Elementary world

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The elementary world in the proper sense is the world of the four elements earth, water, air and fire and the elementary beings working them, which build up the physical world - seen, however, not with sensual but with spiritual organs of perception. In an extended sense, this expression is used as a synonym for the astral plane as a whole (Lit.:GA 116, p. 31), in the lower regions of which those astral beings are resident who reveal themselves through the four elements. In contrast to the sensuous world with its largely solidified forms, the elemental world is in constant motion and metamorphosis of form:

„The sensory world is the world of completed forms; the spirits of form reign in the sensory world. The elemental world is the world of mobility, the world of metamorphosis, of transformation. Just as one must continually transform oneself if one wants to feel oneself in the elementary world, so all beings continually transform themselves in the elementary world. There is no closed, no delimited form in the elementary world; everything is in perpetual metamorphosis.“ (Lit.:GA 147, p. 53)

The term «elementary world»

Steiner's use of the term «elementary world», however, is even more differentiated. In his writing "The Threshold of the Spiritual World" he writes:

„Man, as an etheric being, stands in an etheric (elementary) world.“ (Lit.:GA 17, p. 24)

The elementary world is thus equated here with the etheric world or at least described as part of it. What may at first seem like a contradiction is clarified by a hint Rudolf Steiner gives elsewhere. According to this, the lowest 3 regions of the astral world coincide with the 3 uppermost regions of the physical-etheric world (collectively referred to as the physical plane in the following quotation) and it is precisely here that the Kamaloka, the region of purgatory, is to be found, which cosmically corresponds to the lunar sphere or the sublunar sphere:

„If we start from the physical plane, we have here (it is drawn) seven sub-divisions of the physical plane; then would come seven sub-divisions of the astral plane. Of these, the three lowest coincide with the three highest of the physical plane. We must regard the astral plane as being pushed together with the physical plane in such a way that the three uppermost sections of the physical plane are at the same time the three lowermost sections of the astral plane. We can speak of a marginal zone, that is, the one which our souls cannot leave after death, when they are still bound to the Earth by desires. It is called Kamaloka.“ (Lit.:GA 101, p. 223)

Drawing from GA 101, p. 223
Drawing from GA 101, p. 223

Thus the astral region of burning desire coincides with the light ether, the region of mobile sensitivity with the sound ether and the region of wishes with the life ether.

Rudolf Steiner also gives the following explanation, which shows that the elementary world is identical with the soul world. It is only seen here from a different point of view:

„Names which are to express the experiences of the human soul in the elementary and in the spiritual world will have to be adapted to the peculiarities of these experiences. In giving such names, it will be necessary to take into account that the experience in the elementary world is quite different from that in the world of the senses. This experience is based on the soul's ability to change and its observation of sympathies and antipathies. The naming will necessarily have to take on something of the changefulness of these experiences. It cannot be as rigid as it must be for the sensory world. Anyone who does not take this inherent fact into account will easily find a contradiction in the naming of this writing and that in my "Theosophy" and "Occult Science". The contradiction is resolved when one considers that in these two writings the names are chosen in such a way that they characterise the experiences of the soul which it has in its full development between birth (conception) and death on the one hand and between death and birth on the other. Here, however, the names have been chosen with reference to the experiences which the clairvoyant consciousness has when it enters the elementary world and the spiritual regions. It is evident from "Theosophy" and "Occult Science" that soon after the physical-sensuous body has been detached from the soul, that body which is called the etheric body in this text is also detached from the soul at death. The soul then first lives in the entity which is here called the astral body. After its detachment from the soul, the etheric body transforms itself within the elementary world. It passes into the beings which form this elementary world. In this transformation of the etheric body, the soul of the human being is no longer present. However, the soul experiences the processes of this elementary world as its external world after death. This external experience of the elementary world is described in "Theosophy" and "Occult Science" as the passage of the soul through the world of the soul. One will therefore have to imagine that this world of the soul is the same as that which is called here, from the point of view of supersensible consciousness, the elementary world.“ (Lit.:GA 17, p. 92f)

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.
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