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Note : The transcript of the four “faculty” lectures are deficient. It shows not only noticeable gaps; the author of the transcript is also not familiar with the topic of the lectures. He often made summaries in haste as far as he understood the lecturer. That is why some connections shifted. Although notices of other participants were used, the deficiencies of the text could not be essentially corrected except for some big misunderstandings. In the order of the talks on the relation of the universities to the theosophical movement it is the fourth about theosophy and its relation to the arts faculty (in Germany: faculty of philosophy) . We have to consider the fact that this is possibly of more significance to our education and culture than the three other faculties, because the arts faculty encloses the scientific disciplines which extend about the whole field of research. That is why somebody who wants to become engrossed in wisdom and world view without certain trend simply for the sake of knowledge and education has to direct his looks at it. The arts faculty has experienced big changes; however, it has grown out of an educational institution to a sophisticating one. It was once the arts faculty a very typical name that had to prepare for the study of theology, philosophy, and medicine. You know that the university originated in the 12th and 13th centuries, and we can still observe up to the 18th century how somebody who wanted to climb up to the heights by studying had to go through a philosophical preparatory study. This was arranged in such a way that one did not aim at any certain professional education, but at a formal education which should form the spiritual training of a human being in a formal way. Among other things, rhetoric, dialectic, astronomy and music were taught. The latter was understood as an understanding of the harmonies in the universe and in the smaller phenomena which surround us. One appreciated it to make only the mind ripe. The feature of our time is to set little store by the formal education. Besides, I must touch something that looks very heretical in our time. Today a big tendency exists to underestimate everything formal compared with the material. One makes a point conceiving the matters rationally, bundling together as much knowledge as possible. Who looks at the matters in such a way as it is usual today, does not understand me. Who would not side immediately if anybody said the following: there are two methods to learn languages. A method, which is regarded as ridiculous, is that by which the human being is tormented with pointless exercises, as such as: today, my father has become fifty years old. Tomorrow, my aunt travels to Paris. One smiles at such things and it is still the question whether one has any cause of it. One thinks today that one could better take sentences from any great classic. Thus it has come to avoid such banal sentences at school; one prefers sentences of the classics who are then shredded and analysed and become thereby unenjoyable for the pupil. On one side, we find the pointless, on the other side, the picking to pieces. There one hardly finds anybody today who sides the first way. Nevertheless, it is for the psychologist no question that the first way is the right one. He is clear in his mind that the human being must remain at the formal very long, that his reason is invoked very late, and that we learn best of all if the things leave us very uninterested as regards contents. During the years in which the mind is most receptive, one has to develop it rightly at first. We have to learn to talk fairly, before our thoughts are transformed with it; one lets the reason mature in the subsoil, lets it develop the ability of logic formally, then this precious good of humankind slowly matures. It is clear that nobody can apply his reason to a problem without further ado. So at first formal education, before that matures which can appear as the best fruit in the human being. The faculty of philosophy was called arts faculty in the Middle Ages. It was an artistic mastery of the mental material, and it contained an overwhelming quantity of thoughts. Later on, the lower subjects of the arts faculty were assigned for the high school. The modern arts faculty is unworthy of its name; it is an aggregate. This is not always the case. The philosopher Fichte (1762–1814) headed the Berlin university when it was founded (1810). At that time, any single scientific discipline was integrated into a big organism. Fichte was convinced that the world is a unity, and that any knowledge is a patchwork that is not steeped in it. Why does one study botany, mathematics, history, for example? We study these sciences because we want to obtain an insight into the construction of the universe. In other times, the penetration in the scientific disciplines would not have been so fateful. But the picture of the unity of the world has disappeared. The arts faculty should pursue science on its own sake. It did this once, but thereby it has collided with the cultural life. Already Friedrich Schiller spoke in a talk at the Jena university of the difference between the philosophical head and the bread-and-butter scholar. At that time, it was not yet so bad. Who is a philosophical head can study everything; the biggest points of view present themselves to him from every science. He sees the biggest world secrets in the plant as the psychologist realises them in the human soul. Specialisation had to take place. We know too much today to master everything. Great spirits like Leibniz, Leonardo da Vinci and others could control the knowledge of their times. This is rare today. We can only hope that the scientific disciplines get new life. However, to the bread-and-butter scholar science is nothing but a cow that gives him milk. One would object nothing if professional schools were established for studies that provide well-paid jobs. However, this has no other value than learning any other trade. From the point of view of world knowledge it is quite irrelevant whether I become a shoemaker or a chemist. The consciousness should become general that the professional study is not more valuable than any other study in life. The chemist, botanist et etcetera is compared with the great philosopher in the same position as the businessman. Who realises, however, what it means to acquire philosophical education knows that there must be sites where one pursues science for its own sake. In this respect, it is not good that the university split up into scientific disciplines, in particular in a time in which materialism has seized everything. Nowadays, the arts faculty is nothing else than a preparatory site for the grammar school teacher. Actually nothing at all would objected if philosophy devoted itself to the task to train educated teachers. Training the human soul belongs to the highest tasks of life. However, only someone can solve them who is an artist of psychology and can undertake the task to guide the souls. The human being was called a microcosm by the great spirits of the world not without reason. There is no branch of knowledge that one could not use to train a human soul. Hence, the pedagogues do not want to cram the young human being with knowledge only, and he will get to the formal quite naturally. Science takes a particular position if one looks at it as a pedagogue. If anyone studies painting or music, he is not yet a painter or a musician. That also applies to the pedagogue. All knowledge is nothing to the pedagogue if it has not proceeded to art as with the painter or musician, so that his mind, like physical organs, has immediately absorbed what he knows, so that knowledge is, as it were, completely digested. The human soul should be an organism in which the soul food is transformed, is assimilated. Only then the human being is a philosophical spirit. It is right that the universities teach the scientific disciplines. However, another human being should arise from them, a human being who has become an artist. If one really applies the theosophical way of thinking there, it does not depend on scientific exams. As well as anyone does not own the quality of an artist who has only scholarship, also anyone does also never become an artist who has passed the necessary exams only. The problem of examinations must also be seen in a new light. The examiner has not only to examine knowledge, but also which kind of human being the examinee is, whether he has the right philosophy of life, how much of it he has made his own, to which extent he has become a new human being. This has gone unregarded in our materialistic age. When the external appearance to the senses became decisive, the modern arts faculty originated. All the other sciences originated from philosophy. Once one had the consciousness of the connection of all knowledge; but if one does not brand the Middle Ages as heretical, one does rouse prejudices. However, in those days one felt on what it depended for the world and for the human beings. In 1388, a person was appointed professor of theology and of mathematics in Vienna. Today, a professor would faint about that. However, we know that mathematical thinking can serve well for that where to theology leads us. Who learns to think in the way that he exercises some mathematics, learns to think quite differently, can also be a mystic without becoming a romanticist. Who has not acquired a comprehensive knowledge, can abandon himself only to a suggestion. With this he enters in a professional study. What can he know if he has experienced a purely philosophical higher education, what can he know about mathematics? Only mathematical concepts, having no inkling of the fact that mathematics introduces in the great principles of the universe. It is not long ago when one still knew this. In the Middle Ages, this view was not dangerous, because it is not true that the iron theology of the Middle Ages put everybody in irons. The best proof is that at the Paris university one argued, for example, about such subject like: The Speeches of Theology Are Founded on Fables or The Christian Religion Prevents from Adding Something Superficial to Theology . It was possible at that time to argue about these subjects. One argues differently today. Once arguing was fertile because one had acquired formal education. Today one can prove errors in reasoning very easily. But any arguing that is based on errors in reasoning is infertile because one is not clear in his mind that someone who argues has only to understand the technique of arguing. In the Middle Ages, mathematics was regarded as the basis of any knowledge, even of art. There could be the great idealism of which our time cannot have any idea. A typical remark by Leonardo da Vinci (1459–1519), this representative of the great idealism, is that the mechanics is the paradise of the mathematical sciences. He was an artist and mathematician at the same time. The physical education of his time lived in his soul. The way of thinking and the knowledge of his time also speak to us from his paintings. He called the external world the paradise of mathematics! Where he built bridges, thoughts about the spirit of humankind flowed to him... [Gap] . The “sacrifice of the world” means theosophically: the less someone acts for himself, the more he is capable to put something of himself into the culture of his time. It is not so important what we develop from ourselves, as what we implant in the world. Not what we perfect in ourselves, but what we give to the world is the pledge and the pound which is imperishable. Leonardo da Vinci got thoughts about the spirit of humankind as thoughts of mathematics from bridge building. The gods want free beings, they do not want a thing in nature. What the human being creates consciously in the world is an execution of the divine world plan. Something common can become something sacred if it is for the benefit of humankind. If we take this point of view, we have taken up the great idealism in ourselves, and this idealism would have to flow through the whole arts faculty. Within the frame of our arts faculty all scientific disciplines can be probably placed. But it had to be the headquarters of the world view as a core in the centre instead of taking the second place behind the single scientific disciplines. With the help of this central philosophical science we would come to the artistic view. Only that should receive the doctorate who has absorbed this central attitude of having life in himself. The last exam of the philosopher would have to be an examination of his life forms; the only honorary title of the philosophical doctor would have to be founded on the fact that in the human being the life contents of this life form is included. Otherwise, the philosophical doctor is an arabesque, a pretension, a social form. Not only knowledge belongs to the philosophical doctor, but a knowledge transformed into art of living. One already had such consciousness. Thus a philosophical doctor will have only the maturity as it is commensurate with the philosophical head. A large dissemination of theosophy would bring it about by itself, for it wants to develop the forces that slumber in the human being. The theosophist is aware that the human being is capable of development that like the child must develop also mind and soul are capable to develop to higher stages. The human being is not yet complete when he leaves the high school and the universities. Theosophy asserts more and more that the human being is only in the beginning of his development. The arts faculty should have the greatest say. It should develop from the mathematical attitude into a spiritual direction; everything should run up to this point. Theosophy is not so difficult. It would be bound to occur that if there were a theosophical faculty all sciences would become theosophical in the end. Physiology is the science of the phenomena in plants, animals and human beings. If in physiology the equipment of the eye is considered et etcetera, these are pictures to take the knowledge that the human being sees. Physiology teaches us that basically all our sense impressions depend on our senses; it teaches the subjective. In the end, it says that we know nothing about that which is beyond our sense impressions. If we consider this, and do not remain unthinking, but keep on investigating spiritually, we get exactly to the same teachings which occultism gives us that everything sensory is illusion and that the theory of sense energy, theosophically treated, leads into big depths. One needs physiology; one must study it and then top it with philosophy. One has no other choice. The philosophy in the arts faculty is only a piece. It does no longer have any strength; it is a discipline like other disciplines. This should not be; it had to give the strength to the other disciplines. Instead of this, it has received for its part the colouring from single professional disciplines. The fact that one thinks substantially materially results from the fact that philosophy and the great world view do not have the saying, but rather psychology, which came from other disciplines, has become an experimental science. If one believes that psychology is done precisely only if one experiments around with the human being like with an unliving crystal, one considers the human being as something that has neither life nor soul. Psychology can recognise nothing but the material expression. Theosophy would realise that the studies of physiology and psychology are one and the same in certain way and would integrate both into the big framework of knowledge. The modern universities cannot do that and, therefore, they cannot carry any idealistic world view into the world. The arts faculty is not able to be the standard bearer of a philosophical attitude. The faculty should not be an aggregate of the various disciplines, but allow them to grow together to a common soul. Then it is taught theosophically without transplanting theosophy to the universities. Otherwise, the arts faculty remains an aggregate without spiritual bond. Knowledge should become a living whole from whose single parts the spirit shines. It satisfies us as theosophists if the prerogative belongs only to this philosophical study and if it develops on this basis. Then it is well rescued in theosophy. We want only what everybody wants for the welfare of the single sciences. Should theosophy fulfil its task, it must not be a doctrine but life. We have to be theosophists with every step, we have to impregnate everything that we do in life with this living theosophical attitude. Then the theosophical movement is more; it is like one of the most powerful cultural factors of the present. However, it has to win influence on those who are selected to lead our culture. We have to confess and represent theosophy where we want to work in life. The world process is not anything dead, but something living. The beings and not the relations cause the development of the human mind. If theosophy is a world of the spirit, then theosophy is one of the most powerful cultural factors of the present. It does not depend on the reading of theosophical writings, but on the attitude so that the human being is seized in the everyday life.

The Philosophical Faculty and Theosophy

https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA053/English/UNK2014/19050608p01.html

Berlin

8 Jun 1905

GA053-23

Translated by Dr. Bertram Keightley In selecting such a theme as the one I propose for to-day, “Haeckel, The Riddle of the Universe, and Theosophy ,” I am aware that to a student of spiritual life it is fraught with difficulties, and that the statements I am about to make may possibly give offence to so-called materialists and theosophists alike. And yet there seems to me a necessity that this matter should, once in a while, be approached from the theosophical point of view, since from one standpoint the “gospel” derived from Haeckel's researches has been made accessible to thousands upon thousands of mankind by means of his book, The Riddle of the Universe . Ten thousand copies of this work were sold within a very short time of its appearance, and it has been translated into many languages. Seldom, indeed, has a book of serious purpose found so wide a circulation. Now, if theosophy is to make clear its aims, it is but right that it should take into account so important a publication — one that concerns itself with the most profound questions of existence. Theosophy should deal with it comprehensively, and seek to express its attitude with regard to it. For after all, the theosophical conception of life is not combative but rather conciliatory, desirous of harmonising opposing views. Furthermore, I myself am in a very peculiar position with respect to Ernst Haeckel's conception of the universe, for I know well those feelings and perceptions which, partly by reason of a scientific consciousness, and partly from the general conditions of the world and the usual conceptions thereof, draw men as though by the power of some fascination towards such great and simple paths of thought as those from which Haeckel has constructed his conception of the universe. And here I may say that I should hardly have dared to speak my mind thus openly were I in any sense an opponent of Haeckel, or were it not that I am intimately acquainted with all that can be experienced in the process of adapting oneself to the wonderful edifice of his ideas. The very first thing that anyone bringing his attention frankly to bear upon the development of spiritual life is bound to recognise, is the moral power displayed in Haeckel's labours. For years past this man, imbued with an enormous amount of courage, has fought for the acceptance and the recognition of his conception of the universe — fought strenuously, having again and again to defend himself against the manifold obstacles that impeded his progress. On the other hand, we must not be unmindful of the fact that Haeckel's great powers of comprehensive expression are balanced by equally comprehensive powers of thought: the very qualities in which many scientists are deficient happen to be those with which he is very highly endowed. In gathering together the results of his researches and investigations under the one comprehensive title of a conception of the universe, he has boldly departed from those tendencies of scientific thought which have for several decades opposed any such undertaking; and this very departure must be recognised as an act of special significance. Another fact to be noted is, that I am placed in a singular position with regard to the theosophical conception of the universe when I speak about Haeckel; for anyone acquainted with the process of development through which the theosophical movement has passed will be aware of what sharp words and what opposition, not only on the part of theosophists in general, but on the part of the founder of the theosophical movement, Madame H. P. Blavatsky, were directed against the deductions which Ernst Haeckel draws from his work of investigation. Few publications touching cosmogony have been so violently opposed in the Secret Doctrine as that of Haeckel. You will understand that I speak here without prejudice, for I think that in parts of my book, Haeckel and his Opponents , as well as in my other work on Cosmogonies of the Nineteenth Century , I have to the fullest extent done justice to what I take to be the real truths contained in Haeckel's conception of the universe. I believe that I have sifted from his labours that which is fruitful, and that which is enduring. Consider the general attitude towards the conception of the world in so far as it is based upon scientific reasons. During the first half of the nineteenth century a totally different spiritual attitude prevailed from that known in the second half. Haeckel's appearance on the scene coincided with a time in which it was an easy thing for the new growth of so-called Darwinism to be subjected to materialistic interpretations. If, therefore, we realise how insistent was this tendency, at the very time when Haeckel was a young and enthusiastic student entering upon the pursuit of natural science, to reduce all discoveries in that domain of learning to a materialistic issue, the consequent bent towards materialism may well be understood, and may therefore lead us into a path of peace rather than of conflict. If you will consider those men who, about the middle of the nineteenth century, set themselves to confront the great riddle of humanity with calm, unprejudiced eyes, you will find two things: on the one hand, a state of absolute resignation in relation to the highest questions concerning a divine ordering of the world, such as immortality, freedom of will, origin of life — a resignation, in short, with regard to all the actual riddles of the universe. On the other hand you will discover, co-existing with this attitude of resignation, remnants of an ancient religious tradition, and this even among students of natural science. Bold adventuring towards investigation of such questions from the scientific point of view was, during the first half of the nineteenth century, to be met with only among German philosophers, such as Schelling and Fichte, as well as Oken, who, by the way, was a pioneer of freedom without equal, not alone upon this subject, but in many paths of life. All attempts made by men in the present day towards the fundamentalising of world-theories are to be found in still bolder outline among the works of Oken. And yet all this was animated by a certain subtleness — a breath, as it were, of that old spiritualism which is clearly conscious that, behind and beyond all that our senses can perceive, all that can be investigated by means of instruments, there still lurks something spiritual to be sought for. Haeckel has again and again told us how distinctly the mind of his great teacher — that deep student of natural science, Johannes Müller, of imperishable memory — was tinged with this subtle breath. You can read in Haeckel's own writings how he had been struck (it was at the time when he was busy at the Berlin University and studying the anatomy of men and animals under Johannes Müller) by the great resemblance apparent not alone in outward form, but also by that similarity which compels attention in the evolution of form. He tells us how he had remarked to his master that such resemblance as this must hint at some mysterious kinship between man and beast, and that the answer made by Johannes Müller, who had searched so deeply into Nature, had been: “Ah! he who lays bare the secret of species will indeed have reached the highest summit.” What we have to do is to attune ourselves to the spirit, the motive, of such a seeker; of one who assuredly would never have halted had he beheld a prospect of entering into possession of that secret. On one other occasion, when teacher and pupil were travelling together on some journey of investigation, Haeckel again referred to the close relationship existing between animals; and Johannes Müller once more replied very much to the same effect. In alluding to this I only wish to draw your attention to a certain attitude of mind. If you will look back among the writings of any well-known naturalist belonging to the first half of the nineteenth century — for instance, to those of Burdach — you will find that, in spite of all the careful and elaborate minutiae appertaining to natural science, whenever the kingdom of life comes to be considered, the suggestion is ever present that here no mere physical and chemical powers are in operation, but that something higher has to be taken into account. When, however, improvements in microscopes made it possible for man to observe, to a far greater extent than heretofore, all those curious formations which serve to distinguish living creatures, showing that we have to do with a fine web of the minutest animalcules, and that this actually composes the physical body — when, as I have said, so much was made visible, the attitude of the scientific mind underwent a change. This physical body, which serves plants and animals as their garment, now resolved itself, so far as the scientist was concerned, into a tissue of cells. This discovery as to the life of these cells was made by naturalists about the end of the third decade of the nineteenth century, and, seeing that it was possible to ascertain so much about the lives of such animalcules by the exercise of the senses, assisted by the aid of the microscope, it required but a step further for that which acts as the organising principle in these living creatures to be lost sight of, because no physical sense, nothing external, proclaimed its presence. At that time there was no Darwinism, yet it was owing to the impression made by this great advance in the domain of practical research that we find a natural science grounded in materialism coming into vogue during the 'forties and 'fifties. It was then thought that what could be perceived by the senses, and thus explained, could be understood by the whole world. Things that now seem puerile created then the most intense sensation, and became, so to speak, a gospel for humanity. Such words as “energy” and “matter” became popular by-words, while men like Büchner and Moleschott were recognised authorities. It was considered an evidence of childish fancy, belonging to earlier epochs of the human race, to suppose that anything that could be minutely examined with the eye was possessed of aught beyond what was actually visible. Now, you must bear in mind that, side by side with all discovery, feelings and sensations play a great part in the development of mental life. Anyone who may be inclined to think that cosmogonies are the result of bold calculations of reason makes a mistake: in all such matters the heart is active, and the secret sources of education also contribute their share. Humanity has, during its latest phase of development, been passing through a materialistic stage of education. The actual beginning of this stage is traceable far back, it is true; nevertheless, it reached its apex in the time of which we are speaking. We call this epoch of materialistic education the age of enlightenment. Man had now — and this was the final result of the Christian conception of the universe — to find his foothold upon the firm ground of reality: the God whom he had so long sought beyond the clouds he was now bidden to seek within his inner consciousness. This had a far-reaching effect upon the entire development of the nineteenth century, and anyone interested in psychological changes and caring to study the development of humanity at that time will be enabled to understand how all the events and occurrences which then followed upon each other, such as the struggle for freedom in the 'thirties and 'forties, can but be classed as separate storms and convulsions of the feelings which were the result of that newly developed sense of physical reality, and which were bound to run their appointed course. We have to deal with a tendency in human education that sought in the first place forcibly to eradicate from the human heart every aspiration towards a spiritual life. It is not from natural science that those deductions, pronouncing the world to consist of naught but what can be perceived by the senses, have been drawn; they are a consequence of the educational teaching obtaining at that time. Materialism had become interwoven with explanations relating to the facts of natural science. Anyone who will take the trouble to study these things as they really are, bringing to bear upon the subject a mind free from prejudice, will be in a position to see for himself that the case is as I am about to set forth, but it is impossible for me in the space of one short hour to deal with the matter exhaustively. The whole of the stupendous advance made in the realms of natural science, of astronomy, of physics and chemistry, due to spectrum analysis, to a greater theoretical knowledge of heat, and to that teaching concerning the development of living organisms known to us as the Darwinian theory — all these come within this period of materialism. Had these discoveries been made at a time when people still thought as they did about the end of the eighteenth and beginning of the nineteenth centuries, a time when a greater spiritual sensitiveness prevailed, then these discoveries would have been so construed as to furnish proofs positive of the working of the spirit in Nature — indeed, by very reason of the wonderful discoveries in natural science the supremacy of spirit would have been deemed incontestably established. It is clear, then, that scientific investigations with regard to Nature need not necessarily and under all circumstances lead to materialism. It was merely because so many leaders of civilisation at that time were materialistically inclined that these discoveries became interpreted in a materialistic way. Materialism was imported into natural science, and naturalists, such as Ernst Haeckel, accepted it unconsciously. Darwin's discovery per se need not have tended to materialism. Materialism points to Darwin's book, The Origin of Species , as its chief support. Now, it is clear that if a thinker inclining to materialism approached these discoveries, he would be sure to invest Darwinism with a materialistic colouring, and it was due to Haeckel's boldly materialistic attitude of thought that Darwinism has received its present materialistic interpretation. It was an event of great moment when Haeckel, in the year 1864, announced the connection between man and the higher animals (apes). At that time this could but mean that man was descended from the higher animals. But since that day scientific thought has undergone a curious process of development. Haeckel has adhered to his opinion that man is the descendant of those higher animals, they being in their turn the developments of still lower types, reaching back finally to the very simplest forms of life. It is thus that Haeckel constructs man's entire genealogical tree — in fact, the lineal descent of all humanity. By this means everything of a spiritual nature became for him excluded from the world, except as a reflection of already-existing material things. And yet Haeckel, having in the depths of his being a peculiar spiritual consciousness working side by side with his materialistic “thinking mind,” casts about for some means of help, since these two parts of his being have never been able to “come into line;” he has not succeeded in bringing about a working partnership between them. For this reason he comes to the conclusion that even the smallest living creature may be accredited with a sort of consciousness, but he does not explain to us how the complex human consciousness is developed out of that which is latent in the smallest living creature. In the course of a conversation Haeckel once said: “People are always objecting to my materialism, but I don't deny the Spirit, nor do I deny Life: I only want people to observe that when you place matter in a retort everything in it soon begins to work and effervesce — to ferment.” That remark shows plainly enough that Haeckel possesses a spiritual as well as a scientific mind. Among those who, at the time of Darwin's supremacy, proclaimed their adherence to the theory of man's descent from the higher animals was the English scientist Huxley. He asserted the close similarity in external structure between man and the higher animals to be even greater than that existing between the higher and lower species of apes, and that we could but come to the conclusion that a line of descent existed leading from the higher animals to man. In more recent times scientists have discovered new facts, but even then those feelings which for centuries past have educated the human heart and soul were undergoing a change, a transformation. Hence it was that Huxley in the 'nineties, not long before his death, gave utterance to the following view — a strange one, coming from him: “We see therefore,” he observed, “that in Nature life is conditioned by a series of steps, proceeding from the simplest and most incomplete up to the complicated and perfected. We cannot follow this continuity, yet why should not this continuous line proceed onwards in a region which we are unable to survey?” In these words the way is indicated by which man may, by the pursuit of natural science, rise to the idea of a Divine being, standing high above man — a being farther removed from man than man himself is from the one-celled organism. Huxley had once said: “I would rather have descended from such ancestors, ancestors similar to the brute, than from such as deny the human intelligence.” 1 Readers who are unacquainted with Huxley's famous reply may be glad to have it in extenso , as given by Edward Clodd in Thomas Henry Huxley , published by William Blackwood & Sons: “At the meeting of the British Association at Oxford, on 28th June, 1860, Owen emphasised the statement that ‘the brain of the gorilla presented more differences, as compared with the brain of man, than it did when compared with the brains of the very lowest and most problematical of the Quadrumana.’ To this Huxley, in polite English, gave the lie direct, and pledged himself to ‘justify that unusual procedure elsewhere.’ Two days after, by mere chance, he was present at the reading of a paper by Dr. Draper ‘On the Intellectual Development of Europe considered with reference to the views of Mr. Darwin.’ In the discussion which followed, Bishop Wilberforce, throwing a glance at Huxley, ended a suave and superficial speech by asking him ‘as to his belief in being descended from an ape. Is it on his grandfather's or his grandmother's side that the ape ancestry comes in?’ Huxley did not rise till the meeting called for him. Then he let himself go. ‘The Lord hath delivered him into mine hands,’ he said in an undertone to Sir Benjamin Brodie. After showing how ill-equipped was the Bishop for controversy upon the general question of organic evolution, although it was an open secret that Owen had primed him for the contest, Huxley said: ‘You say that development drives out the Creator, but you assert that God made you; and yet you know that you yourself were originally a piece of matter no bigger than the end of this gold pencil-case?’ Then followed the famous retort: “‘I asserted, and I repeat, that a man has no reason to be ashamed of having an ape for his grandfather. If there were an ancestor whom I should feel shame in recalling it would rather be a man — a man of restless and versatile intellect — who, not content with success in his own sphere of activity, plunges into scientific questions with which he has no real acquaintance, only to obscure them by an aimless rhetoric, and distract the attention of his hearers from the real point at issue by eloquent digressions and skilled appeals to religious prejudice.’” Thus do precepts and concepts, all the soul thinks and feels, alter in the course of time. Haeckel has continued his work of research along the lines he first adopted. In the year 1867 he had already published his popular work, The Natural History of Creation , and from this book much may be learnt. It teaches the laws by which the living kingdoms in Nature are linked one to the other. We can see through the veil shrouding the grey past and bring what is existent into relation with what is extinct, of which only the last remains may now be found upon the earth. Haeckel has recognised this accurately. That world-history, here in a wider sense playing its part, I can only elucidate by making use of an illustration. You may find it no more accurate than are most comparative illustrations, yet it fairly bears out my meaning. Let us suppose that a writer on art appeared upon the scene and produced a book in which he treated with consummate skill the whole period stretching from the days of Leonardo da Vinci to modern times. He presents to our minds all that has been achieved in the pursuit of art during that period, and we believe ourselves enabled to look within at the development of man's creative powers. Let us, then, go further, and imagine that another person came along and criticised the descriptive work, saying: “But, look here! Everything this art historian has put on record never happened at all! These are all descriptions of pictures that don't exist! What use have I for such imaginings? One has to investigate reality in order to arrive at the true method of adequately presenting art in its historical bearings. I will therefore investigate the remains of Leonardo da Vinci himself, and try to reconstruct the body, and then judge by the contours of his skull what brain he is likely to have had and how it may probably have functioned.” In the same way the events described by the art historian are depicted by the professor of anatomy. There may have been no mistake. All may have been correct. Well, then, in that case, says the anatomist, we must “fight to a finish” against this idealisation of our art historian; we must combat his phantasy, his imagination, for it amounts to credulity and superstition to allow anyone to attempt to make us believe that besides the form of Leonardo da Vinci there was some “gaseous vortex” to be apprehended as a soul. Now, this illustration, in spite of its manifest absurdity, really hits the mark. This is the position in which everyone finds himself who chooses to assert his belief in the Natural History of Creation as the only accurate one. Nor can this illustration be negatived by merely indicating its weak points. They are there, perhaps, but that is beside the point. What is of importance is that the obvious should for once be presented according to its inner relationship; and that is what Haeckel has done in a full and exhaustive way. It has been done in such a manner that anyone wishing to see, can see, how active is the Spirit in the moulding of the form, where, to all appearances, matter alone reigns supreme. Much may be learnt from that; we may learn how to acquire spiritually knowledge as to the world's material combination, how to acquire it with earnestness, dignity, and perseverance. Anyone going through Haeckel's Anthropogenesis sees how form builds itself up, as it were, from the simplest living creature to the most complicated, from the simplest organism to man. He who understands how to add the Spirit to what is already granted by the materialist may in this example of “Haeckelism” have the opportunity of studying the best elementary theosophy. The results of Haeckel's research constitute, so to speak, the first chapter of theosophy. Far better than by any other method, we can arrive at a comprehension of the growth and transformation of organic forms by a study of his works. We have every reason to call attention to the great things which have been achieved through the progress of this profound study of Nature. At the time when Haeckel had constructed this wonderful edifice, the world was facing the deeper riddles of humanity as problems without solution. In the year 1872 Du Bois-Reymond, in a speech memorable for its brilliant rhetoric, alluded to the limits placed to natural science and to our knowledge of Nature. During the past decade the utterances of few men have been so much discussed as has this lecture with the celebrated “Ignorabimus.” It was a momentous event, and offered a complete contrast to Haeckel's own development and to his theory of the descent of man. In another lecture Du Bois-Reymond has tabulated seven great questions as to existence, questions which the naturalist can only answer in part, if at all. These seven “riddles of the universe” are: The origin of energy and matter. How did the first movement arise in this quiescent matter? How did life originate within this “matter set in motion?” How is it that so many things in Nature bear the stamp of utility to a degree only met with in such human achievements as are the result of intelligent reasoning? Assuming we were able to examine our brain, we should find it to be nothing but a jumble of little whirling spheres; how is it, then, that these same little balls, or spheres, enable me, let us say, to “see red,” to hear the tones of the organ, to feel pain, etc.? Think of a mass of whirling atoms, and it will be plain to you that it is not from them that you derive the sensations expressing themselves in such words as “I see red,” “I smell the scent of the rose,” etc. How do understanding, reason, and speech develop in the living being? How can “free will” originate in a being so circumscribed that his every act is the product of the whirling of these atoms? It was in connection with these riddles of the universe put forward by Du Bois-Reymond that Haeckel gave his book the title of The Riddle of the Universe . His desire was to give the answer to the questions raised by Du Bois-Reymond. There is a specially important passage in the lecture Du Bois-Reymond delivered on the “Limits of Inquiry into Nature,” which will enable us to step across into the field of theosophy. At the time when Du Bois-Reymond was lecturing at Leipsic before an assembly of natural scientists and medical men, the spirit of natural science was seeking after a purer, higher, and freer atmosphere — such an atmosphere as might lead to the theosophical cosmogony. On that occasion Du Bois-Reymond spoke as follows: — “If we study man from the point of view of natural science, he presents himself to us as a working compound of unconscious atoms. To explain man in accordance with natural science means to ‘understand’ this atomic motion to its uttermost degree.” He considered that if one were in a position to indicate the precise way in which the atoms moved at any given place in the brain, while saying, for instance, “I think,” or “Give me an apple” — if this could be done, then the problem would, according to natural science, have been solved. Du Bois-Reymond calls this the “astronomic” understanding of man. Even as a miniature firmament of stars would be the appearance of these active groups of human atoms. But what has not here been taken into consideration is the question as to how sensations, feelings, and thoughts arise in the consciousness of the man of whom, let us say, I perfectly well know that his atoms move in such and such a manner. That natural science can as little determine as it can the manner in which consciousness arises. Du Bois-Reymond concluded with the following words: — “In the sleeping man, who is not conscious of the sensation expressed in the words ‘I see red,’ we have before us the physical group of the active members of the body. With regard to this sleeping body, we need not say, ‘We cannot know’ — ‘Ignorabimus!’ We are able to comprehend the sleeping man. Man awake, on the contrary, is incomprehensible to the scientist. In the sleeping man something is absent which is nevertheless present in the man awake: I allude to the consciousness through which he appears before us as a spiritual being.” At that time, owing to a lack of courage in matters concerning natural science, further progress was impossible; there was no question as yet of theosophy, because natural science had, in concise terms, defined the boundary, had set a barrier at the precise spot up to which it wished to proceed in its own fashion. It was owing to this self-limitation of science that theosophical cosmogony had, about this time, its beginning. No one is going to maintain that man, when he goes to sleep “ceases to be,” and on re-awaking in the morning “resumes existence.” And yet Du Bois-Reymond says that something which is present in him by day is absent during the night. It is here that the theosophical conception of the universe is enabled to assert itself. Sense-consciousness is in abeyance in the sleeping man. As, however, the man of science uses as a prop for his argument that which brings about this sense-consciousness, he is unable to say anything concerning the spirituality that transcends it, because he lacks precisely the knowledge of that which makes of man a spiritual being. By the use of such means as serve for natural science we are unable to investigate matters spiritual. Natural science depends upon what may be demonstrated to the senses. What can no longer be sensed when man falls asleep, cannot be the object of scientific investigation. It is in this something, no longer perceptible in the sleeping man, that we must seek for that entity by which man becomes a spiritual being. No mental representation can be made of what transcends the purely material and passes beyond the knowledge of the senses, until organs, of which the scientist can know nothing if he only depends on his sense-perceptions — spiritual eyes — are developed; eyes which are able to see beyond the confines of the senses. For this reason we have no right to say, “Here are the limits of cognition;” but merely, “Here are the limits of sense-perception.” The scientist perceives by means of his senses, but he is no spiritual observer; he must become one. become a “seer.” in order that he may see what is spiritual in man. This is the bourne towards which tends all profound wisdom in the world; not seeking the mere widening of its radius where actual material knowledge is concerned, but striving towards the raising of human faculty. This also is the great difference between what is taught by present-day natural science and what is taught by theosophy. Natural science says: “Man has senses with which he perceives, and a mind whereby he is enabled to connect the evidences of his senses. What does not come within the scope of these lies beyond the ken of natural science.” Theosophy takes a different view of the case. It says: “You scientists are perfectly right, so long as you judge from your point of view, just as right as the blind man would be from his in saying that the world is devoid of light and colour. We make no objection to the standpoint of natural science, we would only place it in juxtaposition to the view taken by theosophy, which asserts that it is possible — nay, that it is certain — that man is not obliged to remain stationary at the point of view he occupies to-day; that it is possible for organs — spiritual eyes — to develop after a similar fashion to that in which those physical sense-organs of the body, the eyes and ears, have been developed; and once these new organs are developed, higher faculties will make themselves apparent.” This must be taken on faith at first — nay, it need not even be believed; it may just be accepted as an assertion in an unprejudiced manner. Nevertheless, as true as it is that all believers in the Natural History of Creation have not beheld all that is therein presented to them as fact (how many of them have actually investigated these facts?), so true is it that these facts concerning a knowledge of the super-sensual can be explained to everyone. The ordinary man, held in bondage by his senses, cannot possibly gain admittance to this realm. It is only by the aid of certain methods of investigation that the spiritual world opens to the seeker. Thus, man must transform himself into an instrument for those higher powers, one able to penetrate into worlds hidden from those still enthralled by their physical senses. To such as can accomplish this, visions of a quite distinctive nature will appear. The ordinary human being is not capable of seeing for himself, or of consciously recognising things about him, when his senses are wrapped in slumber; but when he applies occult methods of investigation this incapacity ceases, and he begins to receive quite consciously impressions of the astral world. There is at first a state of transition, familiar to all, between that exterior life of sense cognisance and that life which even in the most profound state of slumber is not quite extinguished. This state of transition is the chaos of dreams. To most people these will appear as mere reflections of what they have been experiencing during the previous day. Indeed, you will ask, how should a man be able to receive any new experiences during sleep, since the inner self has as yet no organs of cognition? But still, something is there — life is there. That which left the body when sleep wrapped it round has memory, and this remembrance rises before the sleeper in pictures more or less fantastic and confused. (Should anyone desire more information on this subject, it will be found in my books entitled The Way of Initiation and Initiation and its Results , Theosophical Publishing Society, 161, New Bond Street, W.) 2 Now published by the Rudolf Steiner Publishing Co., in one volume, The Knowledge of the Higher Worlds and Its Attainment . Cloth, Crown 8vo, pp. 221, 6s. Now, in place of this chaos, order and harmony will, in the course of time, be brought about; an order and a harmony governing this region of dreams, and this will be a sign that the person in question is beginning to develop spiritually. Then he will cease to see the mere aftermath of reality, grotesquely portrayed; he will see things which have in ordinary life no existence. Those who desire to remain within the boundary of the senses will, of course, say, “But they are only dreams!” Yet, if they, by such means, obtain an insight into the loftiest secrets of creation, it may surely be a matter of indifference to them whether they gain this through the medium of a dream or by means of the senses. Let us, for instance, suppose that Graham Bell had invented the telephone in a state of dream-consciousness. That would have been of no moment whatever to-day, for the telephone itself in any case is an important and useful invention. Clear and regular dreaming is therefore the beginning, and if in the stillness of the night hours you have come to “live in your dreams,” if, after a time, you have habituated yourself to a cognisance of worlds quite other than this, then will soon come a time when you will learn, by these new experiences, to step forth into actuality. Then the whole world will assume a new aspect, and you will be as sensible of this change as you would be of threading your way through a row of solid chairs, through anything your senses may at this moment be aware of in their vicinity. Such is the condition of anyone who has acquired a new state of consciousness. Something new, a new kind of personality, has awakened within him. In the course of his further development a stage will at length be reached where not only the curious apparitions of the higher worlds pass before the spiritual eye as visions of light, but the tones also of those higher worlds become audible, telling their spiritual names, and able to convey to the seer a new meaning. In the language of the mysteries, this is expressed in the words, “Man sees the sun at midnight;” which is to say, that for him there are no longer any obstacles in space to prevent him from seeing the sun when on the other side of the world. Then, too, is the work of the sun, acting within the universe, made plain to him, and he becomes aware of that harmony of the spheres, that truth to which the Pythagoreans bore witness. Tones and sounds, this music of the spheres, now become, for him, actual. Poets who were also seers have known of the existence of something approaching this music, and only those who can grasp Goethe's meaning from this point of view will be able to understand those passages, for instance, occurring in the “Prologue in Heaven” (see Faust , pt. I), which may be taken either as poetic phraseology or as a lofty truth. Where Faust is a second time introduced into the world of spirits, he speaks of these sounds: “Tönend wird für Geistes-Ohren, Schon der neue Tag geboren!” (“Sounding loud to spirit-hearing, See the new-born Day appearing!”) Faust, Part II. Here we have the connection between natural science and theosophy. Du Bois-Reymond has pointed to the fact that the sleeper only can be an object for the experiments of natural science. But if man should begin to open his inner senses, if he should come to see and hear that there is such a thing as spiritual actuality, then indeed will the whole edifice of elementary theosophy, so wonderfully, constructed by Haeckel — a structure none can admire more profoundly than I — then will this great work glow with a new glory, revealing, as it must, an entirely new meaning. According to this marvellous structure we see a simple living creature as the archetype, yet we may trace back that creature spiritually to an earlier condition of consciousness. I will now explain what theosophy holds as the doctrine of the descent of man. It is obvious that in a single lecture like the present no “proofs” can be advanced, and it is also natural that to all who are only acquainted with the theories commonly advanced on this subject everything I say will appear fantastic and highly improbable. All theories thus advanced originated, however, in the leading circles of materialistic thought, and many who would probably resent the suggestion of materialism as utterly foreign to their nature, are nevertheless (and indeed quite comprehensibly so) caught in a net of self-delusion. The true theosophical teaching concerning evolution is, in our day, hardly known; and when our opponents speak of it, he who does know is at once able to recognise by the objections raised that he is dealing with a caricature of this doctrine of evolution. For all such as merely acknowledge a soul, or spirit, to which expression is given within the human, or animal organism, the theosophical mode of representation must be utterly incomprehensible, and every discussion touching that subject is, with such persons, quite fruitless. They must first free themselves from the state of materialistic suggestion in which they live, and must make themselves acquainted with the fundamental attitude of theosophical thought. Just as the methods of research employed by physical science trace back the organism of the physical body into the dim distance of primeval times, so it is the mode of theosophical thought to delve into the past with regard to the soul and the spirit. Now, the latter method does not lead to any conclusions antagonistic or contradictory to the facts advanced by natural science; only with the materialistic interpretations of these facts it can have nothing to do. Natural science traces the descent of the physical living being backwards, arriving by this course at organisms of a less and less complicated kind. Natural science declares: “The perfect living being is a development of these simpler and less complicated ones;” and, as far as physical structure is concerned, this is true, although the hypothetical forms of primeval ages of which materialistic science speaks do not entirely conform with those known to theosophical research. This, however, need not concern us at the present moment. From the physical standpoint theosophy also acknowledges the relationship of man with the higher mammals, with the man-like apes. But there can be no question of the descent of our humanity from a creature of the mind and soul calibre of the ape, as we know it. The facts are quite otherwise, and everything that materialism puts forward of this nature rests upon an error of thought. This error may be cleared up by means of a simple comparison sufficient for our purpose, though trite. We will imagine two persons, one morally deficient and intellectually insignificant; the other endowed with a high standard of morality and of considerable intellectuality. We will assume that some fact or other confirms the relationship of these two. Now, I ask you, will the inference be drawn that the one in every way more highly endowed is descended from one who was of the standard described? Never! We may think it a surprising fact that they are brothers. We may find, however, that they had a father who was not of exactly the same standard as either of the brothers, and in that case one will be found to have worked his way up, the other to have degenerated. Materialistic science makes a similar mistake to that here indicated. Facts known to it induce the acceptance of a connection between ape and man, yet from this it should not draw the conclusion that man is descended from the ape-like animals. What should be accepted is a primeval creature, a common physical ancestor, from the stock of which the ape has degenerated, while man has been the ascending “brother.” Now, what was there in that primeval creature to cause this ascendance to the human on the one hand, the sinking into the ape kingdom on the other? Theosophy answers, “The soul of man himself did this.” Even then the soul of man was present, at a time when, on the face of this physical earth, the creatures possessing the highest sense of development were these common ancestors of man and ape. From amid the multitude of these ancestors the best types were capable of subjecting themselves to the soul's progress, the rest were not. Thus it happens that the present-day human soul has a “soul-ancestor” just as the body has its physical forebear. It is true that, so far as the senses are concerned, those “soul-ancestors” could not, according to our present-day observations, have been perceptible within our bodies. They still belonged in a sense to “higher worlds,” and they were also possessed of other capabilities and powers than those of the present human soul. They lacked the mental activity and the moral sense now evident. Such souls could conceive no way of fashioning instruments from the things in the outer world; they could create no political states. The soul's activity still consisted to a great extent in transforming the archetype of those ancestral bodies themselves. It laboured at improving the incomplete brain, enabling it at a later period to become the seat of thought activities. As the soul of to-day, directed towards external things, constructs machines, etc., so did that ancestral soul labour at constructing the body of the human ancestor. The following objection can, of course, be raised: “Why, then, does not the soul at the present day work at its body to the same extent?” The reason for its not doing so is that the energy used at a former time for the transforming of the organs has since been directing its whole effort upon external things in the mastery and regulation of the forces of Nature. We may therefore ascribe a twofold descent to man in primeval times. His spiritual birth is not coeval with the perfecting of his organs of sense. On the contrary, the “soul” of man was already present at a time when those physical “ancestors” inhabited the earth. Figuratively speaking, we may say that the soul “selected” a certain number of such “ancestors” as seemed best fitted for receiving the external corporeal expression distinguishing the present-day man. Another branch of these ancestors deteriorated, and in its degenerate condition is now represented by the anthropoid apes. These, then, form, in the true sense of the word, branch lines of the human ancestry. Those ancestors are the physical forebears of man, but this is due only to the capacity for reconstruction which they had primarily received from the human soul within. Thus is man physically descended from the “archetype,” while spiritually he is the descendant of the “ancestral soul.” But we can go even further back with regard to the genealogical tree of living creatures, and we shall then arrive at a physically still more imperfect ancestor. Yet, at the time of this physical ancestor, too, the “soul-ancestor” of man was existent. It was this latter which raised the physical ancestor to the level of the ape, again outstripping its less adaptable brother in the race for development, and leaving him behind on a lower stage of creation. To such as these belong those present-day mammals of a lower grade than that of the apes. Thus we may go further and further back into primeval times, even to a time when upon this earth, then bearing so different an aspect, existed those most elementary of creatures from which Haeckel claims the development of all higher beings. The soul-ancestor of man was also a contemporary of these primitive creatures; it was already living when the “archetype” transformed the serviceable types, leaving behind at different stages those incapable of further development. In actual truth, therefore, the entire sum of earth's living creatures are the descendants of man, within whom that which in this day “thinks and acts” as soul originally brought about the development of living beings. When our earth came into existence, man was a purely spiritual being; he began his career by building for himself the simplest of bodies. The whole ladder of living creatures represents nothing but the outgrown stages through which he has developed his bodily structure to its present degree of perfection. The creatures of the present day differ widely in appearance from that of their ancestors at those particular stages where they branched off from the human tree. Not that they have remained stationary, for they have deteriorated in accordance with an inevitable law, which, owing to the lengthy explanation it would involve, cannot be entered into here. But the greatest interest attaches to the fact that through theosophy we arrive, so far as man's outward form is concerned, at a genealogical tree not altogether unlike Haeckel's. Haeckel, however, presupposes as the physical ancestor of man nothing but a hypothetical animal. Yet the truth is that at all those points where Haeckel uses the names of animals, the still undeveloped forebears of man should be installed; for those animals, down to the meanest living creatures, are but deteriorated and degenerate forms occupying those lower stages through which the human soul has passed on its upward journey. Externally, therefore, the resemblance between Haeckel's genealogical tree and that of theosophy is sufficiently striking, though internal evidences show them to be as wide apart as the poles. Hence the reasons why Haeckel's deductions are so eminently suited for the learning of sound elementary theosophy. One need do no more than master, from the theosophical point of view, the facts he has elucidated in so masterly a manner, and then raise his philosophy to a higher and nobler plane. If Haeckel seeks to criticise and belittle any such “higher” philosophy, he shows himself to be simply puerile — after the fashion, for instance, of a person who, not having got beyond the multiplication table, yet presumed to assert: “What I know is true, and all higher mathematics are only imaginary nonsense.” No theosophist desires to deny or contradict the elementary facts of natural science; but the crux of the matter is that the scientist, deluded by materialistic suggestions, does not even know what theosophy is talking about. It depends upon a man himself what kind of philosophy he adopts. Fichte has put this in so many words: “The unperceiving eye cannot detect colours; The non-perceptive Soul cannot perceive Spirit.” The same thought has been voiced by Goethe in a well-known phrase: “Were the eye not sun-like — how could we see the sun? Were God's own power not within us, the God-like vision — could it enrapture us?” and an expression of Feuerbach, if rightly conceived, proclaims that each one sees God's image after his own likeness. The slave to his senses sees God in accordance with those senses; the spiritual observer sees the Spirit deified. “Were lions, bulls, and oxen able to set up gods, their gods would resemble lions, bulls, and oxen,” was the remark of a Greek philosopher long ages ago. The fetish-worshipper, too, has as his highest principle something we may call spiritual, but he has as yet not come to seek for this within himself, and this is why he has not got beyond beholding his god as anything more than a block of wood. The fetish-worshipper cannot raise his prayer above what he can inwardly feel, for he still regards himself as on the same level as the block of wood. And those who can see no more than a whirl of atoms, those to whom the highest resolves itself into tiny dots of matter, such as these, too, have missed recognition of the highest principle within themselves. It is true that Haeckel places before us in all his works the information he has honestly acquired, so that to him must be accorded “les defauts de ses qualites.” The sterling worth of his teaching will live, its negative qualities will vanish. Taken from the higher point of view, one might say that the fetish-worshipper worships in his fetish a lifeless object, while the materialistic adherent of the theory of atoms worships not alone one “little god” but a whole host of them, which he calls atoms! 3 The word “worship” is, of course, not to be taken literally, for the materialistic thinker, though he has not yet been weaned from “fetishism,” has lost the habit of prayer. The superstition of the one is about as great as that of the other; for the materialistic atom is no more than a fetish, and the wooden block is made up of atoms too. Haeckel says in one passage: “We see God in the stone, in the plant, in the brute, in man — God is everywhere,” yet he only sees God as he can comprehend Him. How enlightening here are Goethe's words, when he says: “Du gleichst dem Geist den du begreifst, nicht mir!” (“Thou'rt like the Spirit which thou comprehendest, Not me!”) (Bayard Taylor's translation.) Thus does the materialist mark the whirling atoms in stone, in plant, in animal, and in man, possibly, too, in every work of art, and claim for himself a knowledge of a monistic cosmogony that has overcome the ancient superstitions. Yet theosophists have a monistic cosmogony too; and we can say, in the same words as Haeckel uses, that we see God in the stone, in the plant, in the brute, and in the man; but what we see are no whirling atoms, but the living God, the spiritual God, whom we seek outside in Nature, because we can also seek Him within ourselves.

