Some people are shockingly uninformed about the Earth’s nearest companion in space, the Moon. 

So, as a public service, here is a primer. 

“Yahweh [i.e., Jehovah] resides on the Moon.” — Rudolf Steiner, SLEEP AND DREAMS (SteinerBooks, 2003), p. 43.

“[T]he moon today is like a fortress in the universe, in which there lives a population that fulfilled its human destiny over 15,000 years ago, after which it withdrew to the moon together with the spiritual guides of humanity ... This is only one of the 'cities' in the universe, one colony, one settlement among many ... As far as what concerns ourselves, as humanity on earth, the other pole, the opposite extreme to the moon is the population of Saturn.” — Rudolf Steiner, RUDOLF STEINER SPEAKS TO THE BRITISH (Rudolf Steiner Press, 1998), p. 93.

“Reckoning by earthly years, we must say that the inhabitants of the Moon, when on Earth, accomplished quite 15,000 years ago what humans beings still have to do. More than 15,000 years have passed since these Moon inhabitants acquired the power of making judgments which bring together the naturalistic and the moral." — Rudolf Steiner, THE EVOLUTION OF CONSCIOUSNESS (Rudolf Steiner Press, 1966), lecture 11, GA 227.

“The predecessors of our Earth-gnomes, the Moon-gnomes, gathered together their Moon-experiences* and from them fashioned this structure, this firm structure of the solid fabric of the Earth, so that our solid Earth-structure actually arose from the experiences of the gnomes of the old Moon.” — Rudolf Steiner, MAN AS SYMPHONY OF THE CREATIVE WORD (Rudolf Steiner Press, 1970), lecture 9, GA 230.

* In some instances when he spoke of the "Moon," Steiner meant the Old Moon phase of evolution, not the Earth's natural satellite in our sky today. It is usually possible to sort out Steiner's lunar references, although it can be tough sometimes. In general, when Steiner was speaking about a lunar location in space, he meant the Moon, and when he was speaking about a lunar period of evolution, he meant Old Moon. [See "Planets" and "Old Moon, Etc."] On this page, I will let you do the sorting. It is good practice for reading, and deciphering, Steiner.

“Each year the moon is actually nearer the earth [sic; this is flat wrong - RR]. One recognizes this from the ever more vigorous play of the moon-forces in the gnome-world during the time of the new moon [sic — hard to argue with this, however]. And to this coming nearer of the moon the attentiveness of these goblins is quite specially directed; for it is in producing results from the way in which the moon affects them that they see their chief mission in the universe. They await with intense expectation the epoch when the moon will again unite with the earth... [sic; don't hold you breaths, gnomes]." — Rudolf Steiner, MAN AS SYMPHONY OF THE CREATIVE WORD (Rudolf Steiner Press, 1970), lecture 9, GA 230.

“If, as he had developed on the Sun, man was called plant man, the man of the Moon can be called animal man. That the latter can develop presupposes that the environment also changes. It has been shown that the plant-man of the Sun could only develop because an independent mineral realm was established alongside the realm of this plant man. During the first two Moon eras (rounds) these two earlier realms, plant realm and mineral realm, again emerge from the darkness. They are changed only in that they both have become somewhat coarser and denser. During the third Moon era a part of the plant realm splits off. It does not take part in the transition to coarseness. It thereby provides the substance out of which the animal nature of man can be formed. It is this animal nature which, in its union with the more highly formed ether body and with the newly developed astral body, produces the threefold nature of man which we have described above. The entire plant world which had been formed on the Sun could not develop into animality. For animals require the plant for their existence. A plant world is the basis of an animal world. As the Sun man could only elevate himself into a plant by thrusting a portion of his companions down into a coarser mineral realm, so this is now the case with the animal man of the Moon. A portion of the beings which on the Sun still had the same plant nature as himself, he leaves behind him on the level of coarser plantlike-ness. As the animal man of the Moon is not like the animals of today, but rather stands midway between present animal and present man, so too the mineral of the Moon lies between the mineral of today and the plant of today. The mineral of the Moon is something plantlike. The Moon rocks are not stones in the sense of today; they have an animated, sprouting, growing character. Similarly, the Moon plant has a certain character of animality.

“The animal man of the Moon does not yet have firm bones. His skeleton is still cartilaginous. His whole nature is soft, compared to that of today. Hence his mobility too is different. His locomotion is not a walking, but rather a leaping, even a floating. This could be the case because the Moon of that time did not have a thin, airy atmosphere like that of present-day earth, but its envelope was considerably thicker, even denser than the water of today. He moved forward and backward, up and down in this viscous element. In this element also lived the minerals and animals from which he absorbed his nourishment. In this element was even contained the power which later on the earth was wholly transferred to the beings themselves — the power of fertilization. At that time man was not yet developed in the form of two sexes, but only in one. He was made out of his water air. But as everything in the world exists in transitional stages, in the last Moon periods, two-sexedness was already developing in a few animal man beings as a preparation for the later condition of the earth.” — Rudolf Steiner, COSMIC MEMORY (Rudolf Steiner Publications, 1959), chapter 16, GA 11.

