Moon

The Moon is the satellite of the Earth, since the separation from the Earth in the middle of the Lemurian epoch, see separation of Moon, taking with it the heavy substances for which the Earth had no use. In the future, the Moon is bound to reunite with the Earth, see reunion of Moon.

The moon is the most material entity (1924-05-17-GA353) and its forces and rhythms still relate with reproductive forces in the human being, the tides of the oceans.

Aspects

spiritual influence of the Moon
- the Egyptians called the influence of the moonlight Osiris forces (shining phases of full moon) versus Isis when moon is dark
- Moon forces underlying somnambulistic condition peculiar to sleep walkers (1924-08-21-GA243)
- influence of the unbalanced Moon forces in schizophrenia (1924-08-21-GA243)
- black magicians use the chemical ether hardening Moon forces that still exist on Earth (originating from before the Moon left the Earth), to work into the physical world by a union with and use of elementary beings (and related forbidden dynamic Moon forces) (1924-08-18-GA243) - see black magic
- why the moon is looked upon as having a detrimental evil influence
  - After separation of Sun (and before separation of Moon) .. Man was in a condition in which his astral body was the bearer of the most savage lusts, for every bad force was implanted in him and there was no counterbalance ... human beings were still entirely group-souls, but of the most sensual order with the worst instincts. During this passage through a veritable hell, under influence of the Sun, the recapitulating Moon gradually matured so far that it could throw out the terrible instincts and powers, and retain on the Earth whatever was capable of evolving. With the departure of the present moon all those sensual forces went away; therefore in the present moon you have the remains, in its spiritual significance, of all the evil influences which were at that time present in the human realm; and therefore also the moon is looked upon as having a detrimental influence. (1907-06-04-GA099, see Earth rounds perspective#1907-06-04-GA099)

the process of separation of Moon and reunion of Moon

the phases of the Moon

the tides and water level of the oceans
- are a result of the rhythmic interdependence of the Earth and the moon forces that originate from the time the moon was still in the earth, hence there is still the correlation between the phases of the moon and the tides - because at one time they were dependent upon each other (1922-09-27-GA347)
- Ebb and flow were once coincident with certain influences and the daily phases of the moon. Again there was separation (of moon from the Earth), now the moon is on its own, ebb and flow on their own. (1924-04-21-GA316)
development of the human nerve system
- the twenty-eight to thirty vertebrae of the spinal column (and their development in the embryo) (see 1924-01-12-GA233A below and Persian cultural age#1910-12-31-GA126)
- see more on Nerve-sense subsystem
forces while Man is asleep
- "While we are asleep we get something from the spiritual world to replace the forces that have been used up by our activities during the preceding day. One can point to an external influence ... and what we find is in remarkable accord with the length of the phases of the moon. Not that this external influence coincides exactly with the moon's phases, or that the phases themselves produce corresponding effects, but only that the course of these effects is comparable with the course of the phases of the moon. "(1909-12-09-GA058)
- note: see right on Schema FMC00.285, while asleep Man's astral body and I leave the physical and etheric bodies, and they are 'replaced' during that process by the forces of the elementary kingdoms (EK3), and also the EK3 from the astral world.

the Moon and reproductive forces

similar interdependency as above with the tides, for the dependency of the female aspect of procreation of the phases of the moon (1922-09-27-GA347)
What man had around him in the Old Moon existence, he has today within himself: the soul of the Moon (Isis) now lives on further in Man and this developed in Man after the Lemurian epoch as the sexual forces. Here we have the relationship between the human being and the present moon which has become a waste remnant as the soul is in Man. (1905-10-09-GA93A)
menses and menstruation - "the most striking example of a human-cosmic relationship that can still be observed today" (1924-04-21-GA316)
- the temporal course of female menstruation periods imitates the outer rhythm in Nature of the lunar phases, but they do not coincide with the latter in their beginning and ending. And there are many other, less evident phenomena, both in the male and in the female organism, representing imitations of rhythms in outer Nature. (1924-06-07-GA327)
- the phases of the moon are not coincident with menstruation .. these were cosmically determined in a much earlier phase of cosmic evolution ... but in the course of time they became independent and emancipated from the external cosmos so that nowadays there is no direct dependence. But there was once a time when the one coincided with the other; then they separated: the moon phases exist on their own, menstruation takes its own independent course. (1924-04-21-GA316)