Two Essays on Haeckel

Haeckel, 'The Riddle of the Universe,' Theosophy

https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA054/English/Singles/19051005v01.html

Berlin

5 Oct 1905

GA054-1

This single lecture is the second of twenty-two lectures in the lecture series entitled, Riddles of the World and Anthroposophy , published in German as, Die Weltraetsel und die Anthroposophie . It is also known as, The Present Situation in the World, War and Peace , published in the Anthroposophic News Sheet , Volume 14, 1945, p.249, and as War, Peace, and the Science of the Spirit , in Anthroposophic Review , Volume 7, 1985, No. 3. Spiritual investigation cannot meddle with the immediate events of the day. But at the same time, one should not believe that spiritual science floats in the clouds above every reality and that it has nothing to do with practical life. To-day we shall not speak of the events that are stirring the world just now, events of the kind: described in the daily newspapers, nor do we belong to those who prefer to be blind and deaf to the occurrences that move the human heart. The spiritual-scientific investigator must always thread his way between two rocks; he never loses himself in the ruling opinions and views of the day, and on the other hand he never becomes involved in empty abstractions and authoritative concepts. On many occasions I had the opportunity to tell you that spiritual science should make us practical; far more practical than is generally believed to be the case by the men of daily practical life. It should make us practical, by leading us to the deeper forces which lie at the foundation of life and throwing light upon everything from these deeper forces, and by guiding our actions so that they are in harmony with the great laws of the universe. We are able to achieve something in the world and we can influence its course of events only if we act in accordance with the great laws of the universe. After these introductory words, let me begin by pointing out a few facts for the sole purpose of calling up in your mind the importance of present-day problems, I might say the actuality of these problems. One, fact which everyone may perhaps remember is that on the 24th of August 1898 the Czar's authorised representative sent a circular to all the accredited foreign representatives at St. Petersburg, containing among other things the following words: The maintenance of peace and thee diminution of armaments that weigh upon the nation constitute an ideal of modern civilisation, an ideal upon which the governments of all nations should turn their attention. My sovereign completely dedicated his strength to this task. Hoping that this, may be in keeping with the desire of most of the other lowers, the Imperial Government holds that it is now the best moment to ensure peace upon the basis of international discussion and to put an end to the present uninterrupted arming. This document also contains the following: Since the financial means required for armaments are constantly rising, capital and labour are deviated from their true paths and are devoured unproductively. The armaments consequently correspond less and less to the purpose allotted to them by the respective governments. The document concludes by saying that a Conference with God's aid would be a good omen for the new century. To be sure, this is not exactly a new resolution, for we can go back many centuries, and in the l6th/17th century we come across a ruler, Henry IVth of France, who then advanced the idea of holding such a universal Peace Conference. Seven of the sixteen nations of that time had already given their consent, when Henry IVth was murdered. No one continued his work. If necessary, it would be possible to trace intentions and plans having this aim and flowing from such quarters, much further back still. This is one sequence of facts. The other one is: the Conference of The Hague. You all know the name of that praiseworthy person who pursues her ideals with such rare devotion and with such a good knowledge of the facts: Bertha von Suttner. One year after the Conference at The Hague she collected the acts into a book in which she recorded speeches which were sometimes very beautiful. She also wrote an introduction to this book. Please bear in mind that one year passed by since Bertha von Suttner envisaged this book about the Peace Conference. (At this point there is an interruption in the text.) War has now broken out, in diametrical opposition to these ideas, war due to refusal of intermediation — the cruel Transvaal war. If we now look around in the world, we find that very noble-hearted men are lighting for the ideal of Peace and the love for universal peace lives in the hearts of high- minded idealists — nevertheless so much blood has never before been shed on earth as during this short time. This is an earnest very earnest matter for everyone who is also interested in the great problems of the soul. On the one hand we have the devoted apostles of Peace and their untiring activity, we have the excellent books of Bertha von Suttner who knew how to set forth the terrors of war with such rare skill — but do not let us forget the other side. Do not let us forget that many clever men who belong to the other side assure us again and again that war is necessary for human progress, that it steels the forces. The strength increases by having to face opposition. The scientific investigator who attracted so many thinkers to his side, often said that he desired war, that only a fierce war could advance the forces in Nature. 1 See the lecture of October 5th,1905: HAECKEL, THE RIDDLES OF THE WORLD AND THEOSOPHY Perhaps he did not express himself so radically, nevertheless many people harbour these thoughts. Even within our spiritual-scientific Movement some people voiced the view that it would be a weakness, nay a sin against the spirit of national strength, if any objection were raised against the war which had led to national honour, national power. In any case, the opinions in this sphere are still strongly opposed. But the Conference at The Hague brought with it one thing. It brought to our notice the views of many people who are at the head of public life. Many representatives of Governments at that time agreed that the Conference at The Hague should take place. One might think that a cause which had gained the support of such high quarters, would be highly successful. - In order to. view things in the way in which they have to be viewed from the aspect of a spiritual conception of the world and of life, we must penetrate more deeply into the whole subject. When we study the problem of peace as an ideal problem and see how it developed in the course of time, but at the same time observe the facts of battle and strife, we must say that perhaps the way in which this ideal of peace has been pursued, calls for a closer investigation and claims our attention. You see, even the hearts of many soldiers are filled with pain and abhorrence for the consequences and effects of war. Such things, may indeed induce us to ask: Do wars arise through anything which can be eliminated from the world by principles and opinions? These who look more deeply into the souls of men know that two quite distinct and separate directions produce that which leads to war. One direction is what we designate as power of judgment and understanding, what we name idealism; the other direction is human passion, the human inclinations, man's sympathies and antipathies. Many things would be different in the world if it were possible, without further ado, to control desires and passions in accordance with the principles of the heart and of the understanding. For this is not possible, the very opposite has so far always been the case in human life. The understanding, the heart itself, provide in idealism the mask for what is pursued by passion and desire. And if you study the history of human development, you may again and again ask, whenever you come across certain principles, whenever you see idealism flashing up: What are the passions and desires which lurk in the background? You see, if you bear this in mind, it is quite possible that with the best principles one cannot as yet achieve anothing; perhaps something else will be required, because the human, passions, instincts and desires are not sufficiently developed to follow the idealism of individual men. The problem has, as you see, a deeper root and we must grasp it more deeply. If we wish to judge the whole matter rightly, we must cast a glance into the human soul and its fundamental forces. We do not always survey the course of development to a sufficient extent, generally we only survey a short space of time, — so that an encompassing conception of the world must open our eyes, giving us on the one hand a deep insight and on the other a survey of larger epochs of time, in order that we may form a judgment of the forces which are to lead us into the future. Let us consider the human soul, where we can study it deeply and thoroughly. Let us consider from another aspect something which we mentioned eight days ago. 2 In the lecture on Haeckel. We have, a natural-scientific theory, the so-called Darwinism. There is one idea which plays an important part in this natural-scientific conception. It is the idea designated as the “STRUGGLE FOR EXISTENCE,” the “BATTLE OF LIFE.” Our whole natural science, our whole conception of life stood under the sign of this struggle for existence. The scientists declared: In the world the beings that can best assert themselves in the battle of life, that can gain the greatest advantage over their fellow-creatures, are those who survive, whereas the others perish! Consequently, we need not be surprised that we are surrounded by beings, who adapted themselves best of all, for they developed throughout millions of years. The fittest survived and the unfit perished. The struggle for existence has become the watchword of scientific research. From where did this struggle come? It has not been taken from Nature. Darwin himself, though he sees it in a greater style than his followers, took it from a conception of Malthus, 3 Thomas Robert Malthus, 1760-1854 spreading over the history of human development, a conception according to which the earth produces food in a progression rising in a far more reduced measure than the increase of the population. Those who versed in these questions will know that one says: The increase in food is in accordance with arithmetic progression, whereas the increase in the population is in accordance with geometrical progression. This produces a struggle for existence, a war of all against all. Setting out from this idea, Darwin placed the struggle for existence also at the beginning of the life of mature. This conception is not only in keeping with a mere idea, but with the modern ways of living. This battle of life has become reality reaching as far as the conditions of individual existence, as expressed in the form of general economic competition. This battle of life was observed at close quarters, it was looked upon as something natural in the kingdom of man, and then it was taken over by natural science. Ernst Haeckel set out from these ideas, and in warlike activities, in war itself, he even saw a lever of civilisation, Battle strengthens, the weak must go under, — civilisation demands that the weak should perish. National economy then applied this struggle to the human sphere. We thus have great theories in national economy, in the conceptions of social life, theories which look upon the struggle for existence as something quite justified which cannot be severed from the development of humanity. With these principles, not with prejudices, one went back to the remotest times, and one tried to study the life of the wild barbaric peoples; one believed that it was possible to listen to the development of human culture and thought to discover in it the wildest principle of war. Huxley said: If we survey the animals in Nature, their struggle for existence resembles a fight of gladiators — and this is a law of Nature. And if we turn our attention from the higher animals to the lower species in keeping with the course of world-development, we find that the facts prove everywhere that we live in the midst of a general struggle for existence, You see, this idea could be expressed, it could be accepted as a general law of the universe. Those who realise that no words can be uttered which are not deeply rooted in the human soul, must say to themselves that the feelings, the soul-constitution even of our best people are still based upon the idea that war, battle, in the human race as well as in Nature, constitutes a law, something from which we cannot escape. Now you can say: These scientists were perhaps very humane, perhaps in their deepest idealism they longed for peace, for harmony. But their profession, their science convinced them that this was not so, and perhaps they wrote down their theories with a bleeding heart. This might stand as an objection, if something quite different had not arisen. We can say that the above-mentioned theory was universally accepted by all those who believed that they were sound thinkers, scientifically and economically, in the sixties and seventies of the 19th-century. generally accepted was- the view that war and strife were, a law of Nature, from which one could not escape. The old conception of Rousseau 4 Jean-Jacques Rousseau, 28 June 1712- 2 July 1778 had been disposed of completely — so people thought — for Rousseau held that only man's wickedness had brought battle and strife into the general peace of Nature, opposition and disharmony into its harmony. At the end of me loth century the Rousseau atmosphere was still prevalent, according to which a glance into the life of Nature which is still uninfluenced by man's super-culture, reveals everywhere harmony and peace. It is man, with his arbitrariness and culture, who brought strife and battle into the world. This was still Rousseau's idea and during, the last third of the 19th century the scientists assured us: it would be fine if this were true, but this is not the case: the facts show us a different state of things. Nevertheless, let us ask ourselves earnestly: Has human feeling expressed a verdict, or the facts themselves? ... It would be difficult to raise any objection if the f acts themselves spoke in this way. But a strange man appeared in the year 1880, who gave a lecture in St. Petersburg in Russia, during the Congress of Scientists of 1880. This lecture is of profoundest significance for all who are really interested in this problem. This man is the zoologist Kessler. 5 Karl Fedorovich Kessler, On the principle of Mutual Help , lecture by Prof. Kessler, Dean of the St. Petersburg University, given in January 1880 during the congress of Russian Scientists. (Kessler died in 1881) He died soon after. His lecture dealt with the principle of mutual help in Nature. All those who earnestly deal with such questions, will find in the research and scientific maturity contained in this lecture a completely new impulse. Nor the first time in our modern epoch facts were collected from the whole of Nature proving that all the former theories on the struggle for existence are not in keeping with reality. You see, this lecture expounds and proves by facts that the animal species, the groups of animals, do not develop through the battle of life, in reality, a struggle for existence only exists exceptionally between two different species, but not within the same species, for the. individuals belonging to it on the contrary help each other. Those species are the fittest, where the individuals belonging to it are most inclined to this mutual help. Long existence is guaranteed not by a struggle for existence, but by mutual help. This opened out a new aspect, by. a strange coincidence and chain of circumstances in modern scientific research, this subject was continued by a man who adopted the most extraordinary standpoint, by Prince Kropotkin: He was able to prove in the case of animals and certain tribes, by bringing forward innumerable sound facts, the great significance of this principle of mutual help, both in Nature and in human life. I would advise everyone to read his took. 6 Peter Kropotkin: MUTUAL HELP IN ‘EVOLUTION’ It brings a number of ideas and concepts which are a good school for an ascent to a spiritual outlook. But these facts can be grasped in the right way only if they are considered in the light of a so-called esoteric conception, if we gain insight into these facts upon the foundation of spiritual science. I might adduce many facts which speak very clearly, but you can read them in the above-mentioned book. The principle of mutual help in Nature declares that those in whom this principle is developed in the highest measure are those who advance furthest. Consequently, the facts speak clearly and will speak more and more clearly for us. When we speak of a single animal-species in the theosophical conception, we speak of it in the same way in which we speak of man's single individuality. An animal species is upon a lower sphere the same as the single human individuality upon a higher sphere. I already explained before that there is one fact which, we must clearly envisage in. order to grasp the difference which exists between man and the whole animal kingdom. This contrasting difference may be expressed in the words: Man has a biography, but the animal has no biography. In the case of an animal it suffices to describe its species. lather, grandfather, grandson and son — these distinctions do not count in the case of a lion; we do not need to describe each one in particular. Certainly I knew that many objections can be raised: I know that those who. love a dog or a monkey think that they can write a biography of the dog or of the monkey. But a biography should not contain what another person knows of the being that is the subject of a biography, but what that being himself knew. Self-consciousness is essential for a biography, and in this meaning, only the HUMAN BEING has a biography. This would correspond to a description of a whole animal-species. That each group of animals has a group-soul, is the external expression for the fact that each individual human being bears a soul within him. I was able to explain to you here that a hidden world is immediately connected with our physical world; it is the astral world which does not consist of the objects and beings that can be perceived through the senses, but which are woven of the same substance of which our passions and desires are woven. If you examine the human being you can see that he led down his soul as far as the physical world, the physical plane. But the animal has no individual soul upon the physical plane, — you find instead the animal's individual soul upon the so-called astral plane, in the astral world that lies concealed behind our physical world. The groups of animals have individual souls in the astral world. You see, here you have the difference between man and the animal kingdom. If we now ask ourselves: What is really waging battle, when we observe the struggle for existence in the animal kingdom? — we must reply: In truth, the astral battle of the soul's passions and instincts stands behind this struggle of the different species in the animal kingdom, the battle of soul-passions and instincts which is rooted in the double souls, or in sex. But if we were to speak of a struggle for existence WITHIN the same species in the animal kingdom, this would be the same as if the human soul were to wage war upon itself in its different parts. This is a very important truth«, We cannot accept the rule that a struggle exists within the same animal species, but a struggle for existence can only take place between DIFFERENT SPECIES; for the soul of one whole species is the same for all the animals belonging to it ... and because of this it must control the single members. In the animal species we can observe mutual help and assistance, which is simply the expression for the uniform activity of the species or of the group-soul. And if you consider all the examples mentioned in the. above-named interesting book, you will obtain a beautiful insight into the way in which these group-souls work. We find, for example, that when a specimen of a certain species of crab has accidentally fallen on its back, so that it cannot turn around alone, a number of animals in its neighbourhood come along and help it to get on its legs again. This mutual support comes from the soul-organ which the animals have in common. Follow the way in which beetles help each other when they have to protect a brood, or tackle a dead mouse, etc., how they unite and carry out their work together, there you can observe the activity of the group-soul. It is possible to observe this right up to the highest animal-species. Indeed, those who have some understanding for this mutual support and assistance among animals, also obtain insight into the activity of the group- souls and an idea of how they work — and just there they can develop a spiritual vision. The eye acquires sun-like qualities. In the case of man, we have an individualized group-soul. Such a group-soul dwells in each single human being. We must therefore apply to the human beings what must be applied to the different animal species, so that in the case of man it is possible that one human being fights, against another human being; an individual strife is possible. But let us now consider the purpose of strife, whether battle exists in the development of the world for the sake of battle. For what has become of the struggle of existence among the species? The species that supported each other most of all survived, and those who fought against each other perished. This is a law of Nature. Consequently, we must say that in external Nature development progresses through the fact that peace replaces the struggle. Where Nature reached a definite point, where it arrives at the great turning point, we really find harmony; the peace which is the final outcome of the whole struggle, can really be found there. Consider, for instance, that the plants, as species, are also engaged in a struggle for existence. But consider at the same time how wonderfully the vegetable kingdom and the animal kingdom support each other in their common process of development: for the animal breathes in oxygen and breathes out nitrogen, whereas the plant breathes in nitrogen and breathes out oxygen. Thus peace is possible in the universe. What Nature thus produces through its forces, is destined to be produced by man consciously, out of his individual nature. Man progressed gradually and what we designate as the self-consciousness of our individual soul unfolded little by little. We must look upon the present situation of the world as the result of a course of development, and then follow its tendency towards the future. Go back into the past; there you will find group-souls at the beginning of human development. These group-souls were active within small tribes and families, so that we also come across group-souls in the human beings. The further back you look into the development of the world, the more compact you will find the structure of human life, the people will appear to you harmoniously united. One spirit seemed to pervade the old village communities; which afterwards became the primitive State. You can study that when Alexander the Great led his armies into battle, it was a different thing from leading modern armies into war, with their far more developed individualized will-forces. This must be seen in a true light. The progressive course of civilisation consists in the fact that the human beings became more and more individualized, more and more independent and self-conscious. The human race developed out of groups and small communities. Even as there are group-souls that guide and control the single animal-species, so the different nations were guided by the great group-souls. By his progressive education, the human being more and more emancipates himself from the guidance of the group-soul and becomes more and more independent. Whereas formerly he confronted his fellow-men with more or less hostility, his independence brought him to the point of standing in the midst of a battle of life which now takes hold of the whole of humanity. This is the present situation of the world, and this is the. destiny particularly of our epoch or race, that is to say, of the immediate present. Spiritual science distinguishes in the present development of the world five great races, the so-called sub-races. The first sub-race developed in ancient times, in distant India. This sub-race was to begin with filled by a culture of priests; It is this culture of priests which gave our present race its first impulses. It had come over from the Atlantean culture; this developed in a region which is now the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean. The leading note was given by this race and it was followed by the others; now we live within the fifth sub-race. This subdivision is not taken from anthropology or from some racial theory, but will be explained more in detail in my 6th lecture (of the 9th of November 1905: FUNDAMENTAL IDEAS OF THEOSOPHY ). The fifth race is the one which made us progress furthest of all in our individual existence, in our individual consciousness. Christianity was in fact a preparation for the attainment of this individual consciousness; man had to attain to this individual consciousness. If you go back to the time before Christ, to ancient Egypt where the gigantic pyramids were built, you will find there an army of slaves who carried out tasks so difficult and fatiguing that it is hardly possible to conceive this to-day. But for the greater part of the time these workmen built the immense pyramids as a matter of course and they were filled by an immense peacefulness. They submitted to their work because at that time the teaching of reincarnation and of karma was a natural thing. No books tell you about this, but if you penetrate into spiritual science this will be quite clear to you. Each slave who toiled until his hands were sore and who lived in pain and misery, knew: This is one of many lives, and what I am suffering now must be borne as the consequence of what I prepared for myself in my former lives! If this is not the case, I shall experience the effect of this life in my next; and the one who now orders me about, once stood upon the same stage on which I am standing now, or he will do so one day. With such a mentality, however, it would have been impossible to develop a self-conscious earthly life, and the High Powers that lead human destiny as a whole, knew what they were doing, when for a time — which lasted many thousands of years — they blotted out the consciousness of Karma and of Reincarnation. This disappearance was brought about by the great course of development of Christianity, up to the present time; it eliminated the power to look up to another world which brought a harmonising influence, and drew attention instead to the immense importance of this life upon the earth. Though this might have gone too far in its radical application, it was never the less necessary, for the world's course of development does not follow logic, but quite different laws. From earthly life people deduced an eternity of punishment, and although this is nonsense, the tendency of human development led to this. Humanity thus learned to grow conscious of this one earthly existence and the earth, the physical plane, thus assumed an immense importance for the human being. This had to come, the earth had to acquire this great significance. Everything that takes place to-day in the form of a material conquest of the earthly globe, could only grow out of a mentality based upon an education cut out for this earth and emitting the idea of Reincarnation and Karma. We now see the result of such an education: man came down completely to the physical plane during his earthly life; for the individual soul could only unfold upon the physical plane, where it is isolated, enclosed within the body and where it can only look out into the world through the senses, as an isolated individual existence. This brought human competition into the human race, in an ever-growing measure, and the effects of such an isolated existence. We must not be surprised that to-day the human race is not by a long way ripe enough to eliminate once more what was thus drawn in. We saw that the present species of animals reached their state of perfection by mutual help and that the struggle for existence only exists between the species, passing from species to species. But if the human individuality is upon a higher stage the same as the group-soul of the animals, then the human soul will only be able to attain self-consciousness by passing through the same struggles through which the animal-species passed in Nature. This struggle will last until the human being will have developed complete independence. But he is called upon to reach this consciously; consciously he must attain what exists outside upon the. physical plane. Along the stages of consciousness pertaining to his own sphere, he will be guided towards mutual help and support, because the human race is one species. The absence of struggle which exists in the animal kingdom must be attained for the whole human race in the form of an all-embracing, complete peace. It is not struggle, but mutual help and support that led the single animal-species, to their present state of development. The group-soul that lives in the animal-species as an individual soul is at peace within itself and a uniform soul. Only man's individual soul has a special structure within its isolated physical existence. You see, the great acquisition which spiritual development can bring to our soul is to recognise truly the one soul that, fills the whole human race, the unity with humanity as a whole. We do not receive this as an unconscious gift, but we must conquer it for ourselves consciously. It is the task of the spiritual- scientific world-conception to develop really and truly this uniform soul that lives within the whole human race. This is expressed in our first fundamental principle, to establish a brotherly league throughout the world, independently of race, sex, colour, etc. This implies the recognition of the SOUL that lives in the whole of humanity. The purification enabling us to discover the same soul also in our fellow-men must go as far as our passions. In physical life we are separated, but in the life of the soul we are one with the Ego of the human race. This can only be grasped in real life; true life alone can lead us to this. Consequently, only the development of spiritual life can permeate us with the breath of this one Soul. Not the people of the present, but those of the future who will more and more unfold the consciousness of this One Soul, shall lay the foundation of a new human race that will devote itself entirely to mutual help. Our first principle therefore means something quite different than is generally supposed. We do not fight; but we also do not oppose war or any other thing, because opposition and battle do not lead to a higher development. Each animal-species developed into a special race by coming out of the struggle for existence. Let us leave fighting to the bellicose who are not yet mature enough to go in search of the common Soul of the Human Race in spiritual life. A real Society of Peace is one that strives after a knowledge of the Spirit, and the spiritual-scientific current is the true Peace Movement, if is the Peace Movement in the only form in which it can exist in practical life, because it envisages what lives within the human being and what will unfold in the future. Spiritual life always developed as a stream that came from the East. The East is the region where spiritual life was fostered. And here in the West we have the region where the external. materialistic civilisation was unfolded. That is why we see in the East the land where people dream and sleep. But who knows what is going on in the souls of those whom we call dreamers or sleepers, when they rise up to worlds which are quite unknown to the peoples of the West? We must now come out of our materialistic civilisation, and yet bear in mind everything that surrounds us in the physical world. We must ascend to the spiritual with everything which we conquered upon the physical plane. It is more than symbolically significant that in England Darwinism should have found a new representative in Huxley who deemed it necessary to state out of his western conception: Nature shows us that the human apes fought against each other and the strongest remained on the field ... whereas from the East came the watchword: Support, mutual help, this is the guarantee for the future! Here in Central Europe we have a special task: It would be of no use to use to be one-sidedly Oriental, or one-sidedly English. We must unite the morning dawn of the East with the. physical science of the West so that they become, a great harmony. Then we shall be able to grasp how the idea of the future may be connected, with the idea of the struggle for existence. It is more than a coincidence that in one of the fundamental books of Theosophy those who penetrate more deeply into spiritual life will find light upon the path, for the second chapter significantly closes with a sentence which coincides with this idea. “Light upon the Path” does not contain it as a phrase, for spiritual development will lead us to a paint where we shall recognise that the beautiful words at the end of the 2nd chapter in “Light upon the Path” harmonize with the One Soul that enters the individual human soul, flashing up and coming to life within it. Those who immerse themselves in this beautiful little book — which does not only fill the soul with a content that makes us feel inwardly devout and good and that gradually gives man real clairvoyance by the. power of its words — will discover in the single individual this harmony, when they experience what is written in every chapter. The final words, “Peace be with you,” will then descend into the soul. In the end this will be experienced by the whole of humanity, for the most significant words will then be: “Peace be with you.” This opens out to us the true perspective. Then we must not only s p e a k of peace, not only envisage it abstractly as an ideal, make treaties or long for the verdicts of a court of arbitration, but we must cultivate spiritual life, the Spiritual. We then awaken within us the strength which will be poured out over, the whole human race as the source of mutual help and support. We do not oppose, we do something else: we foster love, and we know that by fostering love, every opposition must disappear. We do not set up struggle against struggle. We set up love against struggle, by developing and fostering love. This is something positive. By pouring out love we work upon ourselves, and we establish a society based upon love. This is our ideal. If this livingly penetrates into our souls, we shall realize an old saying in a new way, and this will be in accordance with Christianity. And a new Christianity, or rather the Christianity of the past, will arise again for a new humanity. Buddha gave his people a motto which envisages this. But Christianity contains even more beautiful words on the unfolding: of love, words which should be grasped in the right way: Not by strife we overcome strife, not by hatred we overcome hatred, but strife and hatred can in reality be overcome by love alone.

The Situation of the World

https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA054/English/Singles/19051012v02.html

Berlin

12 Oct 1905

GA054-2

It was not at all that long ago that one considered as something unscientific in certain circles to speak about the human soul as a particular entity. The least understanding is there today if one speaks even about the mind or spirit besides the soul. The subject, which we set ourselves today, is rather extensive. I am only able to show some outlines. Within the spiritual-scientific worldview we are led to that older division of the human being, which is a trichotomy compared with that which has still validity almost entirely in the consciousness of the present humanity, compared with the division in two parts of body and soul. The trichotomy to which the theosophical or spiritual-scientific worldview has to go back again is that of body, soul and mind or spirit. Let us come to an understanding first of all about what we understand, actually, by body, soul and mind or spirit. The body of the human being is something about which we do not require many ideas to understand it. However, on the other side, the idea of the physical, of the external physical is so much the only thing that occupies our present humanity that the understanding about the difference of soul and mind and already about the entity of the soul is rather difficult. Today we have to be mindful — in contrast to some other talks I have held here — of a rather intimate exactness of our concepts and ideas which we want to develop here and, hence, I ask to be allowed to engage your attention to finer distinctions in the human ideas. If a human being stands before you, you will admit without further ado that in the space, which the concerning person fills, his body exists. Because your senses attest this human body to you. However, the human being can look at himself with his senses at least partially, and we can say without thinking, the human being is a bodily being for another sensory-gifted human being. However, in the space, which the human being fills, even more exists certainly, than what your senses can see. It is maybe for the human life — understood in its entirety — the least that the other human being can see with his eyes and touch with his hands. For if the human being speaks about his life, he speaks very seldom about his bodily appearance perceptible to the senses. Then he speaks about his destiny, about joy and sorrow, about pain and everything that lives inside and is not perceptible to the senses at first. A human being may stand before you and another beside him. What your senses perceive of both human beings is not the essential at first, but it is to be added that perhaps in the one human being a sad soul lives and in the other human being a joyful, happy soul exists. In both cases, the internal being of the person fills the space somewhat different from the physical existence. If you put a blind person before another person, this blind person does not perceive the bodily existence of the other person at first. He may be tempted to state under circumstances — if he does not take notice with his sense of touch or in another way — that nobody is in the room because his eye is unable to see. One just needs senses to be convinced of an external sensory existence, senses that are able to perceive this external bodily existence. Now we must ask ourselves, would this external bodily existence not be there if one did not perceive it? Would I not stand also in this place if on all sides nothing but blind and deaf people were who cannot see and hear me? As for me, I would be there, I would be in myself. Just as I am in myself according to my bodily existence, and this must be distinguished from the perception by the others. We have now to soar a view that the same difference exists for that which I have called the second way of existence, for the desire and pain, for the life, which fills the space, but this space fulfilling is not perceptible to the senses. If a person stands before a blind person and this blind person becomes suddenly sighted, the external existence becomes a discernible existence for him. Then the question arises: could not be joy and pain, rage and passion — not perceptible to the senses at first, but living also in the human being like his red blood, his nerves and bones — a discernible entity perceptible to the other human beings? The human being knows what he can perceive. He is a developing being, a being that has developed from imperfect levels in a distant past to his present existence. All organs, which are at and in the human being, have developed gradually. The abilities of seeing and hearing developed bit by bit; the external physical world became a discernible world for the human being, a world that he knows, that he can observe. If the human being develops that way, could we not ask there, whether he is not also able to improve himself further? May it become discernible to him what is not discernible to him even today? — Just as the room in which a human being stands is dark for a blind person at first and he starts perceiving colours and the physical figure if he becomes sighted, nonetheless, it could also be that that which still lives in the room what flashes through the soul would also be made visible, discernible. The human being was led to his external, sensuous visibility by the external forces of the world. He has added nothing there. He was put on the physical plane by the order of nature, equipped with senses to perceive the sensuous world. However, the human being himself can take in hand his further development; he can make himself able to experience other things except the sensuous world round him. This development of a higher life was always nourished and cherished in certain human communities from times immemorial. Just as the human beings have sensuous eyes and sensuous ears at first, the ability to perceive with the eyes and ears of the soul — if I may express myself this way — was developed by the own activity of single human beings. As true as it is that the eye if it opens perceives a coloured world round itself, where, otherwise, darkness was, it is also true that the mental eye is unlocked by a suitable training, so that that which lives in the affects, in desire and grief becomes discernible. The instruction that leads to such higher development of the human being is different from the usual lessons. Our ninth talk will discuss that in detail what one can generally discuss on this internal development publicly. Somebody who wants to know more about this internal development can find out more about that. Today I can refer only to the ninth talk. However, the most necessary should be suggested. The present external civilisation knows very little about those instructions, which the human being must receive to get mental eyes and ears. Only marginal knowledge is there. However, just the spiritual-scientific worldview is appointed to rouse an understanding of the supersensible because it is a necessary requirement for the culture. Today all lessons intend to fill the mind and reason mostly. However, this means that a world of ideas is woken in us that is connected with the external sensuous world. Our external sensuous knowledge attracts more and more increasing attention. However, this is not such necessary; it does not deepen the human being, as splendid as the achievements of our civilisation may be. There was another instruction at all times, an instruction that does not aim at the external expansion of the sensory world, but at the deepening of the world being. I describe it to you only with a few words to give an idea of it. Everything that you read in the scientific writings today has come about by external sensuous observation. Science considers it more or less as something that must not contain what has not come about by external observation. One presupposes that the human being should remain, as he is that he already has the ability to absorb what this science can offer him. However, it is completely different if it concerns the instruction, which should lead the human being to the ability of mental perception. In such schools, one taught something else. At first, no teaching material is handed over to the student that contains as many concepts as possible. Rather a student went to a master and the master accepted him if he considered his disposition as ripe for developing the internal senses. Then he had not to take up much new contents in himself, but he had to become another human being at first. He did not get a book, not special contents, but so-called eternal contents of thought at first, something eternal that was due to those human beings who were further in their development than the remaining civilised human beings were. We have to come to an agreement about what we understand by such eternal contents of thought. Try once to look around in your soul and to ask yourselves: how much of the ideas and thoughts living in me, of the feelings and what is, otherwise, in my soul, belongs to the time and the place in which I live? — Try once to think about what moves your soul from the morning up to the evening, and what would be different, completely different, if you were in Moscow instead of in Berlin, and if you did not live at the beginning of the 20th century, but at the end of the 18th century. Subtract everything that you have taken this way from space and time in which you live, from your soul contents. Try to understand how much of that which you imagine would also apply to a person in another place and time. It is not much. However, there are things, which do not only apply to today and to Berlin, but also to other places and other times. If we ascend in this sense, we detect more and more that our sense is led, like by a great spiritual guide of humanity, to such eternal contents of thought. The religious scriptures of all times are full of such things, which are independent of space and time. To mention the most trivial I can say that mathematics is something that is independent of space and time. What deals with time and space is itself temporal and transient. However, if the soul devotes itself to the imperishable, it becomes everlasting and imperishable and absorbs what is immortal. Hence, the master gives everlasting contents of thought to the soul at first. The contents that are only related to the core of the soul can be given to everybody, indifferently whether he lives in America, in Japan or in Africa. Then the student had to cut himself off the sensuous outside world and to live with that which lives as strength in him. With immense patience, the deepening had to happen on the inside of the soul. The human inside is something living, and as from the mere cell mass the wonderful construction of the physical eye has originated, the spiritual eye originates in the soul from the everlasting spiritual contents if it becomes engrossed that way and lives in meditation. The physical eye was not always there. It has originated from the confluence of the external physical forces. The human being is able to wake the spiritual eye in the soul if he can be developed by the spiritual contents. Such pupils awaited and awaited in patience, they had to use a big part of the day to their exercises. There were times in which this was possible. Thus, they waited until the internal forces woken by the mental deepening gave them the perception of that which filled the space as desire and grief, as instincts, passions, and impulses. A physical eye sees because the external source of light throws rays on an object. One cannot see without light. Eye and light belong together. In the sensuous outside world, eye and light are two separate things. In the soul, the spiritual eye is woken, and this is at the same time the source of a new mental light. We ourselves must emit this light which makes the mental visible that stands before us. If you have received the inner light this way, by sinking in your inside and the awakening of the internal life linked with it, your own astral body starts shining from the inside and lights up everything in truth and reality like the sun the objects. However, you do not light up the external world, but that which is mental which lives in the human being as an affect; this becomes visible by the rays, which you yourselves emit. Thus, the human being is able to make discernible for himself what is not discernible externally. All great guides of humanity who have spoken to us about the soul — do not believe that they had empty phrases and words in mind only. One knows nothing of the depths that have moved and caused the human culture if one believes only in the sense world. One normally speaks from the immediate view. Envisage, for example, the relation of soul and body as I have just discussed it, then you must say to yourselves, this relation of soul and body is such that something mental penetrates the bodily that stands before. As true as it is that this body that you call your own is fed from the outside by foodstuffs and is thereby animated and supplemented from outside, as true it is that this body is animated, penetrated and lighted by the mental. If this body sleeps, the mental is not in it at first, then it is separated from it, it is outside it. Then we cannot speak of the fact that the mental streams into the body. A German theosophist, a deep spirit, characterised this relation of soul and body in a wonderfully attractive way, which one understands only properly if one makes such requirements as we have just done. This theosophist — we are allowed to call him a theosophist — speaks about the sleep, when the soul is not in the body, in a peculiar way. He says, “Sleep is the digestion of the soul; the body digests the soul. Being awake means the effective state of the soul — the body enjoys the soul.” It is a wonderful comparison. As one enjoys the food with the absorption of nutrients, the body enjoys — this theosophist thinks — the soul, which lives in it. As well as the body, after it has enjoyed the food, digests it, the body digests in the sleeping state what the soul has sunk into it. This saying of our German poet and theosophist Novalis (pseudonym of Friedrich von Hardenberg, 1772-1801, poet) is very beautiful. You can find a source of the most beautiful spiritual-scientific wisdom with him. Only the spiritual-scientific worldview can understand him. I could state countless things of the German culture that would show you how the great seers of humanity spoke of soul, body, and their relation to each other with expertise. The third thing about which we have to speak is the mind or spirit. We summarise desire and grief, pain and joy, passion, instinct and avidity and what else under the name “soul.” If one asks what the soul is, then we say, what gets the living existence inside at first. Someone can attain the perception of this soul who has received an education as I have just described it. Mind or spirit exists not only inside of the human being, but also everywhere in the world. You can convince yourselves of that by a very banal thinking activity. All human beings in the world think, think in that which is round them. They get knowledge of the world round them with their thoughts. These thoughts are not only expression of that which lives in the outside world, but also of something that does not live in the outside world. If you oversee the universe, your sense sees an enormous sum of stars and processes, and then there comes your reflection and gets a concept of these stars. If your sense sees a drop of water, your reflection gets a concept of this drop of water. Briefly speaking, you are not contented to perceive the things; you also want to understand them. This is something different from mere sensuous perceiving. If you have a glass without water in it, you cannot pour out water from it. If no thought and no concept were in the space outside, one could also not get out them. It would be illusionary to think about the world if the world were not built up according to thoughts. The stone about which you think and which you understand must have originated from a thought, otherwise the thought could not be got out. If you do not want to get involved in absurd contradictions, you have to admit that the thoughts are as true in the world outside as the thoughts in your head inside. You think, and the thoughts that live in you are not different from those, which have built up the world. Thus, we have three aspects: The sensuous in the world, the material existence, perceived by the external senses; The soul which we experience and which that soul, which is instructed in that way about which I have spoken, can also perceive, and The mind or spirit that we assume all over the world as that which flows through it like a fluid and announces the being of the things to us at first. The human being can perceive this spirit first of all where it appears as such. What he can perceive is its external physiognomy, its sensuous expression. You do not see the spirit in the world, but its sensuous expression. The human being thinks in the spirit. Indeed, the thought lives in the world, but the human being cannot see it. He can only think it. As true as you yourselves think about the world and as true as a spiritual mirror of the world forms, as true it also forms in every other human being. This other human being is not only desire and passion, but this spiritual mirror of the world also lives in him. One can perceive this with the spiritual eyes and ears. It is true that that internal training about which I have spoken produces not only the ability to perceive the soul of the human being, but the human being can also develop the ability in himself to see the thoughts of his fellow-man, to understand and perceive the worldview, the whole environment. When the human being perceives not only the external portrayal of his thought, but the thought itself, when he is able to open his spiritual ears to the universe, then he will really perceive the thoughts, the spirit of the world. Then the star appears to him not only as a star, but the star says something to him. The stones, the rock crystal, for example, appear to him not only water-clear, but it also announces its being to him. Then the human being can face everything in a new way with such a deepening, as it has been suggested, so that the things speak sounding round him, say their innermost names to him, announce their being to us. The old Pythagoreans meant this. They had such a training and initiated into such a hearing of the world speaking of the sphere music. It was not a mere comparison; it was the immediate percipience and the bringing to awareness of that which is hidden, otherwise, behind the things. The spiritual eyes disperse this veil of nature, and the harmony that is hidden behind this veil starts sounding. Goethe also means that with his words in the Prologue in Heaven (Faust I) . You read no phrase there. It would be a phrase if Goethe spoke of the sounding sun. However, no, he speaks: “In ancient rivalry with fellow spheres the sun still sings its glorious song and it completes with thread of thunder the journey it has been assigned.” These words sound from the world music of the world spirit. Goethe continues this later once again, where he says, “Hearken! Hear the onrush of the Horae! In these sounds we spirits hear the new day already born.” If the human being develops this ability, he becomes aware of the spiritual. Then his soul perceives the thought as distinctly as the usual human being perceives his body. Body, soul, and spirit are the three members of the human being. He is a bodily, physical being at first. In his inside, the mental existence lives and develops. In this the spirit of the whole world — as far as the human being can grasp it — is reflected and lives as the third member. From the outside into the inside and from the inside again to the outside, this is the way, which the human being walks from the body through the soul to the spirit. What gives us generally the possibility to have such a mental existence? We owe this possibility to the fact that we can live in the soul. We live in desire and grief, in pain and joy even if we do not perceive it externally. We also live in our body, but we perceive it also from the outside. It is a difference between these two fields of existence. In the spiritual-scientific worldview, one calls that which one has round himself as one has the external bodily round himself: existence of complete consciousness. Our consciousness combines with the bodily existence first. This consciousness lives only on the physical plane that way and we call that the physical plane, which spreads out round us to the senses. What lives in our soul is different. One calls it life, and one calls this life existence on the so-called astral plane. The physical plane and the astral plane are both realms in which the human being lives. On the physical plane, the human being is aware, on the astral plane, he lives only. There he forms the things that are outside him not yet consciously. However, he lives in the mental or astral. The third kind of existence is the spiritual existence. In general, as present human beings we do not yet live in it or only partially at most. However, while we settle in the spirit, this spirit combines with our soul bit by bit. We could say that this soul spreads over the whole environment, it becomes bigger and bigger. If the human being seizes the outside world, grasps the sense and the spirit of the outside world, then he is no longer concluded in his inside. Then he walks daringly out of himself and combines with the things around him. Compare the animal with the human being in this respect. The animal lives, so to speak, completely in the soul. It does not create concepts of the environment. It does not spread its soul over the spiritual of the world. This is also the difference between the human being and the animal. The animal lives and weaves, so to speak, in his inside. However, the human being emerges again from his inside. We could also say, the human being exceeds his self (German nonce word: sich entselbsten ) . The human being has always soul, inner life. This inner life is there. However, the development of the human being consists of the fact that he spreads this inner life over his environment, over that what is around him, over the spirit; it streams out over the whole world. If this happens, the human soul combines with the everlasting of the human being. Then this marriage of the human soul with the everlasting, the world spirit, takes place. When this union of the human being with the everlasting world spirit takes place, this whole sum of joy and grief changes, this whole world of impulses, desires, and passions in our inside, the whole astral body of the human being becomes different. That desire, those instincts of the human being, which he got, when he arose from nature's hand, which he has in common with the animal, all this soul life disappears and passes and belongs as such to the transient. Try to visualise once what lives in such instincts, sufferings, and joys in the human being and how this life takes place in the human being. They are connected with the transient. The human being starts stepping out of the circle of this transient. He refines his impulses and desires, his passions, he ceases to appreciate or displease what is bound to place and time. He rises to that which lies behind the things and is just hidden by the veil of the sensuous. This is something important if the human being starts enjoying not only what his eye gives him, but also what the impressions of his eyes bring from the spiritual world to his soul. This is a great moment in the human development when the human being is no longer following his sensuous instincts only, but is led by supersensible motives, by moral ideas and concepts that do not penetrate from the outside but from the spirit. Just as the body is interspersed with the soul, the soul is interspersed with the spirit. Consider the human being on certain former stages of development, there you find his physical being, which is interspersed with the soul. While the human being stands as a body before you, he realises his existence in his desires and passions. More and more comes from the supersensible into the soul. It is infiltrated with the spiritual. This process lifts the soul out of time and space. What is beyond time and space is imperishable, remains as the everlasting in the soul. Thus, you see that just as the soul is embedded in a body, the spirit is embedded in the soul. As the imbedding of the soul in the body points us to a distant past, in which they were connected bit by bit with each other, the union of the soul with the spirit points to the future of humanity. This development takes place gradually. It takes place at first in such a way that the spirit penetrates the soul more and more. Consider how the beginning of the spiritual contents is in the soul at first. Imagine, you have an object before yourselves. You look at it as a sensuous object. You turn round: the sensuous object is no longer before you. However, a picture of this sensuous object is before you. We call this the idea of the object, the memory of it in a certain respect. This remains in the soul. This is the first element that the spirit gains ground in the soul as memory. We could not absorb anything from the spirit of our environment if we were not able to know anything about the objects when they do no longer stand before us. The first element of the spirit lives in the human being. It is to the objects of the environment, as it is also to our own soul. Get clear in your mind, which role memory plays in our soul life. The animal completely lives in the present. Of course, the levels or degrees, which I indicate, are more extremely expressed than they are in reality. The animals have also to go through a certain spiritual development, but I have to express it somewhat extremely to bring the matter to mind. What the animal feels and experiences today is the central issue for it. The spiritualisation of his whole being means to the human being that he is able to live beyond the present. While we take the memory with us from our spiritual into our present, we spiritualise ourselves more and more; thereby we grasp the spirit in the first element. I have the spiritual before myself, if I remember the experience of yesterday. Memory is one of the most important moments for the spiritualisation of the soul life. Memory ties on the spiritual-mental existence that is connected with the external from birth up to the present. If we could not remember the past days, we would have little spiritual contents only. There are tribes even today that do not have such memory. There are still tribes which forget the experience in the cold, and that is why they must look for a protecting shelter for themselves every evening anew. Somebody who strives for a higher development takes up the memory and trains it more and more. Here begins the possibility to look beyond our transient existence, which is enclosed between birth and death. Imagine that you have made a point of bringing in sense and reason to life by memory, and of living not only in the present, but learning more and more to have the whole life like a tableau before yourselves, with the consciousness that that can flow out only from your whole temporal being what you want to accomplish. If this is the case and if this is used again to wake up the internal forces as I have indicated this just now when I spoke that you have to live up the soul contents by contemplation, then you can try to extend the review farther and farther, make it more and more concrete and go back to birth. You can do this. However, infinite patience belongs to it; we shall still speak of these methods. Then you also see that of the soul which is not enclosed between birth and death. Then you learn to tie in with other things what takes action within this life between birth and death. There you learn to tie in your present with your past by the very own consideration in the memory and to reasonably connect the effect of today with the cause of yesterday; there you learn to pursue the inner thread of cause and effect in your soul. Then the same strength, which leads you back to your present life, leads you beyond birth. Because you have learnt to look at cause and effect in the soul independently, you experience what was before your birth, how you lived before your birth. By the gradual development of this sense, the human being gets knowledge of his previous lives. The principle of re-embodiment or reincarnation becomes a fact to him. Sharpening the sight for the temporal in the inside world we attain the mental ability to make reincarnation or re-embodiment a fact for us. What do we do in this case? In this case, we penetrate the soul with that which connects us with the mental. There our sight extends inside. While we grasp the spirit of the outside world by understanding the outside world, pour out our soul over the outside world, and extend it, we spread the consciousness about the mental itself coming beyond our birth. Thus, our sight extends more and more, and thus we look from that which is bound to place and time to that which follows each other in the sequence of times. From there, we take possession of the essence of the human being that is imperishable and everlasting. The human being spiritualises himself more and more. The first stage is if he comes out of joy and sorrow and develops feelings for the supersensible, a sort of joy and sorrow. The further he develops this, the more Plato's beautiful sentence comes true to him: the body is transient because it subsists on transient food; however, the spirit is imperishable because it subsists on everlasting food. — The relationship of body, soul, and spirit is this way. The body passes. What you can see of the human being is handed over to the earth at death. However, what lives as joy and sorrow in the human being, the soul, has not originated at birth, but is tied together with something that extends beyond birth. Thus, the soul existence extends beyond the borders of birth and death. However, what the human being absorbs in himself, while he goes out of his soul again and combines with the spirit, connects this soul with the everlasting springs of existence. This deifies the soul. The human soul becomes visible outside the body. As far as it is bound to the body and is one with it, it is something transient. If the soul combines with the spiritual, it thereby becomes more and more everlasting and imperishable. With it, we come to the point where we understand what human self-knowledge is, what true cognition of the human inside is. At first, the human being experiences his soul in his inside undergoing joy and sorrow. However, then this soul realises images which disappear again. Something revives that is hidden to the mere senses. The human being has as the bare thought in himself what revives there in the soul. However, he connects this thought with his soul in the course of his life. He learns to feel and sympathise with the spiritual and, in the end, he likes the spiritual with pleasure as he only liked the sensuous with pleasure before. The desire applies, in the end, to everything spiritual. Selfishness becomes the unselfish love of the imperishable. In selfishness, the human love is grasped in the soul. But while we grasp it deeply inside as spirit, we realise that we find this self in the whole remaining world, that we are connected with the whole remaining world and that as we are born from the physical it is as true that we are born as a spirit any time from the spiritual universe, the spiritual-divine world. If we look for our higher self, which exists like a spark in us, we see the spiritual in the whole environment. This is the great knowledge of wisdom that the Vedanta philosophy sums up in the saying: tat tvam asi — Thou art that. — If the human being is aware of his spirit and his development begins to go out into the world, then his self extends to the spirit of the universe, to an existence of a spirit self, and we are with our very own being everywhere. Then that which was mere understanding becomes emotionally related content, and this is the real elevation of the soul to the spirit, the elevation to the real spiritual life. There is a beginning of the spiritual life; however, it is dry and cold. There are people who only become warm if it concerns something mental, human beings who are glad and suffer, only if it concerns something mental, pain and desire. They say that the spiritual is something dull and cold. If they look up to the stars, they regard the thoughts about them as abstract; but they are dry and cold in their intellect. However, if the soul seizes the spirit, we feel, we think not only with the universe, because then the view changes by reason and mind into the mental conception of the whole universe. What was only desire once becomes now the desire of the spiritual, what was love in the mental becomes now love of the spiritual-divine in the world. Our feeling, which we have closed inside, spreads about the whole world. Our self flows out, and we become one with the all-embracing spirit. We lose our selves and we find ourselves in the all-embracing spirit. This is something higher than the mere thinking. In the mental, the human being has got the sensation. In the spiritual, he starts being able to operate the spirit. However, he will also come there where he reaches the spirit with the sensation. Then he is on the divine stage. He has to climb up this ladder with his own strength of connecting the soul with the spirit, so that they become one. This is true self-consideration. If we grasp the divine spirit flowing through the world not only with the reason but also with the heart — as we meet a friend and feel warmth in the heart — then we penetrate from the head and its wisdom to the heart and its love of wisdom of the whole world. Thus, we rise raising our soul, and we get not only to know our narrow-minded inside this way, but we extend our selves and find ourselves outside in the world. I have stressed it often and often: Look at your inside only, there you find the divine human being. No, you only find in yourself what you have in yourself. If you want to find more in yourself, you must develop this higher self first, and you develop it, spreading out the higher self about the whole world. Those who advised self-knowledge to a human being did not mean idle examining of his inside. This self-knowledge is considered as we have grasped it now, as an ascent of the soul to the spirit. Then the human being no longer feels any difference between himself and the animal, the plant and the stone. A general feeling of a universal brotherhood permeates his heart. And then, and only then if the human being has this in mind, he understands as the last destination of the development from the bodily-mental to the mental-spiritual the beautiful word of the poet and seer ( The Novices at Sais by Novalis, 1802): “Somebody was successful to lift the veil of the goddess at Sais. — But what did he see? He saw — miracle of miracles — his self!” The spiritual scientist adds: he finds the divine in his self, and this is just theosophy, divine wisdom to raise the heart, the soul to the spirit, so that one succeeds in connecting wisdom with the divine and to have not only understanding, but the general feeling of the divine world.

Fundamentals of Theosophy Soul and Spirit of Man

https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA054/English/RSA2014/19051019v01.html

Berlin

19 Oct 1905

GA054-3

With somebody who hears the word “social question” today, the most different sensations stir according to his situation and experience and the seriousness with which he is able to take life. Thus, it must be compared with a question that should deeper occupy our time, actually, than it occupies it. Indeed, this seems to be paradoxically expressed. Those who are touched immediately by that which the word social question encloses deal indeed enough with it. However, those who are preserved even today to come into immediate contact with that which forms the basis of the social question as a cause are not still convinced thoroughly enough that every thinking human being should absolutely occupy himself with it. Those who take each day as it comes and probably blink the requirements of the day may experience that either they themselves or their descendants have negative experiences just because of their ignorance. You hear even today when people speak of the social question in the sense that our time must find a way out from the situation in which many human beings got into because of the form of our social life: there were always rich and poor people; there was always a social question as long as humanity lives and strives. Hence, it is not surprising if in our time those want to express this more or less distinctly who are not blessed with worldly goods and want to conquer that in conflict which fortune does not give them. There were always rich and poor human beings, those who were depressed and those who were blessed more or less with possessions. With these words, one probably wants to wipe away the peculiarity of the social question, wants to darken it. One points to the slave revolts of antiquity, to the revolts in the Middle Ages and to other events where the depressed ones tried to get their rights, and one consoles himself with such phenomena. Today everybody should know, actually that the social question is really something new in the human life, that it is something different from similar movements in other times of the historical life. For those who look for a solution of the social question today are persons within our social order first who exist with this character and stand before us since a short time only. This depressing fact is a result of the last 120 to 130 years at most; this originated due to the present, infinitely important progress of the human civilisation. We see this progress coming up at the end of the 18th century, when those machines etcetera emerged from the heads of our inventors. Since life flows together more and more in the industrial centres and cities, the wageworker, the proletarian appears in the modern sense of the word. One cannot separate the social question from this human class actually created due to the immense progress of civilisation. The slave of antiquity struggled, actually, only if he felt depressed in particular, and he did not have the consciousness that his life could be improved or his oppression could be reduced with any other social order. It was similar in the Middle Ages, too. However, the modern proletarian demands more and more that not this or that single matter is to be combated, but that only a thorough reform, maybe also a radical change of the conditions, can generally change his situation. This conviction has found an immense propagation, a much bigger propagation within the working class than those believe who close their eyes. It is sometimes for someone who figures the matters out quite astonishing that; nevertheless, there are always still people who do not have seriousness enough to go into these matters. It could seem rather odd if anybody examined such a practical demand of the day, such a question of life from the point of view of spiritual science. For the most people have the idea of it that it is something impractical, the most impractical stuff of the world that it has arisen from the heads of some dreamers and deals with all kinds of matters not dealing with reality. Indeed, people hear that there is the spiritual-scientific movement, which teaches about various things and beings of a supersensible world round us and about the supersensible basis of the human being himself. Indeed, one also hears that this spiritual research speaks of many facts, for example, of the repeated lives on earth and of the great principle of the spiritual causing of our actions and destinies. One hears that it leads up to all kinds of higher worlds et cetera. Now someone can simply think, which practical and interesting facts of such a question of life like the social one can anybody recognise who occupies himself with such things! However, life praxis has a particular explanation. We want to speak once about this subject just to show how spiritual science has a real significance only if it is able to intervene in the practical questions of life. At the same time, we ask ourselves, what have we to direct our attention upon, if there is talk of the social question? — The social question exists, the appearance can convince us of it, and this appearance convinces somebody most urgently who deals with life. We could show that with the boom of our industry — just in England — social conditions of the most dreadful kind have originated. It was for those who wanted to make industry fertile for what they called their world solely the question: how does one get labour force the cheapest? — There we see those excesses then which were often described how industry also produces strong shadow beside strong light and how the blessings of our machines, railways, and steamboats develop during the 19th century. However, we also realise that in the wake of that the human being must work, now and again for working hours, which certainly exceed all that is humanly possible. We know that in the 19th century not only adults had to work for 12, 16, 18 or even 20 hours. People who are not immediately touched know nothing about these matters. We also know that one employed children of the tenderest age in an almost unbelievable way in factories. We know how people have become blind to the impossibility of such a thing. We only need to point to a fact that once in a parliament one discussed whether it is not incredible that children are employed in the industry for eighteen to nineteen hours, as it was the case, and a doctor countered that this had to be that way in some cases! One asked the gentleman whether he did not regard a working time of 24 hours as something impossible. He replied, I have convinced myself by deep reasons that the commonplaces that are talked in such matters cannot always be taken seriously, and I cannot furnish particulars of any working time below 24 hours, which could be anyhow detrimental to health. — Such a thing characterises the situation more than even the fact in which humanity has been brought by that which is such a blessing for it at the same time. Who has not realised in life — if he is able to open his eyes — that now and again human beings of the tenderest age cannot learn anything if they are sent to school. All attempts and ideals to make them human beings are of no avail because they are not equipped — because of the social need — with those forces which are sufficient to a humane existence. It is impossible to describe the social need in which humanity was often brought; I had to unroll too many pictures. However, we can no longer deny that one fact is sure: that big progress of the human mind, which has constructed the machines etcetera, which has spun round our whole earth with a matchless traffic network, this development of the human mind did not keep abreast of the reflection that is the optimal way of the human living together. Today nobody would believe that a machine constructs itself that no intelligence, no mental power must be applied to bring a machine into being and to create a traffic system. However, how many are there today who — even if they do not admit it — take the view in their innermost feeling that the human co-existence originates completely from itself that one does not need any mental strength to intervene in it as one intervenes in a factory. Indeed, one does not need to go as far as a great naturalist of the 19th century who said, oh, humanity has made immense progress of the knowledge and understanding of the world; however, concerning morality it has not taken a step forward! — One does not need to go so far, but it is a fact which nobody can deny that only a very few human beings who are not immediately touched by the social misery feel the necessity today to deal with the social question. However, if we look at those who deal or should deal with the social question, what about them? There a book appeared, for example, not so very long ago by the councillor Kolb: As a Worker in America (1904). The man left his office with immense unselfishness, with a real devotion for a while and went to America. He worked hard in a bicycle factory to get to know the social life. I have to say first — that nobody may reproach that I judge unfairly — that his action is an exceptionally meritorious one that one cannot appreciate it enough. However, we want to look at a single statement of this book. You read a rather typical sentence in it: “How often have I asked once seeing a healthy man begging with moral indignation: why does this beggarly fellow not work? — Now I knew it.” He adds, “In theory, one looks at it somewhat different from in practice, and one deals even with the most joyless categories of economics still quite tolerably with the study.” One would like to say that a whole world of human sensations and human work speaks from such a sentence. We have a man before us who got the position of a councillor. He discloses that he has known life so little that he called everybody a beggarly fellow who did not work, that he had to leave his office and go far away to America to get to know the life for which he should give advice, to which his actions referred. One can study; one can advance to an excellent position and can be in need of such! One does not have eyes to see to the left and to the right; one knows nothing about life. This is possible! If we notice such a matter, we may raise the question whether it could not be that the conditions of certain matters are bad because anybody on whom it depends disdains to get to know life. One talks about a lot of improvements, proposals, and matters that one should establish. Human beings must establish them. May there not be a little difference between things, which persons have established who understand something of life, and things, which such persons have established who admit so brilliantly that they understand nothing? What is the use of all talking if one does not see that it depends on somebody who talks about it and knows something about it? How much of that which whirrs through life may be quite empty gossip and how much could be really accomplished and come into being? The question is probably justified. Many people think about the social question; too many, if we consider the question more seriously if we consider what is necessary to understand something useful of this question. Today there are many people who say: at the moment when the conditions become better when the conditions are changed, the life of the human beings and their situation will be better, too. — We know that above all the most comprehensive social theory in the present, socialism, also positions itself on this point of view. We know that it always stresses, do not give us all kinds of proposals how the human beings should become better how the human beings should behave! Do not give us all kinds of moral demands! What it depends on, is merely — they stress this — to improve the conditions. Symptomatically you can face such a starry-eyed idealist who represents his social theories at different places of Germany and says repeatedly, yes, people state that the human beings had to become better first if the conditions should become better. However, he says, everything depends on the fact that humanity is transported to the right conditions. — He also tells that one limited the pubs here and there once and that then less drunkards were there, and, therefore, some people were doing better. Then he preaches to the workers that charity, mutual brotherliness is an empty phrase. Everything would depend on causing such conditions of employment and life that everybody has his sufficient existence, and then the moral condition would already become better by itself, too. You know that socialism develops such a view extensively. This is nothing else than a result of the materialism in our time, that materialism which cannot look, like spiritual science, into the inside of the human being and cannot recognise that any social condition is created by human beings, is the result of human thoughts and feelings. Socialism, however, believes that the human being is a product of the external conditions. This belief paralyses the fruitful consideration of the social life in the highest degree. It is paralysing, and we do not want to state any theoretical proof of it, but we want to adduce a historical evidence. If anybody was suited for a social reformer, it was Robert Owen (1771-1854) living around the turn of 18th to the 19th centuries. He had two virtues that enabled him to intervene in the social life from his point of view: a candid look for the industrial progress and for the damages, for human welfare and human luck, which this progress brings. He had a candid look and an open heart for human grief, and on the other side, he had a good will and initiative to give at least a number of human beings a worthy existence. He lived in a materialistic time at first and, therefore, he was, like so many, depending on the theory that one needed to cause suitable conditions only to develop a thoroughly moral humanity. Therefore, he founded a little colony in America, which one could call a model in every respect if the condition had been right. He had guaranteed a humane existence by means of external facilities to the people. Among diligent and keen people, he had neglected ones whom the example of the first should inspire to become decent human beings. An exemplary economy developed that induced the idea in him to try the same in a bigger scale. Then there came the second colony, which was formed as practically and humanely as the first. However, he who had put up not only the theory that the improvement of the conditions must cause the improvement of the human destinies had to experience the disillusion which we characterise with his own words. Because the human beings were not ripe for the conditions he wrote, what does any improvement of the conditions help if not the general moral and knowledge are raised before? First, it depends on informing the human being about his inner life, above all, about his soul forces; then only one can envisage to solve the social question rather worthily. A practitioner, no theorist judges that way, and it is typical in certain respect how little humanity learns from facts that one maintains the same theories in spite of this repeatedly. However, someone who is able to see a little deeper into the human souls knows that such an individual case is generally connected with the development of the human souls in the present. Whether the one or the other admits it or not, it is the basic conviction that everything can be done if one changes the external conditions, and finds a remedy quickly with the damages which threaten humanity. These are the basic convictions in our time. If we see, for example, repeatedly that laws are justified saying: one is not allowed to deliver the inexperienced humanity to these or those people, and then one does not notice at all that one would have another task than to make laws, that one should teach the inexperienced humanity, so that it could determine their actions itself. One does not easily look from the conditions to the human beings. However, this is the task of spiritual science. It completely turns away from the conditions and completely to the human beings. We ask ourselves, where from do the conditions round us come? — In so far as they are not imposed by nature, they are the results of the human feeling and thinking. The conditions of today were thoughts and intentions of human beings who have lived once. The conditions are in such a way because human beings have thought them that way. If we want to improve conditions, we have to learn above all to develop better thoughts, feelings, and intentions. However, if we look around among the social theorists, even among the most radical ones, the social democrats if you like, then these theories mostly do not go beyond that which the human beings have always thought. They have originated from the same thoughts and impulses from which our conditions have arisen and have led to our situation. We must be able to have human beings who know life and know what is about the forces that work behind life. What did Robert Owen lack? He himself had to admit: knowledge of human nature! — One never gets to know the human being if one puts up a worldview that is directed only to the external appearance. As long as the human being does not know what is hidden behind this physical corporeality and he thereby does not attain the ability to look, so to speak, behind the scenes, he is able by no means to understand something about the forces controlling life. However, this is just the task of spiritual science. One may admit that it does not fulfil its task everywhere sufficiently; one has to admit that within the circles looking for it one often plays with the highest questions of existence. That does not matter, but it matters what the spiritual investigation can mean to us. It can be not only something that teaches us that gives us dogmas, but it can be a powerful education of our innermost soul forces. This is the best that one can gain from spiritual science if we consider the spiritual-scientific worldview from the point of view how it transforms the human being. Then the picture presents itself this way. We speak here about views that the spiritual investigation has about the various fields of life. We were able to speak about this and that of its teachings. However, we will not speak about that. Someone who familiarises himself with spiritual science will notice one thing: concerning one important point it distinguishes itself from everything that is, otherwise, theory today. This is important. In most cases, the human being soon finishes if he should develop a worldview, and he likes it very much if he can have a rounded off worldview as soon as possible. It is clear to experts of the conditions that many a materialist is a materialist only because he does not go far with his thoughts because he falls short. Materialism makes it easy for its followers, very easy. One can oversee the construction of the world from purely material facts easily and see — particularly if it is still illustrated with photos — how the human being has developed. One needs only to stare at them and can pursue the whole way of the world evolution using the usual ideas of life. It is simple to follow what the materialists say about the riddles of the world because the thoughts do not tangle up because no particular requirements are imposed. The matter is not so easy with spiritual science. It does not make it easy for the human being, because it starts from the real and the true requirement that the secrets of the world are deep and that you must dig up deeply into the basis of the things if you want to understand the world. What spiritual science teaches about the development of the universe and the human being gets the thoughts in manifold tangles. That forces the human being sometimes to deal with details and, on the other side, he is led to the greatest perspectives. However, that has a certain result, and about this result, I want to speak openly. It trains and prepares thinking there where we face this complex human life in the single case to understand this life. Someone will say, the worlds that spiritual science describes have made me quite dizzy. Is this a bad sign of spiritual science? It would be better if this approach did not make the human being dizzy, but strengthened him, and then he would be ready to understand life with strong soul forces. However, the practical ideas about the world and life are such ones: if a human being thinks about the riddles of the world in short thoughts, he also thinks about the social order in short thoughts. Thus, we see that that which famous people think about social questions is a rather precise picture of that which is offered to us as a materialist worldview unable to penetrate into the depths of life. Besides, everybody has the uncertain feeling that that which causes difficulty for him is a fantastic, dreamlike stuff, and that spiritual science would have to be a fantastic, dreamlike, at least rather idealistic stuff, in any case, unsuitable for practical purposes in life. Indeed, Fichte (Johann Gottlieb F., 1762-1814, philosopher) said more than hundred years ago to his Jena students: those practical people to whom comprehensive ideas always seem impractical because ideas and ideals are not always applicable in life prove only that in the plan of creation one did not count on them. May a benevolent providence give them sunshine, food, and clever thoughts! — Fichte also spoke about the incapability of some people to imagine the spiritual aspect of the ego: “One could most people convince to regard themselves as pieces of lava on the moon than as egos.” However, it is a necessity of life to imagine the ego. If we consider life and the social question from this point of view, we must say that we consider spiritual science as the great school of life. It makes it impossible that one goes through life, receives a certain position, even becomes a councillor and becomes a life coach, and has to go far, far away to get to know life once during a vacation in order to be convinced of the fact that not everybody who does not work is a beggarly fellow. Such a thing becomes impossible by spiritual science. Hence, we do not speak only about a spiritual point of view, about any spiritual-scientific views concerning socialism, but we talk about something else. We consider spiritual science as a real thing, not only as a sum of dogmas, but as something that gives knowledge and wisdom, which flows directly in the immediate life at every moment and opens our eyes, so that we cope with this life. Thus, spiritual science is the general basis of any judgment whether we judge in the field of the social life or that of education. Our judgment becomes sounder because it arises from the true human nature, if we start from spiritual-scientific points of view. We say that someone himself, who is infiltrated with that which spiritual science is able to give, gets to a correct judgment. Anybody may ask, how does a follower of spiritual science think in which way this or that parliamentarian has to judge about a question if he has judged wrongly according to his view? — This is no correct question from the spiritual point of view, but one has to say, it does not concern of saying how this or that should think, but one is convinced that he has — if he is filled with basic truth — a clear judgment on every post. We do not dictate his judgment to him, but he finds the correct judgment. In this respect, spiritual science is the most liberal life principle that can be there. It is not dogmatic, but it gives the human being the possibility to have his own, sound free judgment always and everywhere. Conditions — we have started from it — are often regarded as that which can change the human being, and one thinks in the abstract how conditions can be changed. Spiritual science is solely concerned with the real human soul, with the relations from human being to human being. It is quite impossible today to go into single concrete matters of the social question. However, I want to point to this or that to find the components that show us the way where we are in life to intervene correctly. For it is our task to intervene. If we want to find the components, we ask ourselves, which is, actually, the basic fact, the basic phenomenon on which all misery, all social grief may generally depend in the world? — Spiritual science can show us this basic fact, putting us before a fact that most people do not understand and acknowledge today. This fact is connected with a basic phenomenon of any development. I would like to say, speaking dryly, it shows us by deeper views on life that poverty, grief and misery not only — and least of all if one finds the underlying cause of the things — depend on external conditions, but on a certain soul constitution and in the connection with it on its external effects. The practitioner who regards himself as much cleverer thinks that this is ridiculous. However, one can only stress that it is the most practical in life. It is the sentence of which you persuade yourselves more and more that need, misery and grief are nothing else than the results of egoism. Like a physical law we have to understand this sentence, not in such a way that possibly with a single human being need and grief happen if he is always selfish, but that this grief is connected with this egoism — maybe at another place. Like cause and effect, egoism is connected with the need and grief. Egoism leads to the struggle of existence in the human life, in the social human order. The struggle for existence is the real starting point of need and grief, if they are social. Because of our modern way of thinking there is a conviction to which appears absurd what I have just stated. Why? Because one is persuaded today that a big part, by far the biggest part of the human life must be built on egoism. Indeed, with words and theories, one does not want to admit it, but in practice, one will soon admit it. One admits it in the following way. One says, it is quite natural that the human being is paid for his job that he receives the yield of his work personally — and, nevertheless, that is nothing but the implementation of egoism in the economic life. Egoism controls us as soon as we live by the principle: we have to be paid personally; one has to pay to me what I work. — Truth is a long way from this thought so that it seems quite senseless. Who wants to convince himself of the truth about egoism has to go more intimately into various universal principles. He would have to abandon himself thoughtfully to the question whether the work that is paid personally is really life-sustaining, whether it depends on this work? — It is curious to put this question. However, not sooner than one thinks about it, one is able to inform about the social question. Imagine — this is a paradoxical comparison — a man transported to an island. He has only to supply himself. You say, he must work! — However, he must not only work, this is not the point, but something must be added to his work. If the work is only work, it can eventually be useless for his life. Think once that the man on the island would do nothing but to throw stones during fourteen days. This would be a strenuous work, and according to usual human concepts, he could earn quite a lot of wage. Nevertheless, this work is not at all connected with life. Work is life-sustaining and has value only if anything else is added. If this work consists of the cultivation of the soil and one receives the products of the earth, then work has something to do with life. We see even with lower beings that work is separated from production. Thus, we see a possibility to get to the tremendously important sentence that work as such has no meaning for life, but only that work which is guided wisely. What is to be produced using human wisdom serves the human being. The modern social thinking offends against this sentence because it does not understand in the least. It does not depend on the fact that anybody invents beautiful abstract theories, but the real progress depends on the fact that every single human being learns to think socially. Modern thinking is often antisocial. It is antisocial, for example, if anybody is on Sunday afternoon outdoors and says, animated by occasion: I write twenty postcards. It is correct and socially intended to know and to feel that these twenty cards cause so many postmen climbing so and so many stairs. It is social thinking to know that any action, which one does, has an effect in life. Now, however, somebody comes and says that he thinks socially inasmuch as he understands that more postmen must be employed and get their bread because of this card writing. — This is, as if one thinks of anything that one wants to build in order to employ unemployed workers. However, it does not depend on job creation, but that the work of the human beings is used solely to create valuable goods. If one thinks that through to the last consequences, it does no longer seem so strange if the ancient sentence of spiritual science is pronounced which sounds today as incomprehensible as possible: in a social living together, the impulse of working must never be in the own personality of the human being, but only in the dedication to the community. This is also often emphasised, but it is never understood in such a way that misery and need originate from the fact that the single human being wants to have paid what he has worked for. However, it is true that real social progress is only possible if I do that which I work for in the service of the community, and if the community gives me what I need, if, with other words, what I work for does not serve me. The social progress depends solely on the recognition of this sentence that someone does not want to get the yield of his work as a personal remuneration. Somebody leads an enterprise to quite different purposes who knows that he should have nothing for himself from that which he works for, but that he owes work to the social community, and that, vice versa, he should claim nothing for himself, but limits his existence to that which the social community gives him. As absurd this is for many people today, as true it is. The opposite fact influences our life today: by the claim of the worker to get the full yield of his work more and more. As long as the thinking moves in this direction, one comes into worse and worse situations. This antisocial thinking tempts to shift all concepts. Think once how within the widespread socialism one speaks of exploiters and exploited. Who is the exploiter, and who is the exploited from the view of clear thinking? Let us look at a worker who produces a garment for starvation wages. Who is his exploiter? Perhaps, the man who buys the garment and pays a very low price for it. Does only the rich man buy this garment? Does the same worker who complains about exploitation not buy this cheap garment? Does he not require today, within the social order, that it should be as cheap as possible? You see the working woman who works with bloody fingers during the week can wear the dress for a cheap price on Sunday because the human labour of another person is exploited! That has nothing to do with wealth or poverty in front of the clear thinking, but solely with our idea of human relations in the world. Anybody could easily say, if you demand that the existence of the human being should be independent of his performance, then an official complies with the ideal most nicely. The modern official is independent. The measure of his existence is not depending on the product, which he produces, but from that which one regards as necessary to his existence. — Indeed, but such an objection has a very big mistake. It depends on the fact that everybody is able to respect this principle and to implement it in life freely. It does not matter that this principle is carried out by general power. This principle has to penetrate every single human life to make the personally acquired independent from that which one works for the community. How does it assert itself? There is only one possibility to assert itself, which will seem rather impractical to the so-called practitioner. There must be reasons why the human being works; nevertheless, namely rather diligently and devotedly if no longer the self-interest is the impulse of his work. Somebody does not create anything real concerning the social life in truth, who takes out a patent of any achievement and shows this way that he regards the self-interest as significant in life. However, somebody works really for life who is led by his forces to right achievements merely by love, by love to the whole humanity, which he gives his work with pleasure and willing. Thus, the impulse of work must be in anything else than in remuneration. This is the solution of the social question: separation of remuneration from work. For this is a worldview which aims at the spirit to wake such impulses in the human being that he does no longer say: if my income is secure, I can be lazy. — A spiritual worldview can only achieve that he does not say this. Any materialism solely leads to its opposite in the long run. Anyone may now say: this is a nice little test of the social question; this is rather cute! Have we not always preached this, the one may say, that the human beings are selfish, and that one must count on their egoism? Now there comes the spiritual worldview and says that this can change. — Indeed, one has always preached that this could not be different and one was very proud of it and said, someone is a true practitioner who counts on the human egoism. — Indeed, but here the thinking of the people does not turn the tables. For those who blame everything for conditions, for facilities must admit that at least — because just the conditions were in such a way as they have developed up to now — that also this desire and impulse came into the human being. However, there the thinking becomes too short. For, otherwise, they would have to say, yes, quite different surroundings are created at any rate, if the idea becomes established that it is indecent to found everything on personal self-interest. Materialism becomes inconsistent there even compared with its own requirements. We must understand that the impulses of spiritual science could never be given to the human development up to now. In this respect, it is a new spiritual movement, and it will have the strength to work on the innermost soul because it penetrates into the innermost world. Only a worldview that penetrates the core and fetches truth there can show us the true face of the world. It is never right that we can become bad by true knowledge if we see the true face of the world. Nevertheless, it is true that the bad in the human being can come only from mistake and error. Hence, spiritual science bases because of its knowledge of the human nature on the fact that it will achieve that with which just the noble Owen deceived himself so much. He says, it is necessary that the human beings are enlightened first so that moral is improved. — Spiritual science, however, says, it is not sufficient to emphasise this principle, but the means must be given by which the soul can be improved. If a spiritual worldview improves and strengthens the souls, the conditions and external relations will follow because they are always reflections of that which the human beings think. The human beings are not determined by conditions, but the human beings make these conditions, as far as the conditions are social. If the human being suffers from conditions, he suffers in truth from that which his fellow men bring on him. Any misery that has come with the industrial development came only from the fact that the human beings did not bother to apply the same strength of mind, which they had applied to the beneficial external progress, to the improvement of the destinies of those persons who are needed for the transformation of this progress. Whatever you have studied in the external life, study the laws of the human living together equally busily! If, however, human beings live together, not only bodies, but also souls, minds live together. Hence, only spiritual science can be the basis of any social worldview. Thus, we see that, indeed, the deepening of the mind can enable us to assist from our low posts within our sphere in the big social progress. For this progress is not achieved by an abstract rule, but it is a sum of that which the single soul does. Only a worldview like spiritual science approaches the single soul in such a way that it really raises this soul above it. If our social misery has its reason in the personal self-interest, in the position in our social orders, then only a worldview can help which raises the ego out of the personal self-interest. As peculiar as it appears, food originates not only from our work; food originates also from the spiritual-scientific deepening instead of need, grief, and misery. Spiritual science is a means to give the human being food and prosperity, in the true sense of the word. Thus, it is really justified, even concerning our changed conditions, what Goethe said about the real liberation from all obstacles and misfortune of life. Goethe says in the poem The Secrets : “From the power that ties all beings that human being frees himself who overcomes himself.” That sentence that Goethe said about the single human being also applies to humanity in as much as this human being is a social being: those human beings who overcome themselves free the world from the power that ties all beings.

