Our bookstore now ships internationally. Free domestic shipping $50+ →

The Rudolf Steiner Archive

a project of Steiner Online Library, a public charity

Esoteric Lessons I
GA 266

Number 16

Hamburg, 2-11-'07

Most people don't know much more about the word Logos than that it consists of five letters. What they say about these high beings, the three Logoi is often just dilettantish talk. A comprehensive, preparatory understanding is necessary to look into the world of the three Logoi. But men often think that they can understand the very highest things right away. “In the beginning was the Logos, and the Logos was with God, and the Logos was a God. Everything was made by the same, and without it nothing that was made came into being.” If we let this opening of John's Gospel reverberate in our soul, we get an inkling that something very high is being referred to.

How is the present sun related to the Sun condition that preceded the Moon condition? An advancement has taken place. The present fixed-star sun was previously the planet Sun. The best forces and beings separated from the planet sun, and those that were less highly developed went on with the Moon and then with our earth. Every planet eventually becomes a fixed star.

Our earth is an ensouled being with lower and higher beings on it. When a planet develops into a fixed star the beings who are embodied on it also go higher. The best forces and beings of old Sun became the fixed-star sun. When our earth has gone through the Jupiter condition, and as Venus is almost a sun, the human being will be similar to the sublime beings who now live on the sun. And then what does a sun become? When a sun has attained maturity a zodiac forms. Zodiacs also arise and perish. Even more mighty and sublime beings work down from a zodiac than from a sun. The sun that shines down on us now will someday shine down as the stars of a new zodiac. The spirit beings of this new zodiac will be creative souls, creative beings at the highest stage of development. If we look at human development we also see organs that are standing at the end of their development and are withering, and others like the heart will be a voluntary muscle in future, and the larynx will creatively speak out human descendents with the word. This will begin when the earth planet becomes a fixed star and then a zodiac. Beings who went through worlds before the earth was Saturn sounded down the creative word when the earth was at the beginning of its evolution. “In the beginning was the word” should be taken quite literally. At the end of evolution man will be a being who creates through the word. He arose from a creative Logos and he'll later be a creative logos himself.

The creative word is the third Logos of the Trinity. He's the world sound that resounds through the world. A higher, more sublime power is the creative light. Man will also be a shining light later. Warmth that's raised to a higher level becomes light. In the future man won't just be sound — he'll become a radiant, shining being that is light. The creative light is creative for our world as the second Logos. The world aroma goes through the cosmos as the highest revelation; it's a higher principle of creation than world sound and world light. World sound is the third Logos, world light is the second Logos and the universe's aroma is the first, most creative and highest Logos. In folk sagas we have the opposite, bad aroma of the devil, that indicates that he's the destructive being of the world. In occultism one calls the eternal part of man that goes through all evolutions his personal, spirit aroma.