figures today as the outer planets Saturn, Jupiter and Mars. So we can say that in the general matter, where the Sun and Moon were, Saturn, Jupiter and so on were also inside, and certain entities first separated themselves with these world bodies. These were beings who had such needs of life as could be satisfied by living on these planets. Then the sun separated with the highest beings, and the earth plus the moon remained. This developed further until the moon was thrown out in the way described. But not all beings that had gone with the sun were able to take part in the evolution of the sun. If we may speak figuratively - it is difficult to find words for it in prosaic language; therefore it is sometimes necessary to speak comparatively - then we can say: When the sun split loose, certain entities believed they could bear to go along with the sun's journey. In reality, only the highest entities could, the others had to split off later. And because these entities created special settings for themselves, Venus and Mercury came into being. Thus we see the splitting off of Saturn, Jupiter, Mars before the separation of the Sun from the Earth. Afterwards Venus and Mercury split off from the sun, and then the moon separates from the earth.|112|77f}}
Thus the planetary spheres came into being as [[Dominions of the Hierarchies]]. The actual reality of the planetary spheres, however, is not on the outer [[physical plan]], but on the [[astral plan]]. 
{{GZ|During the repetition of Saturn's state detach from the Earth: Uranus and Saturn. During the repetition of the state of the Sun detaches from the Earth: Jupiter. After separating from the Earth, the Sun detached: Mercury and Venus. After separating from the Sun, the Earth detaches: Moon. Neptune does not actually belong to our solar system.|98|219}}
{{GZ|There are all kinds of degrees, even among the more mature entities. There were those who could not use the rapid tempo of the Sun and also again the slow tempo of the Earth. These already separated themselves before the separation, when the sun, earth and moon were still together, and formed special scenes for their work, had there the dominions suited to them. This is how the outer planets Saturn, Jupiter and Mars were formed.
During the repetition of Saturn's state, Uranus, Vulcan and Saturn detach themselves from the Earth. During the repetition of the state of the Sun, Jupiter and Mars detach themselves. After the Sun separated from the Earth, it split off Mercury and Venus, after the Sun separation, the Earth split off the Moon. The splitting apart of the old moon was done by the forces of the advanced powers, which pulled out the solar body, while the normal and retarded ones formed the moon orbiting it. In all mysteries this is called the strife in the heavens. The scattered planetoids are the debris of that battlefield in which the primordial secret of the origin of evil must also be sought.|109|228f}}


==Literature==
==Literature==

Revision as of 06:53, 8 March 2021

A planetary system is a cosmic organism comprising the entire astrosphere formed by the stellar wind emanating from the central star(s) and separated from the interstellar medium by the astropause. Shown here using the example of the heliosphere of our Sun formed by the solar wind, with the orbits of the planets and Pluto, bounded by the heliopause and surrounded by the interstellar medium

A planetary system or solar system, which is built up from a number of very different celestial bodies (fixed star, planets, moons, asteroids and comets), does not, in the anthroposophical view, come into being through physical forces alone, but is the result of the joint activity of higher spiritual hierarchies. There are many planetary systems in the cosmos, of which our solar system is a special example. In its totality, the highest Trinity creates an outer shell for itself. The communication between the individual planetary systems is guided by the highest Hierarchy, the Seraphim. Each planetary system develops further in seven successive stages of world evolution, each separated from the other by a purely spiritual, externally intangible existence. In the course of this series of development, it ascends from the planetary state to the fixed star system and, towards the end of the sevenfold series, further to the zodiac.

Physical structure

Our solar system is divided into an inner solar system and an outer solar system. Between the two lies the asteroid belt, whose spiritual cause of origin was the so-called fight in heaven, in which the primordial mystery of evil lies.

The four inner planets are Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars; the four outer planets are Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. Pluto, which was only discovered in 1930 and was long considered the ninth planet, has only been classified as a dwarf planet since 24 August 2006.

The space between the planets, the interplanetary space, is filled by an interplanetary medium. It consists of the hot plasma of the solar wind, from which the heliosphere of the Sun, which is about 120 astronomical units (AU) in diameter, is built up and extends far beyond the outermost planetary orbits, of interplanetary dust and other particles of cosmic radiation, some of which also originate from interstellar space. In the area of the Earth's orbit, the particle density is between one and ten million particles per cubic metre[1], and considerably more when solar activity is high.