The Social Question and Theosophy

https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA054/English/RSA2014/19080302p01.html

Hamburg

2 Mar 1908

GA054-4

Translator Unknown It may perhaps seem strange that something like our theme today, which touches so strongly on current everyday issues, could be considered from the world-view of Spiritual Science, from a view of life and the world today which looks to the very greatest enigmas of human existence. In many circles which occupy themselves with Spiritual Science, or in such circles as have heard something of the spirit in this world-outlook, there is the view that Spiritual Science is something that does not concern itself in any way with current questions, with the interests of immediate life. People believe — some as a reproach to the Theosophical movement, and others seeing this as one of its advantages — that Spiritual Science concerns itself only with the great questions of Eternity, that it holds itself aloof from everyday events. People consider it, in both a good and a bad sense, to be something unpractical. But if, in our time, Spiritual Science is to fulfill a task, a mission, then it must take hold of what moves the heart, it must be able to take up a position with regard to those questions which play into our day-to-day thinking and into our day-to-day striving and hope. It must have something to say about those questions which are a part of our times. For how could it be that questions which come so close to the human soul — like the question concerning women which is to occupy us today — how could it be that these, too, should not be judged from a world-view which looks to the great problems of human existence. And it is just this that is often and rightly said against Spiritual Science; that it has not found the way to life as it is in reality. Nothing would be more wrong than if Spiritual Science were to be led increasingly into asceticism, into a direction hostile to life. It will prove itself far more by building a real foundation for the practice of life. It must not float in Cloud-cuckoo land or lose itself in bare abstractions, but must have something to say to human beings of the present. Just as we have spoken here about the social question, today we want to speak from a great cultural standpoint, from a spiritual-scientific standpoint, of the question regarding women. Of course, no one must imagine that Spiritual Science should speak about this question in the same way as do politics or current printed matter. But then again, one should not believe that what, in effect, is a sort of parochial politics is the only thing that is practical. The individual who has always shown himself to be truly practical is the one who can see beyond the immediate present. And who was the practical individual when in the last century the postage stamp had to be invented and introduced into everyday life, and which since then, has transformed the whole of our life of public commerce, our whole social life? It happened little more than fifty years ago. The idea of this arrangement — the practicality of which is doubted today by no one — came at that time from someone not engaged in practical things. The Englishman, Hill, did not work for the Post Office. But one who did, had the following ingenious comment to make; One could not believe that this arrangement would cause such a great change in commercial or business life, but were that to be the case, the post office buildings would not be large enough to cope with the postal demands! Another example. When the first railway was to be built from Berlin to Potsdam, the head of the Post Office, Nagler said, ‘Well, if people want to throw their money out of the window they might as well do so directly. I send two post-coaches and nobody travels in them.’ And of course you know the other incident which occurred in the Bavarian college of doctors: the learned gentlemen were asked, purely from a practical, medical point of view, if the nervous system could stand it if railways were built. The learned gentlemen said it was unpractical to the highest degree, because it would cause severe damage to the nervous system. This is by way of illustration of the relation of the ‘practical people’ — in matters of the issues of the day — to those who, with somewhat broader vision, see beyond into the future. These, the disparaged idealists who do not remain attached to what has been the ‘done thing’ since the days of yore, these are the really practical ones. And from this point of view Spiritual Science appears also today as a vehicle which carries the answers to many questions — and also for our question today. For this reason anyone who deals with these questions from a higher point of view can accept such a reproach without feeling uneasy, and can remember other examples where, believing they had a monopoly in practicality, people have judged in a similar way. Few will deny that the question regarding women is one of the greatest present questions of our culture, for today this is simply a fact. There are opponents to certain views on the question of women, but the fact that this question exists will be denied by no one. Yet if we look back to times that are not so far behind us, we find that even the leading scientific and other great minds have seen in the women's question something absurd, something to be suppressed by all possible means. As an example, we can recall the statements of the anatomist, Albert, a truly significant man, who twenty five years ago, pitted himself with the greatest energy against the admission of women into the learned professions, and who, from the standpoint of his anatomical-physiological knowledge, tried to prove that it would be impossible for women to get into the educated professions or ever be able to fulfill the profession of a doctor. With the great authority of natural science it is hardly surprising that one believes those to be capable of judgment who, in relation to the natural-scientific view of the human being, are supposed to know something. A short while ago a booklet came out in Germany: ‘Uber den Physiollogischen Schachsinn des Weibes’ (Concerning the physiological feeble-mindedness of women). This booklet stems from a man Möbius, who indeed, is not at all an insignificant physiologist, who has said some good things, but who, on the other hand, has exposed not so much himself but the science of Physiology to ridicule by presenting, little by little, all the various great personalities of world-historic development of recent times — Goethe, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche — as pathological phenomena. He has done this, furthermore, in such a grotesque and radical manner, that one would have to ask with each genius, ‘Where does the insanity lie?’ Goethe, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche — all are dealt with from the standpoint of psychiatry, of psychological pathology. When one goes more deeply into these things, they all fall into only one category — one that is characterised by the example of the famous naturalist who tried some time ago to attribute the ‘inferior talent’ of women to the lighter weight of the female brain! This is no fable! This man asserted that the greatness of the spirit was dependent on the size of the brain, and that women, on average, have a smaller brain than men. And quite truly it then happened that the methods of this learned professor were applied to himself. After his death, his brain was weighed, and it turned out that he had an abnormally small brain, a much smaller brain than those women whom he held to be of inferior mind because of their lighter brain weight. It would be mischievous if one were to try and examine, from a psyche-pathological standpoint, a booklet like this one on the physiological feeble-mindedness of women, and if one were to try to catch out the writer in question as happened in the case of Professor Bischoff. So you can see that the women's question does not bear witness to the fact that those who opposed it were particularly discerning The question regarding women includes far more than that of admitting women into the learned professions, and of the question of women's education. The issue concerning women embraces an economic, a social and a psychological side, and many other aspects as well. But it is precisely the question of women's education that has, in fact, borne fruits. Almost all the opinions in this area that have been formed out of theory have been refuted by actual practice. Little by little women have fought for, and won — in spite of the opposition of the opinions of a man's world — admission to most male professions, including that of lawyer, doctor, philologist and so on. Women have taken up these professions under significantly less favourable conditions than men. One has only to consider under what unfavourable circumstances women have recently entered universities. With the normal educational preparation this is really not to difficult, but women had to get there with very much less preparation. Not only through tremendous hard work, but also through a broad spectrum of abilities, they have for the most part overcome all the difficulties. In determination, in hard work, and also in mental ability they are in no way inferior to men, so that reality in practice, has resolved the matter in a completely different way than many, twenty to thirty years ago, had imagined in theory. Various professors, led by their prejudices, refused women entry into university. And yet today, very many women graduates stand in the world, in no way less able or less perceptive than men. This however, illustrates the outer situation alone, and only shows us that we must look more deeply into the nature of the human being, into the nature of women, if we want to understand the matter as a whole. For there is no one today who would not be affected in some way by the significance of this question. Although women have won access to the learned professions — and to numerous others — and although, in actual practice a large part of the question concerning women's abilities has been answered, nevertheless, if we wish to progress consciously, clearly, and with insight, if we wish to discuss this question from all sides, then we must look more deeply into the nature of the human being. What a lot has been said about the difference between man and woman! Everywhere today you can read in short reviews how many different opinions there are concerning the difference between men and women, and how, from these differing opinions people have tried to form a view concerning the question of women. A great deal has been written on the psychological aspect of the women's question. There is no better book on this aspect — in so far as such books are written by non-theosophists — than the one by a gifted woman who is active generally in present day literature: ‘Zur Kritik der Weiblichkeit’ (A critique of femininity) by Rosa Meyreder . You can find different views catalogued elsewhere so let us look at a few of them. Let us take the man Lombroso . He describes Woman by saying that at the centre of her emotional character is the feeling of submissiveness, the feeling of dependence. George Egerton on the other hand says that every woman who looks dispassionately at a man sees him as a big child, and it is precisely from this that the love of power, of domination comes, which is so totally inherent in a woman that it insinuates itself more and more into the central position in the female soul. A great scientist, Virchov , says that if one studies Woman from an external, physiological standpoint, one finds gentleness, mildness and calmness to be the basis of her being. Havelock Ellis , an expert of equally high standing in these matters, says that the fundamental characteristic of the female soul is quick temperedness, initiative and daredevilry. Mobius finds the basic feature of the female nature to be conservatism: to be conservative, he maintains, is the life-element of the female soul. Against this we can put the judgment of an old and good expert of the psyche, Hippel . He says that the real revolutionary within humanity is Woman. Go to the vast majority of people and you will find a very strange but fairly common view of the relation between intellect, feelings and passion in men and women. Then, in contrast look at Nietzsche's view. He says that the intellect belongs primarily to Woman, and feelings and passion to Man. Compare this with the common view. It is the exact opposite. Thus we could say a great deal and, on the one side, could list all the views which ascribe to woman all the passive, the weak qualities, and on the other side all those which maintain the opposite. But certainty comes somewhat to a standstill when so many different views are possible. Science too has occupied itself a great deal with this question, and Science enjoys great authority. But the statements of scientists concerning the real fundamental characteristics of woman immediately start contradicting one another. And if we move on from scientists and psychologists to cultural history and hold to what has always been said — that man is the really creative active one, and woman more the companion, the follower — then such a view would be prejudiced because we have taken too short a time span into consideration, one has only to look at those peoples who still represent what is left of ancient cultures, or at primitive peoples, and one has only to follow the history of humanity's development to see that there were times once, and there are still such peoples today, in which the woman, in the most eminent sense, participated and participates in ‘masculine’ work. In short, the opinions vary in all directions. Even more noticeable for us is the fact that a woman of one particular people (or nation or tribe) will differ far less from a man of the same people than from a woman of another. From this we can draw the conclusion that we should not talk at all in terms of man and woman, male and female, but that, alongside the characteristics of sexual gender, there is possibly something far more important in human society than the sexual characteristics of gender and which is quite independent of them. If one looks impartially at the human being, it is usually possible to distinguish what is of necessity connected to all that is related to the sexes, and what points beyond these connections into other realms entirely. Of course a materialistic view of the world and of the human being, which recognises only what can be touched and seen, naturally sees in man and woman only the big physiological differences; and anyone who remains with this materialistic view will simply miss, will overlook something that is far greater and more decisive than sexual differences — he will overlook the individuality which goes beyond gender and is independent of it. To shed light here, to see the human being here in the right way: this must be the task of a world-view oriented towards the spirit. Before we look at the women's question from this point of view, we will just look at aspects of what this question represents. People talk about ‘the women's question’ in general, but this also, like the concept of Woman, is an unacceptable generalisation. One should not really speak of the women's question in general at all, because this question must he modified in relation to the different social classes of humanity. Does the question concerning woman exist in the same way in the lower classes, in the manual-worker class, as in the educated classes? The lowest classes, the actual manual workers, try with all means at their disposal to get their women out of the factories and the textile mills, so that they can be with the family. The higher classes strive for exactly the opposite. They strive to make it possible for the woman of the family to work in the world outside. This then is something of the social aspect of the women's question. Alongside this, of course, there is also the general social question concerning women which demands for them in the political and cultural context the same rights as those enjoyed by men. People have the view today that they are speaking of things which must follow from the very nature of humanity itself. People do not consider, however, that the life of humanity changes far faster than on the surface it may appear to do. A man, Naumann , who from his political standpoint also occupied himself with the women's question, was at pains to study in connection with this the St. Paul's Church discussions of 1848 in which a lot was said concerning human rights. There they debated to and fro the self-evident rights of man. Nowhere, however, is it mentioned that these rights should be the same for women as for men. That never entered anyone's head. The women's question came into this area only in the second half of the 19th century. And it seems fully justified here to throw up the other question: How is it then that this aspect of the women's question has been considered only in our time? Let us be quite clear about this. In many ways today the women's question is presented, from both the masculine and the feminine side, as though it is only now that women have to struggle to gain a definite and significant influence in all areas of life. In many respects these discussions are characterised by great shortsightedness, for one must ask oneself: In other times, in all earlier times, have women then had no influence at all? Have they always been fettered beings? It would be ignorance if one were to assert such a thing. We can look at the age of the Renaissance and take one of the most widely-used books about that period — the book by Burckhardt. Here we see what a profound influence women had, for example, on the whole intellectual life of Italy; how woman stood in the foreground of intellectual life, how they were equal to men and played a great part. And finally, had one spoken of women's lack of influence in the first half of the 19th century to such an individual as Rahel Varnhagen, she would have been astonished that such a theme could have been brought up. She would not have understood how anyone could think in such a way. But there is many a man today who exercises his general right to vote, or even debates in Parliament and gives long speeches, who is truly a non-entity when one thinks of the entire cultural progress that has been brought forth by this woman, Rahel Varnhagen. Anyone who studies the intellectual life of the first half of the 19th century and sees what sort of influence this woman had on the men of the 19th century, will no longer be tempted to say that woman was a being without influence on those times. The matter simply rests on the fact that opinions have changed. One did not believe at that time that one needed a simple right to vote, that one had to debate in Parliament, or that one had to study at university in order to have an influence on the course of culture. One looked at it differently in every way. This is not said with any conservative intention, but as evidence that the whole question is a product of our present culture and can be posed only today in the way it is posed at present, and can be posed only today in all areas of life (not only in the area of higher education). Just take a look at the relation of man and woman in earlier times when quite different economic conditions prevailed. Look at the peasant woman, the female labourer in earlier centuries. One cannot say that the peasant woman had fewer rights than the peasant, or a more limited sphere of influence. She had one particular department to look after and he another. And it was just the same in the crafts. What in the working classes has today become the real women's question has become so because in past centuries and particularly in the last century, our culture has become, in the greatest sense, a male culture (Männerkultur). The age of the machine is a product of the male culture, and it is simply the quality and nature of this culture that renders far more impossible the way a woman can work and be active than was the case in earlier economic life. Woman is not suited to the factory and there are quite different problems there than when she is engaged in the farmyard, in the house or in the old craft-industries as manageress, contractor or co-worker. Also, as regards the academic professions, everything in our world, in our perception, has changed. Our whole estimation of the professions has become something different. It is not so long ago that what today is regarded as a learned profession was really little more than a higher craft. There was a particular way of being active in law, in medicine, and even a relatively short time ago it would never have entered anyone's head to derive a religious world-view from what was presented in medicine, in law or in natural science. Today it is the specialist knowledge of what is researched in the laboratory that has gradually become the domain of men; and it is from this that a higher world-view is extracted. Earlier, however, like a spirit over everything that was studied in the university faculties, there hovered Religion and Philosophy — and it was within these, to begin with, that higher education was to be sought. The truly human element that which spoke to the heart and soul, that which spoke to the human being of his yearnings and hopes of eternity, that which gave him strength and certainty in life — this element was the same for both men and women, it arose from an origin other than from the laboratory or from physiological research. One could attain to the highest heights of philosophical and religious development without any kind of academic education at all. One could do this at any time — even as a woman. Only because the materialistic age has made so-called positive science with its so-called facts and basis of higher problems only because of this is it so that, alongside the general inclination arising from practical life, another inclination, one of the heart, a longing of the soul had to arise and drive women even to look into the mysteries offered us by the microscope, the telescope, and the research of physiology and biology. For, as long as people thought that decisions could not be made by means of a microscope concerning the life and immortality of the human being, so long as people knew that these truths had to be drawn from quite other sources, there could not be such a clamouring for scientific studies as there is today. We must be aware of this: that the trend of our age has generated this desire for academic education and that the women's question itself has come up in our time through the whole nature of our culture. However, in contrast to everything that this new age has brought, in contrast to everything that rests on a purely materialistic basis, we also meet, in the spiritual-scientific outlook, a movement that is still little heeded. It is the spiritual-scientific world-view which will have to solve the questions of Life and co-operate in all the cultural streams and strivings of the future. But no one can fail to recognise this world-view when one believes it to be nothing but the imaginings of a wild fantasy. Yet it is the outcome of the spiritual research of those best acquainted with the needs and longing of our time, who take it most seriously. Only those who do not wish to know anything about the needs of our time can still remain distant from this world-stream which extends eminently and practically into all questions. Spiritual science is not something that indulges in unfruitful criticism, it is not something conservative. It regards materialism as justified, and takes into account that it arose in the last century. It was necessary that old religious feelings and traditions lost their importance in comparison to the claims of the natural sciences. Spiritual science can see how it has come about that physiology and biology have become deniers of immortality, even if it doesn't agree with them. This had to happen. But humanity will never be able to live without a glimpse of, without knowledge of real super-sensible, spiritual things. Only for a short time will people be able to keep on making do as they do today with specialist knowledge and with what arises in many ways from this direction as religious results or non-results. But a time will come when people will feel that the wellsprings of the spirit in life must be opened. And Spiritual Science is the advance post of this battle for the opening of the true spiritual wellsprings of humanity. Spiritual Science will, on a much broader basis, be able again to tell humanity how it is related to the being of the soul, to what rises up above the transient and the fleeting. On a far broader basis than was ever formerly the case in the public world, Spiritual Science will proclaim that which gives certainty, strength, courage and endurance in life, that which can shed light into those questions which occupy day-to-day living and which cannot be solved from the material side alone. It is a strange coincidence — many will understand this that at the beginning of the Theosophical movement there stands a woman, Helena Petrovna Blavatsky — that precisely here we have the unprecedented experience, that here we have a woman with the most all-embracing mind, with the most penetrating force and energy of mind who has written works compared to which all the spirituality which our culture (Geisteskultur) has otherwise produced is but a trifle. Now, perhaps you believe nothing of the so-called occult teachings, the so-called insights into the spiritual world that are contained in Blavatsky's ‘ Isis Unveiled ’ or the so-called ‘ Secret Doctrine ’ — perhaps you believe nothing of this; but take a look at these books some time and ask yourself: ‘How many thinkers of today have known more penetratingly about so many things as Blavatsky?’ The two enormous volumes of The Secret doctrine give information on almost all areas of spiritual life, ancient culture, ancient religion; on all possible branches of natural science, social life, astronomy and physiology. Perhaps what is said there is incorrect; but even if it were, I would still ask you: who is in the position today to speak in such a competent way even if incorrectly — about all these areas, and to show thereby that he has acquainted himself deeply with all of them? you need only take into account not solely the correctness, but also the breadth of mind — which cannot be denied — and you have the example of a woman who has shown, not in this or that branch of human thinking, but in the entire range of human mental and spiritual life what the female mind can achieve with regard to a higher world-view. Even if one takes an unbiased view of Max Muller's works on religious history, and compares their content with the all-embracing content of the Secret Doctrine , one will see how far the latter surpasses the former. Thus it is a strange circumstance that a woman stands at the outset of this Theosophical movement. This is perhaps explained precisely through those things which have also shown us the women's question as arising from our present intellectual and spiritual life. If we look more deeply into the course of human spiritual development, then what otherwise might astound us will perhaps appear as a spiritual-historical necessity. In order, however, to be able to do this fruitfully, we must briefly look once more into the being of Man. We will give a picture, sketching human nature in broad outline. What materialism, what the everyday world-view of human beings is aware of, is regarded by spiritual-scientific research, by Theosophy, as just one part of the human being. I can only give you a few rough sketches today. They are not mere imaginings or daydreams, but are things that are as certain as mathematical judgments are for mathematicians. So, what the human being knows in his everyday view, in his usual knowledge of human beings, is just one part of the human being: the physical body. This human physical body has the same physical and chemical forces, laws and substances that are found outside in so-called inanimate nature. Outside are the forces which form the dead stone and are the ‘life’ within the stone and the same forces are also in the physical body of the human being. Beyond this, however, the spiritual-scientific world-view sees a second body in man's nature, to begin with, which man has in common with plants. Present-day science in its speculations already speaks a little of that which Spiritual Science is pointing to, of a particular ‘life-principle’, for the laws of materialism which, fifteen years ago were still valid for many, have been overcome by those with insight. But present day scientific research will only be able to deduce this second body through a kind of speculation. Theosophical, spiritual research, however, has reference to the testimony of those who have a higher faculty of perception, and who have a similar relation to the average person in the street as does a sighted man to a blind one. This research has reference to the testimony of such individuals who know this second body as something real, something actually there. Anyone who knows nothing of this has no more right to judge than a blind person has the right to pass judgment on colours. All talk of limits to human knowledge is a nonsense. One should rather ask: Is it not possible for the human being to rise to a higher level of knowledge? Are not what one calls the eyes and the ears of the spirit perhaps a reality? There have always been individuals who have worked on certain latent faculties and who can thus see more than others. Their testimony might be just as valid as the testimony of those who look through the microscope. How many people have actually seen what the scientific history of creation teaches? I would like to ask, how many people have seen what they talk about? How many, for example, have in actual fact, proof of the development of the human embryo? If they were to ask themselves such questions they would see what a blind faith it is that governs them. And if it is a justified faith, then the faith based on the testimony of the Initiates who speak from their spiritual experiences is equally justified. Thus, in a spiritual-scientific sense, we speak of a second body of man's being. It is the same thing which, in the Christian religion, we find designated by St. Paul as the spiritual body . We speak of the etheric or life-body. Any particular sum of chemical and physical forces would never crystallise themselves into a life form if they were not formed principally by that which permeates every living body as its etheric or life-body. Thus we call this second body the etheric or life body. It is that which the human being has in common with the entire plant and animal world. But the plant does not have what we call urges, desires, passions. A plant has no inner sensation (Empfindung) of pleasure or pain, for one cannot speak of sensation when one observes that a being reacts only to what is external. One can only speak of sensations when the outer stimulus is reflected inwardly, when it is there as an inner experience. This domain of present-day physiology, which speaks of a body of sensations in the plant, only shows a tremendous dilettantism in the comprehension of such concepts. Where animal life begins, where pleasure, pain, urges, desires and passions begin, one speaks of the third body of the human being, the astral body. Man has this in common with the whole animal world. Now there is something in the human being which goes over and beyond the animal world and which makes man the crown of creation. We can best bring this before our souls by making a small and subtle observation. There is in the whole range of the language one name which differs from all others. Everyone can say ‘table’ to a table, or ‘chair’ to a chair. But there is one name which cannot be used in the same way. No one can say ‘I’ to me and mean me. The word ‘I’ can never fall on our ears when it means me. People have always felt this to be something of essential importance. And one found, even in the most popular of ancient religious faiths, that an important point regarding the soul lay here. Where the soul begins to feel the divine in itself, where it begins in this dialogue with itself to say ‘I’ to itself, to converse with itself in such a way that cannot come from outside, then that is where the divine being of the soul begins its path of development in man. The god in the human being is made known here. The secret and ancient teachings of the Hebrews perceived this. Thus this name was called the unutterable Name of God, the name which means: “I am the I-am”. In the belief of the Old Testament, this name signified the annunciation of the Godhead in the human soul. For this reason tremendously powerful feelings and sensations went through the throng when the priest announced this name of the Godhead in the human soul: Jahve. This is the fourth body in the human being, with which his external nature ends and his divinity begins. And we have seen how man is guided, as it were, by outer forces upwards to the ‘I’. There he stands, and from then onwards he begin to work in himself. This ‘I’ works downwards into the three other parts of the human being. Be quite clear about this difference that exists between human beings from this point of view. Compare a savage with an average European, or with a noble idealist perhaps Schiller or Francis of Assisi. If the astral body is the bearer of desires and passions, we must say: the astral body of the savage is completely surrounded by the forces of Nature, but the average European has worked something into his astral body. He says to himself of certain passions and desires, ‘you cannot pursue these’ — for he has transformed his astral body. And it has been transformed even more by such a personality as Schiller, and still more by a personality who stands in no relation at all to passions — such as Francis of Assisi — and who has completely purified and is master of this astral body, over all urges and desires. Thus one can say of a human being who has worked on himself, that his astral body consists of two parts. One part is that which is given by Nature, by divine powers; and the other is that part which he himself has developed within it. This second part, the part transformed by the ‘I’, we call Spirit-Self or Manas. Now there are things which go more deeply still into the nature of man, where the ‘I’ works down further than just into the astral body. As long as you check your vices simply by moral and legal maxims, you are working on your astral body. But there are other cultural means whereby the ‘I’ works on itself, and those are the religious impulses of humanity. What stems from religion is a driving force of the spiritual life, is more than external legal maxims or moral tenets. When the ‘I’ works on the basis of religious impulses it works into the etheric body. In just the same way, when the ‘I’ is absorbed in gazing on a work of art and gains an intimation that behind the existence of the senses there can be embodied an eternal, hidden element, then the artistic image works not only into the astral body of the human being but ennobles and purifies the etheric body. If you could only observe, as a practicing occultist, the way in which a Wagner opera works on the different members of the human nature, it would convince you that it is especially music which is able to send its vibrations deep into the etheric body. The etheric body is also the bearer of everything that is more or less permanent in human nature. One must be quite clear what kind of difference exists between the development of the etheric body and the astral body. Let us recall our own life. Just think of all you have learnt since you were eight; it is a tremendous amount. Consider the content of your souls: principles, mental pictures and so on. These are changes, transformations of your astral body. But now think how little in most people — there has been a change in what we call habits, temperament and general abilities. If someone is short-tempered, this already showed itself early on and has changed little. If someone was a forgetful child, he will still be a forgetful person today. One can show this unequal development by a small example. Think of this development as if the changes in the astral body could be shown by the minute-hand of a clock, and the changes in the etheric body by the hour-hand. What the human being changes in his etheric body, what the ‘I’ has made out of the etheric body, is called Buddhi or, if one wishes to use the term — Life-Spirit. There is a still higher development which the occult pupil undergoes. This rests on the fact that one becomes a completely different human being in the etheric body. When the ordinary person learns, he learns with the etheric body. When the pupil of Spiritual Science learns, he must become a different person. His habits and temperament must change; for it is this that allows him to see into other worlds. His whole etheric body is gradually transformed. The most difficult thing for a human being is to learn to work, even into the physical body. One can become master of how the blood circulates; one can gain influence over the nervous system over the process of breathing and so on; one can also learn here. When the human being is able to work into his physical body and learn thereby to enter into a connection with the Cosmos, he develops his Atman. This is the highest member of the being of Man; and because it is connected with the process of breathing (Atmung) it is called Atman. Spirit-Man is then found in physical man. Thus, just as the rainbow has seven colours and the scale seven notes, so we have seven members of the being of man. The human being, then, consists of: first, the physical body; second, the etheric body; third, the astral body; fourth, the ‘I’; fifth, Manas; sixth, Buddhi; and seventh, Atman. When Man arrives at the highest stage of his development, when he makes his own physical body, then we have true Spirit-Man. Now with regard to the question concerning us today, we must look more closely at this being, at this nature of Man. A riddle in the relations between man and woman will resolve itself here in a strange way out of human nature itself. It is precisely occultism, or the intimate observation of the human nature, that guides us into the physical body, the etheric body, the astral body, the ‘I’, and that which the ‘I’ has done. In every human being — this is a fact — the etheric body consists of two parts; the etheric body of a man, as he lives among us, shows itself to have feminine features, and the etheric body of a woman to have masculine features. Many facts in life become clearer when we recognise that in a man there is something of the feminine nature, and in a woman, a more masculine nature. From this it can be explained why certain character features can arise in Man. In truth we never have before us in the physical, material human body anything other than a physical expression of the totality of the individuality. The human soul forms for itself a body with two poles, just as a magnet does. It forms for itself a masculine and a feminine part, each of which can be either a physical body, or reacts at another time as the etheric body. Hence, with regard to those emotions which are associated with the etheric body — devotion, courage, love — a woman can clearly evince masculine characteristics, and a man womanly characteristics. In contrast, with regard to all those characteristics which depend more on the physical body, the consequences of gender will express themselves in outer life. Hence it seems clear that in every human being, if we wish to consider him as a totality, we have a phenomenon before us with two parts — one revealed and material, and one hidden and spiritual. And only that man is a complete human being who is capable of combining an external masculinity with a beautiful feminine character within. And it is precisely this that the greatest spirit, namely, those of a mystical nature, have always felt in the spiritual life of the past. This is an important point. Men have played a greater part because materialism impels itself towards an external culture. This external culture is a man's culture because it was meant to be a material culture. But we must also be aware that in the development of world history one cultural epoch gives way to another, and that this one-sided masculine culture must find its completion through that which lives in every human being. One senses this precisely in the age of this masculine culture. That is why, when the mystics spoke from the innermost depths of their souls, they defined this soul as something feminine. And it is from this that you find everywhere the comparison of the soul, receptive as it is to the world, with Woman; and on this is based Goethe's saying in the ‘Chorus mysticus': Everything transient Is but illusion The inadequate — Here it becomes event; The indescribable — Here it is done; The Eternal-feminine Bears us aloft. It is nonsense to analyse this saying in a trivial way. One can analyse it in a right way, and in the true Goethean sense, when one says: He who knew something of noble spiritual culture also pointed to the feminine character of the soul; and precisely from this masculine culture did the saying: ‘The Eternal feminine bears us aloft’ struggle free. Thus the greater world, the Macrocosm was pictured as a man, and the soul, which was fructified by the wisdom of the Cosmos, as the feminine. And what then is this peculiar way of thinking which has developed in men over the centuries, this logic? If we wish to look into the depths of its nature, then we must see something feminine — imagination — which must be fructified by the masculine. Thus, when we consider that which grows over and beyond the differences of gender, we see the higher nature of the human being — that which the ‘I’ creates out of the lower bodies. Man and woman must look on their physical body as an instrument which enables them, in one direction or another, to be active as a totality in the physical world. The more human beings are aware of the spiritual within them, the more does the body become an instrument, and the more do they learn to understand people by looking into the depths of the soul. This, indeed, will not give you a solution to the Woman's question, but it will give you a perspective. You cannot solve the Woman's question with trends and ideals! In reality you can only solve it by creating that concept, that disposition of soul which enables men and women to understand each other out of the totality of human nature. As long as people are preoccupied with matter, a truly fruitful discussion on the Woman's question will not be possible. For this reason it should not surprise us that, in an age that has given birth to a masculine culture, the spiritual culture which has begun in the Theosophical movement had to be born from a woman. Thus this Theosophical or spiritual-scientific movement will prove itself to be eminently practical. It will lead humanity to overcome gender in itself and to rise to the level where Spirit-Man or Atman stands which is beyond gender, beyond the personal — to rise to the purely human. Theosophy does not speak of the genesis and development of the human being in general, so that it is gradually recognised. Thus there will gradually awake in woman a consciousness similar to that which, during this masculine culture, has awoken in men. Just as Goethe speaking from the depths of soul, once said, ‘The Eternal-feminine bears us aloft’, so others too who, as women feel in themselves the other side of the human being, and who, in a truly practical sense understand it spiritual-scientifically, will speak of the Eternal-masculine in the feminine nature. Then true understanding and a true solution of soul will be possible for the Women's question. For external nature is the physiognomy of the soul life. We have nothing in our external culture other than what human beings have created, what human beings have translated from impulses into machines, into industry, into the legal system. In their development, external institutions reflect the development of the soul. An age, however, which clung to the outer physiognomy, was able to erect barriers between men and women. An age that is no longer entrenched in what is material, what is external, but which will receive knowledge of the inner nature of the human being which transcends sex, and will, without wishing to crawl into bleakness or asceticism or to deny sexuality, enable and beautify the sexual and live in that element which is beyond it. And people will then have an understanding for what will bring the true solution to the woman's question, because it will present, at the same time, the true solution to the eternal question of humanity. One will then no longer say: ‘The Eternal-feminine bears us aloft’, or ‘The Eternal-masculine bears us aloft’, but, with deep understanding, with deep spiritual understanding one will say: ‘The Eternal-human bears us aloft’.

Women and Society

https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA054/English/Singles/19061117p01.html

Hamburg

17 Nov 1906

GA054-5

One has often said that the human being himself is the best and most important study of the human being, and that the human being himself is the biggest riddle of the human being. In view of certain facts, one has to emphasise that this riddle faces the human being in manifold forms. The human riddle appears as multiplied to us and looks at us from all sides. The manifold forms of the human being, the races, are certainly such a multiplication of the human riddle. Natural sciences and spiritual science have always tried to bring in light to this variety of the human existence, in these different forms of the human being. Besides, we realise plenty of questions. We have the consciousness in ourselves that in all human beings a uniform nature and being exists. However, how does this uniform nature and being behave to the manifold forms and physiognomies, which face us as races? In particular, this question approaches us if we see which different abilities the single human races possess. Apparently, to our consideration, the one human being is on the highest cultural level, the other on the most primitive, subordinated one. All that makes it appear strange to us that the human being who has, nevertheless, a uniform nature can appear in such a different and imperfect figure. One feels it often as an injustice of nature that it condemns one to an existence in a lower human race and raises the other to an apparently perfect race. To put a new contemplation to this mystery, to lighten up this riddle, the spiritual-scientific worldview seems to be more suitable than any other is. For this spiritual-scientific worldview does not speak in the same sense of the uniform human being as the other worldviews. It has a concept of it, which is different from that of the philosophers, religions et cetera, and it speaks of a recurrence of the human soul. It says to us that the soul, which lives in the modern human individual, was already often on this earth and will still often return. If we look at the matter even closer, we see that the souls of the human beings go through the different races. Thus, the variety of the races gets sense and reason. Thus, we see how the one is not condemned to live only in a primitive race and the other to be on the developmental levels of race existence. Each one of us goes through the most different levels of the races, and this passage just signifies a further development of the single soul. Someone who appears as a member of the European race today went through other races in former times and will go through others than ours later. The races appear to us as levels, and this variety becomes coherent and reasonable. However, if we want to see this sense quite thoroughly, we have to investigate the developmental basis of the different races deeper. Someone who rises above the only sensuous view to the invisible, supersensible world and tries to answer this question from such realms can really get an adequate solution of the riddle. The usual natural sciences, which have to confine themselves to the sensuous observation in this question, were only able to bring in one leading thread in these cases concerning the human types. They are able to lead us back to the imperfect levels of human existence according to the modern Darwinist point of view. They trace the human being back to the former epochs of the earth evolution. They show us how the human being experienced stages in the former times in which he satisfied his needs with simple, imperfect tools with which he could only perform small work. To even former times the natural sciences want to lead us back in which the human being developed from the animal realm. We are led to the statement that we can no longer prove the earliest developmental stages of the human being scientifically, presumably because the areas of the earth in which the human being developed at that time are covered with the floods of the ocean. The natural sciences only point to an area repeatedly. This is the area in the south of Asia, in the east of Africa and down to Australia. Ernst Haeckel supposes that an ancient, extinct continent is to be sought there and that the interstates of animal and human being developed there. He calls this continent Lemuria. Indeed, in the same sense in which Haeckel speaks about this continent and his inhabitants, about pithecoid human beings as the ancestors of the modern human beings, spiritual science cannot speak about this matter out of its experience. I have tried to show that there are other methods and means to find out something of the prehistoric times as those are on which the natural sciences must rely, other methods than the investigation of the leftovers, which one has found in the earth. You find everything about the origin of the human being and his classification in different races that has always been taught in the so-called secret schools out of inner mystic experience in my essays From the Akasha Chronicle (CW 11). Physical records and sensuous experience cannot lead us to the times, which can really teach us the decisive of this question. The supersensible experience only can teach us this. Today, I can only give a spare concept of this supersensible experience, and only a comparison should show us where from that is taken which we want to discuss in the main. You know that my words I speak here are carried away by the undulations, which are stimulated in the air. The oscillatory air brings my words through your organ of hearing into your soul. While I am speaking here, this whole airspace is filled with sound waves. Imagine that these sound waves could be fixed, one could get an imprint with any means at every moment of that which is spoken here. Then you would have a recording of everything that is spoken here. Just as the word that I speak here makes an imprint on the medium around us also the other expressions of the human nature do, indeed, not on the air, which is somewhat coarse in relation to many other and subtler substances, because there are subtler substances than the air is. I point only to the ether, although our consideration deals nothing with it. However, I mean, actually, the finest matter, the akashic matter in which not only the spoken words imprint themselves, but all thoughts, feelings and will impulses of the human being. This akasha matter with its imprints really forms a large phonograph. While these sound waves pass here in the air perpetually, last only as long as the sound is heard, the imprints that the human achievements up to the thoughts cause in this so-called akasha matter always persist. Somebody who is able to develop so far to read in this akasha matter can read the recordings, which have been put down since primeval times. From this chronicle, from the higher spiritual experiences the information comes which spiritual science announces about the human development through the different races. We are led back not only to the human beings who the natural sciences and archaeology register investigating the leftovers of human beings who had primitive tools and weapons in the caves of France or anywhere. These human beings had low receding foreheads and were backward in their intellectual development compared to the modern civilised human beings. These researches do not lead us back to those forms of humanity that the spiritual-scientific worldview teaches us, even if the modern naturalists think that they lead us back ten to fifteen millennia, maybe even farther. All those human forms and racial forms that the naturalist can find in the earth point again back to quite differently formed human physiognomies, to races which have lived on another earth area, on Atlantis which extended between Europe, Africa and America. The idea is also no longer strange to the natural sciences that the Atlantic was once land. The resemblance of the fauna, of the animal realm and the various soil formations, also some relationships of languages, all these matters point the naturalist to the fact that we deal with a big earth subsidence, with a flood of a large land domain that took place in very early times of our development. Plato tells about an island Poseidonis which is still stated by him as an island in the ocean, it was the last rest of the past world. The spiritual-scientific view teaches us that, too. If we go back to the inhabitants who lived in Atlantis, then something appears to us that is different from today. We get to know a race in which the most significant abilities, which make the modern civilised human being a civilised human being, did not yet exist. The Atlantean race did not yet have these abilities, the ability of combining, of counting, of logical thinking. These human beings had memory and language at that time. That had only developed in them. However, in return, they had other abilities. A progress of the human abilities takes only place if certain so-called higher levels of the human existence are purchased with the disappearance of former levels of development. Exactly the same way as the human being has a very low ability of smelling compared to certain animals, whereas the animals have less developed higher senses, the brain in particular, however, they bring the lower abilities to perfection. It is the same here on these higher levels of humanity. The Atlantean had an almost omniscient memory. His knowledge was generally based on his memory. He did not know what we call law or rule. He did not calculate in such a way that he knew a multiplication table; indeed, he did not know this. His memory was the basis for his whole thinking. He knew if he had piled up twice five beans that this was a small heap of so and so many. He did not count, but he kept it in his memory. His language was also different from ours. I will come back to this phenomenon in the course of this talk. Because the Atlantean had developed these abilities only, a certain clairvoyant talent belonged to him inevitably which withdrew when our day consciousness, our reason, our mathematical, logical consciousness, our cultural consciousness developed. The Atlantean was able to quite different sense to work on the growth of plants out of his nature using the special magic willpower. Without sensuous mediation, the Atlantean was able to carry out certain magic effects. All that also was connected with a completely different body structure, above all with a receding forehead and with a defective formation of the forebrain. On the other side, other parts of the brain were unlike those of the modern civilised human being. This enabled him to use his big abilities of memory. If we observe such an Atlantean according to the recordings of the Akasha Chronicle, we find that at the same time the brightness of our present consciousness was not yet achieved. It was a dream consciousness. It was brighter than this, but it did not yet have that bright clarity of the intellect, which our modern consciousness has. It was more a brooding and dreaming one. What worked with him was also not in such a way that he could regard himself as the master of that which he caused, but it was in such a way that everything that was in him was like a kind of inspiration. He felt to be connected with other forces, like with a spirit flowing through him. The spirit was something concrete to him, it was that which was in the wind, in the clouds and which grew up in the plants. The spirit was something that one could feel if one moved the hands through the air, if the trees rustled. This was the language of nature. The independence of the Atlantean was also not as great as that of the modern human beings. If we look back farther, we come to the ancestors of this population, to those human beings who lived on a part of the world, which the natural sciences know as well as spiritual science: on Lemuria, the land between Asia, Australia, and Africa. However, spiritual science has to portray the appearance and figure of those human beings quite different from the naturalists. The portrayal of the figure of these human beings, which the spiritual researcher gives, is not so different from that which the naturalist supposes. However, it is spiritually completely different. The Lemurian was much more clairvoyant than the Atlantean. He had a gigantic willpower; he was a human being with whom language and memory were not yet developed. The language began only in the later Lemuria. However, the Lemurian could make the plants grow, he could command the wind, he could take natural forces out of the earth like with magic, briefly, what the Lemurian was able to do borders on the miraculous compared with the modern ideas. However, all that was in a vague consciousness, in a deeper dream sleep than it existed with the Atlantean. Completely conducted by higher influence, by higher spiritual beings, this Lemurian was a dependent creature in the hands of higher forces, which gave him the impulses of his intentions, of his actions. With it, we have three successive developmental forms of our race. This Lemurian developed out of the not yet human companion of the ichthyosaurs, plesiosaurs, et cetera. These fabulous animals were there still before our mammals and perished because of big physical revolutions in these continents. The volcanic formations that stand out of the ocean are the remains of that old Lemurian age. In addition, those primitive constructions of gigantic size and strange form, as they are found on the Easter Island, are remains of the cyclopean constructions, extend into our time like monuments of those human beings whose soul life was completely different from ours. Only with a few words, I would like to point to the relation between the human being and the different animal forms. The modern naturalist, accustomed to materialistic ideas, supposes that the human being developed from lower animal forms. The spiritual researcher is not able to do this. He supposes that the spiritual led the way of the material that the primal ground of the outside, of the material is founded in the spiritual that the external human body of the human being is an expression of the human soul. What the spiritual researcher describes as an astral body developed much earlier than the physical body of the human being. This astral body experienced a compression and it forms the etheric body this way, and only the compression of this etheric body forms the physical body. The denser condition evolved only later. The thinner one, the astral one in particular, existed in much earlier times. Thus, spiritual science shows us that a being did not originate from an accidental agglomeration of physical matter, which has such impulses, passions, and instincts as the human being, but that these impulses and passions are the origin of the encasing matter. The passion did not create this matter, but the former passions created the forms of the physiognomy. Thus, the human being goes through a process of compression. Indeed, if we go back to the Lemurians, we see that their bodies become thinner and thinner, until we come back to human beings whose physical matter is very similar to the gelatinous matter of certain present animals. If we went back even farther, we would find ancient human ancestors, formed in a matter, which one cannot see with the usual physical eyes: the etheric human being. However, I do not want to go back to this very ancient time. We want to begin our considerations with those human beings who start appearing in such a carnal cover as the present human being carries it, although the covers of the human beings who inhabited Lemuria and Atlantis were completely different from the construction of our muscles and skeletons. All that was much softer, more pliable, and flexible, and complied with the requirements of those vague, dreamlike soul forces I have described to you. Just by the fact that the physical matter of the human being becomes denser and denser; the pole of the physical matter is created on the other side, which is the tool of intelligence. With the creation of the brain, a compression of the remaining human organs took place at the same time. Thus, the brain becomes the tool of the intellect, of the mind. If we summarise these three stages, we have them in the civilised human being. First, we have the Lemurian human being, his consciousness is trance-like, then we have the Atlantean human being who develops memory and language and then we have the actual civilised human being, the human being of our time. If we consider the modern human beings, they developed from these former stages of existence. The primitive stage does not disappear at once when the higher one appears. It survives for the time being and changes in manifold ways. So that we can say: a part of the former Atlantean population migrated from Atlantis to Europe and farther to Asia and established colonies, a part stayed behind, so that we have the most manifold stages side by side. Every progressive part leaves behind as it were the stages of development like memories. That also applies to the human being in a similar way. He developed the most different forms of the animals from himself. Just as humanity leaves lower races behind, the human being leaves certain animal forms behind on even former stages which are like externally preserved memories of his former existence. Looking at the animals, we can say that they show the stages of our own development, from the lower animal form up to the forms of our race. However, our own forms did not look like that which stayed behind. At that time, the conditions were still different. One normally does not imagine at all how infinitely big the changes were which took place on the earth. In the old Atlantis was no distribution of rain and sunshine, air and water as today. There was another air saturated with water. There was not yet rain at that time. Myths and legends hold on these things vividly. Hence, the Nordic legends also speak of “Niflheim,” “nebulous home.” A real fact forms the basis of that. The forms of our ancestors were different from ours, and those human beings whom they left behind got to conditions, which they did not stand. Hence, they had to develop to lower stages, they became decadent, and they degenerated. The physical conditions of our present earth make it possible that the mind develops with a certain level of the beings. If the earth had not developed from the completely different conditions of rain and sunshine to our advantage, the human being would never have been able to develop to the stage on which we are today. We see that only the progressive race is able to develop suitably. However, what maintains the former form and is as a reminiscent sign of it, becomes degenerate because it does not comply with the later conditions. If we go back to the former times, we understand that that which we were once was completely different from the present animals. These changed because of the completely changed conditions. We also have to regard the subordinated races as stages of former human existence that were adapted, actually, to other earthly conditions according to their nature. The matter becomes much more understandable, if we look into it that way. Then we understand that the Indian population of America, which appears to us so mysterious with its social structures and peculiar instincts must be completely different. The African race, the Ethiopian one, the black race is different in another way. There are the instincts that tie in with the lower human. We find a certain dreamlike element with the Malayans. Within the Mongolian population those qualities exist which are based on a special energy of the blood. There are also certain mental qualities, which developed quite typically. Hence, the Mongolian race always refuses to accept a pantheistic view. Its religion is a belief in demons, a cult of the dead. The population, which one calls the Caucasian race, constitutes the real civilised race, which is appointed to develop the logical thinking, to create tools for the work on nature using the mere reason of the human being who can no longer use the magic forces but has to rely on the mechanical. Everything that the human being had in the times of the old Atlantis in this way got lost, and, therefore, he manufactured tools because he could no longer work as he worked once; hence, he required tools for the mechanical effect. The physical research tried in manifold ways to divide the different races. It tried to divide them according to the shaping of the skull in those, which have a narrow and backwards long skull, in those, which have a short and broad skull, and in those, which are between the both. One divided the human beings also according to their skin colour, into black ones: Black, Ethiopians; in yellow-brown: the Malayans and Mongols, and in white ones, the Caucasians. This division is done more according to external signs and gives certain differences, however, is not exhaustive. In the newer time, one has taken the language as a basis. However, if you consider the past spiritual-scientifically, you get quite different views. You find that our white civilised humanity originated from the fact that certain parts separated themselves from the Atlanteans and developed higher under other climatic conditions. Certain parts of the Atlantean population stayed behind just on the former stages, so that we have to observe remains of the different Atlantean races in the population of Asia and America. However, they have changed; they differ from the original Atlantean population. We distinguish seven human sub-races within the Atlantean population. Five of these seven sub-races are in an ascending development. I only want to mention here that the Chinese are descendants of the fourth sub-race of the Atlantean population, and that the Mongolians are descendants of the seventh sub-race of this Atlantean population. Memory and language gradually developed. Only with the third sub-race, with the Primal Toltecs, language appeared clearly. There also appears a culture supported on memory. The fifth sub-race which we call the primal Semites and which had established its main residence in Ireland was the first germ of our present Caucasian or — as spiritual science also calls it — Aryan human race. A part of this sub-race — it was very unlike the modern Jewish population but was still called Semitic rightly because of certain processes — moved to Asia and developed the intellectual culture which spread then over Europe, southern Asia and over the population of northern Africa. On the other side, around this centre is a belt of human population that had manifold remains in its character from inhabitants of former times, remains of the Atlanteans. All these inhabitants left behind descendants, and thus we can imagine that the train, of which I have just spoken surged to Asia, collided there with a population that was left from Atlantis and maybe from Lemuria, and formed the Malayan races then. With them, one can perceive a drowsy being and a prematurity concerning passions and sexuality. In such a way, the Indian-Aryan race developed from a choice branch of the Atlantean population, with mixing in of remains of the old population. It connected a certain dreamlike, clairvoyant being with a peculiar intellectual worldview. Perhaps, in no other worldview the clairvoyant view of deeper forces of nature and a system of thinking with such an architectural unity and pervasive astuteness were connected with each other. We find other new populations of quite different forms in the direction to the Middle East. Moreover, another train of Atlanteans went to America — the spiritual-scientific worldview can prove this. There were rests of Lemurians and of Atlanteans who intermingled in many respects. This Indian population faces the European immigrants later. There two very different human developments collided. What lived in the ancient times, a completely different soul element, something clairvoyant, something of the spirit flowing through the whole world still lived in this Indian population. A speech is preserved to us that an Indian chief held at a clash of Indians and Europeans. He condemned the breach of promise by the Europeans. One had promised to the Indian population, after one had taken their residences from them, to give them other residences. He possibly said the following, oh you pale-faces, you do not understand what the Great Spirit teaches us. This comes from the fact that you pale-faces read everything that the gods say from books that the letters in your books tell you what is true. You promised us that you give us land again, but you have not kept your promise because your god does not teach you the truth and keeping your word. We know a god who speaks to us in the clouds, in the waves, in the rustling leaves, in flash and thunder. The god of the red man keeps his word. The god knows that he has to be loyal to the tribe. — This was a great speech. The Great Spirit was a rest of a human view that originated from a dreamlike consciousness, from inspirations of higher forces. Hence, at the same time it was closer to the divine, the springs of the divine. The languages teach us something similar. If we compare the different human races, we find a quite different structure in the languages of this external belt of peoples. We find the old Atlantean structure in the Mongolian languages, and we find something of Atlantean origin expressed in the structure of certain African languages. They emphasise the nouns, and they express by prefixes what we express by inflexions. We learn from that that they originated from an excellently working memory. The Mongolian languages show that they originated at a time in which memory did no longer function in such a way, as it was the case once. There the verbs are more developed which already tend to the reason. The Atlantean did not at all talk, actually, from memory. Everything was present to him. Not before one starts forgetting, the verb forms in the language. I would like to say that a magnificent monument of the middle of the Atlantean culture has remained, and this is the Chinese language. This language has something purely composing and at the same time something original where in the sounds even something inside, mental and a certain relation to the outside world is expressed. If we studied certain parts of the population in the connection with it, we could understand this completely. We can understand our race if we pursue it in two currents, which we can clearly, prove. There we have that current at first, which moves from the west, maybe from England to Asia. It probably gave cause for the Indian, the Near Eastern-Semitic, for the Indo-African-Semitic races as well as for the Arabian-Chaldean race. Then, however, we must imagine another current that did not progress so far which came maybe only to Ireland or Holland, or also to the area that the ancestors of the ancient Persians inhabited. There we have a belt of related population through the area of the Persians via the Black Sea to Europe. Thus, we can verify two zones of human population. One extends from India over here and encloses the southern peninsulas of Europe; the other encloses the zones located to the north with different gradations. There we have the Aryan one and the different Semitic gradations in Asia and Africa; then in Greece and Italy the Greek-Latin population. However, we have to imagine them also in such a way that it originated from the mixture with the northern belt which also encloses the Persian population and everything that developed, like from undergrounds, the Slavic and the Germanic populations in the west, and that which provides the basis more or less of all, the ancient Celtic population. We can imagine that we had an ancient Celtic population in the west of Europe. This part of the current of peoples lies farthest to the west, while the Persian population is that part which went the farthest to the east. The Slavic and the Germanic peoples stand between; intermingled with the southern belt, these established the Greek-Latin race. You can prove it in the languages that a relationship of the population exists, which expresses itself the strongest in the deep relationship of the languages in the northern belt. There we have languages that are completely different from that which constitutes the character of the Semitic-Egyptian culture. The structure of the Semitic-Egyptian languages express what developed in the fifth sub-race of Atlantis as a Primal Semitic culture. It is characterised by the first lighting up of the intellect in the human development. Here logic and intellect developed first. The former dreamlike clairvoyant element intermingled in the most different way, and the different religions formed. However, the Semitic language does not have an atomistic character like the Chinese one, but an analytic character. On the other hand, the Caucasian languages have a synthetic character. We distinguish five human races. I leave it undecided whether the word is used rightly or wrongly. The ancient Indo-Aryans with their marvellous visionary thinking established the first culture. This culture preceded the Vedic culture. That is why there are no recordings of it. What you read in the Vedas is only an echo of the ancient visionary Indian culture. Then the ancient Persian culture comes as the second race, that population which preferably applies the intelligence to the external work. The ancient Indian culture has something unworldly. In these northern regions, we find human beings who enclose the world who want to conquer the world who use tools and the like. Hence, we see in this culture how there the consciousness develops that humanity has to achieve something that there is good and bad. Here Ormuzd and Ahriman confront themselves. Then we come to the Near East. There develops another race. What expresses itself in the structure of the Semitic language is the combinatorial, the mathematical, and the logical-conceptual aspect. This faces us in the architecture of Egypt; this is expressed in the pyramids and in the great thought structures, then in the marvellous science, in the astrological form of astronomy. We have three sub-races now. We come now to Europe to the southern peninsulas. There we find that which flows from the north and expresses itself in old cultural peoples. We find that something develops that looks for the inner life. While the Egyptian builds up externally, with internal symbolism, the Greek starts erecting monuments and cultivating sculpture stimulated by the mystery dramas. However, the most significant action within this fourth sub-race or culture epoch is the rise of Christianity. The southern peoples are not able to understand this Christianity in its peculiar figure. In Greece, it is Grecized, in Rome it is Romanised and becomes state church. This happened while the fifth sub-race approached gradually in the Middle Ages. This is our own sub-race. It had the task to bring the culture down to the physical plane. This indicates that sense and reason is in the succession of races. Still in another sense, sense and reason are in this racial development. The human being consists of three members according to his lower nature: of physical body, etheric body, and astral body. The physical body is that which we see with eyes, can touch with hands. The astral body is the bearer of our desires, passions, and instincts, of our emotions, affects, of rage and hatred. The etheric body is the bearer of the vital forces. The human ego lives in them. This expresses itself differently. I immediately want to begin with the way in which it expresses itself in our present cultural epoch. It has developed the physical body most remarkably, elaborated it most marvellously. The body, the brain became the tool of the intellectual life and thinking. Gradually the body had to be conquered. If you were able to look back, you would see that during the Lemurian age the body looks like an awkward huge thing. The astral body is not yet able to move the limbs. The ancestors of the Lemurian age were clumsy. You see this still echoing in the Native American population. On one side, the instincts still fight because the human beings do not yet have the consciousness to penetrate themselves from the inside, they work on the body from the outside, they tattoo it because it does not yet appear finished to them. If we go up to the other races, we see the human being conquering the etheric body. The functions of life and nutrition developed, so that the human being becomes a conscious and autonomous being from an unaware one. The human being gradually starts the campaign of conquest through his own being. The Lemurians conquered the astral body, the Atlanteans the life body, and our present humanity conquers the physical body. The conquest of the spiritual-mental forces follows, which is the task of our time. Thus, the racial development gets an even higher sense and we understand that it is a training of the developing human mind. We look back to areas where the human being is structured quite differently. Our souls embodied themselves at that time and got to know the phenomena of the external world. Later they returned to the earth in another race and learnt to look into the world in another way. Moreover, it goes on that way. The human being goes through race by race. Those who are young souls reincarnate in those races that remained on their former level. Thus, that which lives as race and souls round us fits into each other organically and mentally. Everything gets a sense, becomes transparent, and becomes explicable. We approach the solution of these riddles more and more and we can understand that we have to go through other epochs in the future that we have to go other ways than the race made them. We must be clear in our mind that mental and racial developments are different. Within the Atlantean race our own souls lived which developed then upwards to a superior human race. This gives us a picture of the human development up to our time. Hence, we also understand the principle to found the core of a general brotherhood without taking into consideration race, colour, social rank et cetera. I shall explain this thought in particular. I wanted to show today only how in the different figures the same being exists, namely in a much more correct sense than the natural sciences teach it. Our soul steps from stage to stage, that is, from race to race, and we get to know the significance of humanity if we look at these races. We learn to understand one thing more and more, namely how deep and true the saying is, “Somebody was successful, and he lifted the veil of the goddess of Sais. However, what did he see? He saw — miracle of miracles — himself!” We see ourselves everywhere and in the manifold figures. — This is self-knowledge! The great saying in the temple of the Greek school of wisdom comes true: human being, recognise yourself.

