Old Moon

From AnthroWiki
Old Moon, painting by F. Heinrich

The Old Moon, not to be confused with our present Moon, was according to Rudolf Steiner the third embodiment of our Earth or our whole planetary system. It is also called the Cosmos of Wisdom. The name derives from the fact that in order to explore this ancient lunar state, one must start from the clairvoyant observation of the present Moon. (Lit.:GA 136, p. 140ff) The Old Moon, which was followed by our Earth's development, was preceded by the world development stages of the Old Saturn and the Old Sun.

The Spirits of Movement as Regents of the Ancient Lunar Evolution

The lunar evolution was governed by the Spirits of Motion. The highest lunar regent was the Holy Spirit. The lunar evolution is also called the third day of creation, Dies Lunae = Moon Day, in occult language. (Lit.:GA 99, p. 103)

The world mission of the Old Moon was to form the astral body of man and to establish the possibility of thinking. (Lit.:GA 121, p. 97)

The old Moon as the work of the third Hierarchy

The Old Saturn, which preceded the evolution of the Sun, was the joint work of the first Hierarchy, that is, the Seraphim, Cherubim and Thrones. The Old Sun was brought forth by the second Hierarchy, the Kyriotetes, Dynamis and Exusiai. The third Hierarchy, the Angeloi, Archangeloi, and Archai, were instrumental in the development of the Old Moon.

„"Now we go further. The further evolution is now again guided by the sons of the second Hierarchy, by Archai, Archangeloi, Angeloi. These entities bring a newness into the luminous element, which at first, through the second Hierarchy, has drawn in its shadow, the airy darkness after it - not the indifferent neutral darkness, the Saturnian, which was simply absence of light, but that which worked out the contrast of light. To this development the third Hierarchy, Archai, Archangeloi, Angeloi, brings in through their own being an element which is similar to our desire, our urges to attain something, to long for something.

Through this the following came about, through this it came about that, let us say, an Archai or Angeloi being came in here (see drawing p. 17, point on the ray of light on the right) and encountered an element of light, I would like to say, a place of light. In this place of light it received through the receptivity for this light the urge, the desire for the darkness. It carried the Angeloi being the light into the darkness, or an Angeloi being carried the darkness into the light. These entities become the mediators, the messengers between light and darkness. And the consequence of this was that then that which formerly shone only in the light and drew its shadow, the dark airy darkness, began to shimmer in all colors, that light appeared in darkness, darkness in light. It is the third hierarchy that has conjured up the color from light and darkness. You see, here you have also, so to speak, something historically documentary to put before your soul. In the time of Aristotle, when one asked oneself, I would like to say, within the mystery, where the colors come from, one still knew that the entities of the third hierarchy have to do with it. Therefore Aristotle said in his color harmony that the color means a cooperation of the light and the darkness. But this spiritual element, that behind the warmth one has to see the entities of the first hierarchy, behind the light and its shadow, the darkness, the entities of the second hierarchy, behind the colored glittering in a wide context the entities of the third hierarchy, that was lost. And there was nothing left but the unfortunate Newtonian theory of colors, about which the initiates smiled until the 18th century, and which then became the creed of those who are physical experts.

One really does not have to know anything more about the spiritual world if one can speak in the sense of this Newtonian color theory. And if one is still inwardly incited by the spiritual world, as was the case with Goethe, one resists it. One puts down, as he did, the right thing and scolds terribly. For Goethe never scolded so much as on the occasion when he had to scold about Newton; he scolded terribly about the nonsensical stuff. Such things cannot be understood today, for the simple reason that today someone is a fool before the physicists who does not recognize Newton's theory of colors. But things are not in such a way that, for example, in Goethe's time Goethe would have stood there all alone. Among those who spoke these things outwardly, he stood alone, but the knowing ones, even at the end of the 18th century, they knew quite well how color springs up within the spiritual.

But you see, the air is the shadow of the light. And just as, when light arises, under certain conditions the dark shadow is there, so arises, when color is there and this color works as reality - and it could do that, as long as it penetrated into the airy element -, so arises, when the color sprays in the airy element, works in the airy element, thus is something, is not only a reflection, is not only the reflex color, but a reality, which sprays in the airy element: then, just as counterpressure arises under certain conditions, the liquid, the watery element arises from the real colored element. As the shadow of the light is air, cosmically thought, so the water is the reflection, the creation of the colored in the cosmos. You will say: I don't understand that. - But try just once to grasp actually the colored in its real sense.