Zodiacal light

The zodiacal cloud is a disc-shaped cloud of gas and dust that surrounds the Sun in the plane of the planetary orbits. It scatters the Sunlight and can be observed as zodiacal light. Starting from the Sun, it narrows in a wedge shape with simultaneously decreasing brightness and finally merges into a very faint, barely visible light bridge. Exactly opposite the Sun's position, you can see a slightly brighter oval spot, the gegenschein, which is produced by backscattered Sunlight. Only on particularly clear nights does it show up along the entire ecliptic as a zodiacal light band. The zodiacal light is best visible in spring after Sunset in the west and in autumn before Sunrise in the east.

„But now, gentlemen, if you look out into the world: People believe that when you look out into the world, it is empty and that the stars live in the empty space and so on. - In the past, the peasants believed that where they walked around was also empty. Today everyone knows that there is air, that it is not empty. In the same way, one can know that nowhere in the space of the world outside is empty; either matter is there, or spirit is there. You see, that there is nowhere empty in the space of the world can be virtually proved. It is interesting to consider that it is not empty. I want to prove by means of a certain sign that it is nowhere empty. Let us disregard the fact that the earth revolves around the Sun, as Copernicus taught us. Let us take the matter as it appears. Here we have the earth, and the Sun goes around the earth, rising in the east and setting in the west. There is always the Sun somewhere (drawing). Now there is something peculiar. In certain areas, in fact everywhere, if you watch closely, when the Sun rises and sets, but also otherwise, there is not only twilight, but there is something that always astonishes the world. There is something around the Sun that forms a kind of radiant light. Whenever the Sun is looked at, especially in the morning and evening, there is this radiant light in addition to the twilight. A light shines around the Sun. It is called the zodiacal light. This zodiacal light, gentlemen, gives people a lot of headaches, especially those who think materialistically. They think to themselves: the Sun in empty space can therefore shine, and when it shines we see that it illuminates the other bodies. But where does this light come from that is always around the Sun, this zodiacal light? - People have put forward an incredible number of theories about where this zodiacal light comes from. If the Sun is supposed to be flying around in empty space, or even just standing there according to Copernican doctrine, there can't be any light there! Where does this light come from? - It is terribly easy to find where this light comes from. You will certainly have walked through the city on a very clear evening and seen lanterns there. These lanterns have fixed boundaries. On a clear evening you can see the lights quite firmly bounded. But if you go on a foggy evening, you won't see such fixed boundaries, you'll see a kind of ring of light all around the bottom. Where does that come from? Because there is fog. In the fog inside, this glow of a ring of light forms. The Sun goes across the sky with a ring of light at certain times because the celestial space is not empty, but because it is filled with a fine mist everywhere. The zodiacal light is what is present in this fine mist as a glow. People have thought of all kinds of things. For example, that all kinds of comets fly through it. They certainly do. But this zodiacal light that goes with the Sun, that is stronger at certain times, sometimes weak, sometimes not there at all, that is because the nebulae in the space of the world are more or less condensed or thinned. So that we can say: Actually, the whole world-space is filled with something. - But I have already told you that we cannot believe that there is matter everywhere. I told you that the physicists, the materialistic physicists, would be very astonished if they came up there and expected the Sun to look the way they describe it in physics today. That is nonsense. If physicists could go up there, with any kind of favourable train, into the Sun, they would be astonished that they would find nothing there that was like a gas. They would find a cavity, a real cavity. It shines light. And what they would find would be precisely the spiritual. So that we cannot say: Everywhere is only substance - but we must say: everywhere is also spiritual, real spiritual.“ (Lit.:GA 354, p. 149f)

Origin

Space is a creation of the Trinity, and precedes the creative activity of the Hierarchies (Lit.:GA 110, p. 176). The formation of a new planetary system begins with the first Hierarchy searching for a suitable spherical space in the universe (Lit.:GA 110, p. 82) and working creatively into it from outside. The Seraphim receive the plans for the new world system from the Trinity. The Cherubim, who in their totality as zodiacal beings are encamped around this centre of their creative activity, work out these plans further, and the Thrones make possible a first realisation by letting out their substance of will, which at first appears externally only as heat.

The Beings of the Second Hierarchy work within the planetary structure thus created. The Kyriotetes, as Spirits of Wisdom, see to the correct arrangement of the whole world system, the Dynameis, or Spirits of Motion, see to the correct execution, and the Exusiai, or Spirits of Form, secure the closed existence of the whole planet.