Fundamentals of Theosophy: The Human Races

https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA054/English/RSA2014/19051109p01.html

Berlin

9 Nov 1905

GA054-6

If anybody reads a popular book, about astronomy, for example, then probably above all because he wants to inform himself about the mysterious facts of the universe. He finds his satisfaction, perhaps in such a book if the information makes sense to his reason, sensation, and feeling. He also tries perhaps to penetrate into the matters as far as it is possible to convince himself of such truth, such knowledge, visiting popular talks in which one makes experiments or observatories, laboratories et cetera. However, in any case, one fact remains in force. The human being who reads such things has to assume that still other human beings exist who have these abilities with particular research methods, with particular scientific and technical schooling. Who reads Haeckel's Natural Creation History may possibly say to himself, yes, this makes sense to my intellect, to my reason and to my feeling. — However, he also becomes aware of the fact that it requires a lot of work to ascertain these facts only. Then maybe he assumes that there is a little group of human beings which deals with the finding of such facts. In quite a similar way, a big part of humanity probably behaves towards other writings which want to bring facts of another field home to the human being, namely towards the so-called religious scriptures. It is no other relation than that I have just described. Also towards the religious scriptures, the human being asks himself at first, does this speak convincingly to my sensation, emotions, and reason? — Also here, he assumes or assumed in past times at least just as for the external, sensuous facts, which we possibly get to know from the Natural Creation History by Haeckel or from popular representations of astronomy, who know the methods, have the key to ascertain these facts. Thus, the human being also assumed concerning the religious documents that there are single human beings who are able not only to read this truth but also to ascertain it. He assumed that there are single human beings who have the key of them and know methods how one can convince oneself of them directly. Briefly, one has to demand from the religious scriptures, as from any other representation of facts that they come from knowledge, from immediate experience. The human being assumes that there are single people who ascertain the described sensuous facts using telescopes, microscopes, biological and other methods of investigation. Concerning the communications that are included in the religious documents we must also assume that there are human beings who know the methods to penetrate by the experience into the field, which is described in the religious scriptures. Just as in the Natural Creation History the field of the sensuous facts and in the popular talks the field and the facts of astronomy are portrayed, the field of the supersensible, the invisible, the spiritual is portrayed in the religious scriptures. If we who do not research have to offer the same trust, the same confidence to the religious scriptures, we must assume also that there are single persons in the world who made it their particular task to collect experiences in the world of the supersensible, which forms as spiritual causes the basis of the sensuous world. The human being is not allowed to behave differently towards the representation of a natural creation history and the representation of a supersensible creation history. Not the behaviour of the human beings towards these matters is different, only the fields are different about which the concerning writings tell. With it, one says that there must be knowing people who are able to ascertain the facts in the religious scriptures. Indeed, up to a certain degree this consciousness has got lost just in our time. Just as it would be of little use if anybody were not able to assume that researchers exist behind the popular scientific representations, also it would not make much sense basically if we did not assume that researchers are behind the statements of the religious scriptures. It is the task of theosophy or spiritual science today to renew and animate the consciousness that there is also a research in the supersensible fields. Spiritual science wants nothing else than to evoke the consciousness in the larger circles again that it is in such a way as I have said it now. One often translates the word theosophy saying that theosophy is knowledge, wisdom of God. This translation is not right; at least it does not describe what theosophy wants. Knowledge of God is something that the theosophist has in mind as an inkling at first, as something that signifies the last purpose of all knowledge. As little as we already have awareness of all means and abilities of knowledge, just as little as we are allowed to say that we can have a comprehensive or final knowledge of the divine primal ground of the universe today. Humanity develops, advances, also its abilities of knowledge. Perhaps, even the most advanced people cannot form an idea of the insights into the mysterious worlds of existence the human being can get on this way. We have to absolutely realise that European civilised human beings have another concept of divinity than, for example, the so-called savages of Africa or the barbarians who invaded the Roman empire from the north at the beginning of the Middle Ages. We have to assume that a usual educated person also has another idea of the divine being than Goethe had. Thus, we can also imagine that the human being advances further, that abilities develop in him compared with which Goethe's intuitive and imaginative strength was undeveloped. There we can have an inkling how much more elated and more magnificent the concept of God of those human beings will be than ours are. We can say that we exist, work, and live in Him; however, the knowledge of Him can never be completed. Therefore, theosophy does not think that it wants to be knowledge of God. Theosophy is that knowledge, namely, which attains the deepest, innermost being of the human being, in contrast to the usual, everyday knowledge that acquires the external, sensuous, transient nature of the human being. Let us realise once: we see colours, light, we hear tones, smell and taste, seize objects, feel heat, cold, and so on, everything with the help of our outer senses. We can also imagine that for anybody who has no ear no sounding world, but a dumb world is around him, for anybody who has no eyes no luminous, no colourful world but a dark one exists. All that is only a summary of that which the human being can perceive with the senses. However, the senses consist of material forces that are handed over to the earth again. What we perceive with them is also something transient. With it, we have realised the transient human being. The physicist shows us that a time comes when the earth is dispersed in countless atoms in which it does no longer exist. Then also no colours, lights, tones, the present forms of minerals, plants and animals exist, the human form itself does no longer exist. Thus, we have characterised the extent of the transient in the human being. What this transient human being recognises is everyday science, is our official science. With it, I say nothing against this official science. However, this whole science is nothing else than preoccupation with transient matters. However, there is still another possibility to look at the world, namely with those abilities in the human being which are imperishable. The human being bears an imperishable core in himself. The human being bears an imperishable core that we find in ourselves by introspection, by self-observation to a new existence in the times when the earth is dispersed. He carries this imperishable core to other worlds, and carries that which he recognised as the fruit of this life on earth to another world. What the divine core recognises is the content of spiritual science. Theosophy is not knowledge of other matters of the human being but knowledge of the other part of the human being. Hence, theosophy or spiritual science does not come from such people who want to rise with the usual reason, with the usual senses to a consideration of the spiritual from the sensuous, but from such people who have woken the abilities slumbering in the human being and are thereby able to investigate the supersensible, the imperishable. The usual science considers plants, animals, and human beings according to their usual qualities as they present themselves to the senses. In addition, the spiritual research looks only at that which surrounds us in the world. However, it looks at it with other forces and other abilities and, hence, gets to know the everlasting and imperishable qualities of the things. This is theosophy. Such researchers who have woken such abilities in themselves are able to ascertain the supersensible facts independently which the confessions communicate. As well as the naturalists ascertain in the laboratory and on the observatory using the strength of the senses and their instruments what you can then read in the popular books, the researchers of the supersensible ascertain by their own experience what was communicated to humanity in the religious documents. In the same sense as we speak of the scientific laboratories and astronomical observatories as research sites, in the same sense we speak of spiritual research sites. We call this spiritual research site — the term does not matter — the Lodge of the Masters of Wisdom. Because all wisdom must be based on a common origin, because all those who are in a spiritual relationship to these teachers are penetrated and irradiated by that wisdom, all researches also go back to the spiritual primary source. They go back, to the big brotherhood of the most advanced sages who have recognised what those religious documents announced from own observation by the means of spiritual research. You may call this basis of all religions the “spiritual laboratory of humanity,” or the “great White Lodge,” it is the same. Now we know what it means. As any popular book goes back to something that has really been investigated anywhere, each of the great religions goes back to that which was investigated in the spiritual sense in this laboratory of the white brotherhood of humanity. Those who founded the religions were great, excellent individualities who experienced the lessons and instructions of that brotherhood in this big spiritual laboratory. They were introduced into the spiritual life, which forms the basis of all phenomena, and were then sent from there to the various peoples to speak to them in their language and according to their characters. One taught a uniform ground of knowledge, an ancient truth in that spiritual laboratory, and it is possible that those who advance further by internal development learn the methods of research and can use them as Haeckel and other naturalists used the sensuous methods. It is possible that these find access to the researchers of the spiritual laboratory, that they get to know from which central site the great sages came who went to the south and the west, and brought the great messages to humanity. It is possible that they find the way to those from whom they can learn how all that has come about. The ancient religious teachers were sent out from the same site, the great founders of a religion who brought the first messages to India the echo of which the European researchers admired so much when they faced the wisdom, which is contained in the old Brahmanism. The same site of wisdom sent out the various Buddhas who brought their messages to the single members of the Asian religions. It sent out the Egyptian Hermes, too, who founded that marvellous religion about which anybody said to Solon (~640-~560 B.C., Athenian statesman, lawmaker and poet): what you know is like the knowledge of children compared with the wisdom of our initiates. Pythagoras (~570-~495 B.C., philosopher, and mathematician) came out of it, the great teacher of the Greek people. That man came out of it who illuminates the future, whose religion becomes more and more comprehensive and spiritual, Jesus himself. There we have the spiritual connection, and we see how the different religions point back to the central site where the loftiest human wisdom is cultivated. Who looks at the different religions can convince himself that their qualities point to such a central site. Our materialistic cultural researchers have also often recognised resemblances of the different confessions. Zarathustrism, the ancient Indian culture, Buddhism, even the religion that lived in the old America contain all components in which marvellous accordance exists. However, one has believed that this accordance comes from external reasons. One has not penetrated deeply enough because one had lost the key of it. Who gets involved, however, really in the core of truth of the religions can obtain the conviction concerning the religions that the accordance cannot come from the outside, but that it arises from a common core of wisdom, and that they were differently organised considering the single peoples and the different epochs. If we look at Asia, we still find the remnants of an ancient religion at first, which one cannot understand, actually, as religion in the modern sense. We find this religion in the strange culture of the Chinese. I do not speak about the religion of Confucius, not about that which spread as Buddhism in India and China, but I would like to speak of the remains of the ancient Chinese religion, of Taoism. This religion points the human being to Tao. One translates Tao as the way or the goal, the destination. However, one gets no clear idea of the being of this religion if one simply sticks to this translation. For a big part of humanity, Tao expresses and already expressed the highest to which the human beings could look up. They thought that the world, the whole humanity would attain it once, the loftiest that the human being bears in himself as a seed and that develops once as a ripe flower from the innermost human nature. Tao signifies a deep, concealed soul ground and an elated future at the same time. Somebody who knows what it concerns not only pronounces it but also thinks of it with shy reverence. Taoism is based on the principle of development. It says, what is around me today is a stage, which will be overcome. I must be clear in my mind that this development in which I am has an aim that I develop to an elated aim and that a force lives in me that urges me to arrive at this destination Tao. If I feel this big strength in myself and if I feel that with me all beings strive for this goal, then this strength is to me the steering force which blows from the wind against me, which sounds towards me from the stone, which shines towards me from the flash, which sounds towards me from the thunder. It appears in the plant as force of growth, in the animal as sensation and perception. This force produces form by form repeatedly up to that elated goal by which I recognise myself as one with the whole nature, which streams into me and streams from me with every breath, which is the symbol of the loftiest developing spirit that I feel as life. I feel this force as Tao. — One did not speak in this religion of a transcendent god at all, one did not speak about anything that is beyond the world, but of something that gives strength to the progress of humanity. The human being felt Tao intensely when he was still connected with the divine original source, in particular in the Atlantean age. Our ancestors still had no such advanced reason, no such intelligence like the modern humanity. In return, however, they had a more dreamlike consciousness, an instinctively ascending imagination and their life of thought was in such a way that they were almost innumerate. Imagine the dream life, but increased, so that it makes sense and is not chaotic, and imagine a humanity from whose souls such pictures arise that announce the sensations which are in the own soul, which echo everything that is external round us. One has to imagine the soul world of these prehistoric human beings quite unlike ours. The human being today strives for forming thoughts and images of the environment as exactly as possible. However, the prehistoric human being formed symbolic images, which appeared in him full of life. If you face a person today, you try above all to form an idea of him whether he is a good or a bad, a clever or a silly person, and you try to get an idea very soberly which corresponds to the external human being. This has never been the case with the prehistoric Atlantean. A picture arose in him, not a rational concept. If he faced a bad human being, a picture arose in him, which was vague and obscure. However, this perception did not become a concept. Nevertheless, he acted on this picture. If he had a bright, beautiful picture before himself, which appeared dreamlike in his soul, then he knew that he could trust in such a being. He got fear of a picture if it arose in black, red, or brown colours in him. He did not yet grasp realities with reason and intellect, but they appeared as inspirations. He felt as if the divinity working in these pictures was also in him. He spoke of the divinity, which announced itself in the blowing of the wind, in the whispering of the woods and in the pictures of his soul life if he felt the urge to look up to an elated human future. He called this Tao. The present human being who replaced this ancient humanity relates to the spiritual powers differently. He has lost the strength of the immediate beholding, which was more vague and twilighted than ours in certain respects. He has attained the developmental stage of the intellectual and rational ideation, which is higher in certain respects, however, also lower in certain respects. The modern human being thereby outranks the prehistoric human being because he owns a sharp, pervasive intellect; but he is no longer feeling the lively connection with the divine Tao forces of the world. That is why he has the world as it reveals itself in his soul, and on the other side his intelligence. The Atlantean felt the pictures living in him. The modern human being hears and sees the external world. These two things, outside and inside, are opposing each other, and he is no longer feeling the connection of both. This is the great sense of the human development. Since the land masses have risen again, after the floods of the oceans had flooded the continents, since that time humanity longs for finding the connection of inner soul life and external sensuous world again. That is why the word religare (Latin) — religion is justified. It means nothing else than to combine again what was connected once and is separated now, the world and the ego. The different forms of the confessions are nothing else than the means, than the ways taught by the great sages to find this connection again. Therefore, they are formed so differently to become understandable in this or that form to the human beings of any cultural level. The ancient Indian had an excessively growing plant world around himself, which made him dreamy in his soul and did not make it necessary to produce external tools and external culture. He had to get religion in another form than the modern human being. If the human being lives quietly, other images appear in his soul, than if he works with coarse tools and must be technically active. The external nature is different in the different areas of the earth, and the inner soul life of the human beings is different, too. Because the connection should be sought by the different religions, it is only a matter of course that the masters had to determine the way of finding the connection differently for different peoples and different times. The first way to determine this connection, to look for the ancient Tao of Atlantis, is the religion of the ancient India. This received the instructions of the holy Rishis, great initiates in ancient times whose elated teachings still go on sounding in the marvellous Vedic poems and in the Vedanta philosophy of the ancient Brahmans, which extends to the loftiest levels of human understanding. It was announced to humanity in broad outlines there that there is something that as a uniform world ground serves everything as a base. One called it Brahman, Parabrahman, Bhagavad and so forth. What we find in the Vedas, which are only an echo of the original old teachings, shows us how great and stupendous and, at the same time, how sublime the concepts were by which that subtle spirituality attempted to reach the divine original source of being. One could circumscribe it as follows: once the spiritual hosts assembled round the original being and asked it who it was, and it said, I am not that who I am if I am able to define myself by anything other than by myself. If you define a thing, you look for a higher concept. You define the single animal beings, the lion, the eagle, the dog, the wolf, while you change over to the superior concepts of the cat species, the dog species, the bird species et cetera. You define the single winds, while you change over to the general concept of wind. Thus, anything in the world has its name that indicates what stands above it. I, however — the Brahman said to the spirit hosts — I have no name which stands above me. I am the I-am. From this original source, the human being started; he shall come to it again. There was also development in the ancient India. Development was the magic word by which the human being felt his destination. There must have been anything, as the confession says, that leads to the point on which the human being stands today. Once there must have been a longing that leads him from the divine origin down into this world, to the necessary stage on which we stand today. As true and inevitable as it was that there was such a yearning and desire which leads into the world, as true it is that there must be a force that leads the human being again out of it, so that he brings the fruits of this world back again to the divine original source. This force is the overcoming of the desire by the divine desires, the purification of the destinations by the divine destination. Now it was something else that was felt as a religion than in the ancient times of which we have spoken. Now, it was no longer the god who revealed himself to the inside, now it was the god revealing himself from the outside, because the human being had to create an abyss between himself and the outside world. The word obviously replaces the immediate life and the sheer strength, and Veda means nothing else than “word.” By this word, advanced, wise human beings announced the origin and destination of the human being, which forms the basis of the universe. One had another idea of this word in ancient times than today if one speaks of the word. I would like to try to give you an idea of that which one felt speaking of the Veda, of the Logos, and later of the Word. The human being gives names to the things. He says, this is this and that is that. However, if his mouth names the things, it is no arbitrariness, but these are the same names, which once the divine original soul of humanity pronounced from itself and thereby created the things. The human being sees the things and pronounces the names afterwards. However, once the original soul spoke the names first and according to the word, the things formed. This is why there an original soul was in the ancient times, which expressed the words of creation. The words became things and the human soul afterwards found the words out of the things, which the god had put into them. It revived the sleeping words out of the things. The human being behaved to the divinity this way where one had religious sensation, the sensation towards the word, which lived with the ancient Indians really. Therefore, the opinion combined with the word that there are human beings who are able to look deeper into nature and the being of the world, who are able to directly echo in their words and announce what once the divinity breathed out of itself into the world. One perceived such human beings as initiates. The ancient Indian considered his Rishis not as usual human beings, but as such beings who had reached the level of immortality already in the physical body and live not in the sensory world, but with their souls in the higher heavenly world and have contact with the gods, with the spiritual beings who form the basis of the world. While one looked up at the human beings who had developed the Tao in themselves in this way, one was aware that every human being would also attain this stage once. The doctrine of rebirth, of the repeated return was combined with it. Buddha did not speak out of his imagination but out of his perception when he spoke to his believers and said, I see back at one, two, three, four, ten, hundred lives. — He spoke of these hundred lives as the human being speaks of one life. In these many lives, he obtained everything that enabled him to speak no longer about the experience of the sensuous world, but about the experience of the supersensible worlds and to bring the message of these supersensible worlds to humanity. This supersensible knowledge is an original component of all religions. If we put ourselves once again in the peoples feeling the Tao. They not only tried to unite in the religion with the divine, but they also considered themselves as embodiments, as covers of the divine. This was their immediate consciousness. There were human beings who could not think correctly; they were not as clever as we are, but had a direct consciousness that they surrounded a divine core as a fruit surrounds the pit. They saw and felt this core, and they looked through it at the past and the future. They thereby felt the doctrine of reincarnation in themselves. At that time, the immigrants found such a consciousness. At that time, the ancient Indian teachers who gave the first Brahma culture to the Indians still found a lively view of re-embodiment. Hence, all religions, which started from this site, have the teaching of reincarnation. One felt the Tao in its different creation of human activity. It is only a matter of course that the human being of our period who has separated his soul life from the big external powers could not overlook so many lives, but only saw that he represented this limited soul life. From every next stage, which extends northbound then — starting from the ancient Persian religion — the consciousness of the fact disappeared that the human soul is a cover around the core reincarnating forever. The consciousness confined itself to the zenith between birth and death and to how within birth and death “religare“, religion, has to be sought for. There one felt the contrast of a duality instead of the unity for the first time. Whereas the Taoist human being of the Atlantean age felt his connection with the original source vividly, and the Brahmanic human being still tried to rouse the Brahman, which is thought outside and within the human being as the same, the human being felt a certain duality, a dualism in Persia first. He felt that which has originated from the human being, as an inside and outside, as an original ground and present human figure. He looked up to the original ground from which everything had risen round him, he looked up to the word from which plant, animal, and human being had arisen according to the physical figure. However, he still felt something else: he felt that anything was therein that did not be in accordance with the original harmony that has to become only again like the original divine. He felt the latter as renunciation from the original divine. He faced the contrast, the duality of light and darkness or of male and female. They represent the original ground and that which expects the human soul in the material compression. This is the second level of human development. The third stage faces us in the prehistorical and historical Egypt; it is preserved for us as the Book of the Dead . There the human being felt a third aspect besides the duality. He saw a light, the sun, illuminating the earth and saw it penetrating this with its beams and enlivening the seeds and beings slumbering in the earth, and saw how the primal ground had to be fertilised. We find this triad original ground, conception, new life, symbolised as Osiris, the sun, the god of light; as Isis, the matter, and as Horus, the life developing from it. These were three Egyptian divinities. The triad appears here. This triad becomes a basic core in all later confessions. As trinity the divinity faces us in the confessions where it is called Father, Word and Holy Spirit — Isis, Osiris, Horus — atma(n), buddhi, manas. We find the triad everywhere in the religions now. We have recognised the reason. It faces us with pictures or words in Asia, in Egypt with the priests, but also in the Greek-Roman world, with Augustine, then as nuances in the Middle Ages. If we have got a bigger perfection in the future, that strength will have appeared as a forming one to which we owe our existence and which works today as a concealed primal ground of the being in us. One felt this as the divine, the inexpressible of the human being that is identical with the first essential component of the tripartite world. One felt then what lives in the human being, what strives for this highest as the word active in the present, the son, who originated from the father who rests unutterably in him. As true as this Father's ground forms the future, more perfect human being, he created the developing son, the buddhi, the second human member, which is not yet perfect but is the reason why we strive for perfection. This is the second being. Also in the past this original ground worked. As well as the sensuous human being was created by the universal primal ground in the past, also that which has already assumed and given off shape in him has something that has likewise arisen in the past from the primal ground and is already developed now. Let us look at the universe, how it makes itself perceptible as colours, tones, smells and tactile sensations, it streamed from the inexpressible primal ground. In such respect, we may call this primal ground, which appears to us, the creatures, spirit, also in the Christian sense. However, the creation of the world is not finished. The world is a germ, something that has a soul that has the impulse of the future in itself. This is the son. Hence, one called this striving the Word, Veda, Edda. The third one is a strength in us that becomes discernible in the future in us: the Father's ground of all being deep set in any of our souls. Feeling this vividly means feeling the trinity, making it the being of the entire internal imagination. Persona (Latin) signifies mask or external figure, cover. Hence, the religion shows this core of truth, which I have just explained, in three different masks, in three persons. God has three different persons. That means that he appears in three different masks: Spirit, Word, and Father. With it, we have touched that confession at the same time that then led to Christianity. If you understand this really, you find this truth also expressed in it. If you correctly understand the deepest Gospel, that of John, you find the same consciousness of religare, of the connection with a higher consciousness that appeared in human form. It is the teachings of the incarnate Logos, the incarnate divinity, the present divinity that lives in brotherliness with both forms of the divinity, with the active Spirit coming from the past, working in the present, and the Father creating in the present into the future. Thus, the Son originated from the Father, is connected with the Spirit at the same time, and that is why the Son is the great preannouncement that will lead to the Father. The words no one comes to the Father except by me (John 14:5), by the divine essence of the present, point to this. He says that he sends the Spirit again, the essence of that which is already in the world. As true as Christ said, I will be with you always, to the end of time (Matthew 28:20), it is also true that he will come again that the whole Christianity has been a preparation of the new figure. The Spirit is there provisional, the knowledge, the science, the religions were taught provisionally as they were taught in the past. The religious documents were preserved to us and now the theologians try to interpret them and to teach according to them. This is the way now theology works in place of wisdom. Theosophy means wisdom and truth, theology means the doctrine of wisdom and truth. As well as theology originated from spiritual science, theology has to go back to spiritual science. I have often drawn your attention to the condition of former research, and that then a reversal took place. Once one trusted in the books of the old sages, in Plato, Aristotle and others at all sites where one taught. Researchers were not there, but interpreters. I have that strange time in mind about which theology tells that one could no longer understand later when one learnt to read in the book of nature. The confidence in the written was almost absolute. If, for example, a naturalist had stated that the nerves do not start from the heart, but from the brain, one said, nevertheless, Aristotle says differently, and Aristotle is right, although one saw the demonstrated phenomena. Today in wide sections of the population, the consciousness does not yet exist that there is a key that there are research sites and research methods that ascertain the facts of the spiritual worlds as the observatories or the laboratories ascertain the facts of the sensuous world. Since thirty years it has been announced again that there is such a thing like a spiritual central site of humanity, and with it the theosophists say nothing more unbelievable, than if Haeckel says: this is in that and this way. — If Haeckel argues anything, we assume that he has found the proofs of it in his research. We assume also that the statements in the religious documents were proved by the facts to be true, and that there are persons among us which themselves can go back again to the sources. Theosophy or spiritual science means drawing the attention to the spiritual researchers and to the central site. It speaks again from experience about the matters of the supersensible, as those did who originally created the religious documents, from their inner experience. As well as 400 years ago, the natural sciences experienced a revival, theosophy or spiritual science should today signify a revival of the immediate spiritual research. Thus, we are put in the necessity to return to that core of truth, which I tried to outline from the Tao up to the appearance of the great saviour of humanity. I wanted to generate awareness of the relation of spiritual science to the central point, the core of truth in the different religions. Those who have not yet approached spiritual science maybe come again to hear more. However, some may also say that it is a kind of neo-Buddhism, a new religion, something oriental; it wants to bring in something foreign to our world. However, this is not the case; this would not be spiritual-scientific. Only those speak in such ways who do not have the will to listen to that which spiritual science says. The aspiration of spiritual science is to look for the core of truth in our external confessions, to go back to the sources from which the books existing today were created. It is necessary to go back to the facts, then the books are better understood, then new life flows in humanity. Christianity is to be understood as a religion that has to prepare humanity for the future, as the religion of the Son by which one finds the Father on the same ways. At the same time, it is one of the most important tasks of spiritual science to get this religion across. Therefore, it searches for the core of truth in all religions to find it in our own. We recognised that religion originated not from childish images, but from the highest wisdom, from spiritual research. However, we also learnt that one can abreast with science and be, nevertheless, a religious person. If this knowledge finds an echo again, the lively feeling awakes for that which one of the theosophists, Goethe, called into the world more than hundred years ago like a program, like a beautiful and marvellous saying to humanity. I would like to close with this saying today, confessing that there can be no true science, no deeper human observation, which shows the religious truth as something childish; and that all religions contain as a core of our highest destination: Who has science and art, Has religion, too; Who does not have both, Should have religion.

The Kernels of Wisdom in Religions

https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA054/English/RSA2014/19051116p01.html

Berlin

16 Nov 1905

GA054-7

It is our task today to speak about two soul contents one of which fraternity, represents a great ideal penetrating humanity, and the other represents something that we meet in life at every turn wherever we go, the struggle for existence: fraternity and struggle for existence. Those of you who have occupied themselves only a little with the aims of the spiritual-scientific movement know our first principle to establish the core of a fraternity founded on general altruism, without difference of race, gender, profession, confession et cetera. With it, the theosophical society itself ranked this principle of a general fraternity first and made it its most important ideal. It has indicated that way that this great moral pursuit of fraternity — a pursuit that is necessary besides other cultural aspirations — is intimately connected with the main destination of humanity. The spiritual-scientific striving human being is convinced, and not only convinced, he is quite clear in his mind that the deep knowledge of the spiritual world must lead to fraternity if it seizes the human being really, that fraternity is just the noblest fruit of deep, innermost knowledge. However, with it the spiritual-scientific worldview seems to contradict something that approached humanity lately. One pointed in certain circles to the progressively working strength of the struggle. How often we can hear even today that the human forces grow with resistance that the human being gets strong will and intellectual initiative because he must measure his strength with the adversary. A worldview which has arisen from bases full of mind, the worldview of Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900, German philosopher), has among other enthusiastic pugnacious sentences also this: I love the critic, I love the great critic more than the little one. — We can find this over and over again most variously just with Nietzsche as something that completely belongs to his approaches to life. It depends on certain economic views, which prevailed for a long time that one regards the general competition in the struggle of all against all as a powerful lever of progress. How often one has said that thereby, humanity can progress best of all that the single human being benefits himself, as well as possible, and establishes his position. The word individualism has become almost a catchword, admittedly, more in the external material life, but also to some extent in the inner spiritual life. The human being benefits his fellow men the best if he obtains as much as possible economically from life, because he becomes economically strong, he can also be more useful to the public: this is the creed of many economists and sociologists. On the other side, we hear repeatedly emphasised that the human being should not become stereotyped that he should develop the forces lying in him universally that he should enjoy life wholeheartedly that he should develop what lies in his inside and that he can thereby benefit his fellow men mostly. There are many among our fellow men who are virtually eager for the pursuit of this principle who enjoy life as intensely as possible. The spiritual-scientific worldview does not misjudge the necessity of the struggle for existence, just not in our time, but at the same time this worldview realises also that today — where this struggle for existence peaks — the deep significance of the principle of fraternity must be brought near to an understanding again. The most important question is: is it right what so many people believe that the human forces grow in particular with the resistance that it is the struggle above all which the human being has to fight that has made him great and strong? In my talk on the idea of peace, which I held before you, I pointed already to this principle of the struggle for existence in the human life that receives strong support by the fact that the natural sciences have made it a general natural world principle. They, in particular in the west, believed for a while that those beings in the world are formed most suitably, which have out-competed their adversaries and have been left in this struggle for existence. The naturalist Huxley (Thomas Henry H., 1825-1895) says: if we look at life outdoors, it appears to us like a gladiator fight, the strongest remains as the victor, the others perish. — If one believed the naturalists, one would have to suppose that all beings, which populate the world today, have been able to out-compete the others, which were there earlier. There is also a school of sociologists, which wanted to make this principle of the struggle for existence almost a doctrine of human development. In a book, entitled From Darwin to Nietzsche (1895), Alexander Tille (1866-1912, German philosopher, economic functionary, and lobbyist) tried to show that the future happiness of humanity depends on the fact that one accepts this struggle for existence wholeheartedly in the development of humanity. One should arrange it in such a way that the incapable perishes, however, that one must care for the strong ones and encourage them in the struggle for existence. The weak ones should perish. One said that we need such a social order that suppresses the weak ones because they are injurious. — I ask you, who is the strong one, who has an ideal mental power but a feeble body, or the other one who owns a less high mental power in a robust body? — One achieves nothing with general rules as you see. It is hard to decide who should be left, actually, in the struggle for existence. If it concerned practical measures, this question would have to be decided first. Now we ask ourselves, what becomes apparent to us if we look at the human life? Has the principle of fraternity or the principle of the struggle for existence achieved great things in the evolution of humanity, or have both contributed something to it? Only with brief words, I would like again to draw your attention to what I already said in the talk on the idea of peace that even the modern natural sciences do no longer stand on the ground on which they still stood one decade ago. I have already pointed to the basic talk of the Russian researcher Kessler (Karl Fedorovich K., 1815-1881, German-Russian zoologist) in 1880 where he showed that the actual progressive animal species capable of development are not those which struggle the most, but which help each other. With it, it should not be asserted that struggle and war do not exist in the animal realm. Indeed, they exist, but it is another question what promotes development more, the war, or the mutual aid? One put an additional question: do those species survive whose individuals fight perpetually with each other, or those, which help each other? Here the above-mentioned research has already proved that not the struggle, but the mutual aid actually supports the progress. I have already pointed to the book of Prince Pyotr Kropotkin (1842-1921, Russian geographer, anarchist) Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution . In this book, you find some nice contributions to the questions, which occupy us here. What did fraternity achieve in the human evolution? We only need to look at our ancestors on the same land on which we live today. You can easily get the idea that hunting and war were the actually supporting and caused the character of those human beings primarily. However, who defers deeper to history, finds that this is not right that those, also among the Germanic tribes, prospered best of all, on the contrary, those who had developed the principle of fraternity extraordinarily. We find this principle of fraternity above all how in the times before and after the migration of the people's property was regulated. In a great measure, there was a common property of land. A village in which the human beings lived together had a common property, and with the exception of a few things that belonged directly to the domestic use, with the exception of the tools, maybe of a garden, everything was common property. Every now and then, the land was divided again among the inhabitants, and it became apparent that these tribes had become strong because they had extraordinarily maintained fraternity concerning material goods. If we go on some centuries, we find that this principle faces us in an exceptionally fertile way. The principle of fraternity, as it is distinct in the old villages, in the old conditions where the human beings found their freedom in the brotherly living together, expressed itself typically in the fact that one went so far to burn everything that a dead person had possessed. For one did not want to possess anything that the dead had possessed. When the principle was broken because of different conditions, in particular because single human beings had acquired a large estate and the persons in the surrounding area were thereby forced to serfdom and corvée, the principle of fraternity asserted in another, luminous way. Those who were depressed by their lords, the owners, wanted to free themselves from this oppression. Thus, we see in the middle of the Middle Ages a big liberation movement going through entire Europe. This liberation movement was characterised by general fraternity from which a general culture blossomed. We are in the so-called urban civilisation in the middle of the Middle Ages. Those human beings who could not stand the labour work on the manors escaped from their lords and sought for freedom in the enlarged cities. People came from Scotland, France, and Russia, from everywhere and brought about the free cities. The principle of fraternity thereby developed, and it promoted culture in the extreme. Those who had common activities of the same kind united to associations which one called confraternities and which grew up to the guilds later. These associations were far more than mere unions of artisans or merchants. They developed from the practical life to a moral height. The mutual aid was highly developed with these associations, and many matters, which almost nobody cares about today, were objects of such assistance. Thus, for example, the members of such a confraternity provided assistance supporting each other in cases of illness. Two brothers were determined from day to day who had to keep vigil at the bedside of an ill brother. Sick people were supported with food. Even beyond the grave, one thought brotherly, while one regarded it as something particularly honourable to bury a brother suitably. Finally, it also belonged to the honour of the association to supply the widows and orphans. Thus, you see how an understanding of morality arose in the common life how this morality formed on the ground of a consciousness an idea of which the modern human being can hardly conceive. Do not believe that here the present conditions should be rebuked in any way. They have become necessary, as well as it was necessary that the medieval conditions were expressed in their way. We have only to understand that there were also other phases of development than the modern ones. Everywhere in the free cities of the Middle Ages, the trade in the market places and the prices were controlled. What did this mean? I want to illustrate it with a concrete example. If products were brought from the surrounding farmland to a market place of a city, one was only allowed to sell them in retail in the first days. Nobody was allowed to buy wholesale or to be an intermediary. At that time, one never thought to regulate the prices by supply and demand. At that time, one was able to adjust both. The authorities of the cities or the guilds had to fix the prices of the goods after one had determined everything that was necessary to their production. Nobody was allowed to exceed the prices. If we look at the labour conditions, we see that a thorough understanding existed of that which a person needed. If we look at the wages of the past taking into account the completely different conditions, we must say to ourselves that we cannot compare the remuneration of a worker of that time with that of a worker of today. The researchers have often interpreted this fact quite wrong. According to practical points of view, these associations were formed and, hence, they formed gradually according to such practical points of view. Then they spread from one city to the other, because it was a matter of course that those who had a common craft and common interests combined in the various cities and supported each other. Thus, the associations extended from town to town. At that time, humanity was not yet united by police rules, but by practical points of view. Who bothers to study the conditions, which were visible steadily in the towns of Europe at that time, notices very soon that we deal here with a particular phase of the deepening of the fraternity principle. This becomes apparent in particular, if we see which fruit developed from it. We could point to the highest summits, to the enormous artistic achievements of the 12th and 13th centuries. They would not have been possible without this deepening of the fraternity principle. Dante's tremendous work, The Divine Comedy , we understand cultural-historically only if we understand the development of the fraternity principle. Have a look further at that which originated in the cities under the influence of this principle, for example, how art of printing, copperplate engraving, paper preparation, horology, and the later appearing inventions prepared under the free principle of fraternity. What we are used to call bourgeoisie arises from the maintenance of the fraternity principle in the medieval cities. Many things that were produced by the scientific and artistic deepening would not have been possible without maintenance of this fraternity principle. If a cathedral should be built, for example the Cologne Cathedral or any other cathedral, then we see that at first an association, a so-called construction guild formed. A determined cooperation of the members of such a guild came into being that way. One can see — if one has an intuitive look — this fraternity principle expressed even in the architectural style, one can see it expressed everywhere almost in every medieval city, and you find it going northwards to Scotland or to Venice, looking at Russian or Polish cities. However, we have to emphasise one thing, namely that the fraternity principle originated under the influence of a decidedly material culture and, therefore, everywhere we see the material, the physical in this developing higher culture and in that which remains as a fruit of that time. It had to be maintained once, and to maintain and to organise it properly this fraternity principle was necessary in those days. From an abstraction, this fraternity principle arose at that time and our life was split by this abstraction, by this rational thinking, so that one does no longer know and understand exactly today how the struggle for existence and the fraternity principle mutually co-operate. On one side, the spiritual life became more and more abstract. Morality and justice, views concerning the political system and the other social conditions were considered under more and more abstract principles, and an abyss separated the struggle for existence more and more from that which the human being feels, actually, as his ideal. In those days, in the middle of the Middle Ages, a harmony existed between that which one felt as his ideal and which one really did. If ever it was shown once that one can be an idealist and practitioner at the same time, it might have been good so in the Middle Ages. In addition, the relation of the Roman law to life was still a harmonious one. However, look at this matter today, and then you see our legal relationships hovering over the moral life. Many people say: we know what is good, right, and proper, but it is not practical. — This comes from the fact that the thinking about the highest principles is separated from life. From the 16th century on, we see the spiritual life developing more under rational principles. A member of a guild who sat with other twelve lay judges in judgement of any offence that another member of the guild had committed was the brother of that who should be judged. Life combined with life. Everybody knew what the other worked and tried to understand why he deviated from the right way. One looked, as it were, into the brother and wanted to look into him. Now a kind of jurisprudence developed that the judge and the lawyer are only interested in the code that both only see a “case” to which they have to apply the law. Consider only how everything that is intended morally is detached from jurisprudence. We saw this condition more and more developing in the last century, while in the Middle Ages under the principle of fraternity something had developed that is inevitable and important to any prosperous progress: expertise and trust which disappear as principles more and more. The judgment of the expert has almost completely withdrawn compared with the abstract jurisprudence, compared with the abstract parliamentarism. Today the ordinary intellect, the majority should be authoritative, not the expertise. The preference of the majority had to come. But just as little as one can vote in mathematics to get a right result — for 3 times 3 is always 9 and 3 times 9 is always 27, it is there also. It would be impossible to carry out the principle of the expert without the principle of fraternity, of brotherly love. The struggle for existence is justified in life. Because the human being is a special being and must go his way through life as a single, he depends on this struggle for existence. In certain respects, the saying by Rückert (Friedrich R., 1788-1866, German poet and translator) also applies here: if the rose adorns itself, it also adorns the garden. — Unless we make ourselves able to help our fellow men, we are only able to help them badly. Unless we see to it that all our dispositions are trained, we are only less successful to help our brothers. A certain egoism must exist to develop these dispositions, because the initiative is connected with egoism. Who knows not to be led who knows not to let any picture of the surroundings work on himself, but knows how to descend in his inside, where the springs of the forces are, becomes a strong and capable human being who is more capable to serve others than someone who complies with all possible influence of his surroundings. It is obvious that this principle, which is necessary for the human being, can be radically elaborated. However, this principle only bears the right fruit if it is paired with the principle of brotherly love. Just for this reason, I have instanced the free city guilds of the Middle Ages to show how the practice became so strong just under the principle of the mutual personal, individual aid. Where from did they get their strength? From the fact that they lived fraternally together with their fellow men. It is right to become as strong as possible. However, the question is whether we are generally able to become strong without brotherly love. Someone who soars a real soul knowledge has to deny this question categorically. We see models of cooperation of single beings in a whole in the whole nature. Take only the human body. It exists of independent beings, of millions and millions of single independent living beings or cells. If you look at a part of this human body under the microscope, you find that it is composed of such independent beings. How do they co-operate? How has that become unselfish which should establish a whole in nature? None of our cells asserts its selfhood egotistically. The marvellous tool of thinking, the brain, is likewise formed from millions subtle cells, but they all work on their place harmoniously with the others. What does the cooperation of these little cells cause, what does it cause that a higher being is expressed within these little living beings? It is the human soul, which produces this effect. However, never could the human soul work here on earth unless these millions little beings gave up their selfhood and serve the big, common being which we call the soul. The soul sees with the cells of the eye, thinks with the cells of the brain, and lives with the cells of the blood. There we see what union means. Union means the possibility that a higher being expresses itself by the united constituents. This is a general principle of life. Five human beings who are together and think and feel harmoniously, are more than 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1, they are not only the sum of five, just as little as our body is the sum of five senses. However, the living together and living in each other of the human beings signifies something quite similar as the living in each other of the cells of the human body. A new, higher being is among the five, already among two or three ones. “For where two or three meet together in my name, I am there among them” (Matthew 18:29). It is not the one, the other and the third, but something quite new originates from the union. However, it originates only if the single human being lives in the other, if the single human being not only gets his strength from himself only, but also from the other. However, this can happen only if he lives unselfishly in the other. Thus, the human unions are the mysterious sites, in which higher spiritual beings delve themselves to work using the single human being, as the soul works using the parts of the body. In our materialistic age, one hardly believes that, but in the spiritual-scientific worldview, it is not only something pictorial, but also something real to the highest degree. Hence, the spiritual scientist does not only speak of abstract things speaking of the folk soul or of the folk spirit, of the family spirit or of the spirit of another community. One cannot see this spirit that works in a union, but it exists because of the brotherly love of the human beings working in this union. As the body has a soul, a guild, a fraternity also has a soul, and I repeat once again, I do not speak of anything figurative but of anything real. The human beings who co-operate in a brotherhood are magicians because they draw higher beings into their circle. One does no longer need to refer to the machinations of spiritism if one co-operates with brotherly love in a community. Higher beings manifest themselves there. If we are merged in the fraternity, we harden and strengthen our organs. If we act or speak then as a member of such a community, the single soul does not act or speak in us, but the spirit of the community. This is the secret of the future human progress to work out of communities. As an epoch replaces the other and any epoch has its own task, it is also with the medieval epoch in relation to ours, with our epoch in relation to the future one. The medieval guilds worked in the immediate practical life, in the basic useful skills. They showed a materialistic life only, after they had received their fruits, after the basis of their consciousness, namely brotherliness, had dwindled more or less, after the abstract state principle, the abstract, spiritual life had replaced real empathy. It is the future task to found brotherhoods again, namely out of the spiritual, out of the highest ideals of the soul. Human life produced the manifold unions up to now; it has caused a terrible struggle for existence, which has almost arrived at its peak today. The spiritual-scientific worldview wants to train the highest goods of humanity in the sense of the fraternity principle, and then you see that the spiritual-scientific world movement replaces the struggle for existence with this fraternity principle in all fields. We have to learn to lead a common life. We are not allowed to believe that the one or the other is able to carry out this or that. Probably everybody would like to know how to combine the struggle for existence and brotherly love. This is very easy. We have to learn to substitute struggle by positive work, to substitute the struggle, the war by the ideal. Today one does not sufficiently understand what that is. One does not know of which struggle one speaks, because one speaks in life generally only of struggles. There we have the social struggle, the struggle for peace, the struggle for the emancipation of the woman, the struggle for land, et cetera, where we look, we see the struggle. The spiritual-scientific worldview strives for replacing this struggle by positive work. Someone who has settled down in this worldview knows that the struggles lead to a real result in any field of life. Try to apply that which proves to be the right thing in your experience and knowledge to implement in life, to assert it without fighting against the opponent. Of course, it can be only an ideal, but such an ideal must exist, which is to be implemented today as a spiritual-scientific principle in life. Human beings who join human beings and who use their strength for everything are those who deliver the basis of a prosperous development in future. The theosophical society wants to be exemplary even in this respect; therefore, it is no propaganda society like others, but a society of brothers. One works in it by the work of every single member. One has to understand this correctly once. Someone works best who wants to push through not his opinion, but that which he guesses by looking at his co-brothers; who does research in the thoughts and feelings of the fellow men and serves them. Somebody works best of all within this circle who is able not to spare his own opinion in the practical life. If we try to understand this way that our best forces arise from the union and that the union is not only considered as an abstract principle, but also is to be operated above all theosophically with every handle, at every moment of life, then we advance. We must be patient advancing this way. What does spiritual science show to us? It shows a higher reality, and it is this consciousness of a higher reality that furthers us in the activity of the fraternity principle. One still calls the theosophists impractical idealists. It will not last long, and they will prove to be the most practical people because they envisage the forces of life. Nobody doubts that one injures a person if one throws a stone at his head. However, one does not consider that it is much worse to send a hatred feeling to the human being that injures his soul even more than the stone injures the body. It completely depends on it with which attitude we face the fellow men. However, our strength of a prosperous work in future also depends on it. If we try to live fraternally that way, then we carry out the principle of fraternity practically. Being tolerant means, something else in a spiritual-scientific sense than what one normally understands by it. It means to pay attention also to the freedom of thought of other people. It is boorishness to push another away from his place; it is boorishness if one does the same, however, in thoughts, because nobody regards that as wrong. Indeed, we speak a lot of the appreciation of the other opinion; however, we are not inclined to apply this to ourselves. A word almost does not have any significance to us; we hear it and have not heard it, nevertheless. However, we must learn to listen with the soul, we must know how to grasp the most intimate matters with the soul. That always exists in spirit at first, which originates later in the physical life. We must suppress our opinion to hear the other completely, not only the word, but even the emotion, also if in us the emotion should stir that it is wrong which the other says. One is much more strengthened if one is able to listen, as long as the other speaks, than to interrupt him. This gives a completely different mutual understanding. Then you feel, as if the soul of the fellow man warms and illuminates you, if you consider it with absolute tolerance. We should not only grant freedom of the human being, but we should also esteem complete freedom, even the freedom of the other opinion. This is only one example of many. Someone who interrupts the other does — considered from a spiritual worldview — something similar as someone who gives him a kick. If one is able to understand that it is much stronger influencing to interrupt another than to give him a kick, then only one gets around to understanding the fraternity at heart, then it becomes a fact. This is the great thing of the spiritual-scientific movement that it brings us a new confidence, a new conviction of the spiritual forces flowing out from human being to human being. This is the higher principle of spiritual fraternity. Everybody may imagine how remote humanity is from such a principle of spiritual fraternity. Everybody may educate himself — if he finds time — to send thoughts of love and friendship to his dear. The human being regards this normally as something meaningless. But if you are once able to see that the thought is as well a force as the electric wave which goes out from an apparatus and streams to the receiving apparatus, then you also understand the principle of fraternity better, then the common consciousness becomes more distinct bit by bit, then it becomes practical. From this point of view, we can realise how the spiritual-scientific worldview understands the struggle for existence and the fraternal relationship. We know for sure that quite a few people who are put to this or that place in life simply would perish if they did not do in Rome as the Romans do, if they did not fight this struggle for existence as cruelly as many others. For somebody who thinks materialistically there is almost no escape from this struggle for existence. Indeed, we should do our duty at the place where karma has put us. However, we do the right thing if we understand that we would perform much more if we refrained to see the results, which we want to get, in the immediate present. If you are in the struggle for existence with bleeding soul, have the heart to let flow your thoughts affectionately from soul to soul to anybody whom you hurt in the struggle for existence. As a materialist, you maybe think that you have done nothing. After these discussions, however, you see that this must have its effect later; for we know that nothing is lost which takes action in the spiritual. Thus, we may wage the struggle for existence with hesitating soul sometimes, with melancholy in the heart and transform it with our cooperation. Working in this struggle for existence in such a way means transforming it in practical respect. This is not possible overnight, but no doubt, we can do it. If we work on our soul in the sense of brotherly love, we benefit humanity mostly because we benefit ourselves. For it is true that our abilities are uprooted as a plant is eradicated from the ground if we remain in selfhood. As little as an eye is still an eye if it is torn out of the head, as little a human soul is still a human soul if it separates from the human society. You will see that we develop our talents, best of all, if we live in brotherly community that we live most intensely if we are rooted in the whole. Of course, we have to wait holding communion with ourselves until that which takes roots in the whole becomes fruit. We must not get lost neither in the outside world, nor in ourselves, for that is true in the highest spiritual sense, which the poet said that we have to be quiet with ourselves if our talents should appear. Nevertheless, these talents are rooted in the world. We can strengthen them and improve our character only if we live in the community. Therefore, it is true in the sense of the principle of real fraternity that brotherliness makes the human being the strongest just in the struggle for existence, and he will find most of his forces in the silence of his heart if he develops his whole personality, his whole individuality together with the other human brothers. It is true: a talent forms in the silence —, however, it is also true: a character and with it the whole human being and the whole humanity form in the perpetual current of the world.

