Table of Contents
Read aloud by Rudolf Steiner Press Audio, this lecture is Steiner’s spiritual account of how the solar system took shape, not a report from astronomy. He grants the familiar nebular story as what physical eyes would have seen. Attraction and repulsion, he says, were never the whole cause. Inside the mist, beings with a past acted, and the separated worlds are the outer garment of those deeds. He sequences an old Saturn, a sun stage, and a moon stage before the earth. Humanity waited for the earth. Joined to the sun, a person would have been consumed by the speed of change. Left only to lunar forces, the form would have hardened. So sun and moon drew away, and other bodies became homes for beings who could not live on the sun. A high sun spirit who united with the moon is the figure this lecture names Yahweh and also Jehovah, giving a form that could carry an ego. Venus and Mercury beings are his teachers through the close of the Atlantean age.
Key points
- Steiner accepts a nebular picture as what physical eyes would have seen, and he denies that attraction and repulsion were the whole cause.
- He sequences an old Saturn, a sun stage, and a moon stage before the present earth, each with beings at different ranks of development.
- Fire spirits, in this lecture, passed a human stage on the sun in a body unlike flesh.
- Sun and moon had to leave the earth, he says, or humanity would have been burned by speed or fixed too hard by lunar forces.
- A lofty sun being who joined the moon is the Yahweh he also calls Jehovah, giving humans a form that could bear an ego.
- Venus and Mercury beings are his teachers into the close of the Atlantean age, with Mars, Mercury, and Jupiter later stirring different parts of the soul.
Topics on this site
Short quotes
the facts of modern science are actually far far ahead of the belief of modern
Rudolf Steiner, Steiner and the solar system
Early in the lecture he says laboratory facts have outrun the beliefs of popular science. Watch at 4:01
globes was the act of Spiritual Beings in the primordial Mist therefore we must see the Garment the outer
Rudolf Steiner, Steiner and the solar system
Separating the globes, he argues, was the deed of beings at work inside the mist. Watch at 12:06
can endure that immense velocity of development if the human being were exposed to such a velocity then scarcely
Rudolf Steiner, Steiner and the solar system
A human joined to the sun’s pace, he warns, could not survive that speed of change. Watch at 18:09
theater for particular beings and in its further Advance Mars actually passed through the Earth and Moon and left
Rudolf Steiner, Steiner and the solar system
Mars, in this account, moved through the earth and moon and left influences behind. Watch at 24:00
beings have themselves created The Dwelling Places in which they could live now these various beings who were
Rudolf Steiner, Steiner and the solar system
The beings, he says, built the planets as homes suited to their own stage. Watch at 28:02
Video by Rudolf Steiner Press Audio. Watch on YouTube.