Further development

This gives rise to a first planetary state, which at this time is not yet divided into individual celestial bodies, but is still a relatively uniformly formed world structure. This is a so-called occult planet which, as already indicated, develops further in the course of seven successive stages of world development. In concrete terms, this means that the planetary state first gradually enters into the outer appearance, which is also called Manvantara, following the Indian terminology, and thereby undergoes a certain process of development, which is directed towards the fact that those beings for whose spiritual development this sevenfold series of planetary states is created, can attain a very specific level of consciousness here. Once this goal has been achieved, the planet first withdraws from the outer appearance and enters a purely spiritual intermediate state, also called Pralaya according to Indian expression. After some time, the whole world system is reborn for the outer appearance, thus enabling the development of the next higher state of consciousness. In this sense, therefore, one can also speak of seven successive re-embodiments of the planetary system.

The zodiac, which surrounds the planetary system, also undergoes a development. It begins as an undifferentiated mass of nebulae and only gradually groups itself into such constellations as appear to us in the present development of the Earth as the well-known twelve constellations.

Our Earth evolution represents the fourth and middle stage of seven planetary states to which one can look back or prophetically look ahead with the opened spiritual gaze, whereby the future development is of course still open and can only be grasped in its previously predisposed basic lines. The seven stages through which our world system develops are designated by Rudolf Steiner as:

Saturn, Sun, Moon, Earth, Jupiter, Venus and Vulcan.

They must not be confused with the planets of the same name in our present solar system, which is only the middle stage of this series of development. There is, however, a spiritual relationship between these occult planetary states and our present outwardly appearing planets, which justifies this naming.

Each of the 7 planetary stages of world evolution is further subdivided into 7 life stages, each of which in turn passes through 7 form stages, so that until the completion of the entire planetary evolution, a total of 7*7*7 = 343 stages of evolution are passed through. Esoterically, the number 7-7-7 is therefore regarded as the number of completion; it is occasionally also called the number of the Logoi, because the highest Trinity, the Trinity of the three Logoi Father, Son and Holy Spirit, guides the total development (Lit.:GA 94, p. 92). Planetary evolution enters a particularly critical phase on the sixth occult planet in the sixth form stage of the sixth life stage. This is indicated by the number of the beast 6-6-6, which is also spoken of in the Apocalypse of John, although there it does not refer to the critical phase of development of the whole planetary chain, but only to the critical point of our immediate earthly development.

The planetary spheres as Dominions of the Hierarchies

→ Main article: Dominions of the Hierarchies

The spatial domains of the hierarchies from the Angels up to the Thrones are the planetary spheres in ascending order, if the geocentric Ptolemaic system is taken as a basis. They overlap with the Dominions of the Archangels, which are also assigned to the planetary spheres. The highest hierarchies, the Cherubim and Seraphim, have the whole zodiac as their field of activity. Man, as the tenth hierarchy, has the Earth as his domain during his earthly life. In the life between death and a new birth, he travels through all the planetary spheres up to the zodiac, first ascending, then descending again.

Ascension to the Zodiac

„A fixed star is an advanced planet that has repelled the things that could not come with it. The higher beings have founded an existence on the fixed star. Every fixed star has arisen from a planet. In the cosmos, too, an advancement, an moving up, takes place....

What becomes of a sun? - A sun becomes that which we see glittering down from the sky today as the zodiac. The higher stage of development of a sun is that it unfolds into the zodiac. The zodiac consists of the twelve constellations: Aries, Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, Leo, Virgo, Libra, Scorpio, Sagittarius, Capricorn, Aquarius, Pisces. To the materialistic astronomer they are simply group pictures. The seer, however, knows that they are not simply placed in space, but that in their constellation they correspond to spiritual entities that are grouped around in this belt in the sky. When beings have completed their solar existence, they become such a zodiac. This, too, has a kind of development.“ (Lit.:GA 98, p. 192)

The evolution of our present planetary system

The currently scientifically accepted theories on the origin of our solar system are ultimately based on Kant-Laplace's nebular hypothesis, which Kant formulated in 1755 in his work Allgemeine Naturgeschichte und Theorie des Himmels (Universal Natural History and Theory of the Heavens) and according to which the individual planets are supposed to have emerged at about the same time from a rotating cloud of gas and dust. This theory, however, only conveys an external image of cosmic events, behind which, in truth, sublime spiritual beings stand as the actual driving forces.