Brotherhood and the Struggle for Existence

https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA054/English/RSA2014/19051123p02.html

Berlin

23 Nov 1905

GA054-8

Translated by Gertrude Teutsch The concepts concerning the super-sensible world and its relationship with the world of the senses have been discussed here in a long series of lectures. It is only natural that, again and again, the question should arise, “What is the origin of knowledge concerning the super-sensible world?” With this question or, in other words, with the question of the inner development of man, we wish to occupy ourselves today. The phrase “inner development of man” here refers to the ascent of the human being to capacities which must be acquired if he wishes to make super-sensible insights his own. Now do not misunderstand the intent of this lecture. This lecture will by no means postulate rules or laws concerning general human morality, nor will it challenge the general religion of the age. I must stress this because when occultism is discussed the misunderstanding often arises that some sort of general demands or fundamental moral laws, valid without variation, are being established. This is not the case. This point requires particular clarification in our age of standardization, when differences between human beings are not at all acknowledged. Neither should today's lecture be mistaken for a lecture concerning the general fundamentals of the anthroposophic movement. Occultism is not the same as anthroposophy. The Anthroposophical Society is not alone in cultivating occultism, nor is this its only task. It could even be possible for a person to join the Anthroposophical Society and to avoid occultism altogether. Among the inquiries which are pursued within the Anthroposophical Society, in addition to the field of general ethics, is also this field of occultism, which includes those laws of existence which are hidden from the usual sense observation in everyday human experience. By no means, however, are these laws unrelated to everyday experience. “Occult” means “hidden,” or “mysterious.” But it must be stressed over and over that occultism is a matter in which certain preconditions are truly necessary. Just as higher mathematics would be incomprehensible to the simple peasant who had never before encountered it, so is occultism incomprehensible to many people today. Occultism ceases to be “occult,” however, when one has mastered it. In this way, I have strictly defined the boundaries of today's lecture. Therefore, no one can object — this must be stressed in the light of the most manifold endeavors and of the experience of millennia — that the demands of occultism cannot be fulfilled, and that they contradict the general culture. No one is expected to fulfill these demands. But if someone requests that he be given convictions provided by occultism and yet refuses to occupy himself with it, he is like a schoolboy who wishes to create electricity in a glass rod, yet refuses to rub it. Without friction, it will not become charged. This is similar to the objection raised against the practice of occultism. No one is exhorted to become an occultist; one must come to occultism of one's own volition. Whoever says that we do not need occultism will not need to occupy himself with it. At this time, occultism does not appeal to mankind in general. In fact, it is extremely difficult in the present culture to submit to those rules of conduct which will open the spiritual world. Two prerequisites are totally lacking in our culture. One is isolation, what spiritual science calls “higher human solitude.” The other is overcoming the egotism which, though largely unconscious, has become a dominant characteristic of our time. The absence of these two prerequisites renders the path of inner development simply unattainable. Isolation, or spiritual solitude, is very difficult to achieve because life conditions tend to distract and disperse, in brief to demand sense-involvement in the external. There has been no previous culture in which people have lived with such an involvement in the external. I beg you not to take what I am saying as criticism, but simply as an objective characterization. Of course, he who speaks as I do knows that this situation cannot be different, and that it forms the basis for the greatest advantages and greatest achievements of our time. But this is the reason that our time is so devoid of super-sensible insight and that our culture is so devoid of super-sensible influence. In other cultures — and they do exist — the human being is in a position to cultivate the inner life more and to withdraw from the influences of external life. Such cultures offer a soil where inner life in the higher sense can thrive. In the Oriental culture there exists what is called Yoga. Those who live according to the rules of this teaching are called yogis. A yogi is one who strives for higher spiritual knowledge, but only after he has sought for himself a master of the super-sensible. No one is able to proceed without the guidance of a master, or guru. When the yogi has found such a guru, he must spend a considerable part of the day, regularly, not irregularly, living totally within his soul. All the forces that the yogi needs to develop are already within his soul. They exist there as truly as electricity exists in the glass rod before it is brought forth through friction. In order to call forth the forces of the soul, methods of spiritual science must be used which are the results of observations made over millennia. This is very difficult in our time, which demands a certain splintering of each individual struggling for existence. One cannot arrive at a total inward composure; one cannot even arrive at the concept of such composure. People are not sufficiently aware of the deep solitude the yogi must seek. One must repeat the same matter rhythmically with immense regularity, if only for a brief time each day, in total separation from all usual concerns. It is indispensable that all life usually surrounding the yogi cease to exist and that his senses become unreceptive to all impressions of the world around him. He must be able to make himself deaf and dumb to his surroundings during the time which he prescribes for himself. He must be able to concentrate to such a degree — and he must acquire practice in this concentration — that a cannon could be fired next to him without disturbing his attention to his inner life. He must also become free of all memory impressions, particularly those of everyday life. Just think how exceedingly difficult it is to bring about these conditions in our culture, how even the concept of such isolation is lacking. This spiritual solitude must be reached in such a way that the harmony, the total equilibrium with the surrounding world, is never lost. But this harmony can be lost exceedingly easily during such deep immersion in one's inner life. Whoever goes more and more deeply inward must at the same time be able to establish harmony with the external world all the more clearly. No hint of estrangement, of distancing from external practical life, may arise in him lest he stray from the right course. To a degree, then, it might be impossible to distinguish his higher life from insanity. It truly is a kind of insanity when the inner life loses its proper relationship to the outer. Just imagine, for example, that you were knowledgeable concerning our conditions on earth and that you had all the experience and wisdom which may be gathered here. You fall asleep in the evening, and in the morning you do not wake up on Earth but on Mars. The conditions on Mars are totally different from those on Earth; the knowledge that you have gathered on Earth is of no use to you whatsoever. There is no longer harmony between life within you and external life. You probably would find yourself in a Martian insane asylum within an hour. A similar situation might easily arise if the development of the internal life severs one's connection with the external world. One must take strict care that this does not happen. These are great difficulties in our culture. Egotism in relation to inward soul properties is the first obstacle. Present humanity usually takes no account of this. This egotism is closely connected with the spiritual development of man. An important prerequisite for spiritual development is not to seek it out of egotism. Whoever is motivated by egotism cannot get very far. But egotism in our time reaches deep into the innermost soul. Again and again the objection is heard, “What use are all the teachings of occultism, if I cannot experience them myself?” Whoever starts from this presumption and cannot change has little chance of arriving at higher development. One aspect of higher development is a most intimate awareness of human community, so that it is immaterial whether it is I or someone else having the experience. Hence I must meet one who has a higher development than I with unlimited love and trust. First, I must acquire this consciousness, the consciousness of infinite trust toward my fellow man when he says that he has experienced one thing or the other. Such trust is a precondition for working together. Wherever occult capacities are strongly brought into play, there exists unlimited trust; there exists the awareness that a human being is a personality in which a higher individuality lives. The first basis, therefore, is trust and faith, because we do not seek the higher self only in ourselves but also in our fellow men. Everyone living around one exists in undivided unity in the inner kernel of one's being. On the basis of my lower self I am separated from other humans. But as far as my higher self is concerned — and that alone can ascend to the spiritual world — I am no longer separated from my fellow men; I am united with my fellow men; the one speaking to me out of higher truths is actually my own self. I must get away completely from the notion of difference between him and me. I must overcome totally the feeling that he has an advantage over me. Try to live your way into this feeling until it penetrates the most intimate fiber of your soul and causes every vestige of egotism to disappear. Do this so that the one further along the path than you truly stands before you like your own self; then you have attained one of the prerequisites for awakening higher spiritual life. In situations where one receives guidance for the occult life, sometimes quite erroneously and confusedly, one may often hear that the higher self lives in the human being, that he need only allow his inner man to speak and the highest truth will thereby become manifest. Nothing is more correct and, at the same time, less productive than this assertion. Just try to let your inner self speak, and you will see that, as a rule, no matter how much you fancy that your higher self is making an appearance, it is the lower self that speaks. The higher self is not found within us for the time being. We must seek it outside of ourselves. We can learn a good deal from the person who is further along than we are, since there the higher self is visible. One's higher self can gain nothing from one's own egotistic “I.” There where he now stands who is further along than I am, there will I stand sometime in the future. I am truly constituted to carry within myself the seed for what he already is. But the paths to Olympus must first be illuminated before one can follow them. A feeling which may seem unbelievable is the fundamental condition for all occult development. It is mentioned in the various religions, and every practical occultist with experience will confirm it. The Christian religion describes it with the well-known sentence, , which an occultist must understand completely, “Except ye become as little children, ye shall not enter the kingdom of heaven.” This sentence can be understood only by he who has learned to revere in the highest sense. Suppose that in your earliest youth you had heard about a venerable person, an individual of whom you held the highest opinion, and now you are offered the opportunity to meet this person. A sense of awe prevails in you when the moment approaches that you will see this person for the first time. There, standing at the gateway of this personality, you might feel hesitant to touch the door handle and open it. When you look up in this way to such a venerable personality, then you have begun to grasp the feeling that Christianity intends by the statement that one should become like little children in order to enter the kingdom of heaven. Whether or not the subject of this veneration is truly worthy of it is not really important. What matters is the capacity to look up to something with a veneration that comes from the innermost heart. This feeling of veneration is the elevating force, raising us to higher spheres of super-sensible life. Everyone seeking the higher life must write into his soul with golden letters this law of the occult world. Development must start from this basic soul-mood; without this feeling, nothing can be achieved. Next, a person seeking inner development must understand clearly that he is doing something of immense importance to the human being. What he seeks is no more nor less than a new birth, and that needs to be taken in a literal sense. The higher soul of man is to be born. Just as man in his first birth was born out of the deep inner foundations of existence, and as he emerged into the light of the sun, so does he who seeks inner development step forth from the physical light of the sun into a higher spiritual light. Something is being born in him which rests as deeply in most human beings as the unborn child rests in the mother. Without being aware of the full significance of this fact, one cannot understand what occult development means. The higher soul, resting deep within human nature and interwoven with it, is brought forth. As man stands before us in everyday life, his higher and lower natures are intermingled, and that is fortunate for everyday life. Many persons among us would exhibit evil, negative qualities except that there lives along with the lower nature a higher one which exerts a balancing influence. This intermingling can be compared with mixing a yellow with a blue liquid in a glass. The result is a green liquid in which blue and yellow can no longer be distinguished. So also is the lower nature in man mingled with the higher, and the two cannot be distinguished. Just as you might extract the blue liquid from the green by a chemical process, so that only the yellow remains and the unified green is separated into a complete duality, so the lower and higher natures separate in occult development. One draws the lower nature out of the body like a sword from the scabbard, which then remains alone. The lower nature comes forth appearing almost gruesome. When it was still mingled with the higher nature, nothing was noticeable. But once separated, all evil, negative properties come into view. People who previously appeared benevolent often become argumentative and jealous. This characteristic had existed earlier in the lower nature, but was guided by the higher. You can observe this in many who have been guided along an abnormal path. A person may readily become a liar when he is introduced into the spiritual world, because the capacity to distinguish between the true and the false is lost especially easily. Therefore, strictest training of the personal character is a necessary parallel to occult training. What history tells us about the saints and their temptations is not legend but literal truth. He who wants to develop towards the higher world on any path is readily prone to such temptations unless he can subdue everything that meets him with a powerful strength of character and the highest morality. Not only do lust and passions grow — that is not even the case so much — but opportunities also increase. This seems miraculous. As through a miracle, the person ascending into the higher worlds finds previously hidden opportunities for evil lurking around him. In every aspect of life a demon lies in wait for him, ready to lead him astray. He now sees what he has not seen before. As through a spell, the division within his own being charms forth such opportunities from the hidden areas of life. Therefore, a very determined shaping of the character is an indispensable foundation for the so-called white magic, the school of occult development which leads man into the higher worlds in a good, true, and genuine way. Every practical occultist will tell you that no one should dare to step through the narrow portal, as the entrance to occult development is called, without practicing these properties again and again. They build the necessary foundation for occult life. First man must develop the ability to distinguish in every situation throughout his life what is unimportant from what is important, that is, what is perishable from the imperishable. This requirement is easy to indicate but difficult to carry out. As Goethe says, it is easy, but what is easy is hard. Look, for instance, at a plant or an object. You will learn to understand that everything has an important and an unimportant side, and that man usually takes interest in the unimportant, in the relationship of the matter to himself, or in some other subordinate aspect. He who wishes to become an occultist must gradually develop the habit of seeing and seeking in each thing its essence. For instance, when he sees a clock he must have an interest in its laws. He must be able to take it apart into its smallest detail and to develop a feeling for the laws of the clock. A mineralogist will arrive at considerable knowledge about a quartz-crystal simply by looking at it. The occultist, however, must be able to take the stone in his hand and to feel in a living way something akin to the following monologue: “In a certain sense you, the crystal, are beneath humanity, but in a certain sense you are far above humanity. You are beneath humanity because you cannot make for yourself a picture of man by means of concepts, and because you do not feel. You cannot explain or think, you do not live, but you have an advantage over mankind. You are pure within yourself, have no desire, no wishes, no lust. Every human, every living being has wishes, desires, lusts. You do not have them. You are complete and without wishes, satisfied with what has come to you, an example for man, with which he will have to unite his other qualities.” If the occultist can feel this in all its depth, then he has grasped what the stone can tell him. In this way man can draw out of everything something full of meaning. When this has become a habit for him, when he separates the important from the unimportant, he has acquired another feeling essential to the occultist. Then he must connect his own life with that which is important. In this people err particularly easily in our time. They believe that their place in life is not proper for them. How often people are inclined to say, “My lot has put me in the wrong place. I am,” let us say, “a postal clerk. If I were put in a different place, I could give people high ideas, great teaching,” and so on. The mistake which these people make is that they do not enter into the significant aspect of their occupation. If you see in me something of importance because I can talk to the people here, then you do not see the importance of your own life and work. If the mail-carriers did not carry the mail, the whole postal traffic would stop, and much work already achieved by others would be in vain. Hence everyone in his place is of exceeding importance for the whole, and none is higher than the other. Christ has attempted to demonstrate this most beautifully in the thirteenth chapter of the Gospel of John, with the words, “The servant is not greater than his lord; neither he that is sent greater than he that sent him.” These words were spoken after the Master had washed the feet of the Apostles. He wanted to say, “What would I be without my Apostles? They must be there so that I can be there in the world, and I must pay them tribute by lowering myself before them and washing their feet.” This is one of the most significant allusions to the feeling that the occultist must have for what is important. What is important in the inward sense must not be confused with the externally important. This must be strictly observed. In addition, we must develop a series of qualities. 1 For another description of these exercises, see Occult Science, an Outline (Anthroposophic Press, Spring Valley, New York, 1972) Chapter 5, p. 283. To begin with, we must become masters over our thoughts, and particularly our train of thought. This is called control of thoughts . Just think how thoughts whirl about in the soul of man, how they flit about like will-o'-the wisps. Here one impression arises, there another, and each one changes one's thoughts. It is not true that we govern our thoughts; rather our thoughts govern us totally. We must advance to the ability of steeping ourselves in one specific thought at a certain time of the day and not allow any other thought to enter and disturb our soul. In this way we ourselves hold the reins of thought life for a time. The second quality is to find a similar relationship to our actions, that is, to exercise control over our actions . Here it is necessary to undertake actions, at least occasionally, which are not initiated by anything external. That which is initiated by our station in life, our profession, or our situation does not lead us more deeply into higher life. Higher life depends on personal matters, such as resolving to do something springing totally from one's own initiative even if it is an absolutely insignificant matter. All other actions contribute nothing to the higher life. The third quality to be striven for is even-temperedness . People fluctuate back and forth between joy and sorrow. One moment they are beside themselves with joy, the next they are unbearably sad. Thus, people allow themselves to be rocked on the waves of life, on joy or sorrow. But they must reach equanimity and steadiness. Neither the greatest sorrow nor the greatest joy must unsettle their composure. They must become steadfast and even-tempered. Fourth is the understanding for every being . Nothing expresses more beautifully what it means to understand every being than the legend which is handed down to us, not by the Gospel, but by a Persian story. Jesus was walking across a field with his disciples, and on the way they found a decaying dog. The animal looked horrible. Jesus stopped and cast an admiring look upon it, saying, “What beautiful teeth the animal has!” Jesus found within the ugly the one beautiful aspect. Strive at all times to approach what is wonderful in every object of outer reality, and you will see that everything contains an aspect that can be affirmed. Do as Christ did when he admired the beautiful teeth on the dead dog. This course will lead you to the great ability to tolerate, and to an understanding of every thing and of every being. The fifth quality is complete openness towards everything new that meets us. Most people judge new things which meet them by the old which they already know. If anyone comes to tell them something new, they immediately respond with an opposing opinion. But we must not confront a new communication immediately with our own opinion. We must rather be on the alert for possibilities of learning something new. And learn we can, even from a small child. Even if one were the wisest person, one must be willing to hold back one's own judgment, and to listen to others. We must develop this ability to listen, for it will enable us to meet matters with the greatest possible openness. In occultism, this is called faith. It is the power not to weaken through opposition the impression made by the new. The sixth quality is that which everyone receives once he has developed the first five. It is inner harmony . The person who has the other qualities also has inner harmony. In addition, it is necessary for a person seeking occult development to develop his feeling for freedom to the highest degree. That feeling for freedom enables him to seek within himself the center of his own being, to stand on his own two feet, so that he will not have to ask everyone what he should do and so that he can stand upright and act freely. This also is a quality which one needs to acquire. If man has developed these qualities within himself, then he stands above all the dangers arising from the division within his nature. Then the properties of his lower nature can no longer affect him; he can no longer stray from the path. Therefore, these qualities must be formed with the greatest precision. Then comes the occult life, whose expression depends on a steady rhythm being carried into life. The phrase “carrying rhythm into life” expresses the unfolding of this faculty. If you observe nature, you will find in it a certain rhythm. You will, of course, expect that the violet blooms every year at the same time in spring, that the crops in the field and the grapes on the vine will ripen at the same time each year. This rhythmical sequence of phenomena exists everywhere in nature. Everywhere there is rhythm, everywhere repetition in regular sequence. As you ascend from the plant to beings with higher development, you see the rhythmic sequence decreasing. Yet even in the higher stages of animal development one sees how all functions are ordered rhythmically. At a certain time of the year, animals acquire certain functions and capabilities. The higher a being evolves, the more life is given over into the hands of the being itself, and the more these rhythms cease. You must know that the human body is only one member of man's being. There is also the etheric body, then the astral body, and, finally, the higher members which form the basis for the others. The physical body is highly subject to the same rhythm that governs outer nature. Just as plant and animal life, in its external form, takes its course rhythmically, so does the life of the physical body. The heart beats rhythmically, the lungs breathe rhythmically, and so forth. All this proceeds so rhythmically because it is set in order by higher powers, by the wisdom of the world, by that which the scriptures call the Holy Spirit. The higher bodies, particularly the astral body, have been, I would like to say, abandoned by these higher spiritual forces, and have lost their rhythm. Can you deny that your activity relating to wishes, desires, and passions is irregular, that it can in no way compare with the regularity ruling the physical body? He who learns to know the rhythm inherent in physical nature increasingly finds in it an example for spirituality. If you consider the heart, this wonderful organ with the regular beat and innate wisdom, and you compare it with the desires and passions of the astral body which unleash all sorts of actions against the heart, you will recognize how its regular course is influenced detrimentally by passion. However, the functions of the astral body must become as rhythmical as those of the physical body. I want to mention something here which will seem grotesque to most people. This is the matter of fasting. Awareness of the significance of fasting has been totally lost. Fasting is enormously significant, however, for creating rhythm in our astral body. What does it mean to fast? It means to restrain the desire to eat and to block the astral body in relation to this desire. He who fasts blocks the astral body and develops no desire to eat. This is like blocking a force in a machine. The astral body becomes inactive then, and the whole rhythm of the physical body with its innate wisdom works upward into the astral body to rhythmicize it. Like the imprint of a seal, the harmony of the physical body impresses itself upon the astral body. It would transfer much more permanently if the astral body were not continuously being made irregular by desires, passions, and wishes, including spiritual desires and wishes. It is more necessary for the man of today to carry rhythm into all spheres of higher life than it was in earlier times. Just as rhythm is implanted in the physical body by God, so man must make his astral body rhythmical. Man must order his day for himself. He must arrange it for his astral body as the spirit of nature arranges it for the lower realms. In the morning, at a definite time, one must undertake one spiritual action; a different one must be undertaken at another time, again to be adhered to regularly, and yet another one in the evening. These spiritual exercises must not be chosen arbitrarily, but must be suitable for the development of the higher life. This is one method for taking life in hand and for keeping it in hand. So set a time for yourself in the morning when you concentrate. You must adhere to this hour. You must establish a kind of calm so that the occult master in you may awaken. You must meditate about a great thought content that has nothing to do with the external world, and let this thought content come to life completely. A short time is enough, perhaps a quarter of an hour. Even five minutes are sufficient if more time is not available. But it is worthless to do these exercises irregularly. Do them regularly so that the activity of the astral body becomes as regular as a clock. Only then do they have value. The astral body will appear completely different if you do these exercises regularly. Sit down in the morning and do these exercises, and the forces I described will develop. But, as I said, it must be done regularly, for the astral body expects that the same process will take place at the same time each day, and it falls into disorder if this does not happen. At least the intent towards order must exist. If you rhythmicize your life in this manner, you will see success in not too long a time; that is, the spiritual life hidden from man for the time being will become manifest to a certain degree. As a rule, human life alternates among four states. The first state is the perception of the external world. You look around with your senses and perceive the external world. The second is what we may call imagination or the life of mental images which is related to, or even part of, dream life. There man does not have his roots in his surroundings, but is separated from them. There he has no realities within himself, but at the most reminiscences. The third state is dreamless sleep, in which man has no consciousness of his ego at all. In the fourth state he lives in memory. This is different from perception. It is already something remote, spiritual. If man had no memory, he could uphold no spiritual development. The inner life begins to develop by means of inner contemplation and meditation. Thus, the human being sooner or later perceives that he no longer dreams in a chaotic manner; he begins to dream in the most significant way, and remarkable things reveal themselves in his dreams, which he gradually begins to recognize as manifestations of spiritual beings. Naturally the trivial objection might easily be raised that this is nothing but a dream and therefore of no consequence. However, should someone discover the dirigible in his dream and then proceed to build it, the dream would simply have shown the truth. Thus an idea can be grasped in an other-than-usual manner. Its truthfulness must then be judged by the fact that it can be realized. We must become convinced of its inner truth from outside. The next step in spiritual life is to comprehend truth by means of our own qualities and of guiding our dreams consciously. When we begin to guide our dreams in a regular manner, then we are at the stage where truth becomes transparent for us. The first stage is called “material cognition.” For this, the object must lie before us. The next stage is “imaginative cognition.” It is developed through meditation, that is through shaping life rhythmically. Achieving this is laborious. But once it is achieved, the time arrives when there is no longer a difference between perception in the usual life and perception in the super-sensible. When we are among the things of our usual life, that is, in the sense world, and we change our spiritual state, then we experience continuously the spiritual, the super-sensible world, but only if we have sufficiently trained ourselves. This happens as soon as we are able to be deaf and dumb to the sense world, to remember nothing of the everyday world, and still to retain a spiritual life within us. Then our dream-life begins to take on a conscious form. If we are able to pour some of this into our everyday life, then the next capacity arises, rendering the soul-qualities of the beings around us perceptible. Then we see not only the external aspect of things, but also the inner, hidden essential kernel of things, of plants, of animals, and of man. I know that most people will say that these are actually different things. True, these are always different things from those a person sees who does not have such senses. The third stage is that in which a consciousness, which is as a rule completely empty, begins to be enlivened by continuity of consciousness. The continuity appears on its own. The person is then no longer unconscious during sleep. During the time in which he used to sleep, he now experiences the spiritual world. Of what does sleep usually consist? The physical body lies in bed, and the astral body lives in the super-sensible world. In this super-sensible world, you are taking a walk. As a rule, a person with the type of disposition which is typical today cannot withdraw very far from his body. If one applies the rules of spiritual science, organs can be developed in the astral body as it wanders during sleep — just as the physical body has organs — which allow one to become conscious during sleep. The physical body would be blind and deaf if it had no eyes or ears, and the astral body walking at night is blind and deaf for the same reason, because it does not yet have eyes and ears. But these organs are developed through meditation which provides the means for training these organs. This meditation must then be guided in a regular way. It is being led so that the human body is the mother and the spirit of man is the father. The physical human body, as we see it before us, is a mystery in every one of its parts and, in fact, each member is related in a definite but mysterious way to a part of the astral body. These are matters which the occultist knows. For instance, the point in the physical body lying between the eyebrows belongs to a certain organ in the astral organism. When the occultist indicates how one must direct thoughts, feelings, and sensations to this point between the eyebrows through connecting something formed in the physical body with the corresponding part of the astral body, the result will be a certain sensation in the astral body. But this must be practiced regularly, and one must know how to do it. Then the astral body begins to form its members. From a lump, it grows to be an organism in which organs are formed. I have described the astral sense organs in the periodical, Lucifer Gnosis. They are also called Lotus flowers. By means of special word sequences, these Lotus flowers are cultivated. Once this has occurred, the human being is able to perceive the spiritual world. This is the same world he enters when passing through the portal of death, a final contradiction to Hamlet's “The undiscover'd country from whose bourn no traveler returns.” So it is possible to go, or rather to slip, from the sense world into the super-sensible world and to live there as well as here. That does not mean life in never-never land, but life in a realm that clarifies and explains life in our realm. Just as the usual person who has not studied electricity would not understand all the wonderful workings in a factory powered by electricity, so the average person does not understand the occurrences in the spiritual world. The visitor at the factory will lack understanding as long as he remains ignorant of the laws of electricity. So also will man lack understanding in the realm of the spirit as long as he does not know the laws of the spiritual. There is nothing in our world that is not dependent on the spiritual world at every moment. Everything surrounding us is the external expression of the spiritual world. There is no materiality. Everything material is condensed spirit. For the person looking into the spiritual world, the whole material, sense-perceptible world, the world in general, becomes spiritualized. As ice melts into water through the effect of the sun, so everything sense-perceptible melts into something spiritual within the soul which looks into the spiritual world. Thus, the fundament of the world gradually manifests before the spiritual eye and the spiritual ear. The life that man learns to know in this manner is actually the spiritual life he carries within himself all along. But he knows nothing of it because he does not know himself before developing organs for the higher world. Imagine possessing the characteristics you have at this time, yet being without sense-organs. You would know nothing of the world around you, would have no understanding of the physical body, and yet you would belong to the physical world. So the soul of man belongs to the spiritual world, but does not know it because it does not hear or see. Just as our body is drawn out of the forces and materials of the physical world, so is our soul drawn out of the forces and materials of the spiritual world. We do not recognize ourselves within ourselves, but only within our surroundings. As we cannot perceive a heart or a brain — even by means of X-ray — without seeing it in other people through our sense organs (it is only the eyes that can see the heart), so we truly cannot see or hear our own soul without perceiving it with spiritual organs in the surrounding world. You can recognize yourself only by means of your surroundings. In truth there exists no inner knowledge, no self-examination; there is only one knowledge, one revelation of the life around us through the organs of the physical as well as the spiritual. We are a part of the worlds around us, of the physical, the soul, and the spiritual worlds. We learn from the physical if we have physical organs, from the spiritual world and from all souls if we have spiritual and soul organs. There is no knowledge but knowledge of the world. It is vain and empty idleness for man to “brood” within himself, believing that it is possible to progress simply by looking into himself. Man will find the God in himself if he awakens the divine organs within himself and finds his higher divine self in his surroundings, just as he finds his lower self solely by means of using his eyes and ears. We perceive ourselves clearly as physical beings by means of intercourse with the sense world, and we perceive ourselves clearly in relation to the spiritual world by developing spiritual senses. Development of the inner man means opening oneself to the divine life around us. Now you will understand that it is essential that he who ascends to the higher world undergoes, to begin with, an immense strengthening of his character. Man can experience on his own the characteristics of the sense world because his senses are already opened. This is possible because a benevolent divine spirit, who has seen and heard in the physical world, stood by man in the most ancient times, before man could see and hear, and opened man's eyes and ears. It is from just such beings that man must learn at this time to see spiritually, from beings already able to do what he still has to learn. We must have a guru who can tell us how we should develop our organs, who will tell us what he has done in order to develop these organs. He who wishes to guide must have acquired one fundamental quality. This is unconditional truthfulness. This same quality is also a main requirement for the student. No one may train to become an occultist unless this fundamental quality of unconditional truthfulness has been previously cultivated. When facing sense experience, one can test what is being said. When I tell you something about the spiritual world, however, you must have trust because you are not far enough to be able to confirm the information. He who wishes to be a guru must have become so truthful that it is impossible for him to take lightly such statements concerning the spiritual world or the spiritual life. The sense world corrects errors immediately by its own nature, but in the spiritual world we must have these guidelines within ourselves. We must be strictly trained, so that we are not forced to use the outer world for controls, but only our inner self. We are only able to gain this control by acquiring already in this world the strictest truthfulness. Therefore, when the Anthroposophical Society began to present some of the basic teachings of occultism to the world, it had to adopt the principle: there is no law higher than truth. Very few people understand this principle. Most are satisfied if they can say they have the conviction that something is true, and then if it is wrong, they will simply say that they were mistaken. The occultist cannot rely on his subjective honesty. There he is on the wrong track. He must always be in consonance with the facts of the external world, and any experience that contradicts these facts must be seen as an error or a mistake. The question of who is at fault for the error ceases to be important to the occultist. He must be in absolute harmony with the facts in life. He must begin to feel responsible in the strictest sense for every one of his assertions. Thus he trains himself in the unconditional certainty that he must have for himself and for others if he wishes to be a spiritual guide. So you see that I needed to indicate to you today a series of qualities and methods. We will have to speak about these again in order to add the higher concepts. It may seem to you that these things are too intimate to discuss with others, that each soul has to come to grips with them on its own terms, and that they are possibly unsuitable for reaching the great destination which should be reached, namely the entrance into the spiritual world. This entrance will definitely be achieved by those who tread the path I have characterized. When? One of the most outstanding participants in the theosophical movement, Subba Row, who died some time ago, has spoken fittingly about this. Replying to the question of how long it would take, he said, “Seven years, perhaps also seven times seven years, perhaps even seven incarnations, perhaps only seven hours.” It all depends on what the human being brings with himself into life. We may meet a person who seems to be very stupid, but who has brought with himself a concealed higher life that needs only to be brought out. Most human beings these days are much further than it seems, and more people would know about this if the materialism of our conditions and of our time would not drive them back into the inner life of the soul. A large percentage of today's human beings was previously much further advanced. Whether that which is within them will come forth depends on many factors. But it is possible to give some help. Suppose you have before you a person who was highly developed in his earlier incarnation, but now has an undeveloped brain. An undeveloped brain may at times conceal great spiritual faculties. But if he can be taught the usual everyday abilities, it may happen that the inner spirituality also comes forth. Another important factor is the environment in which a person lives. The human being is a mirror-image of his surroundings in a most significant way. Suppose that a person is a highly developed personality, but lives in surroundings that awaken and develop certain prejudices with such a strong effect that the higher talents cannot come forth. Unless such a person finds someone who can draw out these abilities, they will remain hidden. I have been able to give only a few indications to you about this matter. After Christmas, however, we will speak again about further and deeper things. I especially wanted to awaken in you this one understanding, that the higher life is not schooled in a tumultuous way, but rather quite intimately, in the deepest soul, and that the great day when the soul awakens and enters into the higher life actually arrives like the thief in the night. The development towards the higher life leads man into a new world, and when he has entered this new world, then he sees the other side of existence, so to speak; then what has previously been hidden for him reveals itself. Maybe not everyone can do this; maybe only a few can do it, one might say to oneself. But that must not keep one from at least starting on the way that is open to everyone, namely to hear about the higher worlds. The human being is called to live in community, and he who secludes himself cannot arrive at a spiritual life. But it is a seclusion in a stronger sense if he says, “I do not believe this, this does not relate to me; this may be valid for the after-life.” For the occultist this has no validity. It is an important principle for the occultist to consider other human beings as true manifestations of his own higher self, because he knows then that he must find the others in himself. There is a delicate distinction between these two sentences: “To find the others in oneself,” and “To find oneself in the others.” In the higher sense it means, “This is you.” And in the highest sense it means to recognize oneself in the world and to understand that saying of the poet which I cited some weeks ago in a different connection: “One was successful. He lifted the veil of the goddess at Sais. But what did he see? Miracle of miracles! He saw himself.” To find oneself — not in egotistical inwardness, but selflessly in the world without — that is true recognition of the self.

Esoteric Development

Inner Development

https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/EsoDevel/19051207p01.html

Berlin

7 Dec 1905

GA054-9

Just think how few people today are able to awaken in their souls a clearly pertinent understanding of all the preparations now being made everywhere for Christmas. Clear ideas about this festival are scarce, and most of them correspond only in small degree with the intentions of those who in the past established the great festivals as symbols of the Infinite and Imperishable in the world. The preparations being made for Christmas that are published in our newspapers convince us of this. There is hardly anything more hopeless and alien to a true understanding of Christmas than the material being published today. Now let us summarize in our souls the whole range of spiritual science that has been offered in various lectures this autumn. Let us not make it the pedantic summary of a schoolmaster, however, but one that will arise in our hearts when, from the standpoint of spiritual science, we connect it with a Christmas festival imbued with a spiritual-scientific concept of life that is not gray theory or an outer confession and philosophy, but life itself pulsing through us. Modern man, more than he thinks, confronts nature as a stranger — certainly more so now than in the time of Goethe. Who today can still experience the great depths of the words spoken by Goethe at the beginning of the Weimar period of his life? At that time he addressed a hymn or prayer to nature with its mysterious forces: “Nature! By her we are encompassed and enfolded, unable to withdraw from her, nor yet to penetrate her deeper. Unbid and unforewarned, into the gyrations of her dance she lifts us, whirling and swirling us onward, until exhausted from her arms we fall. “Unceasingly she generates new forms; what exists was never here before, what was does not return — all is new yet always the old. “We live in the midst of her and are strangers to her. She speaks with us unceasingly and does not divulge her secret to us. We affect her constantly and yet have no power over her. “She seems to aim in everything toward individuality, and does not trouble about individuals. Now she builds and now destroys, and her workshop is inaccessible. “She lives in countless children, and the mother, where is she? She is the only artist: from the simplest substance to the greatest contrasts, without seeming exertion to the greatest perfection, the most exact acuteness, always clothed with gentleness. Each of her works has its own being, each of her phenomena the most isolated concept, and yet all is one. She acts a show: whether she sees it herself we do not know, and yet she plays for us who are standing in the corner. “An eternal living, growing and moving is in her, and yet she does not advance. She is forever changing and in her, nothing for a moment still. She has not concept of rest and has attached her curse to stagnation. She is firm. Her tread is measured, rare her exceptions, her laws immutable ...” We are all children of nature and when we believe we are not acting in the least according to its laws, we are acting perhaps all the more in accordance with the great law flowing through it and streaming into us. Who can feel deeply today these other significant words of Goethe in which he tries to express how man can penetrate with his feelings into the hidden forces common to himself and nature? Here Goethe addresses nature not as a lifeless being, as modern materialistic thought would have it, but as a living spirit: Spirit sublime, thou gav'st me all, gav'st me all For which I prayed. Thou has not turned in vain Thy countenance to me in fire and flame. Thou gav'st me glorious nature as a royal realm, The power to feel and to enjoy her. Not Amazed, cold visits only thou allow'st; Thou grantest me to look in her deep breast Even as in the bosom of a friend. Thou leadest past a series of the living Before me, teaching me to know my brothers In silent covert and in air and water. And when the storm roars screeching through the forest, When giant fir-tree plunges, sweeping down And crushing neighboring branches, neighboring trunks, And at its fall the hills, dull, hollow, thunder: Then leadest thou me to the cavern safe, Show'st me myself, and my own heart becomes Aware of deep mysterious miracles. 1 From Goethe's Faust , translated and edited by George Madison Priest; copyright by, and reprinted here with permission of Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. Here is expressed the mood through which Goethe, out of his feeling for nature, endeavored to enliven what flowed out of feeling allied with knowledge. This is the mood of a time when wisdom was in league with nature and there were created those signs of feeling united with nature and the universe, which we in spiritual science recognize in the great festivals. Now they have become abstractions, and the soul and heart meet them almost with indifference. In many instances today, the word, which we can dispute or swear by, means more than what it originally represented. What has become an external, literal word was really intended to be the representative, the herald, the symbol of the great creative Word that lives in nature and the whole universe and that can again arise in us if we truly know ourselves. The intention, when the great festivals were established on the occasions provided throughout the course of nature, was to make men conscious of this Word. Let us use the knowledge acquired in the course of our spiritual-scientific lectures to understand what the ancient sages expressed in the Christmas festival. The festival held at Christmas time is not only a Christian event. It has existed wherever religious feeling was expressed. If you direct your gaze back thousands of years before our era to ancient Egypt, Asia or other regions, you find a festival being celebrated at the same time of year that Christianity recognizes the birth of Christ. What was the nature of this primeval festival that was celebrated all over the earth at this time of year? In answering this question, we shall restrict our considerations today to those marvelous fire festivals that were celebrated in ancient times in regions of Europe, Scandinavia, Scotland, and in England by the ancient Celtic priests, the Druids. What was the nature of their celebration? They celebrated the end of the winter season and the approach of spring. Though, to be sure, winter deepens as we move toward Christmas, nevertheless, a victory proclaims itself in nature at this time that is the symbol of hope, confidence and trust for man. In this way the victory of the sun over the counter forces of nature was expressed in most languages. Today we have felt how the days have grown shorter, which is an expression of the withering and falling asleep of the forces of nature, and this will continue until the day we celebrate as Christmas, a day that was also celebrated by our ancestors. From this day on, the days begin to grow longer. The light of the sun celebrates its victory over darkness. Materialistic thought does not reflect much on this event, but for those endowed with vital feeling and knowledge, it was the living expression for a spiritual experience of the Godhead that guides our lives. As an important and decisive event is experienced in the individual personal life of a man, so the winter solstice was experienced as a decisive event in the life of a higher being — as the memorial of something uniquely sublime. We are thus led to the fundamental concept of the Christmas festival as a cosmic festival, a festival of the first order for humanity. In those ages in which genuine esotericism was alive and active like the very life blood of people — a fact that is denied by the materialistic world view of today — one observed an event taking place in nature at Christmas time that was considered a monument, a memorial of a great event that once had taken place on earth. During those days the priests collected the faithful ones, the teachers of the people, around them at the midnight hour and endeavored to divulge a great secret. What they said to them was somewhat as follows. I am not relating something here that has been discovered and thought out by abstract science, but what has lived in the Mysteries, in the secret shrines, in those earlier times. Today, so said the priests, we see the victory of the sun over darkness ushered in. This also once took place on earth in a larger sense when the sun celebrated its great victory over darkness. Up to that time, everything physical, all bodily life on earth had only reached the level of development of the animals. The highest kingdom on earth at that time, prepared itself for the reception of the immortal human soul. Then, in this primeval age, the great moment in the evolution of mankind arrived when the immortal soul descended from divine heights. The surging life had developed to the point where the human body was able to receive the imperishable soul. This human ancestor was at a higher stage than that imagined by materialistic naturalists, but even so the spiritual, immortal part did not live in him yet. The human soul descended to earth from a higher planet, and the earth was now to become its field of action, its dwelling place. We call these human ancestors the Lemurians. They were followed by the Atlanteans, who preceded the present-day Aryans. The human bodies of the Lemurians were fructified by the higher human soul — a great moment in the evolution of man that spiritual science calls “the descent of the Divine Sons of the Spirit.” Ever since Lemurian times the human soul has worked in and formed the human body for its higher development. I can only give an indication of what I am now going to say, but I have spoken in detail about these things in other lectures. Those who are here for the first time should take this into consideration and not take what I say as mere fantasy. At the time when the human body was first fructified by the imperishable soul, the situation was quite different from the way materialistic natural science conceives of it today. An event took place in the universe that belongs to the most important in the evolution of man. Gradually, the constellation of earth, moon and sun arose that made the descent of the souls possible. It was in that period that the sun gained its significance for the growth and prospering of man on earth, and also for his fellow creatures, the plants and animals. To grasp this connection of sun, moon and earth with earth-man in the right way, one must make spiritually clear to himself the whole development of man and earth. There was a time — so ancient wisdom taught — when the earth was united with the sun and moon, forming one body. At that time, the earth beings of today had different shapes and appearances that conformed with the consolidated cosmic body of sun, moon and earth. Every living thing on earth received its being through the fact that first the sun, and then the moon separated from the earth and formed an external relationship to it. The mystery of the union of the human spirit with the universal spirit is connected with this development. In spiritual science the universal spirit is called the Logos. It embraces the sun, moon and earth, and in it we live, weave and have our being. Just as the earth was born from the body that also comprised the sun and moon, so is man born from a spirit or soul to which the sun, earth and moon belong. When man looks up to the sun or the moon, what he sees should not be limited only to these external physical bodies, but he should perceive them as the external bodies of spiritual beings. Modern materialism can no longer accomplish this. Yet, one who is unable to see the sun and moon as bodies of spirits, will be unable to recognize the human body as that of a spirit. As truly as the human body is the bearer of a spirit, so the celestial bodies are likewise bearers of spiritual beings. Man belongs to these spiritual beings. His body is separated from the forces that rule in sun and moon but his physical nature nevertheless harbors forces that are active in them. The same spirituality is active in his soul, however, that governs the sun and moon. By becoming an earth being, man became dependent upon the sun's activity as a separate body shining upon the earth. Our ancestors felt themselves to be spiritual children of the whole universe and understood that we have become human beings through what the sun spirit had called forth as our spirit. For us, the victory of the sun over darkness signifies a memory of the victory for our soul when for the first time the sun shone down upon the earth as it does today. It was a sun victory when the immortal soul descended into the physical body and immersed itself in the darkness of instincts, desires and passions. Let us visualize the life of the spirit. For early man, darkness, which followed upon a previous sun period, preceded the victory of the sun. But the human soul, which sprang from the Divinity, had to dip down into unconsciousness for a time in order to form there the lower nature of man. It was the human soul that gradually built up the lower nature of man so that later it could come to dwell in it. If you imagine an architect using the best forces in himself to build a dwelling into which he subsequently moves, you will have an adequate likeness of the entrance of the immortal human soul into the physical body. At that early time, however, the soul could work only unconsciously on its dwelling place, and it is this that is expressed in the picture of darkness. The lighting up of consciousness in the human soul is expressed, of course, in the picture of the sun victory. For those who had a living feeling for the connection of man with the universe, the sun victory signified the moment in which they received what was of the greatest importance for their earth existence. It was this great moment that was commemorated in the festival celebrating this event at the winter solstice. In all earlier times, man's course through his earth development was seen to resemble increasingly the regular rhythmical course of nature. When we look up from the soul of man to the course of the sun in the universe and all that is related to it, we experience the great rhythm and harmony existing there as contrasted with the chaos and disharmony of our own natures. How rhythmical is the path of the sun; how regular is the return of the phenomena of nature in the course of the year and day! I have frequently mentioned the rhythmical nature of the development of the lower beings. Just imagine the sun leaving its orbit for a fraction of a second and the unbelievable, indescribable disorder that would result. Our universe is only made possible through the great, tremendous harmony of the sun's orbit. With this harmony are connected the rhythmical life processes of all the beings dependent upon the sun. Picture to yourself how the sun calls forth the beings of nature in spring. It is not possible to think the violet might bloom at a different time from the one we are accustomed to. Imagine seeds to be broadcast or harvests to be gathered at times different from the usual ones. Right up to animal life we see how everything is dependent upon the rhythmical course of the sun. Even in man everything is rhythmical, regular and harmonious insofar as it is not subject to human passions, instincts and the human intellect. Observe the pulse or the processes of digestion and admire the great rhythm and infinite wisdom of nature flowing through them. Then compare them with the irregularity and chaos holding sway in human passions, instincts, desires and particularly in the human intellect. Visualize the regularity of the pulse and breath and contrast it with the irregularity of thinking, feeling and willing. They are will-o'-the-wisps in comparison. Imagine the wisdom with which the life forces are organized, or how the rhythmic system must struggle against rhythmless chaos. Just think how much human passion and the desire for enjoyment trespass against the rhythms of the body! I have often mentioned how marvelous it is for the person who, through an anatomical study of the heart, learns to know the beautiful construction of this organ. Such a person must then come to realize how miraculous it is that the heart still continues its harmoniously rhythmical pulsation in spite of the abuse that can be heaped upon it through the use of tea and coffee. But, like our ancestors, who were filled with admiration for nature with its soul, the sun, in rhythmical orbit, we, too, can acquire feelings for all of nature, permeated as it is by rhythm and wisdom. In looking up to the sun, the sages and their followers said, “You are the image of what the soul born in me will become.” The divine world order revealed itself in its great glory to these wise men. This is also expressed in the Christian view when it says there shall be glory in divine heights. “Glory” means “revelation.” “Today God reveals Himself in the Heavens.” This is what “Glory to God in the Highest” means. It is the expression of the glory permeating the world. This world harmony was presented as the great ideal for those who, in earlier times, were to be leaders of mankind. In all times and wherever a consciousness of these things was alive, it was the Sun Hero who was spoken of. There were seven degrees of initiation in the ancient Mystery Temples. I shall cite them for you with their Persian names. In the first degree, man went beyond everyday feeling and attained to a higher soul experience and cognition of the spirit. Such a man was designated a “Raven.” The Ravens were those who communicated to the initiates in the temples what happened in the outside world. This was the case in the medieval saga of the Emperor Barbarossa who, surrounded by the earth's treasures of wisdom, awaits inside the earth the great moment when mankind is to be rejuvenated by a newly deepened Christianity. Here also the Ravens are the messengers. Even the Old Testament speaks of the Ravens of Elijah. Those initiated into the second degree were called the “Occult Ones,” those of the third, the “Warriors,” and those of the fourth, the “Lions.” The initiates of the fifth degree were called by the name of their people — Persian or Indian, for example — because only these initiates were true representatives of their peoples. The initiate of the sixth degree was called a “Sun Hero,” that of the seventh, bore the name “Father.” Why was the initiate of the sixth degree called a Sun Hero? Such a one, who had climbed the ladder of spiritual knowledge to that stage, had so far developed his inner life that the pattern of its course followed the divine rhythm of the universe. His feeling and thinking no longer contained anything chaotic, unrhythmical or disharmonious, and his inner soul harmony was in accord with the external harmony of the sun. This level of development was demanded of the initiates of the sixth degree, and as a result, they were looked up to as holy men, as examples and ideals. Just as it would be a great disaster for the universe if the sun were to leave its path for only a quarter of a minute, similarly, it would have been just as great a disaster if it had been possible for a Sun Hero to stray only for a moment from his path of high morality, soul rhythm and spirit harmony. He who had found as sure a path in his spirit as the sun outside in the universe, was called a Sun Hero, and they were to be found among all peoples. Our scientists know little about these things. To be sure, they see that sun myths are crystallized around the lives of all the great founders of religions. But they do not know that in the initiation ceremonies the leaders were raised to Sun Heroes, and it is not at all remarkable when materialistic research rediscovers these customs of the ancients. Sun myths connected with Buddha and even with Christ have been searched out and found. Here you have the reason why they could be found in these myths. They had been put into them in the first place because they represented a direct imprint of the sun rhythm and were the great examples that should be followed. The soul of such a Sun Hero who had attained this inner harmony was no longer considered to be a single individual human soul, but one that had brought to birth in itself the universal soul streaming through the whole cosmos. This universal soul was called “Chrestos” in ancient Greece, and the sublime sages of the Orient knew it by the name, “Buddhi.” When one has ceased to feel himself to be only the bearer of his individual soul and comes to experience the universe within himself, then he has created an image in himself of what as Sun Soul was united with the human body at that time. Then he has achieved something of tremendous significance for the evolution of mankind. When we consider such a human being with his soul ennobled in this way, we can visualize the future of the human race and the whole relationship of this future to the idea, the percept of humanity in general. Today, disputing and quarrelling, people decide things by majority vote. As long as such majority resolutions are deemed to be the ideal, one has not yet grasped real truth. Where does real truth live in us? Truth lives in us when we endeavor to think logically. It would be nonsense to decide by majority vote that two times two equals four, or that three times four equals twelve. Once man has recognized what is true, millions of others may dissent but he will remain certain within himself. In scientific thinking we have advanced as far as the use of logic, that is, thinking untouched by passions, drives and instincts. Wherever these come into play, they bring about chaos and cause men to quarrel and fight in wild confusion. When, however, in the future, these passions, drives and instincts will have been purified and become what is called Buddhi or Chrestos, when they will have reached the level of development at which logical, passionless thinking stands today, then the ideal of mankind, which radiates from the wisdom of ancient religions, from Christianity, and from the anthroposophical science of the spirit, will have been reached. When our feelings will have become so purified that they sound harmoniously together with what others feel, when for our feelings and sensations the same stage will have been achieved on earth as that of our intellects, when Buddhi and the Chrestos will have been incorporated into the human race, then the ideal of the ancient teachers of wisdom, of Christianity and of anthroposophy will have been fulfilled. Then it will not be necessary to determine by vote what is good, noble and right any more than one needs to decide by vote what is logically correct or logically false. Everyone can place this ideal before his soul and in so doing he raises the ideal of the Sun Hero, of all initiates of the sixth degree. This was felt by the German mystics of the Middle Ages when they spoke the important word for “becoming Godlike,” “becoming one with the Divine” ( Vergottung ). What does this word signify? It means that those beings, whom we consider today to be the spirits of the universe, also passed through the stage of chaos upon which mankind stands today. The leading spirits of the universe have struggled up to the divine stage where their living utterances resound harmoniously through the All. What appears to us in the harmonious annual orbit of the sun, in the growth of plants, the life of animals was, in past ages, chaotic and a struggle had to be made to arrive at its present sublime harmony. Man stands today at a stage of development at which these spirits once stood. But he will develop out of chaos into a future harmony patterned after the present sun and the presiding universal harmony. To allow these ideas to sink into our souls, not as theory or doctrine but as living sensation, yields the anthroposophical Christmas mood. Let us feel vividly that the glory and the revelation of divine harmony appears in the heights of heaven. Let us realize that the revelation of this harmony will resound from our own souls in the future. Then we will feel the peace of those who are of good will that will come about in mankind through this harmony. When from this great perspective we look into the divine world order, into the revelation and its glory in heavenly heights, when we look out upon the future of mankind, we may have now, today, a presentiment of the harmony that will reign in human beings on earth in the future. The more we let the harmony in the outer world sink into us, the more will there be peace and unity on earth. If, during the time of Christmas, we feel and experience the orbit of the sun in nature in the right way, the great ideal of peace will be presented to our souls as a feeling of nature of the highest order. If we feel during these days the victory of the sunlight over darkness, we will gain from it the great confidence that unites our own developing souls with this cosmic harmony, and it will not flow in vain into our beings. Then something will flow and live in us that will be harmonious, and the seed of peace upon earth will sink into our souls. Those men are of good will who feel this peace, a peace that will prevail when the higher stage of harmony, which today has been attained only by the intellect, is reached by the feelings and heart. Strife and disharmony will have been replaced by the all-pervading love of which Goethe speaks in the Hymn to Nature I have quoted, when he says that a few draughts from the chalice of love are compensation for a life of trouble. In all religions this Christmas festival has been a festival of confidence, trust and hope because they have felt that during these days the light must be victorious. This seed, placed in the earth, will sprout forth and prosper in the light of the newly arising year. A seed of a plant, when buried in the earth, will burgeon forth into the light of the sun. In the same way, divine truth, the divine and truthful soul, is sunk in the depth of the life of passions and instincts. There, in darkness, the divine Sun Soul will ripen. A seed in the earth sprouts as a result of the victory of light over darkness, and likewise, through the continuous victory of light over the darkness of the soul, the soul will become filled with light. In darkness there can only be strife; in light, only peace. Through true comprehension, world harmony, world peace will prevail. This is the deep and true word also of Christianity during these Christmas days: Glory, revelation of the divine powers in the heights of heaven, and peace to men who are of good will! Out of this great cosmic feeling, the Christian Church resolved in the fourth century to establish the festival of the birth of the World Savior at the same time of year that all great religions had celebrated the victory of light over darkness. Before the fourth century, the time of the Christian festival, the festival of the birth of Christ, varied. It was not until the fourth century that it was resolved that the Savior of the Christians be born on the day on which the victory of light over darkness had always been celebrated. Today we cannot deal with the wisdom of the teaching of Christianity itself. This will be the subject of a lecture next year. But one thing shall and must be said today. Nothing could have happened with more justification than the establishment of the birthday of Christ at that time of year. For that Divine Individuality, the Christ, is the guarantor for the Christian that his divine soul will be victorious over all that is darkness. Thus, Christianity is in harmony with all great world religions, and when the Christmas bells ring, we can remind ourselves that this festival was celebrated during these days throughout the world in the past. It was celebrated wherever on earth there was comprehension of the true progress of the human soul, wherever a knowledge prevailed of the significance of spirit and spiritual life, wherever self-knowledge was practiced. We have not spoken of an abstract feeling for nature today. We have, rather, spoken of a feeling for nature in all its living spirituality. When we have connected our considerations with the Goethean words, “Nature! We are encompassed and enfolded! ...” we may be clear about the fact that we do not interpret nature in the materialistic sense. We see in it the external expression and physiognomy of the divine cosmic spirit. Just as the body is born out of the corporeal, the soul and spirit out of the divine soul and divine spirit, and just as the body united itself with merely material forces, so the soul unites itself with the spirit. The great festivals stand as symbols leading us to use our feeling and thinking in order to bring about an experience of the union with the universe, not in an indefinite way but in a most decided fashion. If this is felt again, the festivals become something different from what they are today. They will become implanted in soul and heart in a living way, and they will become what they are intended to be for us, that is, focal points in the year that join us to the spirit of the universe. If, as the year proceeds, we have fulfilled our duties and tasks for everyday life, we can look to these focal points to what unites us with the eternal. Although we have had a hard struggle in the course of the year, during these festival days the feeling arises in us that beyond all struggle and chaos, peace and harmony exist. Therefore, these festivals are celebrations of the great ideals. The Christmas festival is the festival of the greatest ideal of humanity, and humanity must make it its own if it wishes to reach its destination. The Christmas festival, rightly understood, is the festival of the birth of mankind's highest feelings and will impulses. The anthroposophical science of the spirit intends to contribute to this understanding. We do not wish to send a dogma a mere doctrine or philosophy into the world, but life itself. It is our ideal to have all that we say and teach, all that is contained in our writings and science, pass over into life itself. This will happen if men practice spiritual science in everyday relationships, if from the pulpits spiritual-scientific life resounds in the words that are spoken to the listeners, without special emphasis being put on the term, spiritual science. If in all courts of justice the deeds are judged with spiritual-scientific sensitivity, if the medical doctor feels and heals with spiritual-scientific insight, if in the schools the teachers develop spiritual science concerning the growing child, if on all the streets spiritual-scientific thoughts, feelings and actions prevail to the point of making spiritual-scientific teaching superfluous, then our ideal will have been achieved. Then the science of the spirit will have become an everyday affair. Moreover, spiritual science will then also be alive in the focal points of the great festivals throughout the year, and man will join his everyday life to the spirit through anthroposophical thinking, feeling and willing. Then the eternal, imperishable Spirit Sun will shine into his soul at the great festivals of the year, reminding him that in him there lives truth, a higher self, a divine, sun-like, light-filled Being. This Being will ever and again be victorious over all darkness and chaos, and will achieve soul peace and balance in the face of all disharmony, struggle and war in the world.