“The plant-animals [moon creatures] grew out of this whole foundation, and above them, in the Moon's environment which may be designated as 'fire-air', moved those beings who were man-animals. Imagine the whole atmosphere filled with saltpetre, carbon and sulphur gases; the Moon-men lived in this fiery air which you would thus obtain. Occultists always knew of the existence of this fire-air, and under older conditions of the Earth it was even possible to produce this fire-air artificially. This is only possible today in a very restricted circle, but this knowledge has been preserved in genuine alchemy." — Rudolf Steiner, THEOSOPHY AND ROSICRUCIANISM (transcript, General Anthroposophical Society, 1942), a lecture, GA 100.

“Moon man has become earth man ... [W]e still have Moon man in us. Looking upon this Moon man we are able to say: ‘He is what we call the dreamer in us.’” — Rudolf Steiner, THE DESTINIES OF INDIVIDUALS AND OF NATIONS, (Steiner Books, 1986), p. 216.

“The Earth-men of the pre-Lemurian Age are the actual descendants of the inhabitants of the Moon. This is why we call the inhabitants of the Moon the Fathers or Pitris of Earth-Men." — Rudolf Steiner, FOUNDATIONS OF ESOTERICISM (Rudolf Steiner Press, 1982), lecture 23, GA 93a.

“The Sun-men too had attained a certain high development. There were also Sun Adepts, who had progressed further than the other Sun-men. They passed over to the Moon. There also they had the possibility of being on a higher level than the Moon-men, and they developed to quite special heights. They were the forefathers of the Earth-men, but had hastened much further ahead.” — Rudolf Steiner, ibid.

“In the course of its development, the good portion of humankind will learn to use the Moon forces to transform the evil part [of mankind] so that it can participate in further evolution as a distinct earthly kingdom.” — Rudolf Steiner, AN OUTLINE OF ESOTERIC SCIENCE (Anthroposophic Press, 1997), p. 393.

“The black magician...employs Moon forces that still exist on Earth.” — Rudolf Steiner, TRUE AND FALSE PATHS IN SPIRITUAL INITIATION (Kessinger, 2003), p. 149.

“Asuras [demons] are spirits of the very greatest egoism ... They want to condense matter and compress it ever more so that it can't be spiritualized and brought back to its original condition. They're the dregs of the planetary evolution ... The asuras inhabit the moon and from there they work on the men whom they want to drag down....” — Rudolf Steiner, FROM THE CONTENTS OF ESOTERIC CLASSES (transcript, Rudolf Steiner Archive), GA 266.

“From the Moon, Jahveh [i.e., Jehovah] reigned over the heart and soul of the Jewish people..." — Rudolf Steiner, KARMIC RELATIONSHIPS, Vol. 2 (Rudolf Steiner Press, 1974), p. 203.

“As you know, we distinguish the Jews from the rest of the earth's population. The difference has arisen because the Jews have been brought up in the moon religion for centuries [i.e., they worship the Moon being, Jehovah]." — Rudolf Steiner, FROM BEETROOT TO BUDDHISM (Rudolf Steiner Press, 1999), p. 59.

“If Jesus of Nazareth had remained a Jew, even He could only have taught a Moon Religion." — Rudolf Steiner, STAR WISDOM, MOON RELIGION, SUN RELIGION (Rudolf Steiner Publishing Co., 1950), lecture 1, GA 353.

“When human beings cling too strongly to earthly things it may be difficult for them to find their bearings in the sphere of the Moon Beings ... The moon-influences are not really active below the roots of plants ... The moon-influences, rising like mist from this shallow layer, may cause human beings who have to pass after death into the Moon sphere — the soul-world — but are unable to understand the Moon Beings, to be trapped by this shallow stratum of moon-influences and they can actually be seen by sensible-supersensible perception wandering about as ghosts, as spectral shades.” — KARMIC RELATIONSHIPS, Vol. 2, pp. 150-151.

“Four is the sign of the cosmos or of creation ... Men stand in the fourth kingdom ... On the Moon they were still operating in the third elementary kingdom, on the Sun in the second, and on Saturn in the first ... There are many planets that are not to be seen with physical eyes, such as those in the first, second, and third elementary kingdoms." — Rudolf Steiner, OCCULT SIGNS AND SYMBOLS (Anthroposophic Press, 1972), pp. 40-41.