„When our earth emerged from its purely spiritual, devachanic state, when it first received a kind of externally perceptible existence, it was not as it is today; but it was in such a way that, viewed externally, it could really be understood as a great primeval mist, such as is described by external, physical science. Only we must think of this primeval nebula as being large, far larger than the earth of today, and that it extended far beyond the outermost planets which today belong to our solar system, far beyond Uranus. In terms of spiritual science, we imagine the matter in such a way that what we see emerging from a spiritual state is not merely a kind of physical primordial nebula. He who describes what comes forth as a kind of physical primordial mist and nothing more, is about as wise as a man who has seen another man and now, when asked what he has seen, says: "Muscles hanging on bones and blood I have seen! - who thus describes only the physical. For in the primeval mist are contained an abundance of spiritual forces and spiritual entities. They belong to it, and what happens in the primeval mist is a consequence of the deeds of the spiritual entities. Everything that the physicist describes is as if he stood on a chair in the space of the world and looked at the whole story. He really describes in the same way as that observer who denies the anger and passion that cause a slap in the face and sees only the moving hand. In truth, what is happening is the coming forth of world bodies and world spheres, deeds of spiritual entities; so that in the primeval mist we see the garment, the outer revelation of a fullness of spiritual beings.“ (Lit.:GA 102, p. 48f)

According to Rudolf Steiner, the evolution of our present planetary system began with the old stages of world evolution being repeated in an abbreviated form:

„Out of this world sleep then emerges the fourth metamorphosis of our Earth: our planet, the Earth itself. This first form of the Earth is, however, quite different from what our Earth now shows as a form. When it first shone forth, this Earth, out of the cosmic night, the twilight, it was large, immensely large, for it had the Sun and the Moon within it again; all the splitting off happened only later. It was so large that it reached as far as Saturn today. The differentiation of our system happened only later. The Kant-Laplace theory gives, as far as physical thought can, this first emergence of our earth in a quite intelligible way. It speaks of a nebula, a kind of primordial nebula, in which everything is dissolved, and from which therefore the whole solar system emerges. Through the rotation of this nebula, rings have formed, these rings condense, and through the rotation, the planets then form. In school, this is often illustrated by an experiment: an oil ball is made to rotate in a liquid of the same weight by means of a simple mechanical device. You can then observe how this sphere flattens out, how drops break away from it, which in turn form spheres and orbit the main sphere, and in this way you can see a kind of planetary system emerging on a small scale through the rotation. This has a tremendously suggestive effect. Why not imagine the same thing in the world? You can literally see it here, how a planetary system comes into being through the rotation, you have it in front of you! One forgets only one thing - oneself or the teacher who is doing the rotating. Nothing is explained by this external fact. Something like this world system does not arise out of nothing, does not arise out of the mist by itself, but because many spiritual entities have worked on it and at a certain point in their development have drawn out of the chaotic substance the finest substances and flung out the coarser ones, the Moon.

In the first period after the Pralaya, the Earth, which had now again united all the substances and beings within itself, repeated the Saturn state. At the beginning of this evolution it was not a sphere of gas, as is often wrongly supposed, but a sphere of heat. For it repeated the state of Saturn and reached as far as Saturn today. It is the spiritual beings who, at a certain stage, take their substances with them. Everything is based on the spirit, both in the separation of the sun and in the old development of the moon. Nothing external was to blame for this, but it was an inner necessity for some of the beings. The higher beings extract from the chaotic substance what they need. It is the spirit everywhere that directs the outer. When the earth first shone forth, everything was within it; these entities were within it at various stages of their development.“ (Lit.:GA 109, p. 226ff)

The splitting off of the planets from the Sun

In order to give the various spiritual hierarchies suitable spheres of activity appropriate to their stage of development, the individual planets were gradually split off from the Sun.

„The Sun had highly exalted beings who were creatively so far advanced that they could send light into the space of the world. Now I have often mentioned that one cannot remain seated only in school, but also in cosmic evolution. Man had come so far that he could bear the earth, the high beings so far that they could bear the Sun. Now, these beings who now inhabit the sun had previously been human beings, but in this evolution beings remained behind for whom it was impossible to complete their work, they could not easily inhabit the sun. If they had entered, they would have fared badly; man would not have been able to bear it either. But these entities stood between the sun gods and man. So they had to be given another world body, so to speak, where the conditions were in accordance with their existence. In the cosmic evolution provision was indeed made for these beings. Even before our Sun had separated from the Earth, at about the same time, our Jupiter separated from the Sun. Later, after the sun had already separated the earth, our present Venus separated from the sun; and still later, again by separation from the sun, the present Mercury.“ (Lit.:GA 98, p. 196f)

„Thus there were beings who in the beginning, when our evolution on Earth began, were hardly suited to take part in the further evolution, who were still so young in their whole evolution that every further step would have brought them ruin. They had to be given a stage, so to speak, where they could preserve their complete youthfulness. All other scenes are there to give dwelling-places to those who are already further along. For the beings who came into being last of all during the moon's existence, and who therefore remained at a very early stage of development, a scene had to be created which therefore has only a slight connection with our earthly existence: that world body which we call Uranus was formed. This became a scene for such beings who had to remain on a very far backward level.

Then the evolution continued. Everything that is in our world system, apart from Uranus, is now contained in a urbaceous mass. Greek mythology calls what was there before Uranus emerged "chaos". Now Uranus has taken shape; the other is, so to speak, still left behind in the chaos. Beings are now still connected with it which, in their development at that time, stood just on the level on which we human beings stood when our earth had passed through the state of Saturn. And for those who, precisely because they stood on this level, because they had only just begun their existence, could not take part in everything that came later, a special arena, "Saturn", was created for them. So a second world body split off, Saturn, which you can still see in celestial space today. It came into being because beings were on the same level as human beings were at the time of Saturn's existence on Earth. So while this Saturn came into being as a special world body, everything else that belongs to our present planetary system was present apart from it. The Earth, too, with all its beings, was still in this primordial mass. Only Uranus and Saturn were already outside.

The next thing that happened was that another planet split off, which had to become the scene for a certain stage of development. This is now "Jupiter", the third planet to split off from the nebular mass, which for us is actually the Earth. While Jupiter and the other planets we already know are outside, the Sun and Moon are still united with the Earth. These planets were indeed split off from the chaos when there was still in the Earth what is now also in our Sun, when our Earth was still completely one with the Sun and the Moon. At that time, when Jupiter split off, the forerunners of today's humanity gradually came into being, that is, today's human beings emerged again, just as a new plant emerges from a seed. These human seeds had gradually formed during the Old Saturn state, during the Old Sun state and during the Old Moon state. Now - the sun was still connected with the earth - these human seeds came forth again.

But now human beings could not have developed further in this way; they could not stand this pace when the earth was still together with the sun. And now something is happening which we understand well when we are clear about the fact that those entities which we have addressed as "fire spirits" are taking their scene out of the earth. The Sun pushes itself out of the Earth, and we now have Sun and then Earth and Moon together. During this time, in some way, which we shall not describe in detail now, because it would go too far, Mars remained as a setting for special beings, which then actually passes through the earth and moon and, as it passes, leaves behind in the earth with the moon what we know today as iron. Therefore it is also the cause of everything that is deposited as iron particles in the living beings, that is, in the blood. Now someone could say: Iron is everywhere, also in the sun and so on. - This is not surprising, for just as other bodies were in the primeval nebula, so Mars was everywhere in it with its iron, which it left behind; this is also in all the other planets! Here again we have the fact that scientists today are already producing marvellous proofs that the matter is as it is presented here by the spiritual-scientific teaching. You will remember that I once explained to you how one symbolically passes from the green sap of plants, the chlorophyll, to the blood of man. The plants came into being as such before this Mars passage took place, and they have preserved their quality. Then, in the beings which are now more highly organised than the plants, the iron has been deposited which fills the red blood. It is quite consistent with these spiritual-scientific facts when it was recently found in a laboratory in Berne that the blood cannot be compared with chlorophyll. That is precisely because it is stored later. We must not imagine that blood depends on the substantiality of the chemical element "iron". I say this particularly because someone might say that one cannot speak of a connection between chlorophyll and the blood. Today science has discovered that blood is due to the element "iron", whereas chlorophyll contains no iron at all. This, however, is in full accord with what spiritual science has to say; it is only a question of looking at things in the right light.