Drawing from GA 233a, p. 20
Drawing from GA 233a, p. 20

Red - well, do you think that the red is really in its essence only the neutral surface as which one usually looks at it? The red is something that makes an attack on you, after all. I have mentioned it many times. One wants to run away from the red, it pushes one back. The blue-violet, you want to run after it, it always runs away from you, it becomes deeper and deeper. Everything lives in the colors. The colors are a world, and the soul element really feels in the world of colors in such a way that it cannot get along without movement, if it follows the colors with the soul experience.

You see, man is gazing at the rainbow today. If you only look at the rainbow with some imagination, you will see elemental beings who are very active at the rainbow. These elemental beings show very strange appearances. Here (at red and yellow) one sees certain elemental beings coming out of the rainbow continuously. They then move over like this. The moment they arrive at the lower end of the green, they are attracted. You see them disappear here (at green and blue). On the other side they come out again. The whole rainbow shows, for the one who looks at it with imagination, a flowing out of the spiritual, a disappearance of the spiritual. It really shows something like a spiritual roller, wonderful. And at the same time, one notices in these spiritual entities that by coming out of there, they come out with a great fear, by going in, they go in with a quite invincible courage. If you look at the red-yellow, fear is emanating, if you look at the blue-violet, you get the feeling: There everything lives like courage, like bravery.

Now imagine that not only the rainbow is there, but if I now draw a section here (see drawing, plate 2 above) and the rainbow stands like this (turned by 90°), the entities come out of there, there they disappear; here fear, here courage (see drawing p. 22). The courage disappears again. So now the eye would be directed, here is the rainbow, here is now red, yellow and so on.

Drawing from GA 233a, p. 22
Drawing from GA 233a, p. 22

There the rainbow gets a thickness. And there you will already be able to imagine that aqueous element arises from it. And in this watery element now live spiritual entities, which are really also a kind of image of the entities of the third hierarchy. One can already say: If one approaches the knowing ones of the 11th, 12th, 13th century, one must understand such things. You can't even understand the later ones anymore, you can't understand Albertus Magnus if you read him with what man knows today. You have to read him with a kind of knowledge that such spiritual things were still a reality for him; then only you understand how he uses the words, how he expresses himself. And in this way appear like a reflection of the hierarchies air, water. As the hierarchies themselves penetrate, the second hierarchy penetrates in the form of light, the third hierarchy in the form of the colored. But with the fact that this forms, the moon existence is reached.“ (Lit.:GA 233a, p. 18ff)

The Moon Evolution and the Emergence of Evil

At the beginning of the Moon development the Saturn and Sun development repeated itself on a higher level. Then the Old Moon separated from the Sun and circled around the sun approximately where today's Mars draws its orbits, turning around itself only once during a round trip. This sun, which formed the center of the old lunar world, did not resemble the original Old Sun, from which the lunar world had emerged, nor our present Sun.

The Old Moon evolved from the Old Sun by the Spirits of Motion compressing the mass of the Old Sun to the limit of the present Mars sphere. Thereby the air partly condensed to water. At the same time, however, the light ether, which had developed during the Old Sun existence, partly refined itself to the sound ether. These etheric forces separated later with the sun and affected the moon only from the outside. The advanced spiritual powers went with the sun, while the retarded powers remained on the Moon. The latter became luciferic entities and the first disposition to egoism arose, but with it also to independence. This development was connected with violent conflicts, which are called in the esotericism as quarrel in the sky, and whose traces we can observe today in the debris field of the planetoids between the Mars and Jupiter orbit. Thus the possibility of the evil on the Old Moon arose.

The feminine communal consciousness of the Old Moon

The Old Moon had a high degree of communal consciousness, which was perceived as feminine (Isis). The Sun shining in from outside was perceived as masculine (Osiris). At certain times, when the Old Moon was in a certain position with respect to the sun, the whole Moon resounded as the individual beings shouted out into the cosmos their drive, which was a kind of germ of the reproductive instinct, but not out of their individual experience, but as a collective expression of this cosmic constellation.

The natural kingdoms of the Old Moon

The Old Moon was a liquid to viscous world body, surrounded by an atmosphere of fire air permeated with moisture. The natural kingdoms were very peculiarly shaped. The basic substance resembled a kind of plant mush, which was similar to an internally semi-living mass of peat moss. There was not yet a solid mineral kingdom in our earthly sense, but the lowest kingdom of nature was something like a mineral-plant kingdom, which stood on a stage of development that lay between our present minerals and our present plants. Above it rose an inwardly sensitive plant-animal kingdom, which was developmentally between our present animals and plants. The third kingdom of nature, standing between animals and humans, was an animal-man kingdom to which humans belonged in their degree of development at that time. Originally, there had been a human kingdom, an animal kingdom and a plant kingdom on the Old Moon. Through the exit of the Sun, these were each raised by half a level of development, so that the aforementioned intermediate kingdoms came into being.

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.
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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