various
- menstrual synchrony: the observation that women who live in close proximity (e.g. in convents, dormitories, households) sometimes experience their menstrual cycles shifting until they occur at the same time.
  - The menstrual cycle is essentially etheric and astral before it is physical, and human beings radiate etheric and astral influences upon one another; so living in close proximity with shared rhythms can harmonize these forces. Harmonization of life-rhythms among women can lead to partial synchrony of menstrual cycle which are related to the archetypal Moon rhythm).
  - Compare with - in physics - 'synchronization of coupled oscillators', and with this movie illustration with metronomes imagine the moon is the underlying stabilizing alignment (the two rollers) that influences the individual metronomes representing individual female menses. Christiaan Huygens already remarked around 1660 that pendules connected on the same supporting base synchronize because small vibrations are being transferred through the base influencing the individual rhythms towards, ultimately, synchronization.

Illustrations

Lecture coverage and references

1905-10-09-GA93A

longer quote on: Old Moon#1905-10-09-GA93A

What man had around him in the Old Moon existence, he has today within himself. The forces of Moon now live within him.
...
What Man developed after the Lemurian Age as the sexual forces, is due to Isis, the soul of the Moon, which now lives on further in Man. Here we have the relationship between the human being and the present moon.
The Moon has left its soul with Man and has therefore become a mere slagheap.

1908-09-11-GA106

Let us imagine that we lie down to sleep, that the astral body removes itself from the physical, and that all this happens in the full moon. We have the physical and etheric bodies lying in bed, the astral body hovering above, and all of this in the full moonlight. Now the situation is not so that an astral cloud simply becomes visible there for the clairvoyant.

On the contrary, what he actually sees is streams from the astral body into the physical, and these streams are the forces that remove fatigue in the night. They bring to the physical body replenishment for the wear and tear of the day, so that it feels refreshed and quickened.

At the same time one would see spiritual streams proceeding from the moon, and these streams are permeated by astral powers. One would see how there actually proceed from the moon spiritual effects that permeate and strengthen the astral body and influence its working on the physical body.

1909-12-09-GA058

title: 'Something about the Moon in the Light of Spiritual Science'

covers o.a. influence of moon on tides of ebb and flood, Man's connection with the phases of the moon

quote A

The question for us today is a truly spiritual-scientific one: whether the moon has any special influence on or significance for human life on Earth.
A significance of this kind has been spoken of from various points of view in the course of past centuries. And since everything that happens on earth, year in and year out, is related to the changing position of the earth relative to the sun, and is subject to the vast influence of the sun's light and heat, it was natural to wonder whether that other heavenly luminary, the moon, might not have some importance for life on earth, and especially for human life. In the comparatively recent past, people were inclined to speak of the moon as having a fairly powerful influence on earthly life.

Quite apart from the fact that it has long been customary to attribute to the moon's attraction the so-called ebb and flow of the sea,

... the moon has always been regarded as affecting weather conditions on earth.

Moreover, as late as the first half of the 19th century, serious scientists and doctors collated observations of how the moon in its various phases had a definite effect on certain illnesses, and even on the course of human life as a whole. It was then by no means a mere popular superstition to consider the influence of the moon in relation to the ups and downs of fever, of asthma, of goitre and the like; there were still doctors who recorded such cases because they felt compelled to believe that the phases of the moon had some influence on the course of human life and on health and disease in particular.

