Topic on Talk:Separation of Moon

How should we understand the description of Man's physical body when we compare with what is said in the lectures on Genesis, where we learn that Man did not get any physicality (fire-air) before the 6th day, which can be approximately mapped to the separation of the moon ?

Should we think that Man was a psychic entity but nonetheless connected to the material processes of the Earth — the key concept being that of "ensoulment" or "absence of ensoulment" ?

What to think about the 3rd day, when most human beings were evolving on other planets : were they still "breathing" with the Earth ?

First of all thank you for reaching out with this question, this is really a very nice question. It is also an important one (and I find certain questions beautiful), so as with every question, my intention is to use this as an opportunity to further the materials on the FMC wiki site from our interaction. (PS: as always, my suggestion is to open any links below in a new tab by right clicking).

To this purpose I have already started to upload some additional supporting materials from my refererence files to the site, such as:

• Book of Genesis#1973 - Ernst Hagemann
• added two Schemas (FMC00.573 and FMC00.574) related to this, see Earth's seven epochs#Man - the human being

Now to your question: in fact you ask several questions, and so I'd like to refine with you first .. starting with: what do you mean or refer to more exactly when you write 'Man', and 'ensoulment'? Allow me to explain what I mean ..

Man or the human being is quite different, as a term to use, before and after the middle of the Lemurian epoch, as there were two developmental streams: the 'lower' (with the 'construction' of the lower bodies from the four elements on Earth), and the 'higher' (the spiritual, part of group souls astrally, with Man's higher triad). And not only the fusion process in the middle of the Lemurian epoch is complex, but also how the different elements developed separately. Rudolf Steiner describes the different parts, but does not bring these together very explicitly. Though he does of course describe it in general, he does expect us to bring the pieces of the puzzle together imaginately ourselves. And some people have already done this for us and written about it, like Iwer Thor Lorenzen.

Am I right in reading your question as being about this cohesion of how all the pieces (higher & lower) fit together?

And this is also why I asked what you mean exactly with 'ensoulment', because it related to this fusion in the astral (and the very earliest start of the current human soul). There are various references on the site to this, see eg Lemurian epoch#1906-11-26-GA283.

However given the complexity of the matter, my proposal is we explore this further interactively to allow us to home in to the essence of your question.

Otherwise the danger is we have too broad a topic, with many angles of perspective to it (and I would perhaps be going down the wrong track in an extensive response) eg:

• the evolving 'make up' of the lower Man, and its consciousness, and at what stage physical Man became visible to the senses (re eg 1908-05-25-GA103 and FMC00.574, etc).
• the evolution of the higher Man, starting with the scaffolds of Man's higher triad (so starting with Schema FMC00.482, but then also on the Earth stage Schema FMC00.573, etc)
• the linkeage, like the group souls of humanity (starting with the Old Moon picture Schema FMC00.181, but then relating that to the granular group souls on Earth (Jehovah) .. there are some references linked into the tentative description in the narrative, see Note [1] in the Discussion area on Development of the I
• then also specifically also the Book of Genesis itself, as you refer to that in your message (for this I uploaded the Hagemann extract above as a starter or basis)

Thus hereby acknowledging and welcoming the question, and happy to go into it.

Yes you are right, my question is about this "cohesion" of the higher and lower pieces. It is quite difficult to imagine how the higher part can breathe with the lower part, because, to begin with, I have no means to think of a relation between these two parts : how these two parts "know" each other ? As if we had first to think of an attraction between the psychic man and matter, otherwise how could man work upon it ? And so one may imagine that matter is somehow humanely "magnetized" by the germs of previous planetary conditions, but not yet "ensouled". And yes here I am forced to introduce concepts to fill the gaps : namely, I am tentatively introducing this remote "magnetic" work (take the word magnetic in a broad sense) as something to be distinguished from an "on-site" work. And I take this attractive relation between the two parts to be realized in this "breathing" (or nutrition later on) that should be distinguished from what we usually call breathing. But I still find difficult to imagine how this breathing/attraction could work across two different planets (not to say this is unthinkable but we should ponder the exotic nature of such a phenomenon).

Thank you for the additional materials on Genesis. I have noticed a difficulty on this topic also : Steiner says that the threefold soul was given an astral body on the 4th day, when Sun, Moon and Planets ("stars") appear. Yet, it seems to you and me, that this 4th day happened before the official separation of the Moon. I was led to imagine that the Moon may have been "untied" from the Earth at the very beginning of the Lemurian epoch, while still staying "inside" it — and the same scenario could be thought for the Sun in the previous Hyperborean epoch. If the middle of the Hyperborean and Lemurian epochs are indicated as the the moment when these bodies leave the Earth, we may nonetheless imagine that this departure is gradual, and that the middle of the epoch is indicated as a kind of symbol or noticeable moment for it. That is how I can imagine that the Moon "appear" before the middle of the Lemurian epoch, lending the conditions for creating an astral body and giving an impetus for the exiled souls to return to Earth.

