opposing forces had brought with them from their Moon
nature the power of working upon the human astral body, namely,--as above
indicated,--the power of making it independent. They exercised that power
by giving the astral body a certain degree of independence--even throughout
the earth-period--compared with the automatic (involuntary) state of
consciousness which had been brought about by the spirits of the
earth-moon.

It is difficult to express in the language of to-day the effects on man,
in that far-off time of the spiritual beings referred to. They must not be
thought of as analogous to natural influences of the present time, nor yet
as similar to the influence of one human being on another, when the first
awakens in the second inner powers of consciousness by words which help
the second person to understand something, or which stimulate him to
virtue or vice. The effect referred to as operative in that primeval age
was not a force of nature but a spiritual influence, conveyed in a
spiritual way, which descended upon man as a spiritual influx from higher
spirits, conformable with man's state of consciousness at that time. If we
think of this influence as a force of nature we altogether miss its
essential reality. If we say that the spirits with the old Moon nature
tempted man in order to lead him astray for their own ends, we are using a
symbolical expression, which is good as long as we remember that it is but
a symbol and are at the same time clear in our minds that a spiritual fact
underlies the symbol.

The influence brought to bear on man by the spirits who had remained
behind during the Moon-evolution had a two-fold result. Man's
consciousness was divested of the character of being merely a mirror of
the universe, because the possibility was aroused in the human astral body
of regulating and controlling, by means of this astral body, the images in
the consciousness. Man became the ruler of his own knowledge. But on the
other hand it was the astral body that was the starting point of that
rulership, and consequently the ego set over the astral body came to be
continually dependent upon it. Hence man was from this time forth exposed
to the lasting influences of a lower element in his nature. It was
possible for him in his life to sink below the height on which he had been
placed by the spirits of the earth-moon in the course of the world's
progress. And subsequently he was open to the lasting influence on his