With the rise of that scientific way of thinking which had its dawn and sunrise in the middle of the 19th century, the inclination to allow the moon any influence on human life diminished continuously. Only the belief that the moon causes the tides of the sea survived.
And there was one very important scientist, Schleiden,⁶⁵ who poured out the vials of his wrath on those who still believed in the influence of the moon, even if it were only on the weather or on some other terrestrial phenomena. Schleiden, who had done outstanding work in his own sphere by his discovery of the significance of the plant-cell, launched a vehement attack on another German natural scientist, Gustav Theodor Fechner,⁶⁶ notable especially for directing attention to certain subtle or frontier aspects of research. Thus in his Zend Avesta Fechner tried to show that the life of plants is endowed with soul, while in his Introduction to Aesthetics and his Elements of Psychophysics he achieved a great deal for the more intimate aspects of natural science. It may be better not to discuss this celebrated controversy about the moon without saying a little more about Fechner himself.
...
Fechner naturally felt challenged as he was the main target of these attacks. He at once embarked on a work which—whether or not we agree with it—is highly stimulating. Although many details in it have since been corrected, Fechner's pamphlet, “Schleiden and the Moon”, published in 1856, is remarkably interesting. He had no need to go into the influence of the moon on the ebb and flow of the tides, for this was admitted even by Schleiden. It was the supposed connection of the moon with weather conditions that made the moon, for him, the cat of scientific research. Fechner therefore set out to investigate the very facts that his opponent brought against him, and from this material he drew some notable conclusions. Anyone who cares to check his procedure will find that in this investigation Fechner was an exceptionally cautious worker with a thoroughly scientific approach. His first conclusion from a mass of facts—which I need not repeat, for anyone can read them for himself—was that the quantity and frequency of rainfall were in many cases shown to be greater with a waxing than with a waning moon: greater when the moon approached the earth, smaller when it receded; and the proportion of rainfall during a waxing moon to that during the wane was 107:100. The recorded observations he used did not cover a few years only; some of them extended over many decades and concerned not a single locality but many parts of Europe.
In order to exclude chance effects, Fechner now assumed that some other condition, excluding the moon, might have produced this proportion of 107:100. He then studied weather conditions on the odd and even dates of the moon's phases, for he said that if the waning and waxing were not the cause, the odd and even days of the month would produce similar results. But that was not the case. Quite different figures emerged: the relationship was not constant but variable, so that here it could be attributed to chance.
Fechner himself realised that he had not achieved any world-shattering result; he had to recognise that the moon had no very great influence on the weather, but the facts did point to some influence. And he had, as you will have seen, proceeded quite scientifically, taking account only of observations carefully recorded for definite places.
He made similar researches in relation to fevers and other bodily phenomena, and here too he obtained small positive results. It could hardly be denied that phenomena of this kind may take a different course under the waxing and under the waning moon. Thus the old view of the moon fought its last fight in the middle of the 19th century through the work of this highly gifted man, Fechner.

quote B

For we are coming now to a particular question where at last we touch on spiritual science. It concerns the ebb and flow of the tides, universally regarded as coming under the influence of the moon.
The flood-tide is thought to be obviously connected with the attractive force of the moon, and is looked for when the moon reaches its meridian. When the moon leaves the meridian, the flood is expected to change to ebb. But we need only remark that in many places ebb and flow occur twice, while the moon stands at the meridian only once during the same period. And there are other facts. You can learn from travel-books that in many parts of the earth the flood by no means coincides with the moon's meridian; in some places it occurs up to two and a half hours later. Certainly, science has thought up excuses to account for this: we are told that the flood is retarded. But there are also certain springs which show an indubitable ebb and flow; in some cases the well ebbs when the ocean tide is at flood, and vice versa. We are told that these cases, too, are examples of retarded ebb or flow in some cases so retarded as to run into the other phase. Of course this kind of explanation can explain almost anything.
One question has been rightly asked: whence does the moon get this power to attract the sea? The moon is much smaller than the earth and has only about a seventieth of the earth's attractive power, while to set the great masses of the sea into motion would require millions of horse-power. Julius Robert Mayer made some interesting calculations on this question and it leads on to numerous other problems. Hence we can say: Here is something which is regarded as scientifically irrefutable, and yet, although no objections to it are heard, it is in fact highly vulnerable.
One very significant fact, however, remains. Although the position and influence of the moon are such that it is hard to speak of an immediate relation of cause and effect, it holds true that a definite flood occurs every day—in relation to the moon's meridian—about fifty minutes later than on the previous day. The regular sequence of ebb and flow does therefore correspond to the course of the moon, and that is the most significant fact of all. Thus we cannot speak of the moon at its meridian as having an actual influence on flow and ebb, but we can say that the course of the moon's orbit does stand in a certain correspondence with the course of the tides.

quote C

While we are asleep we get something from the spiritual world to replace the forces that have been used up by our activities during the preceding day.
Is it possible in this case also to point to an external influence as we did with regard to the daytime waking hours?
Yes, it is, and what we find is in remarkable accord with the length of the phases of the moon.
I am not maintaining that this external influence coincides exactly with the moon's phases, or that the phases themselves produce corresponding effects, but only that the course of these effects is comparable with the course of the phases of the moon. I will give two examples to show what I mean.