“The somnambulist follows the impulses of the Moon-forces ... [I]t is really very good to study in these Moon-men how, on the one hand, man is related to world-evolution, and on the other how the somnambulist and the exact clairvoyant are opposites. Whereas it is instinctive people who are the moonstruck sleep-walkers, exact clairvoyants are intuitive seers who, refraining from action, hold their own against the Moon. That is what we are shown at this point in the relation of man to the world.” — Rudolf Steiner, THE EVOLUTION OF CONSCIOUSNESS (Rudolf Steiner Press, 1966), lecture 7, GA 227.

“Anyone going about the physical Earth, or even when lying down, is always subject to the laws of gravity. If he were to escape from them for a few minutes, the opposing force, counter-gravity, comes into play. He then experiences within himself a force dragging him away from the Earth, instead of chaining him to it. This is the same force that comes from the Moon." — Rudolf Steiner, ibid..

“[T]he Moon...receives the rays of the Sun upon its surface and throws them back again on to the earth ... It is the rays of the Sun which are thus reflected, but of course the Moon permeates them with its own forces. They come to the Earth as lunar forces, and so they have done ever since the Moon separated from the Earth ... When it is new Moon, the country does not enjoy the benefit of the Moon-influences.” — Rudolf Steiner, AGRICULTURE COURSE (Rudolf Steiner Press, 2004), pp. 109-110.

“[W]hereas all other forces — the forces of the planets and of the fixed stars — tend to draw us out into the distant Cosmos, the Moon wants to place us once more into the world of man. The Moon draws us away from the Cosmos. The Moon has forces that are directly opposite to the forces both of the Sun and of the Stars." — Rudolf Steiner, MAN'S LIFE AND EARTH AND IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLDS (Health Research Books, 1960), p. 52.

“Yes, the earth was well provided for while the sun was in it. You must of course also visualize at this point that the sun is far larger than our planet so that the sun was actually not inside the earth, but the earth was inside the sun. We must imagine that the sun contained the earth, which in turn had the moon in it." — Rudolf Steiner, FROM CRYSTALS TO CROCODILES (Rudolf Steiner Press, 2002), pp. 152-153.

“[T]he blood is driven up into the head by the moon.” — Rudolf Steiner, FROM MAMMOTHS TO MEDIUMS (Rudolf Steiner Press, 2000), p. 127.

“Take first this horoscope (of the elder sister). It will probably have struck you that you find here in this region, Uranus together with Venus and Mars ... For this child, who was born in 1909, Mars stands in complete opposition to the Moon. Mars, which has Venus and Uranus in its vicinity, stands — itself — in strong opposition to the Moon....

“And now I would ask you to pay careful attention also to the fact that the Moon is at the same time standing before Libra. This means, the Moon has comparatively little support from the Zodiac, it wavers and hesitates...and its influence is still further reduced through the fact that Mars (which pulls along with it the Luciferic influence [i.e., the influence of Lucifer]) stands in opposition to it.

“Now let us turn to the horoscope of the young child [i.e., the younger sibling] ... On this second horoscope, Mars, Venus and Uranus are in close proximity, exactly as before; but when we examine more nearly the position of Mars, we find it is not, as before, in complete opposition to the Moon. It is however very nearly so. Although the younger child does not come in for a complete opposition, there is an approximation to opposition.” — Rudolf Steiner, CURATIVE EDUCATION (Rudolf Steiner Press, 1972), lecture 11, GA 317.

“All that occurs in our life between waking and sleeping expresses the ancient Moon period of evolution, the present Earth evolution and the future Jupiter evolution. This expresses all that makes us members of what exists beyond our earth ... [O]ur alternation between waking and sleeping expresses our relationship to the ancient evolutionary periods of Moon, Earth and Jupiter...." — Rudolf Steiner, PRACTICAL ADVICE TO TEACHERS, Foundations of Waldorf Education (Anthroposophic Press, 2000), p. 26.

[R.R., not long ago.]

For readers who can't get enough of this stuff, here are some extended excepts from chapter 16 of COSMIC MEMORY. The chapter is titled "Life on the Moon". (These excerpts will build upon, and to some degree repeat, statements we have already seen.) 

"IN THE UNIVERSAL ERA of the Moon, which follows that of the Sun, man develops the third of his seven states of consciousness. The first had developed during the seven Saturn cycles, the second during the Sun development; the fourth is that which man is at present developing during the course of the earth; three others will come into being on subsequent planets. The condition of consciousness of Saturn man cannot be compared with any state of consciousness of present-day man, for it was duller than that of dreamless sleep. The Sun consciousness, however, can be compared to this condition of dreamless sleep, or to the present consciousness of the sleeping plant world. But in all these instances one is dealing only with similarities. It would be quite erroneous to think that in the great universal eras anything repeats itself in a completely identical manner.

"It is to be understood in this way if the Moon consciousness is now compared with one with which it has some similarity, namely with that of dream-filled sleep. Man attains the so-called image consciousness on the Moon....

"The inner life of man's ancestor on the Moon thus took its course in images which have the character of the volatile, the floating and the symbolical in common with dreams of today, but are distinguished from these dreams by their completely regular character.

"The basis for the development of this image consciousness in man's ancestors on the Moon was the formation of a third member in addition to the physical body and the ether body. This third member is called the astral body.

"This formation, however, only occurred in the third smaller Moon cycle — the so-called third Moon round. The first two revolutions of the Moon must be seen merely as a repetition of what took place on Saturn and on the Sun....

"That the Spirits of Twilight work on the physical body of man in this period of development, means that they now rise to the level of humanity, as did the Spirits of Personality in the same cycle on Saturn and the Fire Spirits on the Sun. One must imagine that the 'sensory germs' of the physical body, which by that time have become further developed, can be used by the Spirits of Twilight from the middle of the fourth course of the Moon onward in order to perceive external objects and events on the Moon. Only on the earth will man be so far advanced that, from the middle of the fourth cycle onward, he can make use of these senses. On the other hand, around the middle of the fifth course of the Moon, he reaches the point where he can be engaged unconsciously on the physical body....

"At the same time, the Fire Spirits are active in the astral body. They enable it to carry on an active perception and feeling of the environment. Joy and pain, such as have been produced in the ether body by the Spirits of Twilight in the manner just described, have an inactive (passive) character; they present themselves as inactive mirrorings of the outside world. But what the Fire Spirits produce in the astral body are vivid emotions, love and hate, rage, fear, horror, stormy passions, instincts, impulses and so forth. Because the Spirits of Personality (the Asuras) have previously inoculated this astral body with their nature, these emotions now appear with the character of selfhood, of separateness. One must now represent to oneself how at that time the ancestor of man is constituted on the Moon. He has a physical body through which in dullness he develops a 'spirit self' (Manas). He has an ether body, through which the Twilight Spirits feel joy and pain; and finally he possesses an astral body which, through the Fire Spirits, is moved by impulses, emotions, and passions. But these three members of the Moon man still completely lack the object consciousness....

"If, as he had developed on the Sun, man was called plant man, the man of the Moon can be called animal man. That the latter can develop presupposes that the environment also changes. It has been shown that the plant-man of the Sun could only develop because an independent mineral realm was established alongside the realm of this plant man. During the first two Moon eras (rounds) these two earlier realms, plant realm and mineral realm, again emerge from the darkness. They are changed only in that they both have become somewhat coarser and denser. During the third Moon era a part of the plant realm splits off. It does not take part in the transition to coarseness. It thereby provides the substance out of which the animal nature of man can be formed. It is this animal nature which, in its union with the more highly formed ether body and with the newly developed astral body, produces the threefold nature of man which we have described above. The entire plant world which had been formed on the Sun could not develop into animality. For animals require the plant for their existence. A plant world is the basis of an animal world. As the Sun man could only elevate himself into a plant by thrusting a portion of his companions down into a coarser mineral realm, so this is now the case with the animal man of the Moon. A portion of the beings which on the Sun still had the same plant nature as himself, he leaves behind him on the level of coarser plantlike-ness. As the animal man of the Moon is not like the animals of today, but rather stands midway between present animal and present man, so too the mineral of the Moon lies between the mineral of today and the plant of today. The mineral of the Moon is something plantlike. The Moon rocks are not stones in the sense of today; they have an animated, sprouting, growing character. Similarly, the Moon plant has a certain character of animality....

"Here again, we shall present the development of the Moon planet and of its beings in a clearly summarized form.

"• The Moon is that planet on which man develops the image consciousness with its symbolical character.

"• During the first two cycles (rounds) the Moon development of man is prepared through a kind of repetition of the Saturn and Sun processes.

"• In the third cycle the human astral body comes into being through an outpouring of the Spirits of Motion.

"• Concurrently with this process the Moon splits off from the re-awakened unified Sun body and revolves around the rest of the Sun. The development of the beings connected with man now takes place on the Moon.

"• In the fourth cycle the Spirits of Twilight inhabit the human physical body and thereby elevate themselves to the level of humanity.

"• The developing astral body is inoculated with independence by the Spirits of Personality (Asuras).

"• In the fifth cycle man begins to work in dullness on his physical body. Thereby the 'spirit self' (Manas) joins the already existing monad.

"• In the ether body of man a kind of joy and pain develop during the Moon existence, which have a passive character. In the astral body on the other hand develop the emotions of rage, hate, the instincts, passions, and so forth.

"• The two former realms, the plant and the mineral realm, which are thrust down to a lower level, are now joined by the animal realm, in which man himself exists at this time."

— Rudolf Steiner, COSMIC MEMORY

(Rudolf Steiner Publications, 1959)

chapter 16, GA 11.

Compilation by Roger Rawlings