www.rudolfsteinerstudies.com

Keeping the Light Alive!

Monthly articles demonstrating Rudolf Steiner’s  relevance to today’s world

Adrian Anderson PhD., author of books and articles on anthroposophy

November  2019:  Ancient etheric plant-forms forming coal in Antarctica

With coal-fired power stations contributing to global warming, coal is now in the news. This month we explore the fascinating question of how the Earth’s coal seams came about. From Rudolf Steiner’s research, we discover that there are not one, but two, causes of coal. It is clear to scientists and in anthroposophy, that as ancient forests and meadows die away, they become covered with soil, and subject to pressure from the accumulating rocks and soil above, they slowly decay, forming a hard, black rock-like substance. This understanding about coal formation is applied in geology to the two types of coal: the younger and the older coal. The younger coal began to form more recently, in the Cretaceous-Cenozoic eras. In anthroposophy these two eras correlate to the late Lemurian and early Atlantean times. Seams of this younger coal are found in many places, including the polar regions; which is fascinating evidence that the Earth’s climatic was much warmer, not so long ago.

But the older coal is dated by geologists to the Carboniferous and early Permian Age (geologically estimated at about 290-250 million years ago). These eras correlate to the early Lemurian Age, in anthroposophy. But how did this coal originate? From Rudolf Steiner’s research, the origin of this older coal is understood to be very different to that of the younger coal. In the remote Polarian Age, our planet existed as a fiery, gaseous globe, and condensed into an aquatic planet in the next Age, the Hyperborean Age, and later to a semi-solid planet in early Lemuria times. It was in only late Lemurian times that the Earth became a hardened, mineralized world.

Rudolf Steiner explained that long Ages ago, in the Polarian epoch, the Earth’s etheric body was very alive, filled with plant-like energy forms, as well as us human beings. We then existed in an etheric body. It was especially over the polar regions, that humanity and plant-like forms existed, on an etheric level. Also raying through the planet’s ether field were streams of etheric energies, from the planets. As the Earth hardened, everything became more solid, more dense. The planetary etheric rays condensed into physical metals (for example, lunar rays became seams of silver). As the planet became more dense, these etheric Polarian plant-forms became deadened and formed dense residues, which eventually became a mineralized substance: the older kind of coal. 

It is fascinating that this old kind of coal has also been found in the vicinity of the South Pole, deep underneath the thick Antarctic ice-sheets. Scientists are surprised by this, and had to conclude that huge tropical forests must have existed in the region of the South Pole, hundreds of millions of years ago. But this conclusion is not confirmed by Rudolf Steiner’s research. Because from an anthroposophical viewpoint, such polar coal is the decayed, mineralized residue of ancient etheric plant forms, rather than a residue of actual forests, which Rudolf Steiner taught, did not exist in the Permian era.

Below is a photo of a rare piece of such coal, from underneath the Antarctic ice, obtained some decades ago, by geological exploration. This was originally an ethereal plant-shape in the remote Polarian Age, which gradually became. deadened and hardened.
                                   
                                                  (in a private collection, now being dispersed)

For more about the pre-history of the Earth, and the different chronology of the geological Ages, see my Rudolf Steiner Handbook.

Until December, all the best,
Adrian A

If you like to help people to know about Rudolf Steiner’s research, please forward this email on to your friends !