1922-09-23-GA347

In previous times people generally knew more about these things. People used to know more about these matters and said that the sun had masculine qualities. It does actually create the masculine gender of beings. This is revealed in a way in the Latin language, where sol, the sun, is masculine, while luna, the moon, is feminine. Sol, the sun quality, fertilizes luna, the feminine element. In German this is reversed, and the word Sonne (sun) is feminine and the term Mond (moon) is masculine even though in reality the sun represents masculine qualities and the moon feminine ones. Things got mixed up there. If we want to use language in the right way, we should give the word Sonne the masculine gender and the term Mond the feminine: der Sonne and die Mond.
Let me conclude with a joke drawn from Latin. .. Let us say we first have the moon at the waxing stage. It increases until it reaches the full condition. Then it begins to wane. You see, if you look at the corresponding terms within the Roman languages, for instance in French, which derives from Latin, you could compare the waning moon with a ‘C’ and the waxing one with a ‘D’. And the ‘C’ brings us to croitre, which means ‘grow’. However, when it resembles a ‘C’ the moon is waning instead of waxing or growing. The phase in which it resembles a ‘D’ does not correspond to decroitre either, because now it is waxing. When we look at the sky, the moon seems to say ‘I grow’ though in reality it is waning and vice versa. This is how the saying ‘The moon tells lies’ originated.
But this example has a more profound significance. People were embarrassed to talk about the moon because it is connected with human procreation. This subject gradually turned into something people did not talk about. In the process, they lost the capacity to speak about moon qualities in the proper way. That is why the moon supposedly told lies. When people looked at it, it no longer indicated what they were related to. Doctors gradually dropped the habit of saying that the unborn child is carried in the mother’s womb for ten lunar months and instead spoke of nine sun months, which is approximately the same period of time. But in reality this length of time is ten lunar months, not nine sun months. It has to do with the moon and the fact that at one time the earth carried the moon in it, then gave birth to it and cast it out into space.

1922-09-27-GA347

[Moon and tides]
.. it is remarkable that even today the ocean tides are connected with sun and moon. We can definitely say that in one phase of the moon they are different than in another. There are some connections. But this has nothing to do with the idea that moonlight falls on the ocean somewhere and thus causes certain tides.
When the moon was still inside the earth, it developed its various forces and brought about the tides. Up to this day, the earth has kept the remnants of those forces that rhythmically vary the water level in the oceans, and has carried out the variation by itself.
To believe that the moon is still responsible for the tides today is superstition. But at an earlier time, when the earth was still affected by everything and when the moon was still inside it, then the tides were dependent on the moon. The earth still lives in this ancient rhythm even though it is now independent of it. Thus the earth maintains an apparent dependence on the moon.
Similarly, when I look at my watch and see that it is ten o'clock, I cannot say that the watch itself throws me out of this hall. In other words, the phases of the moon still coincide with the tides because at one time they were dependent upon each other; this interdependence no longer exists, but their rhythm has been maintained unchanged by the earth.
[Moon and reproductive forces]
We can say the same thing about the reproductive forces as far as they are dependent upon the moon, which means as far as they represent the female aspect of procreation. It also applies to the reproductive forces dependent on the sun, that is, on the sun forces inside the earth.
All animals that reproduce at a fast rate make use of the sun forces stored in the earth and are less developed. More highly developed animals and also human beings bear the procreative forces inside them, protecting and shielding these forces within them. A certain amount of sun energy still reaches these forces and renews them continuously; otherwise they would no longer be there. But these beings would not receive enough procreative forces out of the sun forces stored inside the earth.
Plants have access to these forces, because they carry up inside them what was stored in the earth through the winter until the following summer. The procreative forces of the previous year are therefore available to plants.
But this is not true for the elephant. Its procreative forces stem from a time millions of years back; they are in its seed and have been transmitted from elephant father to elephant son. The elephant carries these forces in its body. Plants are filled with procreative forces generated in the previous year, but the elephant bears in itself forces that are millions of years old. Plants and lower animals can still use the forces recently stored in the earth, which are enormously strong; those animals that depend on keeping very old procreative forces inside themselves, however, can reproduce their own kind only in a limited way.

