Earth

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"The Blue Marble" is a famous photograph of the Earth taken on December 7, 1972, by the crew of the Apollo 17 spacecraft

The Earth (Old High German: erda; Hebrew: הָאָרֶץ ha-Aretz "earth, land"; astronomical sign: ♁ or LaTeX: \oplus) is, from a heliocentric point of view, the densest, fifth largest and third closest planet to the Sun in our solar system. Together with the other planets, the Earth is, from a spiritual-scientific point of view, the fourth embodiment of our planetary system, which emerged from the Old Moon that preceded it after passing through a purely spiritual Pralaya.

The Earth is the locus of human evolution and the natural kingdoms associated with it. In mythology, the earth is often regarded as a living and life-giving feminine-maternal being and is addressed, for example, as Mother Earth, Earth Mother, Magna Mater (Great Mother) or Gaia[1].

According to Rudolf Steiner, the goal of the Earth's evolution is to become the Cosmos of Love, for its spiritual mission is to bring love into the world. For this it needs the human being, who here develops his independent ego. For the bearer of love can only be a being that is able to give itself away of its own free will. The prerequisites for this were created by the incarnation of the Christ on Earth and the Mystery of Golgotha.

The Earth's evolution will be followed as the fifth planetary stage of development by the New Jupiter, which is called the New Jerusalem in the Apocalypse of St. John.

Earth evolution

At the beginning of the Earth's evolution, these ancient planetary states were repeated in an abbreviated form. Between the individual repetitions, the Earth withdrew again and again from the outer physical appearance, first into a spiritual and then into a purely spiritual existence, a so-called small Pralaya. Gradually, the present form of our planetary system was formed:

  • In the 1st round of the Earth's existence, the Old Saturnian state repeated itself. The physical body and the sense organs already predisposed in it at that time were thereby made ripe for the reception of the I. During this time, first Uranus and then the present Saturn split off from the originally unified celestial body.
  • In the second round, the Old Solar Existence was repeated and the etheric body and the glandular organs in the physical body were prepared for the development of the I. At that time, today's Jupiter emerged as an independent planet.
  • In the 3rd round the Earlier Lunar State was repeated in order to prepare the astral body and the nervous system for the penetration of the ego force. Mars was then eliminated from the structure in which the Sun, Moon and Earth were still united.
  • It was not until the 4th round, when the earth had re-emerged from the Pralaya into physical appearance[2], that the actual development of the Earth in the narrower sense began. It unfolds in seven main ages or root races. In the first main age, the Polar Age, all forces were again united in a single celestial body. Only in the next epoch, the Hyperborean Age, did the Sun break away from the common structure and then Venus and Mercury as well. It is around here, where the Sun and the Earth separated from each other, that the descriptions of the biblical story of creation begin. For the time being, the Earth remained united with the Moon. Only when, in the following Lemurian Age, the Moon also separated from the Earth, did the mineral kingdom (the sea of glass in the imagery of the Apocalypse) begin to emerge in the form of the first crystals; until then the Earth was still in a molten state. At this time, man also entered the Earth for the first time in physical form. When the Sun and Moon separated from the Earth, the so-called Mars passage also occurred, in which Mars passed through the Earth in etheric form. This brought iron into the Earth and made it possible for man to develop the sentient soul. The Lemurian epoch was followed by the Atlantean Age and finally the post-Atlantean Age, in which we are still standing now. It is divided into seven cultural epochs. Our present consciousness-soul age is the fifth epoch. After the end of the seventh epoch, two more root races will follow ours before the Earth retreats again into the Pralaya. Then a Mercury passage will also take place, in which the etheric Mercury will penetrate the Earth, which will then already be in the astral state. The Mercury forces, however, have been active since the middle of the Atlantean period; through their influence Mercury came to Earth and man was able to develop the consciousness soul (Lit.:GA 89, p. 73ff).
  • In the course of the Earth's evolution, three further rounds will be passed through, in which future states of development of the Earth will be foreshadowed and thus prepared.

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. ↑ Manfred Kurt Ehmer: Göttin Erde: Kult und Mythos der Mutter Erde; ein Beitrag zur Ökosophie der Zukunft. Zerling, Berlin 1994, ISBN 3-88468-058-7
  2. ↑ Each round passes through seven states of form, of which only the fourth state physically appears. In the three preceding states, the Earth, which initially still comprises our entire planetary system, descends from the Higher Devachan (arupa) via the Lower Devachan (rupa) into the astral world.
The Earth seen from Apollo 17 (7. December 1972)
The seven planetary stages of world evolution

Old Saturn | Old Sun | Old Moon | Earth | New Jupiter | New Venus | Vulcan

 
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