Signs and Symbols of the Christmas Festival

The Christmas Festival as a Symbol of the Sun Victory

https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/SignSymbols/19051214p01.html

Berlin

14 Dec 1905

GA054-10

The world appears in bewildering variety to the human being looking around at first, both the external nature and the human life. He directs his look up to the starry heaven and tries to fathom the sense of the marvellous, but at first mysterious variety of the stars of the luminous sky. The thoughtful human being will probably try to recognize the sense of the ways of the stars and the elements working during the day. If we look down at our earth, If we try to understand our mountains with their coloured variety of rocks, woods and vegetation, If we try to understand the things that surround us as plants, animals, and human beings, and try to see in the phenomena of nature that approach us more or less dark, briefly, If we try to see reason and sense in everything, Then we probably feel a kind of faint at first towards all bewildering, which faces us. However, the most bewildering is that for us which faces us in the real life of the human being, in the historical development of the human being since millennia. Science, religion, and other human striving, feeling, intellect, and reason have always tried to introduce sense and coherence into the coloured variety of the stars, into life and into the activities of the beings on our earth. Who could deny that the human mind has brought it so far in this respect and that it can hope to go farther and farther. However, also a legitimate sense, a kind of spiritual coherence is included in it what we call human development in history. Nevertheless, this seems to somebody rather doubtful, if he looks at the course of destiny with all misery which single human beings, tribes and peoples experience undeservedly, with all luck which meets the single or also many apparently undeservedly, with all sequences of historical experiences of the single peoples, races and nations. If we look into all that, then it probably appears to us as the pure chaos sometimes. There some people probably believe to look in vain for sense or coherence, believe to be unable to understand all that. Great, astute spirits never doubted that the human mind is able to find sense and reason, lawful necessity also in the course of the historical events. I need to draw your attention only to the fact that our great German poet and thinker, Lessing (Gotthold Ephraim L., 1729-1781), in the testament of his life, in his last work, explained this human development as an education of the human race. He represented the antiquity as the childhood of humanity with the Old Testament as the first elementary book, the following age as a kind of youth from which we have the possibility to look at the future that should bring us something mature and male. I would still like to remind you that another great German thinker whom, admittedly, only a few know, even those who are destined to study him, the great German philosopher Hegel (Georg Friedrich Wilhelm H., 1770-1831) called history an education of the human being to become conscious of freedom. We could still add a hundred examples, and we would see everywhere that those human beings who look ingeniously into this activity, in this bewildering, apparently chaotic activity never doubted that there is also a lawful necessity, above all a higher order than outdoors in nature, in the world of the stars, plants, animals and physical beings generally. If we let our eyes wander over the development of humanity, one thing faces us that is no longer felt with that liveliness with which it should be felt: a duality, a drastic division in two parts. It is this apparently something quite trivial that it seems so trivial, however, because the human beings are used to it. We reckon with the long period before Christ's birth and with the long period after Christ's birth. One no longer feels this as anything significant because humanity is used to it. However, is it not anything significant in the highest sense that our whole history was split after this sole event in two parts? That anything must have worked so incredibly as a strength that it was recognised by a big part of humanity? The fact that this could happen shows us that something of the consciousness of the unique, immense significance of the action of Christ Jesus is deeply hidden in the human breast. Who could deny, however, that today this significance has become somewhat questionable to many people, so that few of those who count themselves to the most sophisticated persons can really account to themselves why this is in such a way from which infinite depth, actually, humanity was induced to this division of history? This question should occupy us today, the Christian doctrine of wisdom from the point of view of a detailed spiritual worldview. Among other things, the theosophical movement that spreads out more and more since thirty years in the educated world also tries to deepen the Christian doctrine of wisdom. Those who have already occupied themselves a little bit with the anthroposophic spiritual science know that the second principle of the spiritual-scientific movement is to search for the core of wisdom in all great religions. Just concerning the anthroposophic view of Christianity there are the conceivably biggest misunderstandings, and among those who are called to teach and explain Christianity are just only a very few who show real understanding of the anthroposophic striving. One said repeatedly, anthroposophy wants to transplant some Eastern teachings, a new Buddhism to Europe. This would be the most un-anthroposophic that one can imagine. If we mean it sincerely with the principle of searching for the core of wisdom in all religions, then we must be aware that we have to search for this core of wisdom in Christianity above all, in the religion by which the whole culture of Europe was created and from which the noblest currents of the West originated. Who does not understand Christianity today, does not understand himself, and if Christianity has to perform anything great for Europe in the future, it has to be deepened. If spiritual science shall have a share of this big achievement, it has the task to penetrate into the depths of Christianity and to search there for those springs which are able to flow in the future which are able to wake cultural hopes for the future. When I spoke in a city of South Germany some time ago (Colmar, 21st November 1905, no transcript) about the teaching of wisdom of Christianity, about our subject today, also various Protestant pastors and Catholic priests were there. After the talk, the Catholic priests said to me, what you have said to us is the choicest Christianity, but it is only for the choice ones who want to have Christianity in such detailed way. However, we announce Christianity in a form in which everybody understands it and which it is accessible to all. — There I said, if you were right, you could be sure that it would never have occurred to me to speak about the core of wisdom of Christianity, because I would consider it as superfluous in the world. If you were right, could then there be a human being who felt compelled to secede from the way you teach? Then the number of those people could not increase with every day who find no satisfaction with the way you teach. Indeed, there are many for whom you can speak today. However, the fact that it is possible that numerous human beings do no longer find their satisfaction with you proves that there are human beings to whom one has to speak differently. It does not depend on the fact that we imagine that we find the way to everybody. We can do this easily and mean that we communicate in such a way that we find the way to everybody. However, it does not depend on it which opinions we have about what we regard as the right way. It depends not on our imaginations, but on the facts. If you observe this and let not speak what you put as your subjective confession, then you realise that you do no longer speak to many people. To those one has to speak in a new form. They are those to whom the spiritual scientist speaks. However, spiritual science has not only to speak to those. It will also speak to those who remain in full Christian devoutness in old Christian traditions, and to those it will be a deepening, a spiritualisation of the truthful teachings of Christianity. The spiritual-scientific saying, nothing is higher than truth, is surely often misunderstood by such like the priest whom I have quoted. One believes, it is sufficient if one only has the belief that something is true. No, that is not enough that we have the subjective conviction and imagine we would have the right way. Just the spiritual-scientific world movement should overcome this. Truth is not in our opinion, but in the facts. The observation of the facts must be higher for us than our belief. This is the sense of the saying. What we believe is our personal affair. Transpersonal is that which speaks to us by the world of the facts. We have to submit to it, we have to follow it. Indeed, it is true that the human development was split by the appearance of Christ Jesus on earth, and, hence, we have to look a little deeper into this way of the human development. Who penetrates only somewhat into a spiritual investigation of existence will soon recognize how vapid and superficial any materialist worldview is, that any material is only the expression of the spiritual, that the spiritual is the origin and spring of any external sensuous existence. The earthly human being as this sensuous being, who developed since the times about which history, the human thinking generally reports, is only the expression of a supernatural spiritual being. I do not have the time today to explain these great thoughts in a complete, possibly scientific way. This has oftener happened here in these talks. Today I can show it only figuratively, and Christian and pre-Christian thinkers showed it always figuratively in such a way that the supersensible human being who was not yet touched by the matter descended and embodied himself in the sensuousness. We consider that human being who comes from other spiritual worlds into this sensuous world as the Adam Kadmon of the Jewish secret doctrine, the kabbalah. This coming in is called “fall.” However, you must not misunderstand this. Great Christian authors understood this as a fall, and the action of Christ Jesus was understood as a rise from this fall to a new spiritual height. We shall still see how Paul's remark that Christ Jesus is the reverse Adam has a deep spiritual sense (1 Corinthians 15:44ff) . If we understand the human being quasi — I ask you not to tip the scales at the word “quasi” because it should be only an indication of the true relation — quasi descended from spiritual heights and embodied in the sensory world, then we also understand which task the human being had initially in the first times of historical development. What had the human being to do on this earthly scene in the first times of historical and prehistoric development? His sensuous members were the tools whose use he had to learn in the first times. Now the high spiritual human being was embodied in the sensory world. He learnt there in the first epoch of his existence, which I would like to call the instinctive epoch of human development, to use his own tools. This was the first task of the first quarter of human development — we do not want to go back to the very old times. The human being gradually learnt to use his hands and the remaining limbs; he learnt to fit into the world and nature surrounding him. He needed no intellect for that; this was an instinctive empathising and settling in existence. When humanity learnt to control itself and acquired the use of the limbs as tools, it lived in the tribal history. The people were that within which the human being lived. It was a natural coherence, which was given by blood relationship. A sort of an animal instinct kept humanity together. Only the great masters were beyond the instinctive life. In the most different way, the human beings learnt to use their limbs, according to the state of the countries, regions, and times in which the peoples lived. The development generated a big variety in the human structure. That which was given to the human being developed most diversely. We can go back everywhere: we find this instinctive epoch of development with all peoples. Then we find the second epoch. There the human being learns something that the Bible and other worldviews comprise with a certain word, with a word that is exceptionally important to understand properly. We understand this word properly if we realise what the first period of human development preferably had to produce. The instinct had taught the human beings most diversely to use their limbs, in one area in this way, in the other that way. People developed in the hot zone with a rampant plant growth where without effort the food was supplied, another developed in a cold, inhospitable area where it had to produce his food and create the conditions of existence with big trouble and that is why the human being had to form his limbs with big trouble. Because the human beings had so little intellect, they faced each other as it resulted from the different instinctive development. Something new took place due to the law, which the intellect created. The instincts of the peoples are different, the intellect is the same, and at the moment, when the uniform intellect was applied to the human living together, that appeared in the world which also the Bible calls the law. The human being learnt to control his whole body as his tool first. Then the lawful period occurred where the human being tried to harmonise and order his community where he tried to compensate the instincts in the mutual action where he wanted to create conditions on this earth as they correspond to the intellect. The intellect was introduced by the way how the human being lived together. Thus, humanity developed in the first two quarters of existence. However, humanity was there not without guidance. The instinct developed to bigger and bigger brightness, until the law took on the form of the intellect widespread in the farthest circles. Where from did all that come? Humanity would never have come so far without such brothers who were way ahead of their fellow men. At all times, always and everywhere there have been human beings, who developed the stages of existence faster to be able to lead the other human beings. Spiritual science calls such personalities, such individualities the guardians of wisdom, the guardians of human progress. There were always such guardians of human progress. Even today, there are some. These great persons, these personalities who have arrived at a stage of existence today where the majority of humanity will come only in a very distant future existed also in the pre-Christian times, in the first two quarters of human development. They led the world; they were the shepherds of humanity and introduced order and coherence into humanity. Where from did those leaders of the human race get their knowledge, their wisdom? What did this wisdom consist of? — One led the visible by the invisible, the sensory by the extrasensory. One led the material connections by that which slumbers invisibly in the material. Does it slumber invisibly in the material? A simple reflection can convince you. Look up at the cloud. It appears bright and dark to you. It announces a thunderstorm. Moreover, while you are still looking upwards, the flash streaks through the cloud, the thunder rumbles. Where was the flash, where was the thunder? They slumbered; they slept as concealed material forces. As well as flash and thunder slumbered, a lot of concealed forces slumber in the visible as something invisible, in the sensory as something extrasensory. As well as our external civilisation has reached its present state, because the human being has learnt to wake up forces and abilities slumbering in the matter, the great spiritual culture comes from the fact that the guardians of humanity are able to wake up the supersensible forces slumbering in the sensuous and to control the lower by the higher. As well as the master builder uses the force of gravity to lay the beam on the column, so using a force slumbering in the matter to erect our buildings by the different combination of columns and beams, As the electrician controls our engines and other electric apparatuses with the invisible electric power, The guardians of wisdom and human progress control the earthly forces by that which is not perceptible by the senses. The visible is controlled not by the visible, but by the invisible. None is unworldly who rises by the invisible above the visible, but someone who is stuck in the visible. The true realist is that who controls the world by that which slumbers in him, so that he forms and builds up reality and introduces it into the service of human progress. As well as the master builder and the electrician use the forces slumbering in the matter to build houses, to create mechanical civilisation, the great guardians of wisdom and human progress use the forces existing in humanity to lead the human beings to their aim to order that which whirls chaotically in the outside world and to give it significance. Never was the advancement sensory from the instinctive, then lawful periods up to ours. However, the wise guardians of humanity had to find out and to experience this at first; they had to be steeped in it completely, not due to blind faith, not due to vague convictions, but due to spiritual experience. They had to be clear in their mind That there is something extrasensory, something extrasensory inside and outside the human being That that which happens between birth and death is only one side of our existence and That an essence outreaches birth and death That there is something in the human being that is more comprehensive than all sensuous and is the creator of the form and the preserver of everything sensuous, and this not based on a supposition, but based on the immediate extrasensory, everlasting view. Out of this view, the guardians of humanity had to act, then out of the knowledge that death is to be defeated, that a consciousness is to be gained that there is something that lets death appear as an event like other events of life. Only from such an experience the force arises to the human being to control the sensory from the extrasensory, the visible from the invisible. Had I to say with few words what the big secret of the great guardians of humanity is, I would say, these guardians of wisdom and human progress knew that there is something in the human being that defeats death. They had to go behind the scenery of existence, to look behind the regions of existence, which the human being enters after death. What exists behind the sensuous had to be accessible to the students by experience. They learnt to know that in the temples of initiation of the ancient Egyptian priests and teachers of occultism, in the Eleusinian and other Greek schools or temples of initiation. Those who were mature to acquire these convictions were initiated into these secrets. Only with few words — I explain the other matters in the next talks — I can indicate what was imparted to the human beings in these temples of initiation, in these high schools of spiritual life. There the human being went through death at first; he already experienced within this life that rise which takes place in the human being if he passes the gate of death. If he passes the gate, which leads to the other world with his natural death, he enters another land, the land on the other side of existence. One can enter it also already during this life, one can enter it by another state of consciousness, awakening the abilities which slumber in the human breast, which enable us not only to experience the unconscious state during sleep in the spiritual environment, but to enter the beyond using the spiritual qualities, to be a citizen of the spiritual world. One called this death, resurrection, and ascension. They experienced the great initiates. If I may express myself in such a way, they experienced death with the living body, for three and a half days, they were dead, so to speak, they came out of their physical bodies and experienced the facts of a higher world, a spiritual world, that world to which the human being belongs according to his deeper nature. This happens to that part of the human being that enters the extrasensory existence. After the human being had passed this higher world, those who were already initiates recalled him to his earthly existence. Then he was a new human being whom one called a risen one. As a symbol of it, he got a new name that had a deeper meaning. Such a human being who had come into the mysteries and the temples of initiation to behold spoke a new language, and in his words, the spiritual world sounded which he had experienced during his initiation. He was a messenger of higher worlds, his words had wings because of the experiences in the spiritual world, and he spoke another language. He was one of those who talk the language of the gods, as one said, he talks the wisdom which the gods know. This is fundamentally theosophy, the divine wisdom. One called such a human being a blessed (German: selig) one if one translates the word in German. The words have a deep meaning if one understands them in the right sense; they did not originate by chance. About such a man, who felt sympathy for the spiritual world because he had beheld it, one said, he is blessed. Those who know something about that great bliss, about those marvellous experiences of another world tell about it, even if they write profane writings about it. The most important of these matters was never written down and can never be written down. However, those who tell and write down something of it write about it in tones that sound quite different from those who say something about a sensuous existence. Those who knew something of initiation speak of a renewal of the whole human being. One of them said, that only has become a human being in the true sense of the word who was blessed with his everlasting essence in the mysteries, while the others have still to wait, until they also get this mercy. — Plato, the unique Greek philosopher, says: those walk in the mud who got to know nothing of the divine of initiation. Thus, we could still state many voices of antiquity and of the pre-Christian time, which emphasise the holiness, the power, and greatness of initiation, so that it resonates in our souls. Only a few, choicest ones could be blessed with the higher spiritual life in such a way, immediately beholding. The crowd received nothing but the announcements of such initiates. Then Christianity appeared and changed these conditions completely. The depth of this change of humanity is expressed in a powerful saying, and that is: “Happy (Blessed) are they who find faith without seeing me” (John 20:29). The secret of Christianity is contained in this saying, and we understand it only if we take it as literal as possible. What does it mean? We know that somebody who had experienced initiation in the temple knew that he defeated death that he took part in the entombment and was blessed by the vision. Now a great individuality came who carried out this great event on the external plane of history in front of all, as far as they wanted to see it or could take up it by faith, by the union with the unique personality. That happened once on the historical plane, which had often happened to the initiates in the deep darkness of the mystery temples. This event took place in Palestine in the year 33. What was received and protected till then more or less symbolically in the depths of the temples had become historical truth, historical reality on the big stage of life. One must understand this, because this is important. I entitled my small writing about Christianity really with full care not Mysticism of Christianity but Christianity as Mystical Fact (CW 8). I wanted to show not the mysticism of Christianity, but Christianity itself should be understood as a mystical fact. It should be understood that the event in Palestine is a fact of deep symbolism and at the same time something that is actual reality, actual truth. We should understand each other just concerning this point, because it belongs to the most important points of the knowledge of Christianity. If one speaks of the fact that in Palestine the event of death, resurrection, entombment and ascension took place as a historical event in 33 and says that this event has happened also before so and so often in the mystery temples, then one does not regard that as something real, then one does not believe in the real Christ. On the other side, other people who believe in Christ think that death, entombment, and resurrection are profound symbols. It is hard to understand that something can be fact and symbol at the same time. Somebody never understands who explains history “really” and considers it indifferently that a fact also has deep symbolic significance. He has never grasped that there are high and low mountains in history, high mountains that outreach the high that they are facts and symbols at the same time. That is the point. Now we have put an event before all human beings, which pronounces before them that death can be defeated and that there is a spiritual life, which outreaches death, because the only One had defeated death. In front of all human beings, he had experienced what the initiates experienced in the mysteries. Now, one did no longer need to go into the mysteries to behold, now, one could believe and feel connected with Him who experienced the great event of the victory of life over death in the physical world. Now, one could believe even if one did not behold. That understands the religious books correctly who brings himself to a literal understanding again. Beholding means literally the beholding in the mysteries, and faith is the faith in the fact that death was defeated by Christ's life. Hence, we are allowed to say that the greatest teaching of wisdom of Christianity is that the teachings of wisdom of the various religions became fact in Christianity. What were the teachings of wisdom of the various religions? Deepening really in the spiritual-scientific teachings you can convince yourselves that the religions comply with each other concerning their teachings. Take the teachings of Hermes, Pythagoras, and Zarathustra or also of other religious founders: in that which they expressed and taught one can find a deep consistent core of wisdom. All teachers who announced the great teachings of wisdom could say, I am the way and the truth. — For truth flowed out of their mouths; that truth which they had experienced in the mystery temples, they had become messengers of the divine truth. With Christ Jesus, it was another matter. He could say more of himself. He became that which is expressed in the great and beautiful saying: I am the way, the truth and the life (John 14:6). He taught that in front of everybody, which the other religious founders said, living concealed to the rest of humanity in the twilight of the mysteries. The life by which experience was won inside of the mystery was invisible. It became visible because of the event in Palestine. Thus, Christianity outranks the old pre-Christian religions. That wisdom which was won by the concealed life of the initiate came out to the public, and we have in the newer time in Christianity the truth that became person, life, and existence. Hence, it does often not depend with the old religions on telling how the religious founders lived. We do not hear telling, how the Egyptian Hermes, the Indian Rishis, how Zarathustra, how Buddha lived. If we receive the teachings and raise our hearts and our senses in them, the blessing flows from them to us. However, if we want to understand Christianity, we have to consider that Christ did not speak only that way, but also that he went his own way. Hence, no book by him, but only books about him are preserved. The good news, the Gospels, is not the wise language of Jesus. They are the stories of the life of Jesus. Others spoke about him. If the disciples of Buddha and Hermes spoke, they would say, we have heard this, these are his holy words, and we want to echo them to you. — However, if the disciples of Jesus moved into the world, they emphasised that He was there that they were connected with Him that they were His companions. They attempted to keep up the tradition, to reproduce it from generation to generation: we ourselves heard the word on the holy mountain together with Him; we laid our hands in His wounds. — It was the truth element of the living together that should transfer the liveliness to the future generations. This is somewhat different from that which existed before in the other religions. This is new. If we want to imagine the whole significance of this new, we have to realise the difference that existed between the first quarter of human evolution and what happened now. What happens now? What does Christianity prepare humanity for, actually? Why had somebody to experience the great event in such a way that the human beings could look at him, could look up at him as evidence of the victory of life over death? One needed such evidence because now another historical epoch of humanity began, because now the intellect, the strength of mind was used for something different for centuries, even for millennia. With the propagation of Christianity, that approximately begins which we can call the triumphal procession of humanity about our material world. Christianity had to prepare for it first. In the middle of the Middle Ages, the material victory of humanity begins, the laws become more and more perfect with which the human beings found it. The human being becomes the master of nature by the perfection of his mechanisms, establishes a big system of, traffic and trade. The human intellect wins over our earth. That did not exist in the pre-Christian times. Try to realise how our science begins in the times when also Christianity arises. You know that Thales (~624-~547 B.C.) was the first philosopher. Then Christianity prepares the ground for the use of the human strength to control the external nature. It was necessary that the conviction of a spiritual life comes from quite a different side so that humanity is not completely isolated from spiritual life. Now the efficient personality had to be used to conquer the globe in a material respect. Hence, science had to separate from the feeling, from faith. It was the characteristic feature of those who were initiated into the mysteries that science and faith, feeling and faith were one. For that who comes out of the material there is no separation between faith and knowledge, between truth and feeling. The forms in which the stars were arranged were the letterings of the godhead with the Chaldean initiates. This had to change in the new time. At first, the human being directed his look up at the starry heaven, and a science divested of divine feelings encompassed the skies and the earthly existence in all its phenomena. The knowledge of the world could no longer go the same way as faith and wisdom. Because both had to separate, an event had to take place that guaranteed faith that founded such a firm feeling in humanity that faith could found itself besides the material science and that faith lived on throughout the material time. Thus, we have the firmly founded faith and science side by side, which does not have faith, but looks at the personality, at Christ. A personal relationship to the only One establishes itself besides the material striving. Thus, that which was put in Palestine in 33 was the bulwark to preserve the everlasting, the consciousness of the spiritual during the development of humanity towards materiality. Those had to be blessed who could believe in the only One, while they had to use their looking for the achievement of the material life. Thus, the second epoch of antiquity points prophetically to Christ Jesus. Not without good reason the teachings of the Old Testament are interpreted as predictions of Christ Jesus. Any initiation was such a prediction. What the initiate experienced, he experienced it spiritually first, then symbolically, then it was there in the world. Then it was a fulfilment, the fulfilment of the Old Testament was the New Testament. In addition, this word appears to us in its full significance if we grasp it in its depth. Thus, I have described three epochs of human evolution that go side by side, of faith, knowledge, and wisdom. Let us carry our mind back to the times in which the poor Egyptian slaves dragged the big, massive boulders and worked themselves to blood on huge stone giants. The modern worker cannot imagine that labour. Bliss and contentment were the feelings, which penetrated the soul of the wretched slave. However, this slave knew one thing. He knew that the life that he lived in such a hard work was one life of many. The initiate often said it to him to make humanity aware of the fact that the human being embodies himself repeatedly and that he experiences that which he prepared himself, and that he is recompensed in future lives. Thus, the riddle of human destiny is solved for him really. Among the hard working slaves, bliss and religious feeling prevailed. The slave said to himself, he who commands me today was once as I am and I become once, as he is if I carry out all that now. — The prudent men who conquered the material world later, who dealt with the merely material science would not be able to achieve this, as overwhelming the teachings of Galilei and Copernicus, the teachings of the modern investigation of the sensory material existence may be. Indeed, nothing should be said against these teachings and nobody can estimate its greatness and power more than I do. Nevertheless, it is true and one has to say also that the materialistic researchers could not find those fiery words, that spirit which opens the souls which gives the human being hope forever which gives the human beings the certainty of the mental-spiritual life. However, this certainty came from the personal connection with the unique Christ. The external science was also gradually deepened again. Science became wisdom bit by bit again, and the result of the fact is that this external science claimed to appear again as founder of a religion. What then are the enlighteners, the freethinkers? What do they want? They are, actually, religious natures. They want to found a religion; they want to conjure up such a religion from the modern science. In particular, Moleschott (Jacob M., 1822-1893, Dutch physiologist and philosopher), Haeckel and others with their books which founded a kind of materialistic Gospel for many are nothing else than founders of a materialistic religion. Because the worldly-sensuous has won such an immense strength and authority that the human being wants to gain the highest by science and its wisdom, the scientists have turned away from Christ Jesus, also those who feel only a bit of the power of science and have something to inform of the greatness and the power of science. Thus, we have the separation of science. However, Jesus spoke a word, a word that we cannot grasp deeply enough, and this is, I will be with you always, to the end of time (Matthew 28:20). We do not need to borrow this wisdom only from traditions and books, but if we rise into the higher worlds, we have the greatest experience in ourselves again, which can be experienced only in the higher worlds beyond the gate of death. Then He speaks again to us, then He shows us that He is there today that we can hear Him immediately in the present. Hence, we need such a deepening of humanity again that the human being has the experience of Christ in himself and that the human being can find out something similar like the initiates in the ancient mysteries again in himself. At least a reflection of the great, significant experience of the mystery temples should be delivered gradually to those who turn to anthroposophy. They enter the spiritual region, the other side of life already here during this life. Thus, they can experience what Goethe expressed significantly in his poem, which begins: “Tell nobody except the wise, because the mob is immediately scornful,” and closes: “And so long as you don't have it, this “Die and be transformed!,” you will only be a gloomy guest on the dark earth.” Today it concerns this passing away and becoming. There are methods of spiritual development with which we can wake the inner divine essence in ourselves, with which we can outgrow into the spiritual world. Our eyes are opened there for the spiritual world; our ears become active, so that we hear something higher speaking. We are able to become citizens of a higher world; we find that Christ is with us to the end of the world. Then we can also hear that language again, which spoke to the disciples on the mountain. This is indicated in the deepest mystery of Christianity. Let us consider this great mystery at the end. Christ had initiated pupils too; he also led them away from the crowd. When he wanted to explain what he had said to the crowd in parables, he led his three initiated disciples: Peter, James, and John on the Mount Tabor. They beheld the transfiguration there (Matthew 17). Who understands the transfiguration recognizes the deepest mystery of Christianity. The disciples are translated from the sensuous existence. What faces them? Elijah and Moses. Elijah is the word meaning way or aim, Moses is simply the esoteric word meaning truth, and Jesus is life. While eternity appeared to them in temporality, while those who are dead long since appeared to them, before their spiritual eyes, it means that they had ascended to the spiritual world. Peter says to Jesus, it is good that we are here. Would you like me to make three shelters...? You can read the expression “make shelters” where a pupil attains the second stage of chelahood. One says of him that he makes shelters in the beyond. The great truth in the religious documents is recognized everywhere by that who recognizes the so-called key words. The saying “I am the way, the truth and the life” faces you there. When they descended from the mountain, Jesus forbade them to tell anyone about the vision, until the Son of Man has been raised from the dead. They questioned themselves: what is “rising” from the dead? — They said to Jesus, the scribes say that Elijah must come first. — He answered, Elijah is to come and set everything right. — The disciples, in the most intimate sanctum, speak here about reincarnation as about something that is a matter of course to them. The Lord Himself spoke about it like about a matter of course, saying, Elijah has already come, John the Baptist is Elijah, but they failed to recognise him. — This is the testament on the mountain. “Mountain” is the key word for initiation. Where initiation is concerned, the term “on the mountain” is applied. What means: do not tell anybody that I come again? That is, until I speak again to you, until you yourselves are there again in such figure that humanity can again perceive the word of truth. Christ Jesus was as a deputy on earth. Looking at his death, humanity should feel the victory of life over death. The faith by which even the Egyptian slave knew of the beyond should be substituted by the faith that the everlasting is in the essence, which passes through the physical. Now they had to start the triumphal procession through the world. Nothing material remains to us of that which is wisdom, immediate knowledge of the beyond. Nothing of reincarnation should be taught to humanity during the following two millennia. Jesus determined this as his testament. Not before the human beings have gone through the third epoch of development, they have gained this material victory over the globe; they will have applied intellect and reason to the external civilisation. Then only a new epoch is permitted to begin, then wisdom can understand that again which lived uniquely. Then Christ appears again on earth, so that He can be grasped immediately. Then the human being does no longer need the life on Tabor, and then he experiences the initiation in himself, finds the divine human being in himself. Then he will look up again at the divine life that was common property of humanity in the pre-Christian times. The anthroposophic teaching has introduced this new epoch. What Christ left on the mountain Tabor, the spiritual-scientifically striving human beings feel this as their mission, as their vocation. Christian mystics of the Middle Ages already indicated this. You find it expressed by Angelus Silesius, the great Silesian initiate: “If Christ is born a thousand times in Bethlehem and not in you, you still are lost forever.” As the blind person experiences the awakening of light, somebody who arrives at the new condition can experience the apparition like that on Tabor. This is the future. Thus, we had a Christianity of faith in the third epoch of humanity, and we shall have a Christianity of wisdom in the fourth epoch. What did humanity perform in the third epoch? The instinctive period is the pre-Christian time. We have had the period of the external material civilisation, and now we enter the fourth period of human development. The human being has encompassed the world with industry and trade; without distinction of nation and race industry and trade work. The machine prepares the same goods in Japan, Brazil, and Europe. The same railways cross the globe in all areas without distinction of race, nation, and class. The differences within humanity have fallen in our civilisation. The cheque, which is written here in Berlin, can be redeemed in Tokyo. Everything in our civilisation has taken place in such a way that we can put up as a principle of the third period what no one could have put up as a principle in the starting point of our civilisation: we want to found a civilisation that encompasses the globe, without distinction of race, gender, occupation, and confession. This material civilisation has encompassed the world under this motto. This civilisation must receive soul. It is the task of the fourth epoch of humanity; it is the task of anthroposophy and of our lifestyle to introduce this cultural soul into humanity. We have a material civilisation, and we need a spiritual culture with the same qualities. The human beings are strong where they founded the moral connection. The Japanese trader understands the traders of all other countries. The human beings must understand each other in their souls. This will be if these achievements are also made fruitful for the human science. The cultural body has three epochs. It needs a soul. The fourth epoch has to bring cultural spirit. This is the great basic idea, the big aim, which the big cultural movement must have, if it wants to be something else than a mere play for those who deal with nothing but brooding over mystic thoughts. If the Theosophical Society continues to exist, it manages this. Hence, it has to understand Christianity in its deepness. It has to understand its deepest teachings of wisdom and must also have the strength to practice these teachings of wisdom not in old traditional form, but to reshape them so that they live on usefully at all times. With it, Christianity is not anything past, but has the living strength to work on future more and more. Thus, anthroposophy, the anthroposophically understood Christianity is no doctrine, no dogma, no sectarianism, but it is something else. It is something that makes hearts leap for joy in the best sense of the word; it is something that raises the soul to the biggest tasks of the present because the biggest tasks can only correspond to the beneficial hope for the future. Then we have understood Christianity if it gives us life for the future. Then we understand the high spirits correctly if they become our future teachers. We are their right pupils if we do not want to reproduce authoritatively what they themselves had said, but if their words, their actions have become the energy for the new that we create. This is the great secret, the big lawfulness and necessity that shall fulfil us in the progress of human evolution and that shall constitute our life in the highest sense of the word. This is the true education of humanity that we receive the strength of creating in the future and the hope for a beneficial effect in the future from a real knowledge of the great actions of our ancestors.

The Wisdom Teaching of Christianity

https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA054/English/RSA2014/19060201p01.html

Berlin

1 Feb 1906

GA054-11

There are riddles of the world in which somebody takes an interest who wants to deeper penetrate into the structure and texture of our existence. Such riddles of the world are, for example, these: where from do materials and forces come, where from does life come into the world? Where from the purposiveness of nature, where from consciousness? How have we to assess the question of the origin of language, how the question of the riddle of the free will? These questions force themselves to somebody who wants to deeper penetrate into the understanding of existence indeed, questions which are not far from an advanced, educated intelligence. But before these questions there are more obvious, big human questions which have no theoretical, no scientific value at first, but which force themselves, which allow us to look up from the works and efforts of life at that which we want to call the imperishable compared to the transient. These questions are connected with that which meets us wherever we go, with that which must face us everywhere in the world as a riddle. These are questions on whose reply not only the satisfaction of our theoretical or scientific interest depends, but it also depends on them whether we have strength, courage and assurance in life, whether we have hope for a prosperous future of the human race and the single human being. Such vital matters face us if we turn our look at the immediate existence of the human being, if we see how one is equipped at his birth with a low ability and strength and is inclined by these dispositions and talents. With it, we can foresee how he is condemned to a wretched, miserable existence that he has to carry on between birth and death. He may be born into a family so that he seems to be condemned to misery already without any guilt due to the circumstances and facts. The other is born into a family which makes sure from the start that he has a happy existence full of joy; he has talents and abilities so that we can say, he accomplishes something great and significant in his life. All that and other things embrace the big and immediate riddles, if we consider life, as it faces us, impartially. The great worldviews and their preachers always tried hard to solve these riddles of existence. However, in every new time the riddles of existence need a new solution. Not as if the old truth is no longer true, it does not concern this, but the fact that thinking and feeling of the human beings change, that the feeling of the soul changes more than one assumes usually, that one does not put other questions, but that one puts the old questions differently. The theosophical or spiritual-scientific approach to life, spreading out for thirty years in educated cultures, tries to solve the riddles of existence in such a way that the modern human being can be satisfied with such a solution. There are two spiritual-scientific concepts that should form the object of our issue today and give answer to the raised questions: the idea of reincarnation or of the repeated earth lives, and the idea of karma or the big principle of existence. The spiritual-scientific worldview wants to answer the riddles of existence with these both ideas as the physical researcher answers his questions from knowledge, not from mere belief. What the spiritual-scientific worldview wants to give has the same character as what the remaining research wants to offer. The only difference may be that for the understanding of the scientific truth preconditions are necessary. A certain scientific basis also belongs almost to the complete popular scientific representation. However, the theosophical or spiritual-scientific worldview is understandable for every human being. It satisfies every human being, from the simple, naive mind which is only able to follow the questions and answers with sensation and feeling up to the most sophisticated sage who approaches these matters with the biggest doubt at first and who — if he only has the patience and perseverance to come to grips with these matters — finds his satisfaction. They all find not only satisfaction, not only that releasing feeling which approaches us in the soul if we have longed a long time for getting an answer to any question — who knows this feeling knows something about the intimate happiness of the soul —, but also concerning the vital matter it gives something quite different. There does not come into consideration what satisfies our thirst for knowledge, but something that gives us the assurance of life, something that should not give an answer only for single but for all soul forces. Because we deal with so important and basic questions today, let me say first, in which sense the spiritual-scientific answers are to be understood based on life. One often counters the spiritual scientist, out of an entire misunderstanding: bring forward proof of that which you state there if we should believe you what you say about higher, spiritual worlds and about matters that are inaccessible to the usual senses of experience at first. — The spiritual scientist can appropriately answer only: nobody needs to believe me, from nobody I ask more than trust in my assertions, because there cannot be such proofs of the spiritual-scientific truth as one normally demands them. Who demands them does not understand the character and the sense of the spiritual-scientific truth. Life delivers the proofs of the spiritual-scientific truth and life delivers them if not only we look with the senses here within that which our own eyes, ears, and our sense of touch teach us, but life in its entirety up to the highest spiritual parts of life. If anybody comes and says: I do not believe what you tell there, because this may be anything that you have devised, this may be fantasies —, and one can answer: well, believe it, believe that the spiritual scientists are the biggest swindlers of the world. However, something else is between belief and disbelief. This is an impartial listening. — Take a drastic proof. Take a map of Asia Minor. A man says, this is no map of Asia Minor, you have thought up this. — One can only answer to him: well, never mind, but remember what I have shown to you on this map, take note of it, and memorise it. If you come to Asia Minor once, you see that it is right. — The same applies to the spiritual-scientific teachings. No one needs to believe them. If only we want to observe carefully and impartially, there are enough proofs of it in life, also for that life when we have passed the gate of death, when we are on the other side. One has to answer the old questions in a new way. Still in the 17th century, it was not only a superstition of the big mass, but also a common conviction of all learnt people who believed to understand something of natural sciences that not only quite low animals, but also even earthworms can grow out of ordinary river mud. One thought this generally. One did not have the conviction that an earthworm must come from an earthworm, but one believed that it originated from mud. The Italian scientist Redi (Francesco R., 1626-1697) put up the sentence: life comes only from life. Never comes life from lifelessness. The earthworm originates not from the mud, but by a reproduction of an earthworm. — So young is this conviction! Thus, the human race advances concerning truth. Everybody would be regarded as a fool today who believed that earthworms could grow out of mud. What Redi expressed at that time — who escaped the destiny of Giordano Bruno by the skin of his teeth —, applies to the spiritual-scientific worldview today. As well as it was contrary to the ways of thinking at that time to admit that life must come from life, the teaching of reincarnation is contrary to the present ways of thinking. Some run literally wild by the spiritual-scientific truth as in those days the human beings ran wild if anybody stated that the earthworms do not grow out of mud. In the same sense, like that which I have stated now the spiritual-scientific worldview says, spirit and soul come only from spirit and soul. If folly does not win over reason, there is no doubt that in two centuries exactly just as the scientific truth, the spiritual-scientific worldview will have seized all circles. What does it mean that spirit and soul come only from spirit and soul? Spirit and soul face us if we consider the destiny of the human being how it depends on external facts, on dispositions and abilities, on the overall character. Only someone who is not able to observe the fine, intimate peculiarities of a human soul in its becoming, who only has a sense of the coarse physical can deny that we see something growing up in the child that can be explained just as little from a non-mental, a non-spiritual as the earthworm from mud. Schiller's nose, Schiller's red hair and some other of his physiognomy are indeed explicable by bodily inheritance, exactly as the carbon particles and the oxygen particles in the earthworm come from other carbon particles and oxygen particles of the surroundings. The lifeless parts of the earthworm come from the lifeless parts of the surrounding nature and the physical parts of our body come from the physical surroundings. However, we can explain Schiller's abilities and talents from the surroundings just as little as the earthworms from the mud. Nevertheless, it does not depend on Schiller. He is given only as a radical example. It applies to every human being, also to the simplest, that he develops gradually from the type. It is impossible to derive the individual from the physical inheritance. One can see that easily. Try to understand once how Goethe's saying applies here,: “Nature, mysterious in day's clear light, lets none remove her veil, and what she won't discover to your understanding you can't extort it with levers and with screws” (Faust I) . This is nothing for pliers and microscope. Have a look at the child how it faces you in the first months and years. On its face expresses itself what it has from father, mother, and ancestors. The general-human expresses itself, the type, the character of the clan, of the family. We often say, the mild trait of the child comes from the father, from the mother, from uncle or aunt. However, when we see the child growing up, a strange change takes place that is visible to a subtler sense. What we can perceive as the confluence of father, mother, grandmother et cetera like an imprint changes and takes shape from its inner being. What lives in the core one cannot derive from father and mother expresses itself gradually in the traits. The more something individual is in the soul that is above the type, the more the soul creates in the body from inside and transforms it. How could one explain the face of a great thinker, of a great world benefactor by inheritance who works from his inside and enriches the world with anything new? From the face, you can see how the human being outgrows the mere type. In every human being, just a spiritual essence reveals itself, which is not born out of physical inheritance, but is born into it. If you cannot lead back this spiritual core to father and mother, to the ancestors, we must be able to lead it back to something spiritual. Soul and spirit come from the soul and spirit. There is only the idea of development, the idea of repeated incarnations. The being that impresses its traits to the child already existed, was already repeatedly in a body. There you find an explanation of soul and spirit just as you find an explanation of the earthworm if you say, the earthworm has originated from an earthworm and not from mud or sand. Once there was something imperfect, however, we cannot go into it in this talk. How does spiritual science explain the perfect and the imperfect in the mental-spiritual realm? As well as the small plasmodium originated, according to Haeckel from simple living conditions, and as the following animal formed bit by bit by the development of the external physical figure, we can say about a perfect soul that it gradually formed from an imperfect soul which became more perfect bit by bit. The imperfect savage with his childish soul has preserved that figure of our soul through which we had to go to raise ourselves to the spiritual figure of our soul. On the other hand, compare the soul of an average European with the soul of a human being as Darwin still met one. The soul of a modern human being has concepts of good and bad, of right and wrong, of false and true. Darwin wanted once to make clear to a savage who was still a cannibal: you are not allowed to eat a human being, because it is bad. — The savage looked at him peculiarly and said, why? Where from can you know this without having eaten him? If we have eaten him, we know whether he was good or bad. — Thus, you have an imperfect soul that develops more and more completely. Our soul comes into the world not as a baby, but this soul has developed in imperfect incarnations first where it had understood nothing of good and bad but the pleasant and the disagreeable to the palate and the like. It developed through such stages and advanced to our level through many incarnations. We carry our soul in ourselves with the abilities and forces, which we have, with the destiny, which it experiences. We see more precisely if we come again in another incarnation on earth; we appear more perfect on earth, until that stage is attained on which we are able to ascend to a higher and more divine existence of which we do not need to speak today. There are indeed still other explanations of existence than the teaching of reincarnation, but this can solely solve the riddles of human existence. A core of existence faces us in that human being about whom we say that he goes through many lives, through repeated lives. The materialistically minded says to us that mind and soul are only attachments to the body, developed only from the body; the thoughts and language are only higher forms of that which we meet also in the physical-animal realm. The materialist brings us to mind that our most elated moral ideals, our holiest religious feelings are nothing but the results of our physical organization. On the contrary, the spiritual-scientific worldview shows us that everything that rests in our souls is our everlasting essence, which formed its body step-by-step. The physical-bodily comes from the spiritual-mental: this is the teaching of the spiritual-scientific worldview, which becomes clearer and clearer, the more you immerse yourselves in it. It is a teaching that is not based on blind faith, although — if one wants to show it popularly in one short hour — one can outline it only briefly and cannot introduce in it extensively. However, it is a teaching that is founded as certainly and firmly like any scientific teaching. It works with the same methods, only in the spiritual realm, as the sensuous science in the physical realm. Spiritual science speaks of the fact that the human being consists of a higher and a lower nature, and that his lower nature — when he walks through the gate of death — is given back to those elements, which it belonged to. The body is handed over to the earth; other parts are handed over to other elements. However, an everlasting essence is in the human being that always takes on a new human figure and form like the lily as a species always takes on new forms, while it goes repeatedly through the grain to come to a new life. This teaching of reincarnation of the being, which shows us the development in the spiritual realm as the higher counter-image of the development in the sensory realm, leads us to see those finer, more intimate things in the human being. We speak of the fact that this essence of the human being contains a triple basic being, that it is of triple nature. We speak of the fact that something exists in the deepest inside of the human beings that is quite undeveloped with the normally educated people, exists only embryonic. We call this innermost essence of the human being atman or spirit man. With the most human beings, it is not even visible by vision. The second member of this spiritual essence of the human being is the buddhi. In English, we would call it life spirit. This second element in the human soul is something that is expressed with the most developed human beings, with the leaders of humanity in a certain way. We can describe this life spirit in a certain way. This buddhi of the highest glory and sublimity inhabited the old religious founders, Hermes, Buddha, Zarathustra and — in the extreme — Christ Jesus. If I make clear what this buddhi signifies in the spiritual realm, I can do it only by a symbol. One must behold the spiritual either, or one has to sum up the everlasting in a symbol, like Goethe does who says: “All that is transitory, is only a symbol.” I would like to give such a symbol of buddhi. If you imagine the usual productive strength in the usual sensuous life, combined with love, but not with receptive love, but with devoted love: this is buddhi. There is in nature no other symbol than the hen, which sits on the egg, conjuring up a new life with its own warmth, sacrificing its own existence in love for the new life. Now imagine this transferred to the spiritual, imagine an individuality who produces the big, propelling forces, the spiritual impulse in the human nature for the further development in such a way as I have just described, then you have it. The element of Christian feeling and sensation had been a basic strength since two millennia. It flowed as blessing through the Western hearts and fulfilled them with bliss. Did Christ not generate it and did it not exist in Christ? Was it not brought into this world with the highest glory, showing that spiritually, which lives in the sensuous, the devoted love which creates — which does not create a human being, but spiritual love which brings forth the universal wisdom, for centuries? Imagine this element in the human nature, and then we have what we call Christ in the Christian mysticism, Chrestós in the Greek mysticism, buddhi in the Eastern mysticism, the life spirit in its highest potentiality. Everybody who feels something of that which it means to produce spiritually what is incorporated as a force in the human development, everybody who feels something of it has a feeling of spiritual, bright clearness like that which expresses itself here below by a symbol, the true blissful sensation with which the chicken sits on the egg. This is buddhi. It exists in every single human being to a certain extent, at least as disposition. The third soul force is that by which we understand the world. It would be brainless in the highest degree to believe that one could get water out of a vessel if no water is in it. However, such brainless people are those who say that they can get the wisdom of the world if it is not there. The astronomer tries to calculate and to understand the wisdom in the universe. The world is to be understood only by wisdom. Would it not be the biggest folly to want to take wisdom from the universe unless wisdom were in it? If not wisdom were given, we could never get wisdom there. The universe is created by the same wisdom by which we want to understand it. This is the third element that flows through the whole world. This is the manas. In English, it is translated best of all saying: wisdom is born out of the world, our spirit self is this third element. If you take these three things: atman, buddhi, manas, and then you have the deepest essence of the human being. Then you have what walks from incarnation to incarnation what is imperfectly formed with the savage where this triad also exists on a low level, up to where we see it with the modern human being, up to the great leader of humanity. The human being walks from incarnation to incarnation, from the cultured man up to the spiritually not only ideal, but also holy leader of humanity, up to Francis of Assisi, Bernard of Clairvaux (1090-1153) or others. The student can completely get to know the passage through the repeated earth-lives by the way the human beings stand side by side in this development. What I have stated expresses itself in the whole human being to somebody who sees more intimately. I have said, this essence of the human being exists only as disposition with the normally educated person. It becomes perfect. However, what we form from our essence today formed and created us from the outset. Thus, we see this tripartite being, this essence working in the human being unconsciously at first and then consciously. Just now I have only mentioned an example how the inner being expresses itself in the physiognomy of the thinker. Not only in the steady physiognomy, but also in the gesture and in the mobility of the traits the essence expresses itself. They are accordingly formed bit by bit, depending on the essence growing out with the child. Spiritual research, occultism gives you the coherence of this tripartite being of the human being and that, which is expressed externally in his body, in his instrument. The so-called occultist says, with the man the spirit self-expresses itself in the traits at first. Buddhi develops in his organ of speech, lives in his voice, preparing future levels. The third force, atman, lives in man's gesture, in the movement of his hands. I said, in the organ of speech and in the voice the second member, buddhi, or Christ, lives as you have seen just now. The Christian mysticism expressed this the deepest in John's Gospel where you read: “In the beginning the Word already was. The Word was in God's presence, and what God was, the Word was.” John directly calls the speech Christ. In the female nature, it is somewhat different. Of course, I would like to say nothing against the absolute gender equality practiced in theosophy. Atman, buddhi, manas are the same with the man and with the woman. They have nothing to do with the gender, however, with the external figure. With the woman manas comes into its own in the speech, buddhi in the gesture of the hands, and atman appears in the whole body. These are the so-called occult differences between the male and the female figures, not between the essence of man and woman. What is now this idea of reincarnation compared with the principle of karma? Karma comes from or is connected at least with the Sanskrit word karnoti that means acting, doing, and working. It is exactly the same stem like in Latin “creare,” create. Creare, do and create is the same. Karma and creating is the same, expressed only in two different languages. Now we want to realise what one calls karma. Karma is called, in English expressed, activity, becoming, and action. With a simple example, let me make clear what one calls karma. Imagine, you work on anything from morning to night. Then you go to bed, sleep the whole night through, and get up in the morning again. If now you say to yourself, what I have worked yesterday does not concern me, I start afresh today, and then you are brainless, are you not? Nevertheless, the only possibility is that you take up in the morning again, what you have left in the evening, saying to yourself, this is my work and where I have stopped yesterday, I must resume today. What does that mean? That only means that my destiny of today is determined by my work of yesterday. Yesterday I have created my destiny of today. With it the whole concept of karma is given. Every being makes his future destiny. Take another example. Once animals walked into dark caves. Something peculiar occurs to these animals. They lose their sight. The food juices move to other parts of the body that they need them more than the eyesight. The result is that the faculty of seeing withdraws, the animals become blind. What do we have before ourselves if we see these animals producing blind generations repeatedly? There we must say, in the blindness of the animals we have the effect of the fact that the animals have moved into dark caves. By which have these animals created their present figure? By their preceding action. Nothing else is karma, as if one prepares his future destiny by his work in the past. Cause and effect are always connected. If the human being goes through a life on earth between birth and death, he commits a number of actions. He goes in the interim through death and new birth and enters a new life then. It is as well as if we wake up and take up again what we have left in the evening. What we have sowed in the past life on earth, we harvest this as a fruit in the new life on earth. If we he have made a bad, disgusting destiny in the past life, the effect of our own actions faces us in the new earth-life. If we have caused anything bad to a person, he appears to us in the new life again and causes something bad to us as compensation. If a person faces me and commits anything bad to me, I can suppose that I had already been together with him in a previous earth-life and caused that which he now does. Thus, the destiny of the single human being becomes more transparent and explicable with the help of the big principle of karma, and the biggest riddle of life, which meets us at every turn, receives light and solution. Now I get an explanation why one is born in the deepest need and misery and why such a disgusting destiny affects him apparently undeservedly. It is the same as if someone has not done his work properly. He is condemned by the bad preparation of yesterday to do bad work again today. Thus, the same applies if I say that anybody who lives in need and misery now himself caused it in a previous life. I also know that nothing remains without effect. That has its effect in the coming life, which I do well or wrongly. The effect in the world is connected with the cause, the observation of the stars and the sun teaches that. The same applies also to the astral and spiritual worlds. What we do now is compensated in a later life. The biblical saying is right: “God is not to be fooled, everyone reaps what he sowed” (Galatians 6:7). — Paul as an initiate knew why he especially pronounced such words. This is the big world principle that leads the human destiny. Now I know very well that it is also necessary to get an idea how this principle works, and about which I would still like to say some words. Who has heard some of my talks, already knows what I want to indicate herewith. If we look at the human being with spiritual sense, he does not face us as this physical body, but we know that this physical body is only one part of the big being, that behind him something is that Paul calls the spiritual body and that the spiritual scientist calls the etheric body. The etheric body is like a portrayal of the physical body, or better vice versa, the physical body is a portrayal of the etheric body. This is the second member of the human being, the etheric body. The third member is the astral body, that which the human being bears in himself as joy and sorrow, instincts, desires, passions, everything that faces us if a human being faces us that we do not see or perceive, however, with sensuous-physical means. What do we see if a human being stands in front of us? We see the skin, its colour and so on. The anatomist can look with physical means still at bones, at muscles, nerves et cetera, but the desire and pain, instincts, and passions that are also in the same room are not sense-perceptible. One calls this the astral body and in it only the spiritual being of the human being exists which we call our ego, the bearer of our self-consciousness. While we have this, we become on our part again the bearers of atman, buddhi, manas, of that which I have described as spirit self, life spirit, and spirit man. The animal already has the astral body. It has desire, joy, and pain. What exists, however, in the highest configuration with the leaders of humanity and exists as disposition with all human beings is the everlasting essence of the human being who advances from incarnation to incarnation. If now the human being dies, what remains there and what passes? The physical body, what one sees with eyes and can feel with hands is handed over to the earth. The etheric body is merged in the general life ether, namely not long after we have gone through death. The third member is the astral body on which the human being has already worked. Take such a soul that lives in the civilised human being, there you have the inner essence and the sum of his desires and passions. With the savage, on the first stage of incarnation, atman, buddhi, manas have worked a little on the instincts. Hence, they are still animal. What does the spiritual essence do? It works perpetually, while it improves the animal passions. The civilised human being differs from the savage because his astral body is no longer animal. Then the human being dies and goes to the astral and spiritual worlds. One sees there what was still in him as desire from the first-time incarnation. If the human being enters incarnation for the first time, the animal passions are not purified. He eats his fellow men et cetera. Then the results appear. He starts roughly understanding something. We suppose the radical case that he says to himself if I can eat the other, he also can eat me. He understands that he can be also eaten up. The consequence becomes clear to him at the last minute, and there the first moral consciousness dawns on him. Then he purifies his desire by the judgement that he has formed, and this judgment comes from his spiritual essence. His judgment appears with the second incarnation as disposition. He has become somewhat nobler. He is now purifying his passions and desires more and more. He enhances them from incarnation to incarnation. That really happens if the human being dies. The physical body is delivered to the earth; the etheric body is merged in the life ether. What happens now with the human being, what takes place now? Not only the ability to look clairvoyantly at the world but already the intellect could teach somebody who thinks deeper what must happen. The human being is disembodied, he has no physical body. What has he done, however, throughout his whole life? He has the conveniences of food by the sense of taste throughout the whole life. This convenience of food, the taste of the dishes, the palatal pleasure is mental. The palate itself is physical. If the human being did not have the physical, he could not get the mental pleasure. If he had no physical ear, he could not hear, had he no physical eye, he could not see. We perceive everything that we perceive with the physical senses at first. The modern human being can perceive nothing without his physical senses. He is used to them. He is used to satisfying such wishes that can be satisfied by the sense organs. The habit to have wishes, to have pleasures, remains, the means by which he can satisfy them disappear; tongue, eyes and ears disappear. He does no longer have them. Now he misses them after death. He is still thirsting for the pleasure, which can only be satisfied by the sense organ. The result is that the human being comes to a state of consciousness after death, which consists in breaking the habit of being satisfied only by the sense organs. The soul must stop asking for sensuous satisfaction, has to purify itself beyond that which satisfied it on earth and can be satisfied only by sensuous, physical means. That is kamaloka in the theosophical worldview. We know it as the purgatory. One can compare that not improperly, which the human being experiences there, to a feeling of burning thirst, to a kind of burning privation. This is the state after death. The suitable means is not there sensuous-physical after death; the organ is not there by which the thirsting soul can be satisfied. If a soul has finished this connection with the physical in the course of years in the kamaloka, it lives in the spiritual world, to which it belongs as soul. It takes that along into the spiritual world. The spiritual-scientific worldview calls this spiritual world devachan or spirit land. What does the soul take along? The purified desires and passions are now spiritualised. If the human being was incarnated on earth, he takes what he has gained to the devachan and processes it there for a new earth-life. A strength of life has to emerge from his experience. It is not enough that the human being experiences anything. Consider the difference between the experience and strength of life exactly. If an undeveloped soul finds out by consequence that it is impossible to eat his fellow man without putting himself in danger and damaging himself, if this faces the soul as experience, then it is this experience that must be transformed into strength, so that an inner voice exists: you are not allowed to eat a human being. This becomes will, the voice of conscience, which becomes more and more perfect, the more embodiments we have experienced. Experience changes into will, in the voice of conscience in the course of our incarnations. You know now what the human being does in the devachan. In the kamaloka, he purifies himself, in the devachan; he transforms the experiences, which he had, to strength for the next earth-life to appear as a powerful, inner, individual nature. Hence, you can perceive it if an undeveloped soul appears in the savage; you can perceive this in his gestures and traits, in the movements of his hands as something typical. The more incarnations we have lived through, the more our individual comes out. What is elaborated? The experiences of his former incarnations which become his character. You can raise another question: why does the human being not remember his former incarnations? — This question has little sense if it is put in such a way. You immediately realise this. It is in such a way, as if anybody comes and says: the human beings are called human beings, and a four-year-old child stands before us which is innumerate —, and now he says: this child is innumerate, however, it is a human being, so the human beings are innumerate. — However, this is a question of development. Every human being arrives at that level once where some advanced persons have already arrived who can remember their former earth-lives. If he cannot remember, it is because he must acquire this ability to himself first, as the child acquires the ability of reading, calculating, and writing. The human being is not allowed to let destiny pass himself in dullness if he wants to achieve the point of view by these experiences to remember his former earth-lives. How does this recollection of the former earth-lives appear? This life is bound to the fact that the human being has developed as much as possible of his inner spiritual essence. The more free and independent from sensuousness the human being has become in this life, the more he lives in the soul, the less he is dependent on the pleasures provided by the senses, the more he approaches the state where he recognises himself in the former states. However, how should such a human being remember former earth-lives? Examine only once what normally fulfils a usual human being. Only that which the sensuous view offers! Of course, this disappears, because a recollection of former earth-lives is not possible. Not before the human being leads a life in his divine self, he remembers in the same extent what he has experienced in his former incarnations, and those who become engrossed in the spiritual life are certainly reincarnated with a recollection of the spiritual life. Another objection is normally done against the teaching of karma. One says, well, it is the old principle of fate. Now one says, the human being has prepared everything for himself in his former earth-life. Destiny and character are thereby determined irreversibly. There is no longer freedom nor free will. There we are subject to fate. — If anybody said so, this would be as clever, as if anybody wanted to say: here I have a cashbook. On the left, I have all debits, on the right all credits. If I add both sides, a certain number results. If I subtract both figures, the profit or the loss arises as a result. If I add this on one side again, we have a balance. — Indeed, this is also with a life balance. The good actions are on one side, the bad and foolish actions on the other. There is also a life account with the life balance as there are accounts and balances in the accounting. Imagine now a businessman who said, my annual accounts are done, I am no longer allowed to register anything, I am no longer allowed to bargain, because everything that I am still allowed to do is predetermined by the previous registrations. The same would be if the human being said, I am no longer allowed to commit new actions. The registrations and the balancing do not forbid him this. Just as little as the accountancy forbids the businessman to do new deals, just as little the karma forbids him good or bad actions. At every moment, we can register new posts; at every moment, we can increase the debit side and the credit side. Some people also say, if I help anyone who is in need and misery, I intervene in his karma. However, I am not allowed to do this. — This is not true. You can help the person to register new and good posts in his karma and to transform his life account to a favourable one. What you register as laziness, neglect, and fatalism is not connected so positively with the principle of karma. However, something else is connected with it. If you see a chemist going to his laboratory, he will maybe go in with the idea: if I bring together sulphur, oxygen, and hydrogen in a certain way, sulfuric acid originates according to an irrevocable principle. Nothing is to be argued against this principle. However, the chemist can also omit to carry out the mixture, he can do it or not. The principle does not impair his free will at all. Nevertheless, the principle gives him the certainty that that really happens which shall happen. You cannot get carbonic acid one time and sulfuric acid the other time from the same mixture. The principle allows us to build on a certain effect. That also applies to karma. The principle of karma can keep us from no action, but there is the certainty that a right and fair balance must take place in life that every good action must have its good effect and every clever action its corresponding effect. The fact that everything happens according to a spiritual principle gives us the certainty. It shows us that nothing is accidental that we do but that everything we do is done in such a way that we can build on a right world connection. Thus, this principle of karma is not only a scientific principle, not something that satisfies the theoretical interest only, but something that contains the solution of the riddle of life, the riddle of the world. It gives strength and certainty in life, it works in such a way that we know that everything in this life is connected according to a principle that is recognised more and more that we interpret unconsciously at first and then more and more consciously. Not only is the urge for knowledge satisfied with the spiritual-scientific worldview. Something else is given, namely strength, courage, and certainty. Not only one tells something of our determination to us, but at the same time we get the possibility to live according to our determination, to live in such a way that we advance to a more and more perfect existence. The solution of the riddle of life is not dogmatic and doctrinal, but full of life and mind-impregnated because of the facts of the principles of karma and reincarnation. All those who looked deeper in nature, in the nature of the spiritual life found more or less this principle of karma and reincarnation. Giordano Bruno was a supporter of the principle, and when from a dullness a new intellectual culture emerged, Lessing (Gotthold Ephraim L., 1729-1781, writer, philosopher, dramaturg) concluded his wisdom in the teaching of reincarnation. I know that many people do not want to criticise Lessing. However, if one likes to praise him, they will not go along. It is strange towards a great man that one only accepts from him what suits one. This also applies to Giordano Bruno and Goethe with whom one regards these ideas as senility or the like. We see that also our German theosophy is deeply penetrated by this view. Only today, only since some decades it is possible again to inform in public about this view. For the centuries of the new development, this was not possible because the human culture had another task as I have already explained. The teachings of karma and reincarnation appeared in the dawn, and also these great spirits were only able to announce them figuratively, symbolically, they understood them full of life. Where life could become explicable to them in its deepest depths, they often pointed with big life humour to this truth, to this everlasting principle of reincarnation that determines what we now experience between birth and death. Goethe pointed to it when he wanted to explain his deep soul friendship to Mrs. von Stein saying, “Oh you were my sister or my woman in past times.” However, Goethe also expresses the principle of karma like other great spirits. He expresses the fact that we enter the world according to our disposition following the principle of cause and effect like everything in the world in the nice words: As on the day that lent you to the world The sun stood to greet the planets, You instantly thrived and continued to do so In accordance with the law by which you made your appearance. Thus, you must be, you cannot escape yourself, Thus, sibyls and prophets have already spoken, And no passage of time nor any can break into bits A moulded form that develops as it lives. ( From: Primal Words. Orphic. Daimon ) However, he said the deepest what he had to say figuratively, among other things, in the beautiful poem where he compares the human soul with the water and the human destiny with the wind. He compares with that which flows along from embodiment to embodiment in the life stream; and the destiny is the wind, which lets the soul surge up and down in perpetual waves. As every following wave is dependent in its figure on the preceding one, the soul is depending on its previous figure, and as well as the wind becomes always new, in the life account of the human being always something new is registered. “Soul of man, how you resemble water! Destiny of man, how you resemble the wind!” he says at the end of the poem where he downright shows the reincarnation in the earth-life. “The soul of man resembles water, it comes from heaven, it rises to heaven, and it must descend back to earth, in eternal alternation.” Goethe shows the soul that way. It comes from the spiritual world, descends to the earth, goes back to heaven and comes again in a new incarnation The soul of man resembles water: it comes from heaven, it rises to heaven, and it must descend back to earth, in eternal alternation. The pure jet streams from the lofty, steep rock wall, then falls as charming droplets in cloudy waves on the smooth rock, and, gently received, it bubbles with a veil of mist and a quiet murmur down to the depths. If cliffs loom up to meet its plunge, it foams indignantly, in stages, into the abyss. In its flat bed it moves quietly down the meadowy valley and in the smooth lake all the heavenly bodies cool their faces. Wind is the wave's amorous lover wind stirs foaming waves up from the very bottom Soul of man, how you resemble water! Destiny of man, how you resemble the wind! ˂˂ Previous Table of Contents Next >> In its flat bed it moves quietly down the meadowy valley and in the smooth lake all the heavenly bodies cool their faces. Wind is the wave's amorous lover wind stirs foaming waves up from the very bottom Soul of man, how you resemble water! Destiny of man, how you resemble the wind! ˂˂ Previous Table of Contents Next >> Wind is the wave's amorous lover wind stirs foaming waves up from the very bottom Soul of man, how you resemble water! Destiny of man, how you resemble the wind! ˂˂ Previous Table of Contents Next >> Soul of man, how you resemble water! Destiny of man, how you resemble the wind! ˂˂ Previous Table of Contents Next >>

