I-12 The elemental beings (elemental spirits)

The Influence of Spiritual Beings (ISBM), Lect. 8; Man and the World of Stars (MWS), Lect. 5; Man as Symphony of the Creative Word (MSCW), Lect. 9; (NATS); World Ether/Elemental Beings/Kingdoms of Nature (WEEB)

One of the more difficult concepts to comprehend is the distinction between Mineral Kingdom (i.e., Condition of Life) and Physical Condition of Form—see I-1, I-2 and I-3, the “Basic Charts” above. This will appear more extensively later, but the distinction is inherent in this chart, which will require more than normal discussion at this point. It has to do with what are known as “Elemental Spirits (Beings),” a subject touched upon, otherwise mysteriously, by Paul (Gal 4,3,9 and Col 2,8,20). As is evident from the Basic Charts, the “Physical” Condition of Form appears in every Condition of Life within every Condition of Consciousness. It has thus, prior to the present Condition of Form, appeared 24 times (e.g., as in “24 elders”). We are in the 25th such appearance, and there will be another 24 hereafter before the end of the 7 Conditions of Consciousness. Out of these 49 appearances, only 7 will have occurred in the combined Mineral Physical Conditions, but only once, namely in the Earth Condition of Consciousness, will this occurrence have been such that it could be perceived by any of the senses of the human being as presently constituted. Just as there are spiritual beings (e.g., I-6) above the human being that are not visible to the human being’s present senses, so are there beings below it that are not visible. The critical point is that “the material form of beings through which no Ego glows cannot be visible in our evolutionary phase” (ISBM, Lect. 8, p. 130). Each of the 4 “kingdoms” presently visible to the human being is endowed with an Ego, as indicated in I-11. Just as we cannot, except as it comes to expression in the mineral-physical, see the etheric or astral body or Ego (or even the physical body in its archetypical form, absent the mineral condition), so also we cannot today see those beings that are below these 4 “kingdoms,” but they exist just as do those that are above. They are also known as “nature spirits.”

“What we call Elemental Beings lack Ego, but they have developed a principle below the physical body. We can say, therefore, that the principles 3, 2, 1 and minus 1 are developed in them. But there are not only beings which begin at the third principle. We have also those which begin at 2 and then have minus 1 and minus 2. And then we have still others whose highest principle is the same as the human being’s lowest [the physical]” (ISBM, Lect. 8, p. 131). The following table (ISBM, p. 138) shows all the forms of nature spirits:

It is fair to ask why salamanders are not visible since they have something in the nature of an Ego (though none of such principles is enclosed within, in the sense described in I-11). It is discussed in the cited sources, but is too complex for summary here.

(Grieg’s “Peer Gynt Suite” is a portrayal of the trolls in the mines. (WNWD) shows the word “troll” to be from Middle High German, then later from Norwegian, and to mean [Scand. Folklore] any of a race of supernatural beings, variously conceived of as giants or dwarfs, living underground or in caves; obviously, these are the same as the “gnomes” of which Steiner speaks.)

As we shall see, three domains (thinking, feeling and willing) compose all human activity on Earth. In MWS, Lect. 5 (same as Lect. 7 in NATS), Steiner shows how all these domains are made possible by “elemental spirits,” as follows:

Small wonder Paul did not long dwell on “elemental spirits” for the very perceiving of the concept of them demands a grappling in the half-light. But of their existence Paul clearly indicated and Steiner insists. There is a subtle hint in Samson’s riddle, about the honey from the lion’s carcass (Judg 14,5-18), of the polarities that exist in the above table. For in the table, thinking (the ability to hold thoughts in mind) relies upon spirit-fools, appreciation for beauty upon ugly-beings, and stimulation by good and moral thoughts upon those most highly disdained, the bashful beings. The descending elemental spirits disdain the ascending, increasingly as one moves from the top down in the table. There is apparently an ahrimanic and luciferic nature in both the ascending and descending elemental spirits. The ascending elemental spirits were “perceptible as a real animal world” during the Ancient Moon Condition of Consciousness, “visible to the senses” in a manner of speaking, but are moving in the opposite direction, into the spiritual realm, ascending, though “admittedly through their Luciferic and Ahrimanic natures.” The descending elemental spirits, on the other hand, “will one day become visible to the senses.”

But this table gives only one of many arenas in the mineral-physical world affected by the activities of the elemental spirits, as the works cited at the first of this chart show.

In MSCW, Lect. 9 (p. 142), Steiner indicates that, “When man is going through his development in the life between death and a new birth,” the message (as part of the Creative Word) received by man from these respective beings is as follows: