I-27 Steiner’s exposition on the organic order and character of the traditional planets; Powell’s on the outer three planets

Hermetic Astrology II (HA2), Chap. 8; The Influence of Spiritual Beings Upon Man (ISBM), Lect. 3

Modern minds will require us to treat of the outer planets, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto, which were not a part of the ancient cosmology in the same way as those within the orbit of Saturn. Steiner (ISBM, Lect. 3) said,

In the numerous popular accounts of the origin of our planetary system one is first led back to a kind of original mist, to a vast fog-like structure, a nebula, out of which our sun and its planets have somehow agglomerated, although for the driving force in this process only physical forces, as a rule, are taken into account. This is called the “Kant-Laplace theory,” though it is somewhat modified today. . . . The modified Kant-Laplace theory may definitely hold good as an external event, but within the whole forming of globes, within this whole crystallizing of the separate cosmic globes, spiritual forces and spiritual beings were at work. . . .

When our Earth came forth from the purely spiritual devachanic state and received for the first time a kind of externally perceptible existence, it was not like it is today. In fact, seen externally, it could really be pictured as a kind of great primordial nebula, as our physical science describes. Only we must think of this primordial mist as immense, far greater than the present earth, extending far beyond the outermost planets now belonging to our solar system—far beyond Uranus. To spiritual science what is seen coming forth from a spiritual condition is not merely a kind of physical mist. To describe it as a kind of mist and nothing more is about as sensible as if a man who has seen another should reply to a question as to what he saw: I saw muscles which are attached to bones and blood—simply describing the physical aspect. For in the primordial mist there were a multitude of spiritual forces and spiritual beings. . . .

When you add the fact that not only these various beings were united with the original nebula, but a whole series more, standing at very varied stages of evolution, then you will understand that not only these cosmic bodies, earth, sun, moon, separated from the nebula, but other cosmic bodies too. Indeed they all agglomerated as separate globes because scenes of action had to be found for the varying stages of evolution of the different beings.

Thus there were beings at the very beginning of our Earth who were scarcely fitted to take part in further development, who were still so young in their whole evolution that any further step would have destroyed them. They had to receive a sphere of action, so to speak on which they could preserve their complete youthfulness. All other fields of action existed to give dwelling-places to those who were already more advanced. For the beings who arose last of all during the Moon existence, and who therefore had stayed behind at a very early evolutionary stage, a field of action had to be separated out. This scene of action was the cosmic body which we call “Uranus,” and which therefore has but slight connection with our earthly existence. Uranus has become the theater for beings which had to remain at a very backward stage.

Then evolution proceeded. Apart from Uranus, all that forms our universe [Ed., solar system] was contained in an original pap-like mass. Greek mythology calls this condition “Chaos.” Then Uranus separated out, the rest remaining still in the Chaos.

The Kant-LaPlace theory still has considerable “scientific” validity. See 10 Brit 941, “solar nebula.” Steiner does not mention Pluto, which was “scientifically” discovered in 1930. His above remarks leave room for it to have been in a pre-evolutionary mass in similar manner to Uranus (see AM, Lect. 1) and Neptune, a matter to which we shall return momentarily.

Steiner then says that the other “planets” separated out in the following order and character:

1. Saturn, for those beings who stood in their development at the stage we human beings stood at during Old Saturn (our present Saturn thus being the only planet to have any nominal connection with an earlier Condition of Consciousness);
2. Jupiter, for beings of “a certain stage of development”;
3. Sun, for the most advanced beings, taking with it all but Earth and Moon (which remained together);
4. Mars, whose spiritual beings pulled away from the Sun and, in the process of reaching its outer orbit, passed through the (still joined) Earth and Moon, leaving behind what later developed into iron (a necessary component of human blood, which then came into existence, the fluid sap of living beings having theretofore been chlorophyll which contains no iron);
5. Moon, separating from Earth to remove retarded beings and permit the evolution of those beings (human) who remained, leaving Earth alone as it now is;
6. Venus and Mercury, for those Fire-Spirits (Archangels) who, though far above human beings, had not advanced far enough to endure the Sun existence, Mercury in the neighborhood of the Sun being the more advanced of the two and Venus between Mercury and Earth.