1924-01-12-GA233A

Thus, profound and solemn attention was given in this school to the passage of the Moon through First Quarter, Full Moon, Last Quarter, New Moon; they learned to watch how the Moon in this way goes through twenty-eight to thirty phases. They watched out in the Cosmos the passage of the Moon through her phases. They watched the Moon as she moves within her orbit. They saw how she describes her twenty-eight to thirty curves or turns and they understood how Man has in his spinal column these twenty-eight to thirty vertebrae and how the development of the spinal column in the embryo corresponds with the movements and forces of the Moon.
They saw in the form and shape of the human spinal column the copy of the monthly movement of the Moon. And in the twenty-eight to thirty nerves that go out from the spinal column into the whole organism, they saw a copy of the streams that the Moon sends down continually upon the Earth, sending them down at the various stages of her path in the heavens.
Actually and literally, in these continuations of the vertebrae they saw a reflection of the inpouring of the Moon-streams. In short, in what the human being bears within him in the nerves of the spinal marrow together with the spinal marrow itself, they saw something that unites him with the Cosmos, that brings him into living connection with the Cosmos.
All this that I have indicated to you was presented to the pupil. And he was then made to observe something else. It was said to him: “Look at the optic nerve: watch how it goes from the brain across into the eye. You will see that in the course of its passage into the eye it is divided into very fine threads. How many threads? The threads that go from the optic nerve into the inside of the eye are exactly as many in number as the nerves that go out from the spinal marrow; there are twenty-eight to thirty of them. So that we may say, a spinal marrow system in miniature goes from the brain through the optic nerve into the eye.”
Thus has Man — so said the teacher to his pupils — thus has man received this thirty-membered system of nerves and spinal marrow from the Gods, who in primeval antiquity formed and shaped his existence; but Man himself has fashioned, in his eye, in his sense-world-beholding eye, a copy of the same; there, in the front of the head-organism he has fashioned for himself a copy of what the Gods have made of him.
After this, the pupil's attention was directed to the following. The organisation of the spinal marrow stands, as we have seen, in connection with the Moon. But on the other hand, through the special relationship that the Moon has to the Sun, we have a year of twelve months; and from the human brain twelve nerves go out to the various parts of the organism, the twelve chief nerves of the brain. In this respect, Man, in his head organisation, is a microcosm, in respect, namely, of the relationship between Sun and Moon. In the whole form and figure of Man is expressed an imitation of the processes out yonder in the Cosmos.

1924-04-21-GA316

Take the most striking example of a human-cosmic relationship that can still be observed today, namely the menses. It is obvious that they are determined cosmically yet they are not so determined in the present epoch. They were cosmically determined in a much earlier phase of cosmic evolution in which our earth was also involved. Then, in the course of time, they became independent, were emancipated from the external cosmos, so that nowadays there is no direct dependence. Therefore, one cannot say nowadays that the phases of the moon are coincident with menstruation. This cannot be said.
But it is certainly true to say that there was once a time when the one coincided with the other; then they separated. The moon phases exist on their own. Menstruation takes its own independent course. Here is one example of separation.
The other that I will mention is not governed by the phases of the moon but by the daily phases of the moon. Ebb and flow were once coincident with certain influences of the moon. Again there was separation. The moon is on its own, ebb and flow on their own.

1924-06-07-GA327

True, it is well-known that the pains of certain illnesses are intensified by atmospheric influences. There is, however, another fact of which the people of to-day are not so well aware. Certain illnesses and other phenomena of human life take their course in such a way that in their time-relationships they copy the external processes of Nature. Yet in their beginning and end they do not coincide with these Nature-processes. We need only call to mind one of the most important phenomena of all, that of female menstruation. The periods, in their temporal course, imitate the course of the lunar phases, but they do not coincide with the latter in their beginning and ending. And there are many other, less evident phenomena, both in the male and in the female organism, representing imitations of rhythms in outer Nature.