Now, for reasons which we have already mentioned, the "Moon" separates itself, so that we have the Earth for itself and the present Moon as its secondary planet. All beings are drawn to the sun, which are essentially of a higher nature than man and which we have called the fire spirits. But now there are certain beings who have not risen so high that they can really bear to be on the Sun. Realise what these entities are: they are entities which are very elevated above man, but which have not yet reached the point where they can live on the Sun, like the fire spirits. For these beings places had to be created. All the other places would not have served them, for they are for beings of a different kind, which have not reached the high age of those beings, which can be counted among the fire spirits, but have not quite completed the cosmic course. In the main, there were two types of beings that remained behind; for these, two special settings were created by the fact that two other planets split off from the sun, "Mercury" and "Venus". Mercury and Venus are two planets that split off from the sun as the scenes for those fire spirits who are far above human existence, but who could not have endured being on the Sun. Thus you have Mercury near the Sun as the scene for those entities which could not have lived on the Sun with the fire spirits, and Venus as the scene for entities which were in some respects behind the Mercury entities, but which were still far above man.

Drawing from GA 102, p. 56
Drawing from GA 102, p. 56

Thus, for inner reasons, for spiritually working activities, you have seen these different world bodies arise out of the primordial mist.“ (Lit.:GA 102, p. 53ff)

„And now I want to tell you something as a supplement to what we were already able to touch upon yesterday, to the fact that the sun separated from the earth plus the moon, and that then in turn the moon separated from the earth. That is correct in the main relationship, but this picture must be supplemented.

Before the sun was able to separate, it was already necessary for certain beings to separate particular places. That which they separated figures today as the outer planets Saturn, Jupiter and Mars. So we can say that in the general matter, where the Sun and Moon were, Saturn, Jupiter and so on were also inside, and certain entities first separated themselves with these world bodies. These were beings who had such needs of life as could be satisfied by living on these planets. Then the sun separated with the highest beings, and the earth plus the moon remained. This developed further until the moon was thrown out in the way described. But not all beings that had gone with the sun were able to take part in the evolution of the sun. If we may speak figuratively - it is difficult to find words for it in prosaic language; therefore it is sometimes necessary to speak comparatively - then we can say: When the sun split loose, certain entities believed they could bear to go along with the sun's journey. In reality, only the highest entities could, the others had to split off later. And because these entities created special settings for themselves, Venus and Mercury came into being. Thus we see the splitting off of Saturn, Jupiter, Mars before the separation of the Sun from the Earth. Afterwards Venus and Mercury split off from the sun, and then the moon separates from the earth.“ (Lit.:GA 112, p. 77f)

Thus the planetary spheres came into being as Dominions of the Hierarchies. The actual reality of the planetary spheres, however, is not on the outer physical plan, but on the astral plan.

„During the repetition of Saturn's state detach from the Earth: Uranus and Saturn. During the repetition of the state of the Sun detaches from the Earth: Jupiter. After separating from the Earth, the Sun detached: Mercury and Venus. After separating from the Sun, the Earth detaches: Moon. Neptune does not actually belong to our solar system.“ (Lit.:GA 98, p. 219)

„There are all kinds of degrees, even among the more mature entities. There were those who could not use the rapid tempo of the Sun and also again the slow tempo of the Earth. These already separated themselves before the separation, when the sun, earth and moon were still together, and formed special scenes for their work, had there the dominions suited to them. This is how the outer planets Saturn, Jupiter and Mars were formed.

During the repetition of Saturn's state, Uranus, Vulcan and Saturn detach themselves from the Earth. During the repetition of the state of the Sun, Jupiter and Mars detach themselves. After the Sun separated from the Earth, it split off Mercury and Venus, after the Sun separation, the Earth split off the Moon. The splitting apart of the old moon was done by the forces of the advanced powers, which pulled out the solar body, while the normal and retarded ones formed the moon orbiting it. In all mysteries this is called the strife in the heavens. The scattered planetoids are the debris of that battlefield in which the primordial secret of the origin of evil must also be sought.“ (Lit.:GA 109, p. 228f)

Literature
References to the work of Rudolf Steiner follow Rudolf Steiner's Collected Works (CW or GA), Rudolf Steiner Verlag, Dornach/Switzerland, unless otherwise stated.
Email: verlag@steinerverlag.com URL: www.steinerverlag.com.
Index to the Complete Works of Rudolf Steiner - Aelzina Books
A complete list by Volume Number and a full list of known English translations you may also find at Rudolf Steiner's Collected Works
Rudolf Steiner Archive - The largest online collection of Rudolf Steiner's books, lectures and articles in English.
Rudolf Steiner Audio - Recorded and Read by Dale Brunsvold
steinerbooks.org - Anthroposophic Press Inc. (USA)
Rudolf Steiner Handbook - Christian Karl's proven standard work for orientation in Rudolf Steiner's Collected Works for free download as PDF.

References

  1. ↑ ACE Real-Time Solar Wind
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