Reunion of Moon

In the third Lemurian epoch the Moon and the Earth separated, whereas before they were a single body.

The Reunion of Moon is timed approximately around the seventh to eight millenium in this current fifth epoch. Rudolf Steiner seems to point out this will indeed happen before the end of the Current Postatlantean epoch and the Sixth epoch.

It will have a major impact on oa

procreation, as birth will no longer take place in the ordinary way.
two futures for mankind
- Man will be spiritualized or 'will be lifted up', the physical mineral will be left behind and Man will only direct the physical from outside (like the group soul).
- a certain population will remain behind (or 'below'), intertwined with the web of Mineral plant like spiders that will cover the Earth
the balance of the etheric influences, see The two etheric streams
the pivotal separation between the good and evil cohorts of humanity, as the start of future 'subraces', see already Future Oriphiel age before the sixth cultural age (before), and the Sixth epoch (afterwards)

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And just as the separation of the Moon caused a hardening, so also the reunion of the Moon will again cause a shift in the elemental balance caused by the changed etheric formative forces.

Aspects

"when the eighth millennium will have arrived and the moon will unite again with the Earth is the time when women will no longer be fertile", see also the end of current fertility and procreation on: Humanity is getting younger and Gender and sexuality
the purely intellectual thoughts of waking consciousness about the mineral physical reality around us (all kingdoms) "will become realities when the moon and the Earth will unite again. A "horrible brood of beings", between the mineral and plant kingdoms in nature will spring forth, automatons, with with very high intelligence. The concrete implication is that the intellectual thoughts, spun inwardly by human beings today, will one day (at the Reunion of Moon) cover the Earth physically like a spider's web. Human beings will become entangled in it if they are not willing to rise above these shadowy thoughts. Quote from 1921-05-13-GA204, see more on Mineral plant like spiders
".. it is intended that the human being shall be lifted up. The earthly shall then remain behind, and the human being only direct it from outside — like a foot stool. It will be something he is not supposed to take along with him into his cosmic existence. Human beings should prepare themselves so that they need not become one with what will someday have to develop on the surface of this earth in the manner described above." (1921-05-13-GA204); see also Man's transformation and spiritualization
evil
- the reunion with the Moon will mark the culminating point of evil on the Earth (1906-06-14-GA094), it will take place at a time when another development that has turned toward evil will be taking place and souls whose development has been delayed will have accumulated so much error, ugliness, and evil in their karma that they temporarily form a distinct union of evil and aberrant human beings who vehemently oppose the community of good human beings (1910-GA013)
the reunion of the Moon fits into the frame and process of separation and reunion of Sun and Moon, see Schema FMC00.190 below and Epochs in Earth physical round

Illustrations

Schema FMC00.190 is a 'napkin' drawing that depicts (middle) the seven epochs, and the process of separation and reunion of Sun and Moon. This to accomodate the development of the human being and the development of the fourth principle, the Human 'I'. The Earth is held in a cradle of influences from Sun and Moon, see a.o. description in the Emerald tablet (on: References to the concept of the Golden Chain) and The two etheric streams. Below the three divine interventions are shown with embedded Schema FMC00.185 (by Rudolf Steiner). In the current epoch, the Earth is held embedded in the Moon and Sun spheres. The divine being of Christ came across the spheres and the Sun to 'fructify' humanity on earth with an 'infusion of budhi', that is depicted by the metaphoric image on the right.

Lecture coverage and references

1906-06-14-GA094

When the Earth begins to recapitulate the previous phases of its evolution, there will first be a re-union with the Moon, and then of this Earth-Moon with the Sun. The re-union with the Moon will mark the culminating point of evil on the Earth; the re-union with the Sun will signify, on the other hand, the advent of happiness, the reign of the ‘elect.’

1910-GA013

In OeS the reunion of Earth with Moon and Sun is described but not timed explicitly

There will come a time when both the Earth and humanity have made such progress in evolution that the forces and beings that had to separate from the Earth during Lemurian times to enable earthly beings to continue to progress will be able to reunite with the Earth.
At that time, the Moon will reconnect with the Earth. This will happen because sufficient numbers of human souls possess enough inner strength to make these Moon forces fruitful for further evolution.
This will take place at a time when

another development that has turned toward evil will be taking place

alongside the high level of development reached by the appropriate number of human souls.

Souls whose development has been delayed will have accumulated so much error, ugliness, and evil in their karma that they temporarily form a distinct union of evil and aberrant human beings who vehemently oppose the community of good human beings.
In the course of its development, the good portion of humankind will learn to use the Moon forces to transform the evil part so that it can participate in further evolution as a distinct earthly kingdom.
Through the work of 'the good part of humanity', the Earth, then reunited with the Moon, will become able to reunite with the Sun after a certain period of evolution, and also with the other planets. After an interim stage that resembles a sojourn in a higher world, the Earth will transform itself into the Future Jupiter state.

