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received wisdom, may also imagine that he can take water out of a glass into which none has
previously been poured. The Earth, as will be seen later on in this book, is the resurrected ancient
Moon. It appears as a wisdom-filled organism because in the epoch described it has become permeated
by the forces of the Spirits of Wisdom.
It will, it is hoped, appear comprehensible that in this description of the Moon conditions only certain
transitory forms of evolution could be concentrated upon. Certain things in the progress of events had
to be selected and emphasized for the description. This kind of description offers, to be sure, only
single pictures, and the preceding descriptions of evolution may therefore seem lacking through not
being woven into a web of definitely fixed concepts. In regard to such an objection attention may
perhaps be drawn to the fact that the description has intentionally been given in less concise concepts.
For it is not so much a question here of the construction of speculative concepts and ideas, but rather
of a mental picture of what can present itself to the spiritual eye through supersensible perception
directed to these facts. These facts do not appear in such sharp and definite outlines in the Moon
evolution as is the case with the perceptions on our earth. In the Moon epoch we are concerned with
vacillating, changing impressions, with fluctuating, mobile pictures, and with their transitions. Besides
this, we must consider the fact that we are concerned with an evolution covering long, long periods of
time and that in describing this, only momentary pictures can be seized on and fixed.
At the point of time when the astral body implanted in the human being has advanced him so far in his
evolution that his physical body gives the Sons of Life the possibility of attaining their human stage,
the actual climax of the Moon epoch is reached. At that time the human being also has attained all that
this epoch can give him for his inner development on the forward path. The following cycle, that is,
the second part of the Moon evolution, can be designated as one of ebb-tide. But it can be seen that
with respect to the human environment and also to man himself something most important transpires
just at this period. It is then that wisdom is implanted within the sun-Moon body.
We have seen that during this ebb-tide the nuclei of the intellectual and sentient souls are engendered.
Yet it is not until the Earth period that their unfolding and that of the consciousness soul occurs
together with the birth of the ego, of independent self-consciousness. At the Moon stage, the
intellectual and sentient souls do not yet appear as though the human being himself were able to
express himself through them, but as though they were instruments for the Sons of Life belonging to
the human being. If we wish to characterize the feeling that man had on the Moon in regard to this, we
would have to say that he felt as follows. "The Son of Life lives in and through me; he beholds the
Moon environment through me; he thinks in me about the things and beings in this environment."
The Moon man feels overshadowed by his Son of Life, he experiences himself as the instrument of
this higher being, and during the separation of sun and Moon, when the Moon was turned away from
the sun, he had a feeling of greater independence. At the same time he also felt as if the ego belonging
to him, which had disappeared from his picture-consciousness during the sun cycles, now became
visible to him. This was for the Moon human being what we might call alternation in the states of
consciousness. This gave him the feeling, "In the sun period my ego soars away with me up into
higher regions to sublime beings, and, when the sun disappears, it descends with me into lower
worlds."
A preparatory period preceded the actual Moon evolution. A kind of repetition of the Saturn and Sun
evolution occurred at that time. Then, after the reunion of the sun and Moon in the ebb-tide period,
two epochs can likewise be distinguished during which there take place, to a certain degree, even
physical condensations. The psycho-spiritual states of the sun-Moon organism alternate with physical
states. In these physical epochs the human beings, and likewise the beings of the lower kingdoms,
appear in stiff forms, lacking independence, forms that were forecasts of what they were to become as
more independent shapes later on in the Earth evolution.
Thus we can speak of two preparatory periods of the Moon evolution and of two others during the
time of ebb-tide. Such epochs can be called cycles. In what follows the two preparatory cycles, and
that precedes the two cycles of ebb-tide that is, in the time of the Moon separation three epochs
can also be distinguished. It is in the middle epoch of these three that the Sons of Life reach their
human status. Prior to this there is an epoch during which all conditions lead to a concentration on
achieving this main event. Then another epoch follows that can be described as a condition in which
the beings become familiar with and develop the new creations. Thus the middle period of the Moon
evolution is divided into three epochs. Together with the two preparatory and the two ebb-tide epochs,
they make seven Moon cycles. It may thus be said that the entire Moon evolution runs its course in
seven cycles.
Between these cycles lie rest periods that have been mentioned previously. We shall arrive at a true
conception of the situation only if we do not imagine abrupt transitions between periods of activity
and those of rest. The sun beings, for example, withdraw, little by little, from their activity on the
Moon. A time begins for them that, outwardly observed, appears like their period of rest, while upon
the Moon itself, animated, independent activity reigns. Thus the period of activity of one kind of being
extends into the rest period of other beings.
If we take these things into account we can speak of a rhythmic rising and falling of forces in cycles.
Indeed, similar divisions can also be observed within the seven Moon cycles described. We can then
call the whole Moon evolution a great cycle, a planetary cycle; the seven divisions within one of these
cycles, small cycles, and the divisions of these last again still smaller sub-cycles. This membering into
seven times seven sections is already observable in the Sun evolution and is indicated also during the
Saturn epoch. Yet we must consider the boundaries between the divisions as being blurred on the Sun
and as being still more vague on Saturn. The boundary lines become more and more clearly defined
the farther evolution proceeds toward Earth.
Part 6
After the conclusion of the Moon evolution described in the foregoing sketch, all beings and forces
concerned appear in a more spiritual form of existence, a form that stands at a quite different level
from that of the Moon period and also from that of the subsequent Earth evolution. A being who
possessed such highly developed capacities of cognition that he could perceive all the details of the
Moon and Earth evolutions would not necessarily be able also to perceive what happens between the
two evolutions. For such an individual, the beings and forces at the end of the Moon period would
disappear as though into nothingness and after the lapse of an interim make their appearance again out
of the dim darkness of the cosmic womb. Only a being possessing still higher faculties could follow
up the spiritual events that occur in this interim.
At the end of the interval of rest from outer activity, the beings who had taken part in the evolutionary
processes on Saturn, Sun, and Moon appear with new abilities and faculties. The beings standing
above men have acquired, through their previous acts, the capacity to develop the human being to such
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