Here let us jump to something Steiner said in a somewhat different context but quite to our present point. He said a human skull is itself evidence of reincarnation, evidence not only that it had once been inhabited by a human soul but also that it had been formed by that soul for its habitation.¹⁴ The point for our present discussion is simply that the life and the skull had once been one—much like all the four elements and their related ethers had once been one before they were separated in the creative process. A human skull is quite unique to the soul that inhabited it. And because that soul formed it and lived in it before departing, there is something of that soul in it in a manner of speaking. And just as the human Ego resulted from the sacrifice of the Elohim who no longer dwell in it in quite the same way, and as that human skull resulted from the human soul as indicated, so also does air represent, in the world of matter, what came from the lowest component of Yahweh-Eloha, the light which had previously existed in union with the air before their separation in the "first day" (Gen 1,3-4). It is the body of Yahweh in that sense.

So when the necessary preliminary conditions existed, Yahweh "breathed" into the human being and it became a living soul (Gen 2,7). This happened as a process over thousands of years whereby it became a breather of air, a source of warmth. Human beings, in their ancestral Old Moon stage of evolution, breathed warmth (fire) but on Earth they have advanced one stage to air, which is the body of Yahweh, just as the flesh is the form of manifestation of the present human being's lowest (and oldest) body. The spirits which the human being breathed in and out as fire on Old Moon included those spirits who advanced and those who remained behind in their development during the course of Old Moon. The former are the Archangels as agents of the Elohim (especially the Archangel Michael as the special agent of Yahweh-Eloha), and the latter are what Steiner, in this context, called the Fire-Spirits, also known as "Luciferic" spirits.¹⁵

On Earth the Elohim worked on the human being from without, from the Sun and the Moon, while the Fire-Spirits worked on it from within, living in the human being's blood in the element of warmth. There they act as opponents of Yahweh. Yahweh sought to hold humanity together by love in small groups, but in that way they would never have become independent beings. The Fire-Spirits brought art and science (cf. Gen 4,21-22). Yahweh placed the human being in a paradise of love, but then the Fire-Spirit, the serpent (pictured as breathing fire) opened that being's eyes to what still remained from Old Moon.¹⁶ The ancient clairvoyance that all human beings had at one time, which is now an atavism when it appears naturally in an undeveloped state, symbolizes this fire-breathing serpent.¹⁷ The imagery of this being is found in many biblical passages.¹⁸ And Moses' lifting up of the serpent in the wilderness (Num 21,8-9; Jn 3,14-15; cf. 2 K 18,4) cannot be understood except in this context. Of it, Steiner says, in GOSPSJ, Lect. 4:

The further course of the evolution of humanity proceeded under the influence of Lucifer, who brings freedom and wisdom to man. Under the guidance of the God Jehovah men were to be led together through the principle of blood-brotherhood. The fact that man has become a free citizen of the Earth—this he owes to Lucifer. Jehovah placed men in the Paradise of Love; then there appeared the Fire-spirit, the Serpent, in the form which man once possessed when he still breathed fire, and opened men's eyes to what still remained from the Old Moon. This Luciferic influence was perceived as a temptation. But those who were instructed in the occult schools did not look upon this enlightenment as wrong; the great Initiates have not cast the Serpent down but, like Moses in the wilderness, they have raised it.

This explanation also suggests a deeper meaning for Christ's "Today you will be with me in Paradise" (Lk 23,43), for it symbolized the heavenly conversion of Lucifer (see The Burning Bush, pp. 117 and 332). The "tree of knowledge" was the wisdom that was implanted in evolution on Old Moon, while the "tree of life" was the blood-love from Yahweh (Gen 3,22-24). Love gradually spread from smaller to larger groups (e.g., the Samaritans), but the human being's spiritual struggle to expand this still goes on. Steiner points out that in the esoteric (occult) schools, Christ was called the true Lucifer (light-bearer).

The capacity to breathe signifies the acquisition of the individual human spirit. The Ego entered humanity with the air it breathed, the air that made blood warmth possible. If we speak of an Ego common to all men (the Christ "I AM"), it also has a common body, the air. Not without reason did the ancients call this universal Ego Atma-Atman, the breath (see I-9).

How marvelously it all fits together! And yet, we are hardly ever finished with new insights and revelations. In the assortment of Steiner citations listed above, as well as in countless other places in his works, they seem to come without end.

The human Ego that existed in the blood carried with it the memory of all that was related to such blood. During the group soul ages, being overwhelmingly strong at the outset and diminishing ever so slowly over time, human memory was carried through the blood of inheritance as a feature of the collectivity of Yahweh's nature (being to bring together instead of, as per Lucifer, to separate). What was of the blood was the basis of love, which initially extended no further than the blood. The ages of the putatively individual, prehistoric patriarchs reflects many generations, each extending from the eponymous founder as long as the blood continued unabated in that line. This accounts for the seemingly long lives, especially prior to Abraham (e.g., see Gen 5). One felt oneself to be "one" with the founder because memory included what had occurred during all the lives starting therefrom in the unmixed blood line. But it was a requisite for the continuity of the blood memory, or group Ego, that marriage be within the family, i.e., endogamous as against exogamous. Hence it is that the Bible emphasizes this in the early patriarchal times: Gen 20,12 and 24,1-4,24; see also Gen 11,27-30; 27,46-28,3; and cf. Gen 36,2. We may picture the "Mogen David-like" opposite pointing triangles (I-87) with one pointing downward coming from above, the more ancient times, and containing the diminishing practice of "endogamy," with the Roman period being where the two touch, representing the "turning point of time," and the upward pointing triangle, coming from below upward and containing the increasing practice of "exogamy." This illustrates the necessity for blood ties to lose their strength. The coming of Christ signified the time when blood-related love had to start being transformed into an ever-increasing love for all humanity and creation.

The Hebraic mantra-like reference to "Abraham, Isaac and Jacob" was a reflection of the group soul memory that related back within the blood of the Hebrew people, albeit diminishing over time. It was this Abraham, Isaac and Jacob consciousness, embodying the whole line of Hebrew consciousness that was felt to be of the divine nature of Yahweh.¹⁹ Its identification with the "I AM" commenced with the revelation to Moses (Ex 3,6,14) in the long progression from group Ego to individual Ego.²⁰

With the increase of exogamy came a decrease of the heritage derived from a remote past. Clairvoyance is associated with the etheric body, and the etheric body derives from the maternal element while the physical derives from the paternal. Inheritance by consanguinity perpetuated itself from etheric body to etheric body, giving clairvoyance and its related wisdom. But as blood became more mixed, the handing down of this ancient wisdom diminished. Human blood became increasingly incapable of bearing the old wisdom but instead became the bearer of egotism. Thus the blood lost its power of uniting humans in love. The blood that flowed from Christ represented the egoism in human nature which had to be sacrificed.

The Hebrew people were chosen to bring to the Ego all that could be given to the natural human being through the blood. Human intellectuality is bound to its physical organization. Other peoples had to allow what comes from without, from initiation, whereas what could come through blood was to be given through the Hebrew people. And this could come only through the medium of heredity. That this physical vessel, the ancient Jewish people, was a gift of God to humanity is indicated by Abraham's willingness to sacrifice his son—whereby his son was received back as a gift of God (Heb 11,19).

We shall see more fully later something of the connection of the human being's body with the cosmos, but for now we note the tabulation in Man in the Light of Occultism, Theosophy and Philosophy (MLO), Lect. 9, p. 173, of how human movements are related to the planets as follows:

Christ's descent to Incarnation brought him into the Sun sphere, whence he was seen as the Ahura Mazda, or Great Aura, by Zarathustra in the Ancient Persian era—he from whose instruction came the magi (Mt 2,1). It is thus significant that he who represents the highest "I AM" made his sojourn on the "planet" (the Sun sphere) that inspires the life or movement of the blood.