Reincarnation and Karma as Key to the Mystery of Man

https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA054/English/RSA2014/19060215p01.html

Berlin

15 Feb 1906

GA054-12

The Persian legend speaks of two contrary divinities, of Ormuzd, the good god, and of Ahriman, the bad god. Both divinities battle for the human being, generally for everything that develops here on earth as life. One holds out in prospect that once the good divinity wins the victory over the bad divinity. Whatever one thinks about this legend, everybody sees a portrayal of this idea in nature, in the surrounding world. To get an example, look at the fire on one side. We owe our culture to it, our comfort and our advancement here within our life, and on the other side look at the destroying power of the forces related to the fire in any respect as for example the earthquakes and the volcano eruptions. So, on one side, beneficent, preserving, life-sustaining, and life-giving powers prevail, and, on the other side, life-destroying and hostile powers. The scene on which the fights of these both powers take place is not only the external human being but also the internal one. The human soul is torn between hostile powers: between pain, evil, grief, and the beneficent powers of existence, fulfilling us with joy, raising our hearts and pointing us to the spiritual spheres of heaven. Deeper natures have always seen the unity, basically, the harmony between these two contrary powers. I need only to remind of something completely known and you imagine how a choice spirit of our own German culture expressed the unity and uniformity of these contrary powers. Schiller's Song of the Bell contains the nice words just in this regard: Benevolent is the fire's might, If man tames and watches it, For what he builds what he creates, He owes to this heavenly power; But terrible this heavenly power is, If she, casting off the shackles, Strides along on tracks her own, This free daughter of nature. The same under two different points of view! If we look at the external and internal human being in such a way, we see reluctant powers in him everywhere. One of these powers of which since ancient times prudent and not prudent people have spoken shall be an object of our today's consideration: that power which one always called Lucifer. — Not only from the scientific, historical point of view, but also from the internal, the so-called esoteric point of view we want to deal with this subject. The word Lucifer means light bearer (Latin: lux — the light, fer, ferre — bear). If we keep this word in mind, we must already say to ourselves, those who named this power could impossibly mean only that which various positive religious convictions summarise as the destroying, grief, and downfall bringing power that they see in the symbol of the snake and the evil dragon. — However, the religious system best known in Europe, the Christian one, complies with what in the vernacular one calls devil or Satan, whom one regards as the life-destroying power and as that power which draws us down. You all know the snake as the seducer of humanity. You can read it at the beginning of the Genesis, the Bible, and it lives in the consciousness of many people that way. Not always and not in all confessions the snake was regarded as the symbol of the evil, as the ruining power, as power that draws us down. If we look at the Christian-Jewish myth, it cannot appear to us completely that way. For who would today count that power which brought the knowledge of good and evil to the human beings, of which one says that it opened men's eyes, absolutely to the hostile powers? A big change has taken place just in the last century. We only need to remind of the name of the great genius Goethe to say which changes have taken place in the course of the last centuries. You all know that Goethe transformed the medieval Faust legend, not only covered it anew. If you pursue this medieval Faust legend, Faust stands there as the representative and type of the human striving, of the striving that is built on freedom and independence and on science, not of that which should be built on revelation, on faith. Even in the 16th century, the folk spirit represented this Faust, this genius of the liberal striving for human knowledge so that he must absolutely become a slave of the evil, life-hostile powers. Faust must go to ruin because he turned away from the faith, from the tradition of the millennia, from revelation. One tells of him that he did no longer want to be a theologian; one says of him that he laid the Bible behind a bank and became a worldly person. A worldly person was such a person who wanted to found his existence on own knowledge and on own insight of the forces. Such a person had necessarily to become a slave of the evil forces, according to the point of view at that time. Goethe shows us this fight in a new way. How does he close Faust's destiny? He lets the choir of angels sing: “For him whose striving never ceases we can provide redemption.” In addition, here, Faust makes the pact with the powers that are connected with Mephistopheles, but he is redeemed, although he founds himself on freedom and self-determination. Faust reaches to the pacification of his existence. This soul change took place there. Lucifer is no longer recognised in the old way as fateful. If we look around in the old religions, Lucifer was not always fateful. In the old Indian religions. One called the sages, the leaders, those who illuminated the human beings with spirit “snakes.” It is similar in many religions. Why? What does Lucifer represent in these old religions? What does he represent, finally? This and the like shall occupy us today. What does he represent to the occultists, the explorers of the forces slumbering in nature, of the deeper forces of nature who speak about Lucifer in the sense of this knowledge as that who shall bring the light to the human being who builds on himself and does not build on revelation and faith, but on knowledge and science? If we want to penetrate into this matter, we must touch something that leads us to bygone times of human existence, so to speak, to the starting point of human evolution. This object, which can only be touched here at the beginning, occupies us completely when we speak about the evolution of the planets. Nevertheless, we have to start already today from this time of human evolution. Evolution is that which appears to us today as a magic word and wants to make the human existence comprehensible, what faces us today in certain perfection and completion and from which we hope that it advances to higher and higher levels of perfection. We attribute everything that lives round us to a development from imperfect to the perfect. That applies to the human being also, to the human being who enters existence according a deeper teaching of development before ancient times in which our earth still did not look like today and in which its natural forces worked quite differently. In the sense of the theosophical or spiritual-scientific worldview, we also speak about this starting point of human evolution, but we speak of an evolution that leads us back to times that are even more distant and to a starting point, which are before our earth evolution. I can only indicate this. When the human being entered into existence, he was alone, so to speak, with and among the physical realms in the world. If we look at the human being in such a way, he appears to us as the highest member, as the last link in a developmental chain compared with the remaining physical realms, compared with the mineral, plant and animal realms. However, as foolish as it would be if a plant, a stone, or an animal spoke: with me the development ends —, as foolish and senseless it would be if the human being spoke of himself: with me the development ends, I am the highest of the beings, which are possible here on earth. — We must look up at other beings, which we cannot reach with the sensuous eyes, which we reach, however, if the slumbering deeper, spiritual forces are woken if the spiritual eyes are opened. The theosophical or spiritual-scientific worldview has to bring a consciousness of these advanced beings again who are related to the human beings as the human being to the lower realms of nature. When the human being entered into existence, he was not created from nothing, but he originated from former developmental links. In addition, other beings went through such developments. They outranked the human being. The religion, also the Bible speaks of these beings. It speaks of beings who could feel as perfect at that time as the human being feels once when he has finished his present development on earth. We say in the spiritual-scientific worldview, in the human being, in his deepest inside a god is originating. With the Christian mysteries of the Middle Ages we speak that the human being can rise to realms which stand above those in which he lives today. The Christian mystic Angelus Silesius says this: “If you rise above yourself and let God prevail, your spirit experiences Ascension.” Then he does not merely receive from the creative powers like today, but he is then a creative, a spiritualised and deified being. At the starting point where the forces, which have reached certain levels of perfection today, were still in their childhood, there were beings beside him who had already gone through such stages which he has to finish today. They were that — if we understand the Bible rather internally — from which the gods descended. The gods have also developed, even in the sense of the Bible. The Elohim are not something that simply stands there, but they are something that has become and has developed to that height. They stood on that level in the past to which the human being develops once. These gods have reached a certain completion. However, as well as on the stages of our present existence beside more developed human individuals also those are who have only reached a lower degree of perfection, at that time still beings also stood between human beings and gods who were higher than the human beings, but lower than the creative gods. I know how ambiguous such things are, even if one takes them seriously. I know that the materialistic worldview almost forbids, because it regards it as superstition, to speak of developmental stages of such beings. However, this cannot prevent us from facing the truth and from speaking of developmental stages of the human being. The gods were in lofty heights above the human beings, and immediately about these were beings who stood in their development between the gods and human beings, but did not complete it at that time. They went through their development among the human beings, because they were closer to them. These beings made up as it were on our earth within their development for that which they had omitted earlier. The secret doctrine, occultism complies with the old religions and the deeper profundities of our time. They subsume these powers as Lucifer. The theosophical worldview shows that a god lives in the human being who expresses himself in the slumbering dispositions that are, however, divine dispositions one day, that the human being has developed at the end of the evolution, but also the luciferic principle lives in the human being and belongs to his soul. After we have made this clear to ourselves, we are free to speak of gods and luciferic powers, of the divine and of the luciferic principles in us as the physicist speaks of electricity and magnetism. The gods stood there as elated beings. Now we must realise both — gods and luciferic powers — as the big principle which lives in any development and work. Look once at nature round yourselves. As the lowest of a sequence the lifeless world of the mineral, then the plants, then the animal and finally the human realms face us; and then even further up the realms of the higher beings. If the plant could open the eyes and look with bright, clear knowledge around it, then it would say to itself, I owe my existence to this mineral realm, which lives round me; if it were not, I could never be. From it, I get my vitality. This realm forms the ground, from which my roots grow. Without this realm, I could never be there. — Again, if the animal could look at the lower physical realms in the same way, it would be the same. It would have to look down at the lower plant realm and say: I have grown out of it, I owe my food to it; if the plant realm did not exist, I would not be. — It is the same with the human being. He also has to say to himself: I have grown out of these lower realms of nature, I owe my existence to them; if they were not, then I would not be. There the higher realm faces the lower one again and helps, so to speak, to further its existence. Imagine only once that the mineral realm would only have developed on earth! What would the earth have become? A rigid, lifeless body that hurried through the space. Life would have remained in the mineral realm like slumbering in a grave. Now this life has escaped, so to speak, to a higher realm, to the plant realm, and the mineral realm on earth is made again a living one by the plant realm. The mineral holds and carries the plant realm; the plant realm transforms the mineral perpetually in the living circulation. Consider what the plant makes with the mineral forces on earth! If there were no plants on earth, the substances of the mineral realm rested in the dead rock. However, because there is a plant realm, it soaks up the substances, revives itself with them, and returns them. The lower realm offers the basis and forces to the higher one, and the higher realm helps again to preserve the existence of the lower one. Thus, it is with any next higher realm. The animal realm lives together peacefully with the plant realm, it inhales oxygen and exhales carbonic acid; the plant builds up its body from the carbon and delivers oxygen for it. What is about the human being? He also lives by means of the lower realms of nature. There we gradually come up to the human being who approaches the spirit, subsists on the spirit. If we go over to the spiritual powers, there is exactly the same relation between the gods and the human beings as between the lower realms of the universe, a relation, similar to that between the plants and the minerals or between the other higher realms of the universe. We know what the plant contributes to the formation and stimulation of the mineral realm, what do the spiritual realms contribute, what do the gods do with the human being at the starting point of development and in its progress? What did they do with the human realm? The gods have completed their development. They have no immediate interest in the human realm — if we want to speak here evidently, even if not quite appropriately. However, they have an indirect interest; they give it the forces, which bring the slumbering and solidified life in the human being back to existence, as well as the plant gives the dead stone life. Have a look at the mineral, the plant, and the animal realms. How are they opposing each other? The esoteric who investigates the deeper forces of nature says, the mineral, the plant, and the animal realms face each other like wisdom, life, and love. — Try to understand that! If you look at the mineral realm as it faces us in nature: everywhere you try to understand it with your intellect and wisdom. You investigate the stars and their orbits, the physical principles of the mineral world. The plant pulls wisdom and the world regularity out of the mineral world. We say without thinking, wisdom, regularity rests in the mineral realm; it is the embodied wisdom. However, poor, sober, and dead would this mineral realm be with its wisdom unless the plant world had come along and its stimulating principle had woken the sprouting life in this slumbering wisdom. Love and wisdom exchange the forces with each other, while the plants and minerals interact with each other. In a similar way, it is also between the gods and the human beings. When the human being began his development on earth, life rested in him at first; the gods stoked it up again for a new earthly development. What is associated with this earthly development? Again, the human realm and the divine realm are related to each other like wisdom and love. Hence, esotericism, all deeper confessions — also Christianity — speak of the fact that God or the gods are love, the stimulating principle. This principle causes the sensual love at first. That is why Jehovah is shown in the Jewish religion of the Old Testament as the bringer of the sensual desire, as the giver of growth and reproductivity. In the sensual desire lies the principle of the further development that drives from the imperfect to the perfect that is the development from the animal realm up to where love founds states. In this love, which appeals, so to speak, the human beings for communities, which penetrates what is solidified in the human being with sprouting life, as the plant appeals the stone for life, we have the revealing, original divinity in it at first. This is the case in all religions and in the esoteric science too. Now we must take stock of the fact that we have here to see the divine driving forces in the human evolution. The human being had forever to regard that which propels him, which furthers him, as a gift, as a revelation of a divine principle. The luciferic principle enters among him and the gods. Thereby he is enabled to take charge of that which lives unconsciously as a divine principle in him, in his unaware desire of reproduction and development. Thereby he ascends to independence and freedom in his development. Why this? Because that which lives in Lucifer is closer to him, so to speak, is a younger brother of the divine principle. When the development was still in an older phase, the gods were on the level of humanity; there they looked for their own development independently within the human level. However, after they have developed, the human being is a creature among them; they control the human being and work in him. Now the luciferic principle comes along. This still has a more familiar and more intimate relation to the human being; it has not yet completely outgrown the level of humanity. It is something that rises above the present point of view of humanity, but is associated intimately with it, so that it melts more together with the human being and works as own desire in the human being to further himself. These are three levels, which work in the human being as his developmental forces: his humanity, the luciferic principle, and divinity. If we want to understand the human being, as he faces us on the present level of development, then we must see in the sense of the spiritual-scientific worldview that he has developed the so-called four lower principles. At the same time, I assume something that the theosophical worldview teaches. I want only to give a short explanation of it. At first we have the physical body of the human being, then the principle of the etheric body, the stimulating one, the formative one, then his desires and passions, the animal in him; this has awoken to independence due to the fourth principle, to the real ego of the human being with which he has outgrown the animal. This human ego is that which develops, actually. This ego lives in three lower principles. It is the fourth. Within this fourth principle, the divine powers work which have already passed the fourth principle in their development and control it from above. We have the luciferic powers still associated with the fourth principle. The gods have ascended from the level of egoity to unselfishness, to devotion and to the overcoming of any special existence. The luciferic in the human being is enclosed with the bigger part of its being still within the ego; it is still within the human interests. With it, we see that everything that lives as unselfishness and willingness to make sacrifices in the human being is the divine principle in the human being, and that beside this divine principle another driving force is in him. Who practices true introspection learns to recognise the other principle. It is the luciferic one. It strives for divinity, not only in complete devotion sacrificing its self, but it strives for the high stages of perfection, with enthusiasm, indeed, but just from the deepest interest of the self: not only because I love it, but because the higher perfection coincides with that which I must love. I want to strive for it as a human being in divine freedom. The divine powers do not strive for this perfection. By the luciferic striving, however, I make the divine perfection my very nature. That is why we can say, if this luciferic principle were not in the human being, the gods would him leave in a certain passiveness, in a certain idleness, and they would lead him to. He would be in the state of being a child of the gods. Indeed, his being would strive to perfection, but not he would be that who strives in such a way but the God in him. — Besides, the other, the luciferic strength is added. It makes this striving its own issue. It sets itself the goal of perfection. The biblical myth also shows this also wonderfully. The gods created Adam and Eva, fated to be led by the divine powers to divine perfection without any own activity. However, because the snake comes that gives knowledge and freedom and thereby the possibility of perfection, it brings the possibility of the bad too. Because the decision between good and bad is now laid in the man's own hand and knowledge, the desire, the love is made the bearer of an unaware, but divine striving for perfection. Everything that should live in this striving for perfection should be aglow with this love, with that which reveals itself to the human being in this love. On the other side, that power opposes it leading the human being, while it takes possession of this fourth principle, of the ego, it wakes him for own choice, gives him light to own knowledge, so that he walks to perfection in the light. Thus, we have the bearer of love and the bearer of light as two real forces prevailing in the human being. I have expressed in modern form what you can find in all confessions, in all occult worldviews as the divine principle and the luciferic principle. Only those confessions which have gone over more and more to founding themselves only upon revelation, only on faith have felt what works in the human being and lives as own principle of perfection as the bearer of the bad. Therefore, Lucifer, the light bearer, became the seducer from that who invokes the human being for freedom, for independence, for the bright, clear knowledge. This is one side. All those religions which have left their starting point — for they all have the right view of God and Lucifer at their starting point — which only search for the God who leads the human beings in unconsciousness to bliss, at the same time they all feel that in which the God himself works also as something causing ruin. They feel nature as sin; they feel the mind, the bright, clear knowledge as the perverting Lucifer. Goethe pronounced this, “Nature is sin and Intellect the devil, hermaphroditic Doubt their child, which they together foster” (Faust). Yes, it is true, very true that the doubt is between divine revelation and striving for freedom. However, it is also true that this doubt is necessary to the human being if he really wants to strive for godliness from his own ego by his own merit. We have to go through the doubt, and not before we can doubt all truth, we are able to take possession of truth really. Who has never doubted does not know how the human being is connected with truth. However, who overcomes the doubt gains higher knowledge than if it has become his possession out of blind revelation. This is the pedagogic value of doubt. Therefore, it stands rightly between the divine that cannot be separated from nature and is regarded as sin, between that which is diabolical, is luciferic and the level of perfection. Considered this way, the human development seems to be put in a certain perspective. The whole development of the Old Testament appears to us in such a way that the God prevails as love in the progress of the human race, in the sensuous love and in everything that it founds: blood relationship, family, clan et cetera. We have perfect with the Jewish people in Jehovah. He is nothing else than the personified power of nature, if one notes how he prevails in the mineral realm, in the sprouting plant realm, in the animal realm feeling joy and sorrow, and in the human being himself. The human God, the Christ impact allows the mineral to form the crystal, it makes the plant sprout and the animals go through the instinctual life, and it leads the human being from the imperfect to the perfect. Ascended the human being to the higher realms, he would remain a mere nature being unless the other spirit, but the spirit beneficent to the human being, Lucifer, prevailed in him who evokes selfishness, indeed, but also independence and freedom. He makes the human being his own being, a special being and raises him above the mere power of nature that way. As true, as it is for the feeling of the servant of Jehovah that Jehovah himself is the basis of the human world that he is the godhead, as it is true that Lucifer rebels against this power of nature and leads the human being to knowledge, calls on him for a clear consciousness. Thus, the human being raises himself to independence. He releases himself from the ties of the blood relationship, of the clan and the people. He becomes gradually a personality, indeed, an egoistic personality. There Jehovah approaches him out of the same spirit, the governor of the higher life, who regulates the development by law, by commandment. If we have the god working in nature by the sensuous love with necessity, we have him as legislator now, as the god of the Ten Commandments. We have him as Jehovah, who gives the human beings the law, which they have to obey, which shall arrange the awaking personality, which shall harmonise and balance it. What is sensuous love below is a commandment of morality above. That should also be raised which works not only as a physical power, as a commandment which strives not only out of divinity to perfection, but it should also be raised to the human ego. Thus, the general physical lawfulness gives that the mere power of love changes into the principle of spiritual love that Christ originates from the sensuous Jehovah. This spiritualised love does no longer work only in the physical instinct but spiritualises life, which once law could only control. Thus, Christ becomes the founder of the law that does not approach the human being from without like the usual law, but becomes a soul force like the innermost desire of morality. If Jehovah gives the commandment, Christ gives the power of working. If the god Jehovah determines what is good, Christ prevailing in the human being gives birth to the good out of the strength in the human being himself. The forces of nature are raised to the soul; what was sensuous love becomes spiritual love due to Christ. The law itself is warmed up by the divine, it works in the world as divine grace — using a Christian term. Thus, we see with the big progress in the turn of the eras the sensuous love, the principle of the natural force only imagined as divine, being refined and spiritualised to the mental love, to the power which does no longer work on the physical plane but on the moral plane. At first the Christian caritas, the Christian love is the refined power, which produces a moral coherence among the human beings. This coherence considers the human beings strictly as human beings and makes them all equal compared to the highest perfection. It immerses morality in love, as instincts were once immersed in love. This is the first time of Christianity. Hence, the Christian virtue became the virtues of community, the virtues of the harmony of the human souls. The god who brings together the human beings wanted to work in mental love, and this is the principle of the Christian religion. As once, body found body in the natural principle, now in Christianity soul meets soul in the higher love due to the Christ principle. As the Jehovah principle created human communities based on blood, based on family, clan, and people, Christ was called to cause that souls find souls without mediation of the blood. The sensuous love is refined to the self-sacrificing devotion; the physical power is refined to the moral action of the god. As well as in the course of the Old Testament the other principle worked, the luciferic principle, as a divine natural force penetrating the human beings bringing them independence and freedom, in the newer times this principle penetrates the human development as a bearer of light, as bearer of freedom. It is not the opponent; it is the necessary supplement of the Christ principle. It is connected with this Christ principle in a unity, as well as all reluctant forces of nature are imagined as connected by those who have understood nature and universe. As well as Schiller speaks of it: Benevolent is the fire's might, If man tames and watches it, ... But terrible this heavenly power is, If she, casting off the shackles, Strides along on tracks her own, ... It is the same here. On one side, the Christian caritas, the Christian love, the divine that leads soul to soul and, on the other side, the bearer of light, the bearer of independence and freedom. By the soul love, humanity would also live only in an unconscious perfection. However, because the soul is impregnated and warmed up, is illumined with the bright, clear knowledge, warmed up by the light of the spirit, because in the human being the bearer of light lives and works, the Christian love thereby works on the free development of the human being also in future. Thus, both powers — revealed wisdom and science gained by the human being — face each other. Soul and consciousness face each other in such a way: the soul glows in spiritual love, and the consciousness penetrates and illumines this spiritual love with the principle of clearness and freedom. Thus, the human being lives between these poles of his being; he works and lives between these powers. To somebody, who looks deeper at the things, Lucifer, the bearer of light, is no hostile power. Lucifer — even if he himself casts off his shackles and strides along his own track, as a free will of the universal power —, always creates the good — to speak with Goethe's words — even if he wants the bad. Lucifer opposes us inevitably as that which must complement another principle in the human being. He proves to be the close friend of the human being who faces him as a brother, whereas on the other side the human being looks up at the elated gods to whom he obeys in quiet devotion, who bear him in their love. Thus, life appears really as a fight between light and love. It is that way in the present stage of development. As well as the physicists put positive and negative electricity, positive and negative magnetism as two poles, which belong together inevitably, light and love in the higher area of human life belong together like two poles of human existence. Never there originates only one kind of electricity; if you rub a glass rod with a cloth, it becomes positively electric; however, the cloth becomes negatively electric. That applies everywhere. Never can work only one force in the development of life, always the other force must be added as necessary complement. In the human life, the two poles are love and light. The one is not possible without the other. As well as the old law, the commandments of Jehovah, which he gave symbolically on Sinai, changed because of the appearance of Christ Jesus on earth, love also changes. Love is something mental that appeared as a higher stage of the physical power in the sensuous love. That is why it is also possible that on the higher stage something clearer appears, namely knowledge. What was knowledge? It was, if you look back, something that is similar to Jehovah's law, the Ten Commandments, and it has to be remelted. As by Christ's death the love of the sensuous stage was remelted to the mental stage, the principle of mere knowledge, the luciferic knowledge, has to be transformed into a higher one. We are included in this change today. In certain respects, we experience such a renewal of that which took place in Christianity. As the law changed into grace, science has to change into wisdom. As grace must be borne by our own soul, wisdom has to be borne by the human soul. As Christ is the god who can also prevail in the human being and enables him to become his own legislator in grace, wisdom is born out of the human science. As our science is built on external experience which is given from the outside like the Jews got the commandments on Sinai, this science will be born in wisdom as the law has been born anew by and in Christ. This is the spiritual-scientific striving. We have science given from without, given by the senses, up to now and this has reached the highest level in our cultural life in certain respects. The future must bring that the human being produces this science from his inside as his very own possession, that he changes Lucifer into that who lives and works from the human being. Spiritual science wants nothing else than such a deepening of knowledge. Just as the law or commandment became internal in the Christian virtue and as in the Christ virtue the human development advances in love in the soul life, our material science will progress emotionally if it is reborn from the soul. Spiritual science should aim at this rebirth. There is a quite analogous event of the human development: Christianity has put up moral virtue instead of the mere physical power in love. The future development brings inner virtue by evoking inner, concealed forces in the human being. As we look back to a development that brought internalisation, law, we see back in the external academic life to a scientific striving, which brings internalisation. As the law was deepened to grace, science will be deepened to wisdom. That means, however, to look for inner development. The law was transformed into the soul by Christian grace. Our science is transformed out of the strength of the own soul into human skill and achievement. Spiritual science wants to rouse the inner, slumbering abilities. If the Christian works out of the love of his soul compared to the servant of Jehovah, somebody who recognises works out of the wisdom of his heart in the future and attains an even greater deepening of the human development with it. Christianity also promises development of the external soul life. Christianity promises a citizen of the spirit, who connects human being with human being externally without distinction of race and gender. This striving will make the human being such a citizen in the higher spiritual worlds by inner esoteric development. This is the relation between spiritual science and the external Christianity: the external Christianity looks for external virtue to gain the spiritual with it; the occultist rouses inner virtues slumbering in the human being to gain the even deeper sense of the higher spiritual worlds. What we are talking about is only a deepening of Christianity itself. The Christian principle deepened the law; the spiritual-scientific principle will deepen science. We have the luciferic principle in the entire human development not as an enemy, but as a pole belonging inevitably to the other pole. We have put it to Christianity, as it was up to now. However, just there we have recognised that the principle of the light bearer associates with the principle of love to a higher unity. If inner spiritual abilities are added by the development of the only external Christian virtues, we have an even deeper Christianity, a Christianity that cannot be dictated by the church but that everybody develops by the abilities still slumbering in himself today. Everybody develops the god by own strength, and all souls co-operate in free striving. Lucifer adds freedom, science, and independence to love and goodness. Only that who wants to stop at an epoch of human development can bring himself to turn away the look from that auspicious future perspective. Any past would be infertile unless it contained a new higher future within itself. The understood spiritual science makes hearts leap for joy and fulfils them with another enthusiasm. What could be achieved by the external institutions up to now could be forced upon the human being in noble, but external kind. The human being once produces that out of the strength of his own soul. An inner church, an inner temple will be there that transfigures and spiritualises the external one. Everybody will be a Christian because Christ shall awake in him, because the inner Christ lives in him and comes along to the Christ who released humanity as a whole. Christ redeemed this humanity as a whole; the human being will understand this if he is internally free and redeemed, if he believes not only in the redemption, but relives this redemption. Those remind us always who want to point us to Christianity: you aim at self-redemption, but you misunderstand what Christ did. That is not right with which spiritual science is confronted. Spiritual science is not an adversary, but a friend and co-worker of Christianity; not of the Christianity of the last time, but of that Christianity, which knows what Jesus said, “I will be with you, to the end of time” (Matthew 28:20) , of that Christianity, which develops to higher and higher perfection. Spiritual science is not hostile to the redemption principle of Christ, because it does not stand on the one-sided point of view that every human being should do something only for himself. This would be the most destructive egoism, even if the human being wanted to strive only in himself for the noblest forces. Humanity is a whole, and if a single — Christ — accomplishes the death of redemption, this death of redemption is for the whole humanity. However, one has to penetrate it with consciousness; any single human being has to relive it. The redemption itself must be reborn in freedom. The principle of St. John's Gospel of the new birth of the human being also applies to it. Anybody is no real human being who is not reborn in spirit and in truth. Christ Jesus said this. He still lives according to his sentence today, he says in no uncertain manner about his own death of redemption, indeed, I died once for the whole humanity to bring humanity the certainty that death can be defeated by life, but this death must be reborn in the soul of the single human being. The redeemed human being is really redeemed only if he has also reborn the redemption in himself. This is the living Christ principle, deepened by spiritual science. Thus, the soul is in every single human being that develops love with the noblest ideals of humanity. This love is added to the mere sensuousness as spiritual love and leads the human being to divine perfection. On the other side, the Lucifer principle is illumined by science, freedom, and independence. Love in bright clearness, the consciousness is added to the soul. The soul brings the strength of love, and consciousness penetrates and illumines this strength of love with bright clearness. The human being walks through the soul and consciousness to perfection. He would progress to divinity by a trial not clear to him if he were only a feeling soul; he would rise to the cold, only reasonable perfection if he were only consciousness. Nevertheless, soul and consciousness have always to penetrate each other. Therefore, someone who strives for spiritual science looks back and forth. He looks at the soul with its feeling and its sensation, and he looks at the consciousness with its light and wisdom and says to himself, I want to be not the human being living in dullness, but the human being prospering in bright clearness. — Those virtues have to be added to all other virtues that are founded on science, freedom, and independence. However, freedom has to be deepened by love; otherwise, it becomes arbitrary and brings the human being only nearer to his instincts. On the other side, love must deepen science: then it becomes wisdom, true spirituality carried by action. Otherwise, it gets cold, desolate, and abstract. Independence must also combine with love, otherwise, it becomes blind egoism, and otherwise, it becomes rigid. This is the deeper truth of life of the spiritual scientific worldview and lifestyle that again three virtues must completely develop as the necessary principles of the human soul: science, freedom, and independence, which must be deepened, however, by the strength of love. Then love transforms science into wisdom, freedom into willingness to sacrifice, into the devotion and admiration of the divine, and independence into unselfishness, into that principle in the human being that overcomes the special being and is merged in the universe and gains divinity in freedom this way.

Esoterics I: Lucifer

https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA054/English/RSA2014/19060222p01.html

Berlin

22 Feb 1906

GA054-13

A week ago, I spoke before you about the idea of Lucifer. In connection with the last talk, I would like to explain something about the same idea and its significance for the human evolution and I may connect with an excellent piece of art, with The Children of Lucifer (1900) by Édouard Schuré (1841-1929, French writer, theosophist). Someone who regards theosophy only as a sum of teachings and dogmas or the Theosophical Society only as a sect that deals with particular religious-philosophical or other ideas and aims at a corresponding lifestyle that is maybe somewhat surprised about the subject of this talk. However, who regards theosophy as something that one has to regard as deepening of our whole spiritual life, even more, as deepening of our whole culture, finds it comprehensible that theosophy is not only looked for within the narrow borders,, but in all regions, in all branches of life and, hence, also in art above all. Many people have a point of view that leads them to believe that theosophy is something unworldly, even somewhat life-hostile. Those who believe in such a way have not yet adopted the real basis of the theosophical world movement. Just a piece of art like Édouard Schure's The Children of Lucifer shows us that the living creating of the artist not only is not impaired by the theosophical deepening, but that the true theosophy and the true theosophical life is just able to inspire art in the most eminent sense and give it exceptionally strong impulses. Indeed, I would like to link to this drama The Children of Lucifer. However , if we just embark on the mode of formation of this dramatic poetry in our time and on the peculiar structure of the spirit out of which this piece of art has arisen, we are able to look deeper at the theosophical life at the same time. Schuré has probably drawn the best forces of his work just from the theosophical worldview, and he belongs certainly to the most exquisite authors in the theosophical field. Who wants to find access to the theosophical life from any other point of view than that of the known compendia and smaller manuals can do it with the help of Schuré's works. Already the characteristic how Schuré came to that which should inspire his mind to express artistically what we have in The Children of Lucifer is theosophically extremely interesting. It is told to us in the fine monument he erected in honour of somebody who had influenced his soul life the conceivably deepest. An extremely interesting fact of the modern cultural life confronts us here. Édouard Schuré published a book and provided it with an introduction that comes from a personality who had deeply looked into the secrets of existence. It is a book in which one recognises the artist. In this book a spirit breathes, which differs from that which we can find, otherwise, in similar writings, a spirit that has immediately processed and taken up real theosophy in himself as life. Schuré calls this personality — Marguerita Albana Mignaty (1827-1887), who wrote about Corregio (Antonio Allegri da C., 1489-1534. Italian painter) — his leader during her life, he calls her the spirit of his soul after her death. One cannot express that more appropriately than he did if one looks into the psychology of Schuré's creating. In the last third of the 19th century it was granted to some deeper inclined natures to look into true spiritual life once again, after one had understood the word spirit hardly as anything else than a sum of abstractions long time, after one did not connect, actually, anything real with the word spirit long time. If — on one side — we delve into Schuré's creating and — on the other side — into the mind of that personality which he calls his leader, we are immediately recalled of that which was understood within the Greek mystery view in the aurora of our western cultural life by the concepts of god and of the divine life. The word theosophy originated later. The first to use it was the apostle Paul. However, it was a common property of all deeper recognising people. We need to get involved only in that which existed within the spiritualised Christianity as theosophy, as a divine concept, as a concept of the divine life, and you are able to grasp the fact of the spirit immediately in another way than it is possible with the modern concepts, as they are still quite usual. The Greek understood by god, by the divine being still nothing else than such a being that surmounts the human being, indeed, concerning his qualities, concerning his abilities, but that is similar to the human being. He calls the human being a becoming god, and he understands any god in such a way that he has once gone through the school of humanity. If the Greek looked up at his god, he said to himself, the gods once went through the sufferings and joys, the experience of life, which I have to go through now. They once went through this school of life, which I have finished now, and I soar those spheres of creating later, on which the gods are today. — The Greek calls his gods older brothers in the entire cosmic evolution, and regarded the human being himself as a draft that should become the same once as the gods are today. This gives another relation to the divine than that which only looks up at something divine, only foresees something in the beyond. As well as here in the physical world for the Greek the external physical realms establish, the sensory physical realms, from the mineral, to the plant and animal realms up to the human realm, the hierarchy, the sequence of the gods outranked the human. He considered the realms beyond the human one as the world of the gods. He did not call that which the Greek should experience in those schools — which were cult sites at the same time, which one called mysteries — abstract, only scientific knowledge of some higher principles, of some forces of nature. The Greek did not understood it symbolically but as something real that the human being associated with the gods in the schools. The mystery pupil did not feel towards the gods, unlike the child feels if it looks up at the adult who has already reached what it itself reaches in a future life epoch. Something completely real was this experience to the Greeks. Hence, theosophy was for those, who coined the word first, not knowledge of the gods, but the knowledge that was obtained in this peculiar way by the contact with the higher spiritual beings. Anybody who was initiated into the mysteries not only obtained knowledge, but he was enabled to associate with the gods, with the spirits, as well as he associates here on our earth with human beings. One called natural knowledge that knowledge that the human being acquires with the senses. However, one called that knowledge, which one received from the gods, divine knowledge: theosophy. I know very well that the most people of those who think from the modern point of view regard such a phrase, as I have just used it, as nothing but an only poetic picture, as a symbol or something extremely fantastic and superstitious. It is neither this nor that; it is something that the human being can really experience. The human being can bring himself to turn his look to the spiritual beings outranking him as he directs his look to the sensuous beings. These spiritual beings avoid the sensuous eye, like all senses, because they have accomplished the stages of spirituality and do no longer have any existence for the senses. The mysteries of the Greeks aim at this: a development of the human being to get contact with the higher beings. In the last third of the 19th century, it was granted, as I said, again to some deeper natures to understand something of that which is meant, actually, with such a thing. Above all, a person was part of it like Marguerita Albana. However, I would like to say that such a personality was not initiated by means of that big spiritual art which somebody had to go through who wanted to maintain the contact with the gods within the Greek mysteries. Such a personality was an initiate by nature as there are poets by nature. However, I cannot get involved further in the fact that a soul, which is initiated by nature in the former stages of existence, is already over some experiences, so that that which it experiences now is only recollections of former stages of existence. However, the possibility to behold in the higher world, transforming particular lower forces of our existence, forms the basis of such a spiritual person like Marguerita Albana. What does that mean? Any means of higher knowledge are transformations of subordinated forces. What still the undeveloped human being had in far-away prehistoric time as undeveloped vague senses can be transformed into the eye which opens the splendour of the sunlight to us. On the other hand, visualise once how imperfect the organ of the ear is on the lower developmental stages! All higher organs that open the marvellous nature round the human being are transformations, metamorphoses of lower forces. Human forces can also today be transformed into higher senses. Thus, some human beings were equipped with higher senses just in the last third of the 19th century. That is why they could behold into the spiritual environment. What other human beings have only in abstractions or notions, the reality of the divine existence, was to them as certain as the sensuous things to the other human beings. Such personalities could give information of the higher worlds. Just such persons could inspire the receptive nature of Édouard Schuré to the nicest and biggest. Édouard Schuré combined soul, mind, and deep esoteric knowledge with a real Schillerean diction and strength of language in this drama, whose translation you can receive from Marie von Sivers here. The drama The Children of Lucifer is something that is created not only out of the spirit of the present, as it is embodied in few people now, but it is created almost out of the spirit of the next human future. In this work, those who have the disposition and talent may develop something according to the highest and most significant theosophical ideas. Édouard Schuré just realised what took place in the Greek mysteries and in those acts of consecration. You all know that also within the German cultural life in the last third of the 19th century a breath was to be felt that originated from a kind of understanding of the Greek mysteries. Richard Wagner (1813-1883, German composer) and his circle was inspired by the spirit of the Greek mysteries in certain ways. We still have to speak something about this chapter in the next talks. You know also that one of those spirits who were close-knit with Richard Wagner, Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900, philosopher), wrote his first work about the Greek tragedy and that he wanted to show how this Greek tragedy came into being from an ancient spiritual life. He did not go as far as Édouard Schuré, not into the mysteries, however, to the gates of the mysteries when he wrote the work The Birth of Tragedy out of the Spirit of Music (1869). Two words faced his mind: the Apollonian, on the one side, and the Dionysian, on the other side. What did Nietzsche mean with these words? He understood two spiritual currents by them. The Dionysian, he says, is that which completely lives in that element of the human cultural life, which is at one with the cosmic spirit all around. The Dionysian is to Friedrich Nietzsche a rapture that the human being experiences if he completely penetrates his being with that core of the highest spiritual life, which flows through the whole universe. Nietzsche anticipated such a thing that the Pythagoreans called music of the spheres, something of that old choir of which also Goethe speaks while he lets his Faust begin with the words: In ancient rivalry with fellow spheres the sun still sings its glorious song, and it completes with tread of thunder the journey it has been assigned. Nietzsche anticipated something of that mysterious hearing and listening to that which flows through the universe, which makes the planets dance around the sun, which animates the spheres. He anticipated that in this dance something divine enjoys life and that the human beings can penetrate themselves with the breath of the divine, and that the human being then feels at one with the whole universe. Then, Nietzsche thinks, the human being lives in a kind of rapture, then he experiences what flows through the whole universe, then an echo of that god whom the Greek calls Dionysus lives in him. As to Nietzsche, this god is that who poured out into the material world round us who is buried in the material world and who celebrates his resurrection then in the human mind, in the human soul. So that the disciple of Dionysus accomplishes his songs, his inspirations under the influence of this god and allows to flow out what one calls the immediate Dionysian art arisen from the divine. Thus, the Dionysus dancer and Dionysus singer was the representative of the divine Dionysian principle in the world. Nietzsche regards this Dionysus drama as the original drama, the later drama originated only from the fact that an image was created, a quiet, dreamlike image of the original Dionysian rapture. The Dionysus disciple receives what arises before his senses, and he can mirror this in serene Apollonian kind. Thus, the Apollonian art is something that was created afterward as an image of the Dionysian art. It is the image, the notion of something that lived in old Greece. Nietzsche pointed already to the primeval times, in which the Dionysus disciples did not only speak of the god, but lived the divine in their movements, in their voices and works as the original artists. Any later art appeared to Nietzsche only as a late echo of this old art. Any science appeared to him only as a shadowy image of the forces represented once by the human beings. In Richard Wagner's art, Nietzsche saw a renewal of that great art which connects the human beings again with the divine. Therefore, it was clear to Nietzsche that Richard Wagner could not bring human figures on the stage, but that he needed supernatural figures which did not show only what happens in this world, but also what works behind this world in spirit. As well as in the Dionysus drama the Greek artist was able to do it, Richard Wagner's figures, put down on the stage, had also to have outgrown the usual human in the sense of Nietzsche, so that they can embody something about which the human being can say, they are there to that which comes once. In his book Le drame musical. Richard Wagner, son Suvre et son idée (1875), Schuré also created out of this spirit which was round Wagner, and he represented the idea of the musical drama greatly; for Marguerita Albana had introduced him in the true spiritual world, in the spiritual reality. Inkling became reality to him, and with it, he could find the key to the inside of the Greek mysteries. Better than someone else, he was capable to illumine what took place within the holy mysteries of Greece. In his work Sanctuaires d'Orient (1898), he was able to rebuild the so-called Greek original drama with great ingenuity. What was now the Eleusinian original drama? It is a reproduction of an experience which cannot be experienced at all within the sensuous world which can be experienced only if the human being himself develops to that level where higher senses awake in him where he realises that all physical principle, which he get to know, are real thoughts of the beings whom the Greeks called gods. As well as the human being creates with his thoughts today, and as he puts his thoughts into his works, his older brothers, the gods, put their thoughts into the world of existence. Let us get into the mind of such a Greek mystery pupil who has been initiated. He said to himself if he could have spoken with our words: look at a piece of art, at a machine, what are they? They are works of human beings, formed according to human thoughts. If you stand before the piece of art, before the machine, you see also the artist, the mechanic through their work, and I understand the work if the principles are disclosed. What are these principles? They are what lived first in the head, in the spirit of a human being. The thoughts of the mechanic, of the artist are crystallised as it were in the material tool, in the marble piece of art. As I look from the piece of art and from the machine at the artist and at the mechanic, the Greek artist looked from the earth at the higher beings. If he wanted to understand the principles that build up an animal, he said to himself, thoughts of beings of divine nature are therein. As well as the thought of the mechanic is in the machine, the thoughts of a creator, of a god are in the animal, in the crystal, in the starry heaven. — This god is to him a being to whom he feels related, who is on a level that the human being himself reaches once. The Greek regarded the god as a being, which has arisen from a human level, and the human being is a being that once attains a divine level. Thus, he associated with the gods in the mysteries. He associated with the gods like with older brothers, and the feeling, which expresses itself in it, is something quite natural. One has only to settle in such a kind of thinking. From such a kind of thinking, the mystery pupil looks up at those beings that are slumbering, as it were, or are embodied in their thought in the whole nature surrounding us. The mystery pupils saw the slumbering divine thoughts in the whole nature. The being of the divinity poured out into it, and the human being is there only, so that in him these divine thoughts can recover their very own existence. All thoughts in the soul of the human being are the resurrection of the god in the world. Placed in the universe in such a way, the own human life appears as an after-image of the descent, the suffering and death of the godhead and the grave of the godhead in the matter. The human being is called to redeem the gods again from the matter. This is the way of Dionysus, the way that all gods have taken. Thus, the gods live in their thoughts. Theosophy calls Dionysus the last-born of the gods. You know that in the legend he is a son of Zeus and a mortal mother, Semele. One says that his divine father snatched him from his mother when Zeus struck her with a streak of lightning. Then, however, the mother of the gods, Hera, became inflamed with jealousy against this child not stemming from her. She set the titans against the child who tore it and scattered the pieces all over the world. Pallas Athena saved its heart only and brought it to Zeus who formed Dionysus anew. We realise that this god was there already before, and we realise that this divinity has a special relation to the world. What is it? It was shown in the mysteries as the creator of that in the human being, which humanity attained last. The human being appears partially as originating from the hands of the gods. In the first years of his life he also faces us in such a way, because he has not yet formed own existence. Bit by bit he matures and becomes independent. Then he works and forms on his own existence. More and more the strength awakes in him that makes him the creator of his innermost being, the creator of his soul strength and mental power. Now one says within the mystery schools that as it were the last step in the life that the human being receives from nature or from God is connected with the god Dionysus. There we touch one of the deepest secrets of the Greek mysteries, namely the sexual maturity of the human being. The time, when he comes out of the undifferentiated sexual life to the differentiated one of man and woman, is still the last step which nature accomplishes with the human being leading him to this maturity, where in him the desire awakes for the other sex. What he then makes of this desire, how he refines it, how he penetrates it with soul, and what he makes of love in spiritual respect, this is the own work of the human being. The last step that the gods accomplish with the human being is that they develop him to the young man and woman during puberty. The force that expresses itself everywhere in nature, in any knowledge, in any sensuousness and in all mental forces on the different levels, the mystery pupil also recognises it now in the proclivity of one sex for the other. How does the human being perceive any way, the Greek mystery pupil asked himself, how does any being perceive anyway? If we imagine an animal eating the plants instinctively, which are useful and necessary for its prosperity, it is a kind of perception. Nevertheless, it is a higher level of percipience if our eye turns to the light and soaks it up as it were. Sensuousness is percipience, vision is percipience, and it is percipience if one sex inclines towards the other. Then the transformation of the lower forces to higher and higher ones takes place. The last step which nature, or God, spoken in the freer sense, has undertaken with the human being can also be transformed. Sensuousness changes into love. It spiritualises itself; it ensouls itself. Dionysus was the god who represented this strength of sexual maturity to the Greek of the mystery. Dionysus did not only have this function with it, because the sexual maturity is still connected with something quite different. Dionysus is understood as the last-born of the gods only with it. If we look at the human being as he faces us today, we have a being before us in which the more astute human being — and someone who embarks on the theosophical worldview is led to this deeper look bit by bit — sees something that has become man and woman gradually. You need only to read Plato and to take him seriously in order to understand the Greek kind of view and you find how he points to a time when there was not yet man and woman, while the human being was still man and woman at the same time. The biblical legend points also to such an undifferentiated human race, and the Fall of Man is nothing else than the symbolic representation of the sexual differentiation. If we understand that the human being, as he faces us, originated from a bisexual being, we say to ourselves, in the course of evolution, the human being acquired his one-sided sexuality. He developed from the double sexuality to uni-sexuality. He lost half of his productive power. This half has awoken on the other side as the strength of our soul, as the strength of our mind. So that the human being became unisexual — a deeper look into nature shows this —, the human being became productive spiritual-mentally because he has given away half of his physical productive power. Thereby the human being became capable of self-consciousness and could say to himself “I”, he is an independent being that — if we may express ourselves figuratively — was dismissed from the hands of the gods and became his own creator. Thus, it is connected in the development that the human being feels that strength which forms, indeed, the basis of his egoism that makes him, however, a free, self-conscious being. Hence, on every stage the emancipation of the human being recurs where sexuality finds its further development in any way. The god Dionysus is the last-born of the gods. That means that the Greeks imagined that he developed the human being up to his present independence. Zeus, Cronus, the older gods, created the human being up to the point when he was a double-sexual being that lived in a vague consciousness, when he was not able to say “I” to himself, when he was without self-consciousness and without freedom. The creator of independence is Dionysus. With it, the divine principle poured out uniformly into the whole nature up to the point when the human being became independent. Then the human being faces us in countless individuals. Let me illustrate this. If we put back ourselves in the time when the human being was not yet independent when he was still a double-sexual being with dim consciousness. There one could say, as well as my hand is a limb of my own organism, the human being was a limb of the whole divinity in those days. His consciousness still rested in the bosom of the divine consciousness. One could still see through the human being to the divine soul. Now, after the human being became independent, was separated from the divine consciousness, this soul is divided in as many individuals as there are human beings. This was greatly symbolised in the divided god Dionysus, who was dismembered by the Titans. Pallas Athena was the symbol of the human wisdom. We felt her with our hearts, with our higher minds as the common consciousness of the whole humanity. While we feel at one again, a mind of the same kind develops in the whole humanity, the heart of the god Dionysus is saved and again carried upwards to the dwelling of the gods. Thus, the Greek imagined that the god Dionysus led the human beings up to the separation of the sexes and, finally, to sexual maturity. One regarded the proclivity of one sex to the other as one of many forces, which come from the god Dionysus. Then two spiritual currents work on the human being, who stands in the world as a creature of the god Dionysus. These spiritual currents are the starting point of our own culture. One current is that where the spirit works in the external, serene form and in wisdom to develop the beauty of the external form and the order in the sensuous urge. It should not work fiercely and irregularly, by which Dionysus brought the human being up to the present level, but it should comply in harmony and order. One sees this principle of the external formal creation of Dionysus best of all in the Greek and Roman art, in the Greek beauty and in the Roman statecraft. They introduced order and beauty in the social life of the human beings created by Dionysus as independent beings. The soul which animates and ensouls this urge was refined and deified by Christianity; everything that regulates the human community in such a way that not blind urge, but spiritualised, deified urge prevails is caused by the understood Christianity. Spirit and love are two currents in the human development. The present development and that of the last millennia face the poet of The Children of Lucifer. He considers what Greek spirit and Roman statecraft created as a living and uplifting principle of the Dionysian human being and on the other side the deepening of the principle of love by Christianity. Now we also understand how Édouard Schuré got around to processing these ideas in a piece of art that he called The Children of Lucifer. In Dionysia, a city of Asia Minor, the following happened. This city had a cult that was dedicated to the god Dionysus. These Dionysian mysteries were celebrated in Dionysia and had there a mystery site. Then this Dionysian current was intermingled with the second current. It was in the fourth century of the Christian calendar. It was the Roman world domination and made those who were worshippers of Dionysus, who knew that a spark of a divine soul lives in them, members of the Roman statecraft. Now the Greek spirit and the Roman statecraft conflicted with each other. The original spirit must revolt. Why must it revolt? It must revolt because the external form wants to integrate the independent. This can easily become an external order. That which should make order, harmony, and unity easily becomes that which suppresses and subjugates the human freedom and independence. This also applies to the Roman spirit — which was born out of the Dionysian spirit — in the fourth century. These two currents of the human spirit face us in Dionysia: on one side the spirit, on the other side the stiffened state formalism. These are two currents that extend via the Dionysian mysteries to Christianity, which should spiritualise the drive of the human being to the other human being, which should refine the actions of Dionysus and put them in a higher light purifying the mere desire. However, it degenerated in that time, in the fourth century, to an external formalism that subjugated and suppressed what it should refine. Thus, we look at the subjugating Caesar on the one side and on the other side at the subjugating Christian priest who does not get love out to refine it, but to deaden it. We see how in Édouard Schuré's drama two persons as representatives of the Greco-Roman spirit meet, on one side a young man, who is called Theokles first and then Phosphorus, and on the other side a virgin who was consecrated to the service of Christianity as chaste sacrificial virgin. We see Phosphorus revolting who wants to originate the Dionysian human being in the highest refinement against the solidifying, the Caesar principle, and on the other side the Christian virgin who is not so spiritualised that she is world-enraptured but so spiritualised that she herself is called to work and create in this immediate world. These two persons deepen each other. How nicely, greatly and tremendously the development of these persons is shown. Phosphorus sees the Caesar principle subjugating his hometown on the one side, the Christian principle subjugating it on the other side. On one side, he sees the divine Caesar, on the other side the merely good, world-enraptured shepherd and those who should adore him. He is led to an old person, whom one calls the old man of the unknown god in Greek. It is a big transformation that our Phosphorus experiences. In a distant canyon, he looks for a landmark, and he encounters one of the temples, which were considered as initiation temples. He meets an old priest there, one of the sages of the unknown god. Which god? That god whom one does not confess whom one does not revere in this or that figure. That god who does not answer if one asks him because everybody must answer to himself what is not to be put into words what lives, however, as a spark in every human being. As true as it is that the human being becomes aware of the divine spark, he can also realise that he is on the way to the big god all his life through. This god forms the basis of that which lives in the stars which is in the human breast, and what still forms the basis of everything that the human being performs on his higher level. For he is not a god of the past, but a god of the future, not a god of the thought of the past or the present, but a god of the thoughts, which the human being once is able to think as the highest on the current developmental level. That is why he is called the unknown god because the human being cannot serve a god who gives him a completed existence, but because he wants to serve a god who can stand there in perfect figure only in the future. Therefore, the free human being adheres to the divine spark in his breast; therefore, he adheres to that which exists as the dismembered Dionysus at first in the world outdoors. Then he cannot find strength from anything else than from this separated divine spark, the strength of the upward development, then, however, he also knows that this upward development is connected with the passage through knowledge and suffering, with the passage through the bad because the human being is detached, according to his inner spirituality, from the divine. Hence, free forces must emerge in him to lead back this spark to divinity. If we had remained in the bosom of the gods without splitting in the sense of the Dionysus legend, the divinity itself would lead us to godliness. Thus, we appear like apostatised sons of god. This strength in us, which should lead us as sons of Dionysus to this godliness, is Lucifer's strength, the luciferic principle, that light, which the human being freely kindles in himself, in order to find the whole god as a part of the divine being once. The strength that works in him is the light. Lucifer, the bearer of light, is the teacher and leader who bears the light in the human being and in the whole humanity. All those who develop such an attitude like Phosphorus are the children of Lucifer. Thus, they are not anti-Christian. They are so minded that they say: in Christ, the god appeared who became a human being who descended and enjoyed life in the human body. However, the human being has to develop so that he unfolds the god in himself in such a way that the deified human being meets the incarnate god that the human being who ascends from below finds a similar being. As Christ is now that who descended the deepest from above as the revealing god, Lucifer is the god whom the deified human being meets. Christ and Lucifer belong together, understood in the right sense. Thus, we find Phosphorus, while any Caesarism cannot keep him by any suppression of the free Dionysian principle in the world from rushing to the temple of the unknown god to receive the light that carries him upwards to become a son of Lucifer that way. As well as Phosphorus pursues this way and raises his mind up to that view which recognises Lucifer as the developmental principle, Kleonis develops from a Christian virgin to a universal principle. She should solely direct her love to the incarnate god. She develops to such a degree that she anticipates that love can be refined in the human being in such a way that the divine love of the incarnate god combines with the human love in the human nature itself. Thus, the Christian virgin soars the point where she can meet the unknown god. Christ has come to life in the Christian virgin because she joins not only in the view and in admiration with the divine, but achieves that she rises to the Christian love. Phosphorus has ascended to the point where the spirit shines to him in the light. With it, the mind of the man and the soul of the woman are on the same level. They now work together on the same level, namely in such a way that always instead of Dionysus the free human couple stands at first which embodies the inkling of a future which should still arise once. Christianity and Caesarism developed to that which unfolded in Dionysia: it subjugated and enslaved the human beings. However, they both stand there upright and freely. They are expelled. They cannot save the old Dionysia. The old Dionysus, who perishes in Romanism and in the external Christian formalism at first, cannot host both who have got free; they are expelled. While they show the life of the future in the present, they must live in the present. They find the way to the unknown temple again. Where Phosphorus was consecrated, where the star of Lucifer appeared to him, the clear star of Lucifer appears to them in the hour of death, both ways uniting. Lucifer leads the human beings in freedom to the highest development, and we attain the cross of Christ, the symbol of redemption, if the incarnate god touches the deified human being. Thus, both who got free have to save at death what they have achieved. They cannot save Dionysia. That is the course of human development. This was something that one already experienced in the Greek mysteries in a higher life: that life forever overcomes death, that death is only something apparent with the single human being and something apparent in the entire human culture. Thus, we anticipate at the end of Schuré's drama that that which they both gained in themselves has an everlasting significance beyond the grave. The whole drama ends magnificently, in the sure certainty that the spirit must overcome matter. As well as death is the winner over life here, one can represent it only if one knows anything about the true and real life of the spirit and knows that death is only something apparent. Someone who does not know that everything dead is something apparent must say to himself, if death were anything real to the noble pair that gained freedom because it was expelled and driven out by the enslaved Dionysia that would perish which they both have taken along. For all those who remained in Dionysia are slaves of a dying human epoch. Apparently, nothing is left. If this semblance were reality, we could no longer believe anyhow in the fact that it has a significance if anybody has purchased a higher life with death. For then this drama would close with nothing. Solely the belief and knowledge that the spirit is real carries this drama, and that from the death of the freed couple a real spiritual blossom sprouts which later works and lives in humanity which has remained, which is planted in the whole spiritual human development. From the death of Kleonis and Phosphorus, a spiritual human flower grows which is there then. That which the human being experiences by the light and what he recognises lives on. Schuré owes this certainty to the fact that the former Greek world had arisen in him due to Marguerita Albana. He owes to Christianity that he was not only an external artist, but also that he can have a deep look into the spiritual development of humanity. He has shown this sight in his book The Great Initiates . There he has spread out the historical tableau of humanity from Rama (seventh incarnation of Vishnu) , Krishna, Hermes, Plato and other initiates up to Christ Jesus. He has shown this human tableau, this spiritual development. With it, he has delivered a historical consideration which is theosophical in the most eminent sense and which has led countless people in Europe to the theosophical worldview. Out of the spirit of his consideration he created The Children of Lucifer , this little marvellous dramatic work in which in every line and in every scene theosophical spirit lives. Thus, the theosophical worldview becomes life; art becomes the expression of the theosophical spirit if the truth of the spirit is mirrored to us as beauty. The human beings can create three things at first, Édouard Schuré says. At first, we are concerned with ontology. It leads us to the big principles of the world, but now we look at them — if we are deepened theosophically — not as anything dead, but as abstract divine thoughts. Then we are concerned with mysticism that leads us to the gods and higher beings whom we recognise as our older brothers. Then we are concerned with symbolism that shows us the god in the external sensuous picture and as a shadowy reflection in art. Thus, Édouard Schuré is a real theosophist and a real artist and shows more than all theosophical dogmatics what a theosophical world task consists in. It is typical that under the title Lucifer the first theosophical journal appeared which we have renewed in our German magazine Lucifer-Gnosis where the whole way of thinking, the future task of the theosophical worldview has been expressed clearly, as it lives artistically in the drama with the title The Children of Lucifer. Only those who regard art as something external misjudge that in this piece of art something lives in the highest degree that has not missed the creative power because of its deepness. If this drama satisfies the artist completely, something of that impetus flows from this drama to the unknown god who works in us all and whose name theosophy just bears. Thus, this drama is the expression of that theosophical attitude which takes the true deepening and the human freedom seriously. No one can be free in the highest sense of the word who does not find the divine in himself, who is not an associate, not a brother of the divine being. If the human being becomes this, he himself becomes a part of that force which is a bearer of the light that is Lucifer. Then he becomes a child of Lucifer. Those who understand something of the mysterious force working in the universe that one cannot see only with the eyes and perceived with instruments, of the forces that flow through the moral and religious life and work in our whole universe. Those who know a little bit about it speak of the forces that one calls the astral light. The experts describe it in such a way that it flows through the space like other forces, like gravity, and works on the beings. The astral light flows through all beings; it lives in the higher animals and in the human being generally. If the human being does something and says, I act, or I am driven instinctively — it is in truth the astral light which works and lives in him. He can dedicate himself to this astral light, unconsciously, with dim consciousness. This always happens if passions and instincts press the human being. However, this does not happen if he becomes the bearer of own light if he connects himself with the force of Lucifer. Then he changes this astral light, this creative force in the world into a conscious, creative force in himself. Then he becomes a citizen in the higher spiritual worlds. If he leaves himself to the astral light with dim consciousness, he can say, indeed, the gods live, and they flow through me, but I am destined to emerge from unconsciousness, to let the light appear as something free, to illumine my actions independently with divine forces. Everything that originates from the twilight of the consciousness, what the bearer of the light does not cause hampers our development. What leads to the aim and to the true human ideal is that which comes from the light, from the real knowledge. Therefore, the human being is only allowed to throw himself really into the stream of life if he has grasped the god in himself if the god is his leader. Theosophical attitude means waking the divine consciousness in oneself and becoming mortal with the aid of the forces which are in the own breast. Marguerita Albana whom Édouard Schuré calls his leader expresses that in a short saying which could be regarded as a motto of the theosophical attitude and which should also close our considerations today: Trust in the god in your breast, and then leave everything that is in you to the stream of life ( Crois au Divin qui est en toi, et puis prête l'oreille au fleuve de la vie ).