1924-08-21-GA243

lecture title: Influences of the Extra-Terrestrial Cosmos Upon the Consciousness of Man

In the early stages of Initiation consciousness Man becomes aware that Moon forces are within him and that they always tend to develop within him a second Man who is encased within the first Man.
A conflict now sets in.
When the Moon forces begin to be inwardly active in this second Man of whom I am speaking, not in waking consciousness, but during sleep, in such a way that this Man is released naturally by these inner Moon forces - when he is set free by the presence of the Moon at night and begins to wake to consciousness in the passive condition of sleep,
then this second Man concealed within the first, the normal Man, seeks to wander around in the light of the Moon and takes the other with him.
This is the origin of the somnambulistic condition peculiar to sleep walkers.
When the moon is shining outside, it is possible to awaken the second Man who then makes contact with magical forces, i.e. anomalous forces which differ in kind from those of nature. He begins to wander around. As a sleepwalker in a diminished state of consciousness he behaves in a way that would be foreign to ordinary consciousness. Instead of lying in bed, as he would normally do, he wanders around and climbs on roofs. He is looking for the sphere which, in reality, he ought to experience outside his physical body.
When this becomes becomes a conscious inner experience and is directed into normal channels we take the first step in Initiation-consciousness. In this case however, we do not contact the actual, external Moon influences; but the Moon forces in our inner being enable the second Man to develop his consciousness. We must at all costs prevent this second Man from breaking loose. There is always the danger that the second Man might break loose, wander phantom-like abroad and stray along false paths. He must be kept under control.
Inner stability and self-control are essential for the acquisition of Initiation-knowledge in order to ensure that this potentially errant second Man stays within the body and remains linked to the ordinary, matter of fact consciousness associated with the physical body.
We must perpetually struggle to prevent this second being, the creation of the strengthened inner Moon nature, from dissociating itself from us. The second being is strongly attracted to everything associated with metabolism, peristalsis, the stomach and other organs, and makes heavy demands upon them.
The first indication, the first experience, of Man's dawning Initiation-knowledge is that he follows one of the two paths which have to be traversed - the path that leads through the development, through the conscious realization of the dream world.

1924-05-17-GA353

The moon is relatively heavy, for it once came away from the Earth, taking with it the heavy substances for which the Earth had no use.
It would be lighter than the Earth, of course, if we were to weigh it, being much smaller, but relatively speaking, in terms of what we call the specific gravity, it is heavier.
It follows that spirituality comes from the sun, for it is the lightest body in cosmic space.
This is why I was able to say, when ... asked about the Christ, that the greatest spirituality comes from the sun when we are born, for the sun is the most spiritual entity.
The moon is the most material entity. And if the moon is the most material body, its influence on human beings goes beyond the ordinary in material terms.
You see, all the other stars apart from the moon also have an influence, of course. They have an influence on material processes.
But if you imagine you're eating a piece of bread, the bread is gradually transformed into blood; something is transformed into something else. Part of the human being is created, blood is created, when you transform bread in the metabolic process.
If you put salt in your bread, the salt goes into the bones; it is transformed.
It is always a part that is produced, for these materials relate only to parts of the human being. All things on earth can only create part of the human being; and whatever is produced must remain in the human being.
The moon itself has a powerful material influence on reproduction, but in that case it is not part of the human being that is produced but a whole human being. The sun influences the most spiritual part, the moon, being material itself, the material aspect. Man thus creates himself, or an image of himself, under the influence of the moon. That is the difference.
So:

Sun actions may be said to recreate our thoughts, our powers of will all the time.

The moon's influence is that it recreates the material forces, reproducing the material human being.

And between the sun and the moon we have the other stars which bring about parts of the other things that happen in Man.

GA 202, 23 Oct 1920, Dornach, Human Questions and Cosmic Answers: “In woman the course of menstruation is connected with the course of the Moon. It is something in human beings that belongs not only to the earth but is connected with the cosmos outside the earth.”
GA 349, 12 Dec 1922, Stuttgart, From Limestone to Lucifer: Steiner describes how the menstrual cycle originally aligned with the lunar cycle of ~28 days, expressing a cosmic rhythm that became “disordered” in later stages of evolution.

Discussion

Related pages

References and further reading

Klaus-Peter Endres and Wolfgang Schad: Moon Rhythms in Nature: 'How Lunar Cycles Affect Living Organisms' (2002 in EN)