Regarding the last paragraphs, see also: Manicheism

Also: regarding the development towards evil, note the use of moon forces in Black magic

1921-05-13-GA204

.. In the seventh millennium the bodily nature will be capable of development only until the 14th year of life. Women will then become barren. An entirely different form of earthly life will ensue. This is the time period [age/epoch] when the moon will again approach the earth and become part of it.
.. Man must know what it means to say that the moon once left the earth and will enter the earth again. Just as the separation of the moon [in the Lemurian epoch] was a decisive event, so too will be its re-entry. It is true that as human beings we shall still be inhabiting the earth, although birth will no longer take place in the ordinary way. We shall be connected with the earth by other means than through birth. We shall, however, have evolved in a certain respect by that time. And we must learn to connect what is happening today - I mean the fact that the intellect is becoming more and more shadowy - with what will one day be a great event in earthly evolution: the re-entry of the moon into the substance of the earth.
...
.. try to imagine what will happen if men go on unfolding no other kinds of thoughts until the time is reached in the eighth millennium for the moon-existence to unite again with the earth.

second translation

.. in the seventh millennium, a time will come when their bodily nature will be capable of development only until the fourteenth year of life. Then, women will cease to be fertile; an entirely different form of living on earth will come about. That will be the time when the moon will again approach the earth and will be incorporated into it.

and another extract

.. it is intended that the human being shall be lifted up, in that time when women will no longer be fertile, when the eighth millennium will have arrived and the moon will unite again with the earth. The earthly shall then remain behind, and the human being only direct it from outside — like a foot stool. It will be something he is not supposed to take along with him into his cosmic existence. Human beings should prepare themselves so that they need not become one with what will someday have to develop on the surface of this earth in the manner described above.

Discussion

[1] - Question

Question: Moon and Earth are to unite again. According to today's scientific knowledge the moon removes itself from the earth annually around I believe 4 cm. How do you deal with this contradiction?

Also, some sources argue that the fusion of earth and moon are not to be understood physically, but .. then what? metaphorically? astrally?

Tentative answer:

There is not necessarily a contradiction. First, 4cm x 6000 years (to approx. the year 8000) is 240m: that represents 'nothing at all' on a cosmic scale between heavenly bodies.

Secondly, and more importantly: Cosmic events such as separation and reunion of Sun and Moon are brought about by spiritual beings, not by dead mineral matter (and the laws that govern it) .. that represents the scope of what physics studies and can explain.

Below will expand on the second argument.

The forces that work such changes are of a vastly grander scale then what we can grasp with our contemporary waking consciousness, just try to imagine the evolution of the Earth since the second epoch until the current .. changes of constitution and continents and also separation of sun and moon.

We are, in a way, blind to the workings of the etheric formative forces and the workings of the hierarchies. One shouldn't think (only) in mineral materialistic physical terms of (point-central gravitational) forces, but of the workings of spiritual beings and etheric forces .. else one cannot get any grasp on many matters, like the changing of the Earth's poles/axis (see Lemurian epoch#1905-10-25-GA093a), or the separation of sun and moon by Sun and Saturn beings (see Separation of Moon#1909-08-26-GA113). It may help to build an imagination thinking of the russian dolls: with Earth, we are continuously embedded in all the planetary spheres interpenetrating eachother, these forces (of the related spiritual hierarchies) are always there and they behave along certain laws. And contemporary astrophysics would have a good laugh with Schema FMC00.274 that links a planet (think planetary sphere and the mineral-substance physical planet) to the Second Hierarchy.

Through the study of spiritual science, we can already (without any explanation at this point), distinguish different cosmic patterns:

a) the regular ones (re: Spiritual hierarchies and their eigenperiods)
b) major discontinuities by interventions such as Jehovah, Lucifer or Christ, or the War in heaven,

but we can also refer, more generically, to

c) the processes with which spiritual beings organize the solar system with the separation of planets in each planetary stage of evolution .. illustrations for example Schema FMC00.413 for Old Saturn, or FMC00.298 for Earth.

Today we don't grasp how these things come into being, eg how the Saturn spirits brought about that the Moon left the Earth, and we're not used to reason in the paradigm of etheric forces because we are very much 'stuck' in Euclidean geometric thinking (see Mathematics of the etheric) and point centric forces, we don't reason in projective geometry with peripheral (etheric formative) forces at all. Another way to put this is that contemporary physics is very mineral-physical-materialistic, with a limited bandwidth perspective (and focusing on man-created thought patterns based on mathematical constructs and 'foolish extrapolation'). It's not because the force fields are etheric that they don't affect the mineral, quite on the contrary.

So in summary the main argument again: Cosmic events such as separation and reunion of Sun and Moon are brought about by spiritual beings, not by dead mineral matter (and the laws that govern it) .. that represents the scope of physics what studies and can explain.

Some links to 'open the windows' on our rigid thinking in that respect, on top of the links to the topic pages above:

George Adams: 'Potentization and the peripheral forces of nature' (as an introduction)
the concept of the Three_mothers
Nick Thomas' book 'Space and counterspace' (advanced!)

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The reunion of moon will (most probably, or certainly) be physical, however our physics will change too because the elemental constitution and force fields will change, see The two etheric streams, or read up about how different the Earth was before the separation of Moon. Also, the concept of time as we currently know it will disappear because the sun-earth-moon balance will be completely different (and our time is related to that being stable).

It may appear as a strange and scary thing that 6000 years (from now) is real close, on a cosmic scale like 'tomorrow' .. however if one reads what Steiner says about the War of all between all, then that also sounds nearly 'cosmic' in terms of what it will do to the Earth .. and in such picture, why not, things become more imagineable:

quote:

“The others will develop every imaginable skill and subtlety in the manipulation and use of the physical forces of nature, but without the essential degree of selflessness. In the seventh cultural age, this War of All against All will break out in the most terrible form. Great and mighty forces will be let loose by the discoveries, turning the whole earth-globe into a kind of [self-functioning] live electric mass.

Timeframe-wise the reunion of Moon may or may not flow together with the catastrophe between the epochs (as these go on over longer periods) but in any case the Earth will change drastically due to both these events, and the Earth get a new constitution and layout of continents in the Sixth epoch.