On your page on The Book of Genesis you also speak of the second creation (beginning of the Atlantean epoch) where the plants and animal become visible. How are we supposed to understand the stories related to the dragon birds eaten by the ichtyosaurs in the second part of he Lemurian epoch ? It seems to me that it happens in the physical realm — the dragon birds even let their star-peckled wings in fossils. Maybe the second part of story, when Steiner speaks of the gigantic forests of ferns, does indeed start in the Atlantean epoch (after the cooling off).

Sorry I have included various seemingly unrelated questions, which are actually related by the overarching question of chronology. It seems that Steiner never really specified the time of the luciferic infection (other than it being lemurian). Steiner says that the division of the sexes happened during a kind of "second formation" of the elohimic Man, through Iahve-Elohim, so after the 6 days, around the time of the expulsion of the Moon. Maybe we could call it the 7th day. It seems that Lucifer will then take advantage of this division of the sexes (which by the way generates the desire for knowledge). Since we should reckon with Lucifer for the formation of Man, we may symbolically see this infection as an 8th day so that the Fall occurs at the very end of the Lemurian epoch ?

Dear, thanks for your questions.

The various questions above are somewhat related, but I propose to still treat the differently here below in separate responses. Of course I cannot or do not want to give a simple or straight final answer to such questions, as the goal is that we are building an imagination in our mind and soul, of the topics we are exchanging on, based on the picture sketches that come from descriptions. Descriptions from lecture references that I suggest to pass on; as well as contextual narrative and glue that I want to add to connect and integrate them.

So first: let's call Question A: regarding the link between the bodies 'below' and spirits 'above'.

1/ This is purely a spiritual linkeage, one should not think in physical material terms or concepts. One has to let go of space and time as we experience it on Earth with mineral matter on the physical plane.

My suggestion is that, to try and imagine, you start with reading how already on Old Moon, there was this connection that was described. I am referring to Schema FMC00.181 on Group souls of humanity that sketches this spiritual connection that is described in a.o.

Group souls of humanity#1909-06-26-GA112

Group souls of humanity#1909-06-27-GA112

Also when thinking of beings on other planets, please don't think in terms of the mineral physical planets (and so that they would be 'far') but of the planetary spheres. These can be imagined like russian dolls, embedded into one another, or intertwined. So for example imagine the Earth embedded in the sphere of the Moon's orbit, as well as the Sun sphere.

More on general terms, it's important also to build a picture of what is meant with these group souls, and Jehovah, as it is the start of the process of individuation of Man through the Development of the I. Just like the animals have a group soul on the astral plane, one can imagine this as the start for the process of human individuation. Imagine a cake that crumbles into pieces, ever smaller. You can link to this the class of beings called Jehovah, but also the different human races and folk souls, etc.

For a general broader picture, there is a narrative here with links to other lecture extracts.

[[Development of the I#[1] - Narrative to the Development of the Human I]]

2/ Also, when you try to imagine this important milestone of the descent, the following two extracts can bring to life Schema FMC00.443 on Development of the I

Lemurian epoch#1906-11-26-GA283

Development of the I#1908-02-29-GA102

Of course what happened was quite a bit more complex, as a variety of schemas further illustrate, eg Schema FMC00.472A or Schema FMC00.457 and so on. But this would carry us too far for now.

Hope this addresses the first part of your question. We can go further into it if you want.

Then, let's call Question B: How to understand the imagery and descriptions given by Rudolf Steiner of the Lemurian epoch, if all this happened before Man was mineral and plants and animal became visible .. given we do have fossil remains of this period?

First I want to congratulate you with picking up this question, it shows that you actively try to make sense of all what is said and work to integrate and imagine. And, I agree with you it is not always, or not at all, clear.

Let me first share with you the below:

Earth's seven epochs#1919-09-25-GA300A

Earth's seven epochs#1919-09-26-GA300A

In these, Rudolf Steiner positions the dinosaurs in time, and in the Lemurian age. He does explain that the fire breathers were in the early Lemurian age, and that we fossils of dinosaurs that are found date from the later Jurassic timeframe, so after the separation of Moon. One can imagine that they died out due to the catastrophe that ended the Lemurian epoch, and the hugely changing conditions on Earth.

So one could make the same distinction between what is described, such as the fire breathers and birds .. and the archeological finds and remains such as those of the archaeopteryx. Either these are imprints, like what Steiner describes about plant fossils, or they are later descendants (which was my interpretation).

Indeed Steiner also says: "how I describe the Lemurian period, it was almost an etheric landscape. Everything was there, but there are no geological remains."

However it's clear that there are huge differences between the large time periods described in these quotes, eg the early Lemurian (Earth hardening before separation of Moon), and the late Lemurian (after the separation of Moon).

In my humble opinion, these few phrases about fossils and bones leave too much space for interpretation and are not sufficient to draw simple conclusions given the complexity of what is being discussed.

With this I appreciate I did not fully answer and we have not ended this discussion, we can continue in a next step.

PS: As a result of your question on 'Second creation', I also added the important additional lecture in full, I think it answers this mention of second creation in the Hagemann excerpt.

Earth's seven epochs#1923-12-01-GA232