Esoterics II The Children of Lucifer

https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA054/English/RSA2014/19060301p01.html

Berlin

1 Mar 1906

GA054-14

Many a time I have already pointed here to the fact that it is a prejudice if one declares the present theosophical movement in the strict sense of the word as a Buddhist or neo-Buddhist one. Theosophy or spiritual science does not want to implant a foreign worldview from without, but to show how also within our European culture deeper teachings of wisdom form the basis of the striving of humanity that express themselves most distinctly. Next time I venture to show how in a newer epoch of the German spiritual life theosophical feeling and thinking were expressed in a quite extraordinary measure, I would like to say, in its intellectual purity around the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries. Today, however, I would like to show — as far as I can press it in a single talk — how within the Germanic-German folk culture an impact exists which goes back to views that we meet in theosophy. A careful comparison between the basis of the European religious and worldview with that which has been expressed over there in the East in such a peculiar, spiritual way will show us how little the misunderstanding is justified that the theosophical spiritual current wanted to force something completely strange on the European life. We have to characterise — if we want to carry out this comparison really — the basic view of the so-called theosophical worldview with a few words at least. If only just, let us once visualise the often-discussed basic view of the theosophical or spiritual-scientific worldview. The human being is, according to this theosophical worldview, at first a being who has a double nature as basis, namely a transient so-called cover part, an external member of his nature, and an imperishable everlasting essence. The external cover is as it were the sheath or the tool of the human being with which his immortal essence works and is active in this world. This cover is clearly divided into four members. The first member is the so-called physical body, the body that one can see with the eyes and perceive with the other senses. The second member is the so-called etheric body. Life lives in this body. It has the same figure approximately as the physical body, but it forms the basis of the physical body as the bearer of the life principle. The third member is the bearer of the feelings, of joy and sorrow, of the instincts and passions. We call it the astral body, because the forces, which are effective in it, prove to be to someone who can deeper look into the world the forces that live outdoors in the starry heaven, in the astral, and are essential. We call the fourth member the real human ego. We call it in such a way because the human being has the three other members, physical body, etheric body, and astral body in common with the remaining beings, which are round him. Every mineral has a physical body. The plant has a physical body and etheric body, the animal has a physical body, etheric body, and astral body. The human being besides has a fourth member to live within this world that enables him to say to himself “I.” This ego is the final member, the final point of the development of the three above-mentioned bodies that they have striven for since primeval times. It lives in the three covers, which surround it not like onionskins, but they interact regularly, penetrate each other powerfully, and take shape. At the same time, the ego is the bearer of a higher tripartite nature we call spirit self, life spirit, and spirit man best of all. These members are today included only as gifts in the majority of the human beings. The Eastern mysticism calls the spirit self “manas,” the life spirit “buddhi,” and the highest, innermost member “atman.” It is the real spirit of the human being, the innermost core, the immortal within the human nature. With it, we have seven members of the human nature as we have seven tones of the musical scale or seven colours in the rainbow. The lower members are a confluence, an essence of the three realms, which surround us: the mineral, plant and animal realms. The higher members, manas, buddhi, and atman are not to be perceived by the senses, they are of divine nature. The human being has these members also in common with higher realms of existence, as he has his lower members, the physical body, the etheric body, and the astral body in common with the realms of nature surrounding us on earth. As he extends with these three lower bodies into the earthly existence, he strives with the higher spiritual members of his nature up into the realms of the divine that is tripartite like the external nature. Thus, the human being is rooted in the earthly and he extends with his branches into the spiritual-divine world. As he developed out of the earthly world from lower beginnings, he develops spiritually upwards, becoming more and more similar to the higher spiritual beings. Therefore, we can also say, the human being is divided in three parts. While we connect the lower members and the upper ones, we have the ego in the middle. It has a share of both, of the earthly and the divine. It penetrates the etheric body and the astral body. We call this ego soul. We call the real immortal inside of the human being, atman, buddhi, and manas, mind or spirit. By these three members of his nature, the human being is a citizen of three worlds at the same time. He is a citizen of the usual physical world here. When he has left the physical world here, when he has left his physical body, also the etheric body, he enters another world, a kind of intermediate world, an astral world, as we say, the soul world. At first immediately after death, he has to purify himself for a number of years from that, which still adheres to him from the connection with the earthly-physical world. We call this state kamaloka or stay in the astral world. This is no place, but a state. The disembodied human being, as long as he still has certain effects of his physical nature in himself, stays in the soul world and ascends then to a still higher world that we call devachan or the world of spirit. You know now that the spiritual-scientific worldview assumes not only a one-time stay of the human being in this physical world, but that it knows that the human being has to go through repeated earth-lives. His immortal essence can deify itself more and more only thereby, can ascend to spiritual regions going through experiences, through lessons in the earth-life repeatedly. Thus, the human being returns to the physical world when he has gone through the worlds of soul and spirit, then he returns again to the spiritual world and so on. These repeated incarnations are held together according to the so-called principle of karma, according to the law of cause and effect. If a human being, after he has gone through repeated earth-lives, appears again, he is born with dispositions and abilities, which he has appropriated in the former lives by experience, and with the guilt, which he has burdened himself in former lives. Thus, the one appears happy, the other unhappy and miserable because he himself has prepared this. What we have compiled here appears in the future earth-life again. The human being thereby ascends and descends, goes to and returns from the three worlds: physical world, astral world and devachan world. The human being is not only a being, which belongs to these three worlds, but he also has companions in these three worlds. Someone, who searches spiritual-scientifically in the other worlds, not only in the physical world, which the human being perceives with his senses and can seize with hands, knows that there are not only such beings which have the three members of the human nature: body, soul and mind. However, there are also beings, which are lower than the human being is, and beings, outranking the human being. How we have to imagine the beings, which are lower than the human being is? We have to imagine them in such a way that they have not a spiritual core as the highest like the human being, but they have a mental one only. As well as the human being has mind, soul and body, the lower beings only have soul, body and something that is lower than the body. If you like, we call this unknown third world the underworld and we can say, such beings have a tripartite nature, too, whose lowest member is the underworld whose middle member is the physical world and whose uppermost member is the soul world. However, there are also beings who have two members in the spiritual and a third member beyond the sphere of devachan, beyond the sphere of the spiritual. Thus, you see that you can construct a whole number of beings to yourselves. Such beings really exist as experience shows. The human being belongs to the three worlds. Such beings also belong to the three worlds and as well as the human being is developing from a level on which his soul was his uppermost being in which the spiritual core was implanted, these other beings are also developing perpetually. You see that those who have experience of such things must say to themselves that the human being — after he has left this physical body and ascends to the worlds of soul and spirit — is just the companion of other beings, of beings whose lowest member is the mental nature. This is the outline of the worldview that is not only spread about any part of the world civilisation, but forms the basis of all deeper religions and should be only renewed by the theosophical or spiritual-scientific worldview. However, at the same time this also is a worldview which is in perpetual development, not a worldview which one has to consider as something that was once determined in the abstract, but a worldview, which develops through the various states of human development most differently. The human being becomes more and more mature in the course of development, which is also arranged variously. Now, however, the human being takes not only share in this development, but the basic teaching of all world cultures shows that certain single human individuals can go through a faster development that they can ascend quicker to higher levels of perfection that they are able to rush ahead of their fellow men, so to speak. Then they have already attained, while they are still in the sensuous body, an insight into those worlds, which the human being enters when he has passed, otherwise, the gate of death. All religious cultures preserve this as a secret that the human being is capable to behold into the worlds, which are closed to him while he lives in the sensuous body. However, the human being can already cross the gate of death in this life and get a sight of those worlds which he has later to enter developing upwards. As well as the human being rushes ahead of the animal, such persons rush ahead of the remaining humanity. All deeper teachings of the world culture call these persons initiates. You see, there we get really the sequence about which I was speaking already last time in the talk on Lucifer. We get a whole sequence of beings, which puts the human being wonderfully, however, comprehensibly in the quite natural spiritual world. Thus, the principle forms the basis of every religion and every bigger worldview that there are divine natures beside and above the human beings that, however, these divine natures have gone through the stages in bygone times, which the human beings go through today. They have gone through them under other conditions and in another way; for nothing recurs in the universe. So we can say, those who today are gods were once human beings, and the human being develops up to divine nature in future. He is becoming a god, and the gods are nothing else than perfected human beings. This is the basis of any secret doctrine as one calls it. Understanding this sentence in its entirety means just to be an “initiate.” However, one must not understand this only in the abstract with the intellect, but in the experience. The ray of spirit accessible to the human being now is necessary to it. Then only one knows which big, infinite significance this sentence of any secret doctrine has, this sentence, which, so to speak, penetrates all worldviews as a leitmotif. Allow me now to look at the different images of the Germanic and German prehistoric time, partly until the present time. Perhaps, I am allowed to go back to the fact that science has only taken a little into consideration, unfortunately, how these things are. At the end of the eighties, a book by my dear friend Ludwig Laistner (1845-1896, novelist and literary historian) appeared — its title is The Riddle of the Sphinx (1889) —, a nice, two-volume work. It does not deal with some exceptionally high teachings, but starts from the very simple. It starts from a quite simple fact that takes place within our present folklore still in numerous forms. There still exists, for example, the folk legend of the Lady Midday with the Wends (Slavic people in Germany) . It runs as follows: if certain people who work in the field outdoors do not break off for lunch, but remain on the field between twelve and two o'clock, the Lady Midday comes and puts questions to them. She asks, for example, the flax farmer about the linen weaving or something else. The people must answer these questions. If they stall with a question, it is all up with them. Until two o'clock, they must come through with the answer. If they cannot properly give an answer, the Lady Midday strangles them or cuts off their heads with her sickle. The farmers use different means against her. The person concerned must be able to pray the Lord's Prayer inversely. If he is able to do this, the Lady leaves him; otherwise, she offends or kills him. You see a legend researcher, Ludwig Laistner, starting from simple legends. Then he investigates similar legends. Still today, they are to be found in our folklore. He visits them in the manifold regions and thinks at the same time that this is a simple example of the so-called interrogative torment, of the dilemma in which the human being is placed by the fact that spiritual beings ask questions he has to answer. He shows how in another legend forms the same thing becomes more and more complex, until one ascends to the riddle which the sphinx puts to the human beings, and which Oedipus solved. Laistner explains this nicely where he shows how the legend of the Lady Midday relates to the complex question of the human riddle, put by the sphinx. Laistner then shows something else. I must tell this because you learn from it how exceptionally important it is for theosophy. He started, like most legend researchers, from the different concepts of god, and he got around to seeing symbols in them. You know that some gods are understood as symbolic representations of the clouds, the sun, the moon et cetera. This is a widely ramified view you can find everywhere. But it is put up by such people — Laistner has exactly got to know in his own personality — who do not know in reality, how the imagination of the people works, who do not know that it is far from the imagination of the people to make up gods from wind and weather, from flash, thunder, sunshine, and rain. Laistner also already realised this when he was still dependent on the academic life that there can be no talk of it. Now in the book of the sphinx he asked, what is there, actually, if the Lady Midday comes and torments everybody with questions? — There is — and Ludwig Laistner proved it almost exactly — that these things have arisen from another state of consciousness, the dream state. He proved that the Lady Midday is nothing else than the product of a dream experience which those have had who slept during noon on the field. Not the day consciousness fantasised, but the dream has become symbolic. Laistner distinguishes sleeping in a room and sleeping on free field. As well as the human being can dream with the blanket in the hand of a frog which he holds in the hand, the outside world symbolises itself in the Lady Midday. This has arisen from a dream experience. Laistner tried to develop this thought. He did not yet know spiritual science. Hence, he had to point to the fact that important components of our legend poetry have arisen from real dream experiences. However, dream experiences are only rudiments of another state of consciousness. Someone can attain this other state of consciousness that goes through a certain inner development about which we still speak in the talk of 19 April. Who has visited these talks knows that if he goes through certain exercises, trains himself spiritually, he can transform the usual chaotic dream world into a quite regular world which does not show him only parts of the usual reality as memories, but introduces him also in the higher spiritual world which he can then take along in reality. This is the higher state of consciousness; this is the astral or imaginative consciousness. It begins with the fact that the dream experience becomes regular and that the person concerned realises one day that he experiences a new reality. Then he can rise to a still higher spiritual reality. That the human being rushes ahead of his fellow men, that he can already reach what the future gives all human beings that he can look into the worlds of soul and spirit, this was there in a certain way in past times. Because the human development consists of the fact that he develops from one level of consciousness to the next higher one. The present human consciousness where he perceives with external senses and works on the sensory impressions with his reason only originated from a consciousness, which was not the same, but was similar to the dream consciousness. This dreamlike consciousness was somewhat darker. However, the human being did not perceive immediate impressions but symbols. What took place in life expressed itself as pictures in the human being. He lost this consciousness and bought the clear day consciousness for it. At that time, he did not have the present clear consciousness. He could not perceive with the senses, could also not see the daylight. He had to see this consciousness sinking in darkness to attain the present consciousness of the bright day. In future, he attains a consciousness where he has both, the imaginative consciousness, which leads him into the astral world, and furthermore the bright, clear day consciousness. These are the contents of all secret doctrines, which form the basis of any culture. Thus, the human being can look at a time in which he can say to himself, at that time I saw the world around myself as a soul world. It caused a pictorial consciousness in me. This was internally bright and clear. No external sun appeared to the external eye, but an internal light illumined the mental all around. This inner light descended into the darkness, and the external light ascended which the human being perceives with the external senses. As rests, as rudiments of all things remain, rests exist with those classes of the population, which have lagged behind, which have not sharpened their intellect so much, which have forced back not so much what the picture consciousness answered to them, which deduced less, which are less prudent. Thus, their dream consciousness is much brighter. There they experience not only chaotic dreams, but they also experience higher truth for which perhaps they cannot account to themselves properly. They experience just like the clairvoyant, and they experience another astral world if the inner consciousness has awoken. They get to know beings that do not exist here and have a certain relationship to the human inner nature. It is more or less clear to the usual people, and they only experience the picture of the Lady Midday. However, others have a more developed imaginative consciousness. They experience still more. In present primitive legends, rests of an ancient astral consciousness are preserved. We look back at a human past, in particular here in Central Europe and in Western Europe, at a past, in which — the further we go back — more and more of that consciousness exists which was substituted by the present bright day consciousness. Only that remained to the people as recollection of bigger or lower clearness, the disappearance of the astral consciousness in a dark past, in darkness. Of course, I do not say, the thoughts of the people, but I say, something that lives in the people and that I want to grasp in thoughts only. — That is which the human being of the people says to himself without realising that: I have to move the consciousness away from the day view; I must sleep, then I get entrance in that world again which my forefathers experienced, in a world which disappeared to the human beings. I do not experience it as a clear image, but as an obscurely assembled recollection. Such a thing lives in the people, and, hence, people know that the astral experiences were richer and richer; the further one goes back in the past. What did the people experience whose scanty rests they have today like the questions of the Lady Midday? This is the recollection of beings that inhabit the astral world; this is the recollection of the old gods. The images of the gods are taken from them. Now you remember that I have emphasised as especially noteworthy that one should pray the Lord's Prayer inversely. Those who have heard me occasionally here know that one must read everything inversely in the astral. One must read the number 341 in the imaginative world as 143. This applies to our passions, too. The passions that go out from us appear — if the astral world has opened to us — as beings which hurry towards us. This is very painful for those who did not prepare themselves before. Everything that flows from us flows apparently to us. Hence, they see animals and all possible beings rushing towards themselves. With pathological conditions, for example, with insanity, you notice that there suddenly beings appear in the form of animals. These are beings living in the person concerned flow out of him and appear reflected in the form of animals. Something that moves in the sensuous world from behind forwards moves in the astral world inversely. One has to pray the Lord's Prayer from behind forwards to satisfy the Lady Midday in the world in which she is. You can see how the legend adheres this. Now we could go through the entire Germanic world of gods and we would find that that is reflected in it, which I have shown at the beginning of the talk as the secret doctrine of all cultures. What I have shown in great thoughts and outlines as the worlds which apparently pile on top of each other — in truth, they are in each other — all that is reflected popularly in the Germanic world of gods. When the human being lived once in a world in which he still had a picture consciousness in which he had not yet advanced to the present deducing intellect, his ego was not yet as powerful as today. Indeed, he did not think and act as an animal, but the lower members: physical body, etheric body, and astral body prevailed in him. The ego did not yet have senses. It still lived an inner life; thereby he still controlled the external. It was another form of human beings, they could not yet think with that consciousness we have today. The human beings were much more imperfect than the present ones, but they were more perfect concerning the lower members. They had developed them more powerful and more varied. Hence, they did not yet belong to the spiritual world. They were soul beings in certain respect whose highest member belonged to the astral world whose middle member was also mental, and the third member was still lower. The imaginative consciousness meets such beings on the astral plane; there it discovers their highest essence. These beings, in certain respect ancestors of the human beings, are reflected in the Germanic folk consciousness as the giants. They are nothing else than predecessors of the human beings. Then the world developed. The human beings developed up to higher spheres. They received their thinking and became companions of spiritual beings that are finer organised in certain respect than the giants are because they took part in the higher spiritual worlds. These beings are reflected in the Germanic folk consciousness as the Æsir. The original Germanic mythology did not see anything miraculous in all that, but it saw in it an expression of the sentence, which I have stated: the human being is a becoming god, and the gods are those whom one can call perfect human beings, deified human beings. Gods are beings who have gone through their human level in bygone times. Thus, you see that the sequence of the beings of the Germanic mythology also expresses itself in the difference between the giants and the Æsir. Still more expresses itself in it. It expresses itself in the fact that the development of such beings definitely takes place in the same sense as the human development. The present human beings — the Germanic mythology understands it that way — learnt from Wotan what they learnt. Who was Wotan originally? We hear that our ancestors learnt the runes, the art of poetry, and still other things from Wotan. However, one always attributed this to the great initiates. Thus, an individuality expressed itself in Wotan whom we had to call a great initiate just now in the sense of the secret doctrine, a being who rushed ahead of humanity and who had already gone through the stages which humanity has to go through only now. How did Wotan become the great teacher of the prehistoric times? Like other initiates in the other secret doctrines. There are initiates in all secret doctrines. Today these experience the same as at that time, while they outgrow their lower ego, develop the spiritual essence in themselves, and become citizens of a higher world already in this life. At the same time, however, it is made clear to us that at a certain hour the lower nature faces them. In every human being is a sum of passions, desires and wishes, which cling to his lower nature. From all that the human being has to come out first. Then it appears like a being before him. If the human being rises up to his higher nature, his lower nature is like something that is outside of him, while he is, otherwise, embedded in the desires and passions. Just as little anybody can lay his brain on a plate and look at it, just as little you can see your inner life, your inner lower nature. One calls this detached being the guardian of the threshold. His lower nature stands as a being beside the human being, and he must say to himself once, that are you! You must detach this! — In all initiations, one calls this the descent into hell. One has to become a companion of the infernal powers, to descend into the depths of the world because the human being is simply embedded in them and his higher nature lives only halfway in him. One calls this being the guardian of the threshold because the human beings who do not appropriate courage and presence of mind do not overcome that. Those are called initiates who have crossed this threshold. Gradually the human being goes through development. He overcomes a stage at first where the human being becomes aware of his lower nature. Whereas he identifies himself with it, is embedded in it, it faces him like something else, as well as the table stands before me now. In all initiations, one calls this stage crucifixion. The human being is crucified to his own body because it is to him as irrelevant as an external cross to which he is nailed. If he has overcome this stage, he ascends higher. Then he became wise. One calls him with a symbolic expression “serpent” for the same reason, because generally the serpent is the symbol of wisdom. There he drinks from the springs of wisdom in the world. Then he still goes through a third stage. One has to go through this stage in the different religions most variously. Look at Wotan. What is shown to us by him? These three stages of initiation are shown to us. One tells us first that Wotan would have had to hang once on the holy wood. During nine days, he suffered there and shouldered the sufferings of the world. There the giant Mimir came to him and gave him a drink from the cup of wisdom. He was released from the holy wood. This was the first initiation of Wotan. After he had gone through this, he was longing for the cup from which the potion can flow, which his uncle Mimir had given him at the gallows. Then, however, one further says that this cup of wisdom is protected in the abysses of the mountains and that Wotan crept in the figure of a serpent through the abysses to Gunnlod in order to seize the cup of wisdom. This was the second initiation. The third stage is that where one tells us — and this is something very significant — that Wotan himself went to the spring of that wisdom which is the wisdom of the present and is to be found with that spring which is in the root of the world ash Yggdrasil. There lived the giant Mimir. Wotan here attained the initiation that enabled him to be the teacher of the prehistoric time, namely the present wisdom. Once he had attained wisdom from the abysses of the mountains, from the higher worlds. However, he should become a teacher of our wisdom, of that wisdom which is obtained by the senses and by the mind. He obtains the strength to this here. This was expressed in a nice symbol. One says that he lost an eye. What is the eye that he must leave behind to find the present wisdom? This is the astral eye. Now, because he should take up the wisdom of the runes, the wisdom of the present, he loses the astral eye, so that he can be a leader on the sensuous plane to which humanity has developed. These things show in no uncertain manner how in these three successive pictures the secret doctrine, which forms the basis of all religions, is also expressed in the Germanic mythology. In another way, deep truth is expressed if we look, for example, at the legend of Baldr who is killed by the blind Hodur with the mistletoe at Loki's instigation. Loki is the adversary of Baldr. If we consider this legend, we realise that many people say that Baldr symbolises the sun, the setting sun. They say this without having an idea of the fact that no people write that way. The people experienced in the primeval times on the astral plan in pictures what we have got to know as the basis of the secret doctrine at the beginning of this talk. What did the folk experience in this respect? I have already pointed to the images that appear like obscure recollections, but not in the clear consciousness, I have pointed to the astral light disappearing in darkness, so that the present sensory life originated. The former astral consciousness, Baldr, is killed by the present darkness, mental darkness, by the present sensuous looking which Hodur symbolises, namely at the instigation of Loki. Who is Loki? Loki's name is already connected with the fire. What, however, is the fire in the secret doctrine? It is not the physical fire. The physical fire is only the external expression of an internal one, of that which the secret doctrine knows as the soul of the fire. This also lives in the human being in certain ways as his desires and passions. Only that separated itself during the further development that lives in the human being as desires and passions. It is no longer connected with the external fire, but the secret doctrine points to that. You get to know this more and more if you get involved with the occult side of theosophy or spiritual science. It shows how passions and desires are connected similarly with the fire as the positive and the negative poles of a magnet: the passions are one pole and the physical fire the other, however, they belong together. With the iron, you have both poles unseparated. This seems absurd to the materialistic worldview, I know this well. However, everything seems to be absurd to that who does not want to get involved with the depths of occult science. The look goes back to those times when one speaks of figures, as Loki is one. This being had an original existence and an immense strength when passion and fire were not yet separated when the passion still flowed through the seething fire. Such a fire being was Loki. Then the world developed further in such a way that from Loki, the fire, the lower nature formed and from the Æsir the higher nature. Both have arisen from Loki's nature. This forms the basis of the Germanic legend. This is the secret of the Germanic mythology, that the world of the gods originated, while the beings developed further in the passionate primordial bases as well as in the spiritual. One tells us of three children of Loki. The first child is the Fenriswolf, the second is the Midgard Serpent, and the third is the goddess of the dead, Hel, who is bright on one side and has a black body on the other side. What does she show? She shows the lower human nature, which causes birth and death. Hence, Hel appears black and white. The Midgard Serpent that entwines the continents of the present world represents the etheric body that is tied to the present lower human nature. The third member represents what has arisen from the lower passions. Loki has remained from a former development. He had to deliver his children, so that the present world could originate which is thereby provoked to opposition and falls a victim to that which was the view of the former world. Baldr has to descend to Hel, into the depth. The depth symbolises the usual physical human nature. What is Baldr? Baldr exists as sub-consciousness if, for example, in trance the usual surface consciousness is extinguished and the old consciousness is roused again. Baldr is killed for us now. However, with Hel he still exists as the strength, as the strength of passion connected with the nature of fire. Thus, we could call every member of the Germanic world of gods an external expression of this secret doctrine. You would see if we had fifty talks instead of one that all that is wonderfully right in the minute details, that we are concerned with a secret doctrine, which forms the basis of the pictorial ideas of the Germanic mythology. We also here find initiates, sages, who knew what I have told at the beginning of the talk. However, the people got to know beings of other worlds by means of various rests of their consciousness. They ranked these folk spirits in the world of the old gods. That is why the Germanic mythology appears as born out of the folk consciousness. How Siegfried, who is overcome, finds his higher self, this presents itself to us as an expression of deep secret teachings. This is not contrived, but it becomes completely certain that it is so to someone who is able to go back in such way in the spiritual depths of the prehistoric time. If we go through the Germanic mythology, we get a pictorial impression. If we look at the East, we see the same secret doctrine as I have explained it at the beginning of the talk. However, we see it differently formed. With few sentences, we can characterise it. Not with Buddhism and not with Hinduism we want to get involved. We only need to know that they revere the brahma as a spiritual original being that forms the basis of all. The main ability of brahma is the creative knowledge, called vidya. Imagine a person standing beside a machine and studying it. He has a receptive knowledge. Imagine, however, the inventor who made the machine originally, he composed it from single parts. He had creative knowledge first. Such a creative knowledge, spread about the world surrounding us, is vidya, and the receptive knowledge is avidya. Thus, there are different gradations of vidya and avidya. However, brahma is the owner of all that is subsumed in vidya and avidya. Everything is born out of the thought and the human being himself is born out of it. But he has to develop again back to vidya, to the creative knowledge. This is the sense of human development. The human being is led again through three places that the Indian doctrine calls loka. When the human being has died, he must stay in Bhurloka for a while, it is the same as kamaloka. The highest world is the spiritual world, Svargaloka. It is the devachan. From there he goes back again to the Bhurloka and back to the physical world. Thus, one sees how he takes up the most various forces and materials in the physical world. These came into being from Vidya of the enclosing Brahman. There we have the finest material world on top, the world of the Akasha. Akasha is only a material expression of Indra, which is the soul of this world. Then we come to the world of fire, to Agni. This is the material expression of the god Agni and the same as the god Loki in the Germanic mythology, only in another shade. Then we come down to the air, Vayu, then to the water and, finally, to the solid. Thus, the Indian doctrine imagines the construction of the external world. The Indian cult is the external symbolic expression of this secret truth. If we ask ourselves which characteristic the Indian secret doctrine has that it developed other pictures, we can say that it bears a less symbolic character, but a more conceptual one. This is generally the difference between the Indian and the Germanic secret doctrines. Internally they are the same, an external difference exists, however, because the external religions in Europe have taken on a pictorial character that corresponds more to the beings of the astral plan, while the Indian people advanced a further step and gave them characters reminding of external impressions. We must indicate this as a difference of the Germanic and Indian doctrines that the Germanic doctrine is closer to the astral, the Indian one, however, to the thinking. Hence, it is also clear that the Indian doctrine is closer to that which the human being regards today as his innermost possession that one understands it easier than the world of the Germanic gods that has faded away into the unknown. These doctrines were differently developed. As we see two configurations in Europe and India, we see one more, in the middle, so to speak, in Greece. We can see that two quite different forces in nature cause the Indian and the Germanic characteristics. The Indian characteristic approaches more the present ego. Hence, the Indian looked for his higher consciousness in the contemplation in his inside. He attempted to advance from Avidya to Vidya, from the receptive knowledge to the creative knowledge. A science of knowledge, a higher doctrine than a doctrine based on astral pictures is the Indian doctrine, and a doctrine based on astral pictures is expressed in the Germanic mythology. Why is this the case? The Germanic mythology gives us a great and fine answer. The higher consciousness that the human being should attain is represented in all secret doctrines as the female principle, as the soul. What is taken up from the outside what fertilises the soul is shown as the male principle. We have there the female soul that is fertilised by wisdom, by the spirit of the outside world. Thus, the human being moves up if he develops spiritually, figuratively spoken, to the higher female principle in his nature. Goethe means that saying: “The eternally-female pulls us upwards.” You must not understand this pedantically, because you read it in the “Chorus Mysticus” (Faust II) . If we understand this that way, we understand what the Teuton means if he says, if the warrior is killed on the battlefield, the Valkyrie meets him, there he reaches the higher mental. — The mentality of a warlike people, the passage through the gate of death and the attainment of a higher consciousness is symbolised by the approaching Valkyrie, taking up the soul in Valhalla, the connection with the higher consciousness, with the Valkyrie. The highest god is in the original Germanic the god Ziu (Týr) from whom Tuesday has its name. This is the same god as Mars in the Roman and as Ares in the Greek mythologies. Mardi (French) is the day, which is consecrated to the god of war, Mars. It was a warrior religion and it differs from the internal religion of the Indian. Who lives in the inner world develops the passions less that live in the astral world and are expressed in it. Thus, the consciousness, the warlike nature of the Teutons is reflected in the world of their gods. The Valkyrie is the higher consciousness naturally. Because the passion of war was here the creator of the mythology, the world of the gods was expressed in astral pictures; because over there in Asia, in India the creator was the introversive sense, therefore, a more spiritual religion was expressed. Both worldviews found their higher unity, their harmony when the Germanic one got the inside from Christianity. Thus, you see that a deep internal sense forms the basis of the human development, and that one must look for this deep internal sense. Then one comes to the profundities of the world development, and then one does not stop at abstractions, as if one single figure of humanity formed the basis, but one understands that it is a variform wisdom. The secret doctrine had to be different in India, different in Europe, different with a warlike people, and different in Greece, with the people endowed with art. Humanity develops through the most various forms of cultural existence — the course of this world development always forward and always upward at the same time.

German and Indian Secret Doctrine

https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA054/English/RSA2014/19060308p01.html

Berlin

8 Mar 1906

GA054-15

It is a frequently mentioned fact that it is exceptionally difficult to obtain an understanding concerning the spiritual-scientific movement with our academic leaders in scientific circles. This is a fatal fact that science is today surrounded by such a big belief in authority. Everything that is scientific exercises such an impressive power in all directions that a spiritual movement has a hard furrow to plough if the predominating part of the scholars, one can say, almost any academic circle treat such a movement like our spiritual-scientific one in such a way, as if it were dilettantism, blind superstition or anything else. It may be deplorable, but understandable in any case, if one hears the judgements of such academic circles about theosophy or spiritual science. If one examines these judgements, it is obvious that they belong to the judgements that were obtained without any expertise. If we then still ask the so-called public opinion, as it is expressed in our journals, we need not to be surprised, if it faces the theosophical movement not quite understanding. For this public opinion is controlled completely by the impressive power of the scientific authority and is completely dependent on it. There are different reasons, which make this clear to us. We can see one of these reasons concerning the German cultural life simply in the fact that the academic circles, actually, left an important impact on our German cultural life, a culminating point of our deepest life of thought completely out of consideration. Indeed, you find some notes about this in any manual of philosophy, in any history of literature; but a really penetrating understanding of this most significant side of our cultural life and of that which around the turn of the 18th to the 19th centuries the most important German thinkers performed does not exist. In particular, there is a lack of understanding how these results of the German life of thought are rooted in the general German cultural life a hundred years ago. If this fact were not such a one, if our academic circles were concerned with that deepening of the German life of thought around the turn of the 18th to the 19th centuries, there would be, for example, an understanding of Fichte's, Schelling's, and Hegel's great life of thought among our philosophers. The compendia of philosophy would not contain only single inadequate extracts of the works, but one would know what generally thought achieved in Germany. Then one would also obtain access to the spiritual-scientific movement from the point of view of scholarship. Of all pre-schools of theosophy or spiritual science which one can go through today this school of the German thought of the turn of the 18th to the 19th centuries is the very best for the present human beings. Indeed, it is not accessible to anybody, because how should the bigger national circles understand the great German thinkers really if the university circles, the academic circles lead the way to this understanding so little, if they do so little to cause a real popularity of these thinkers. One is not allowed to reproach the big audience, those who should turn to theosophy that they are not able to do it. To those, however, whose occupation it would be to let flow in the spiritual treasures of the West in the national culture, to those must be said that they fulfil their obligations in this respect in no way. I do not name unknown names to you, but I maybe have to represent the peculiar fact that one can relate names, which you find in every philosophical compendium, with theosophy. It is peculiar that one likes to say that it is senseless to use the title “Secret Doctrine.” The Western researchers, for example, who concerned themselves with Buddhism, have repeatedly denied that Buddhism contains a secret doctrine that anything would exceed what you can read in the books. It is not at all surprising that such academic circles assert such things. For one can conclude from it that the most important things have remained a secret doctrine to them. How should they know that there is a secret doctrine, because they have never found access to it! The most important that was performed in connection with the great German thinker Johann Gottlieb Fichte is to the majority, also even today, a deep secret doctrine. It is true, as deplorable as it may appear, the German spiritual life of the turn from the 18th to the 19th centuries originated from the so-called Enlightenment. We may characterise this Enlightenment with a few words. It was a necessary event in the modern spiritual development. The most significant spirits of the 18th century had taken up the cause of it. Kant says, enlightenment simply means what can be summarised in the sentence: “Dare to use your own reason” (first by Horace: sapere aude) . This enlightenment was nothing else than an emancipation of the personality, the relief of the personality from the traditions. What one has thought for centuries, what everybody has taken up from the common spiritual substance of the people should be checked. Only that should be valid which the single personality affirms. You know, great spirits developed from the Enlightenment. One only needs to remind of the name Lessing to call one of the best. Everything that is connected with the name Kant is nothing else than a result of the Enlightenment. Someone who has broken with this Enlightenment in a peculiar way is Johann Gottlieb Fichte. If I say, he has broken in peculiar way with this Enlightenment, and then you do not believe that I am determined to represent Fichte as an opponent of the Enlightenment. He has broken in the way that he examines all results of the Enlightenment and has continued building on its basis, but Fichte went quite thoroughly beyond that which is only enlightenment, beyond the trivial. Just Fichte gives somebody who has the possibility to become engrossed in his great lines of thought something that one can obtain among the newer spirits only from him. After we have heard many merely popular talks, we want to hear a talk today, which seems to be far off the usual way, which our spiritual-scientific talks take in this winter. I will endeavour to show something as comprehensibly as possible that took place in the German life of thought, actually, at that time, around the turn from the 18th to the 19th centuries. It can only be sketchy what I have to say. At first this German life of thought impeded the access to the real spiritual world and then to the living and immortal essence of the human being. Today I cannot go into the worth or worthlessness of Kant's philosophy. The official philosophy calls Kant the destroyer and regards his system of theories as a philosophical action first-rate. Today I would like only to remind of a word which is known perhaps also with those who do not have the opportunity to penetrate deeper into the matter, to the word of the “thing in itself.” The human cognitive faculties are limited in the sense of Kant's philosophy. They cannot penetrate to the “thing in itself.” Whichever ideas and concepts we form, whatever we get to know in the world, we deal with phenomena and not with the true “thing in itself” in the sense of Kant's philosophy. This is always concealed behind the phenomena. With it, blind speculation is encouraged — and we have seen it in the spiritual development of Germany very well — which wants to define and restrict the human cognitive faculties in all directions. However, at the same time the trend of the human being to penetrate to the true, to explore the depths of existence should be stopped. It should be shown that the human being cannot automatically approach the primary sources of existence. Now it may be true that such an attitude was necessary in the course of the spiritual life of the 18th century. However, Kant's philosophy put big obstacles in the way of the further development of the spiritual life. Indeed, I know very well that there are people who say, what did Kant different from all those great spirits who have always emphasised that we deal with phenomena that we cannot come to the “thing in itself!” That is apparently right, however, it is wrong. The real spiritual researchers of all times state quite different that the world only consists of phenomena. No true spiritual researcher has ever denied that in such a way, as we investigate the world with senses, understand it with the intellect, it offers us only phenomena. However, higher senses are to be woken in us that go beyond the usual, which penetrate deeper into the sources of existence, can, and must lead slowly and gradually to the “thing in itself.” No Eastern philosophy, no Platonic philosophy, no self-understanding worldview penetrating into the spirit has ever spoken of the world as Maya in another sense. They always said only, to the lower human cognition, a veil is before the “thing in itself,” to the higher human cognition this veil is torn, the human being can penetrate into the depths of existence. The Enlightenment reached a blind alley concerning the question in certain respects, and this is characterised best of all with a remark which you find in the preface to the second edition of Kant's main work Critique of Pure Reason (1781) and with which the Enlightenment can be caught at its despondency because it does not want to advance further. One reads: “I had to override knowledge to create space for faith.” This is the nerve of Kant's philosophy and of that thinking to which the 18th century came and beyond which our philosophical scholarship has not yet come which still suffers from it. As long as it suffers from this illness, philosophy is never destined to understand theosophy. What does that mean: “I had to override knowledge to create space for faith”? Kant says, the thing in itself remains concealed, consequently also the thing in our breast. We do not know what we ourselves are; we can never come to the true figure of the things. As from uncertain worlds the so-called categorical imperative sounds: you shall do this or that. —We hear it, we cannot prove it, however. We just have to believe it. We hear about the divine being. We have to believe it. Just as little as we know about the destiny of the soul, about immortality and eternity. We must believe them. There is only faith in these matters that connect the human being with the divine, because no knowledge can penetrate into the divine. The human being believes knowledge if he presumes to penetrate into the divine. This divine is thereby falsified, is cast in a wrong light due to wild speculation. Therefore, Kant wanted to save all spiritual for the mere faith and apply cognition — what one can know — only to the external impressions, to the appearance. Whatever you may read and study, otherwise, about Kant's philosophy, this thought is the essentials that it depends on. This thought became the essentials in the further development of Kant's thinking. However, someone who broke with this thought definitely out of a courageous attitude was Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1762-1814). It is a peculiar thing that the theosophical thinkers of modern India, the renovators of the Vedanta philosophy made an astounding discovery — namely that the Germans have a great thinker, Johann Gottlieb Fichte. An Indian says this who writes under the name Bhagavan Das (1869-1958). I have got to know German theosophists who have only found out from him that Johann Gottlieb Fichte is a deep German thinker. You can experience a lot in this regard. Weeks ago, I was in a South German city. One of the theosophical friends there said to me, now we have a university lecturer here who means, it would be good if people studied Fichte, because he got the idea that many deep thoughts were in Fichte. — That is a strange confession of a German university professor! If more than one century after Fichte a German university professor makes the discovery that Fichte achieved something great, throws a characteristic light on this kind of German scholarship. Fichte represented the doctrine of the ego, of the human self-consciousness not speculatively, but out of the whole depth of his being, among his Jena students in the last decade of the 18th century. He did not represent it in the same way as we do it today from the spiritual-scientific point of view. He represented it in such a way that a number of persons would have come to theosophy if they had educated themselves according to his great conceptual demands; they would have come to it in a healthy way, illumining the real inside brightly. Not without reason his speeches inspired the Jena students in those days. For the following lived in him. Although he walked on the heights of thought, although he spoke in the purest, clearest, and logically sharpest thoughts, a quite warm and deep immediate personality and being expressed themselves in his thoughts at the same time. He himself pronounced the word that characterises him deepest that everyone has a philosophy, depending on which sort of a person he is. If one expresses this trivially, one could say, it does not depend on whether anybody can think logically well or badly, because one can reason a hollow philosophy very logically, it does not depend on astuteness but on the internal experience, on that which one has fathomed with all his soul forces. This expresses itself in the language. If one is also a flat materialist, nevertheless, he can be a sharp logician, and on the other hand, someone can be a spiritualist and be logically weak. One proves no worldview, but the worldview is the expression of the innermost human being, the inner experience. Fichte pronounced this not only, but lived it also. Kant stimulated him. However, as one is stimulated by that to which one can add the drawback in his inside — because there the deepest organs emerge in the human being —, nevertheless, this was clear to Fichte. Now follow me, I would like to say, for a short moment into the icy, but not less important regions of thoughts from which Fichte got the being of self-consciousness. I do not describe with his own words, because this would be too difficult here, but in outlines, which do not contain less truth. I would like to say what he conjured before his Jena students at that time: there is one thing for everybody in which the “thing in itself” announces itself to him, in which he expresses himself. That is his own inside. Look into it and you discover something that you can discover nowhere else at first. — We see that Fichte knew that not anybody discovers what he has to discover there, because he says a very nice word, even if it is rude to most human beings. He says, if the human beings were able to come to real self-knowledge, they would find the most significant in themselves. However, a few are successful, because they rather regard themselves as pieces of lava on the moon than as self-conscious beings. What is self-consciousness for our time? One shows it as a conglomerate of cerebral atoms. However, one does not strive for recognising himself; one does not do this. There is no great difference whether one says that it is a conglomerate of cerebral atoms or molecules or a piece of lava on the moon. — Here Fichte draws attention clearly to the fact that that knowledge of the inside which only wants to observe how it is not the right knowledge of the inside. For the nature of the human being differs in its inside from any other being. By which does it differ? It differs by the fact that decision and action belong to the nature of the human being. From this icy region of thoughts, we want to come to flowery fields soon. Fichte calls self-knowledge not brooding in oneself, not looking into oneself, no, Fichte regards it as action. This word leads you from the wrong self-knowledge to the true self-development. The human being is not able to look simply into himself in order to recognise who he is. He has to give that to himself, which he shall become. He must become engrossed in the divine of the world and get the sparks from the divine with which he has to kindle his self perpetually. We look at a stone. It is what it is. We recognise it. We look at the plant. It is what it is. We look at our own body, our etheric body, and astral body. They are also that which they are. The human being is only that which he makes of himself, and self-knowledge is an intimate activity, no dead knowledge. While Fichte uses the (German) word “Tathandlung” (~ self-conscious action and result of the action) , he says something that only the old Vedanta philosophy says in this significant kind. He reached the point that just the theosophists seek again. Often and often, I have said here that theosophy wants to show how the human being soars the divine, how it should stimulate the divine strength slumbering in the human being with which then he also becomes aware of the divine round himself. Fichte completely strives for the same. The wrong self-knowledge, he says, consists of the fact that one says, look into yourselves and you find the god in yourselves. The right self-knowledge says something completely different. It says, if you brood in yourself, it is in such a way, as if you look into your own eye. However, this is not the task of the eye. We get to know the light with the eye. Thus, we also get to know the light of the ego with the soul. One can compare the eye with waking the inner self. As little as you find the soul in the organism, the light in the eye, just as little you find the god in yourselves. However, we find the possibility to develop the organs to find this god. The activity in the ego, which develops our spiritual organs, is the being that the human being gives himself. This is the “Tathandlung,” this is Fichte's self-knowledge. From this point, Fichte advances gradually. If you completely settle down, you educate yourselves to his thoughts, then you find a healthy access to theosophy, and nobody has to regret it one day if he settles down into the clear lines of thought of Johann Gottlieb Fichte, because he finds the way to the spiritual life. However, there is a peculiar fact. When Johann Gottlieb Fichte has ascended to these etheric heights of thought, he lacks the view to which he did not come at that time, which the spiritual-scientific worldview brought back like a solution of the world riddle: the teaching of karma and reincarnation. If you see this, then you know to apply it to your own development. The human beings would like to judge all times, according to the same pattern. However, the human spirit is in perpetual development, and every age has other tasks. That century whose end forms in conceptual respect Johann Gottlieb Fichte had the task to emancipate the human personality. This was the good side of the Enlightenment. However, the personality is that member of the human nature, which just does not return, as well as it is. Our deepest essence that expresses itself within the personality returns in the various earth-lives. However, the single life on earth expresses itself in the personality. Let us consider the being of the personality properly. We have four human covers basically that are not to be imagined, however, like onion skins: the physical body, the etheric body, the astral body and in them that which the human being works for, his refined astral body, that part on which the human ego has already worked. We have these four covers. However, in them only the imperishable everlasting essence of the human being, the so-called spiritual triad exists: manas, buddhi, and atman — spirit self, life spirit, and spirit man. These go from earth-life to earth-life and ascend then to higher states of existence. The last external cover expresses itself in the personality. It has still another importance and it has received it more and more in the human development. If we go back to the old times, we find that the human beings appreciated the individuality during the former centuries less and less; instead, the personality became more and more powerful. Today one easily confuses the concepts of individuality and personality. The individuality is the everlasting that runs through the earth-lives. Personality is that which the human being develops during an earth-life. If we want to study the individuality, we have to look at the bottom of the human soul. If we want to study the personality, we have to observe how the essence expresses itself. The essence is born into the people, into the occupation. All that determines the inner being, it personifies it. With a human being who is still on a subordinated level of development one can perceive a little of the work on his inside. The mode of expression, the kind of the gestures and so forth is just in such a way as he has them from his people. However, those are the advanced human beings who give themselves the mode of expression and gestures from their inside. The more the inside of the human being is able to work on his appearance, the higher this develops the human being. Now one could say, the individuality is expressed in the personality. Someone, who has his own gestures, his own physiognomy, has a peculiar character in his actions and in relation to the surroundings, has a distinct personality. Is that lost at death forever? No, this does not get lost. Christianity knows for sure that this is not the case. What one understands by resurrection of the flesh or of the personality is nothing else than the preservation of the personal in all following incarnations. What the human being has gained as a personality remains to him because it is attached to the individuality and this carries it further into the following incarnations. If we have made something of our body that has a peculiar character, this body, this strength, which has worked there, resurrects. As much we have worked on ourselves, as much we have made of ourselves, we do not lose it. Generating awareness of this knowledge is something that has not yet happened. This happens by theosophy. However, it was the task of the Enlightenment to acquire an uncertain feeling. It showed the task of the personality. Johann Gottlieb Fichte has put the idea of the personality in its everlasting importance in his construct of clear ideas. There the right thing immediately emerges for the epoch of the recognition of the everlasting and imperishable in the personality. Fichte accomplished that. One has often said, the great human beings have the big mistakes of their big virtues, and because Fichte was able to measure out the personality with the thought uniquely, he did not penetrate to the individuality; also not his successors. However, they have implanted the thought in the personality. Someone who finds it there carries it in a healthy way through the repeated earth-lives if he approaches spiritual science. It does not depend on dogmas, but on the education that we can obtain in his spirit. Johann Gottlieb Fichte was an educator in the proper sense. It does not depend on the fact that we become servile students of such a man, but that we also go through that strength which he went through. Then we may get other thoughts by his forces in another age. One faces such a spirit in this way. This was expressed in a certain way at his time. His personality can educate us and find pleasant expression in the distant future. Spiritual science is so little dogmatic that it leads to the great human beings and shows that we can learn from them even more than what they have said. The expression of that which they are is the language. However, more than the expression lives in every human being, the immortal soul lives in them to which we can rise as to the true essence. Therefore, Fichte was already in the highest degree stimulating for those, at the end of the 18th century, who were sitting at his feet and listening how he measured out the human personality with world-spanning lines of thought. He inspired them to penetrate conceptionally to the soul and to acquire still quite other treasures from it than Fichte himself did. One of those who sat at Fichte's feet and looked reverentially to him, one of those who got out the philosophical ideas, was the young short-lived German theosophist Novalis (pseudonym of Friedrich von Hardenberg, German Romantic poet and author, 1772-1801). He died around the turn of 18th to the 19th century, not yet thirty years old. Who becomes engrossed in his works goes through the finest training of theosophy. Perhaps it could be to that who is educated in the western science a much better elementary training to go through his tremendous light flashes, than through the Bhagavad Gita or similar writings that remain more or less strange to the West. Just now, it is possible to become engrossed completely in that which this great soul achieved. He wrote a book in which he describes how a young person is introduced in the subterranean structure of the earth, in the geologic layers of the rocks and minerals by great geologists and mineralogical works. There he readily gets thoughts such as, you, rocks, I look only for you, however, what you say I look for continually. — Runes, letters, words were the stones to him, which he investigated as a miner underground; spiritual beings created in the earth and produced every single rock. He saw the spirit and soul in the earth, and every stone was to him the expression of that which the earth has to say to him. Mineralogy and geology became a runic science to him, and he attempted to penetrate to the spirit of the earth, while his great teacher made the layers and resemblances of the rocks clear to him. Just those who work in the depths of the earth are often led to deeper worldviews. Not least, miners did deep looks into the spiritual world. Staying underground has a peculiar effect on the spiritual experience. However, something else appeared with Novalis. To understand it we only need to remember that at the front gate of Plato's school one could read the words: let none but geometers enter here. — The Platonic school demonstrated its elementary knowledge in geometrical forms, and Novalis, who illumined the secrets of existence with so big light flashes, revered mathematics like a religion. It is something sacred to him. Take this as a psychological phenomenon of peculiar kind. These strange human beings are able to feel something sacred and something like music with the abstract lines of mathematics and geometry. How circles and angles form a group together, how the different forms like polyhedra, dodekahedra and such build themselves up, then one can feel something that comes from Novalis speaking about mathematics. However, you can only take up that if you do not take up it in such a way as in our schools, but if you become engrossed in the inner music of space. Mathematics is the access to the infinite truth. Then he heard Fichte, and from him the great truth of the ego as a personality. Then we see in this strange spirit almost the whole occultism reflected in certain ways. For someone who has knowledge in this respect Novalis is a peculiar personality. He is a personality who had already experienced the deepest initiation in former incarnations. Everything was a recollection that he experienced in the last, the third decade of his life. It becomes apparent in his life that it was more recollection of former incarnations than of the current one. This comes out in his imagination. The former incarnations completely became imagination in Novalis because they cast their shadows and found their expression as pieces of art. Thus, we have to understand Novalis as a peculiar, tender, and intimate being. If Fichte arranges his razor-sharp thoughts and carries us off by this sharpness, then Novalis is wonderfully gentle and shows the spiritual life from a completely different side. Thus, he is the necessary supplement for someone who wants to go through the German preliminary stage of theosophy. Our best went through this pre-school in those days. We can call names of many people who attempted to penetrate in their kind, according to their character in those days into the truth which spiritual science gives humanity back today. These are names that are known more or less, however, whose bearers one has to deeper consider. At first, we have Schelling (Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Sch., German philosopher, 1775-1854). If we open ourselves to his youth writings, where he became independent, he works so strongly on that who gets involved with him because he expressed a thought of Paracelsus (Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim, German-Swiss physician, occultist, 1493-1541) in the way usual at that time. This thought was expressed not only by Schelling, but also by the great Steffens (Henrik St., Danish philosopher, 1773-1845), and in particular by the naturalist Oken (originally Lorenz Okenfuß, 1779-1851), by the great predecessor of the modern theory of evolution and founder of the Society of German Naturalists and Physicians. This thought is an eminently theosophical one. It was usual in natural sciences, also in the philosophy of Schelling and Steffens, also in that of Novalis. These thinkers said: if we look out at the world, we see a number of animals. Every animal shows certain human qualities one-sidedly developed. What the amphibians have, what the snails have is also found in the human being. Those snails, amphibians and so on have something one-sidedly physical. If one makes, however, a whole of it, one gets the harmoniously developed human body that summarises everything that is spread out outdoors. As Paracelsus says, we find letters outdoors in nature, and if we compose them, they yield a word and this word is the human being. A great theosophist — not a German one — of the 18th century (presumably Claude de Saint Martin, 1743 - 1803) just took this principle as the basis of his theosophical investigating. Therefore, he came so far to say, if we look at the human being, we see the remaining animal realm. This is the opposite principle of that how one studies these things today. The theorists of evolution of that time said something different from those of today. They said, if you face a person about whom you do not know that he is, for example, a great watchmaker, and then you are not able to recognise the person. At first, you have to become engrossed in his astuteness that makes him create what he produces. What he produces, that is the point. However, nature has produced the human being as a keystone. There you have the compendium of the whole nature. If you understand this in such a way, you understand nature. — One must recognise the remaining nature from the human being and not the human being from nature. If you carry out that really, you also understand how it could emerge as a certain reflection with Schelling and Oken. With Schelling and Oken you can read, the snail is a groping animal, the insect is a light animal, the bird a hearing animal, the amphibian a feeling animal, the fish a smelling animal. Thereby they express how the senses are spread over the single animals. They are harmoniously contained in the human being. One only needs to distribute the qualities of the human being to understand the remaining nature. In 1809, Schelling published a writing, which is of big significance for theosophy. He had got to know the deep German thinker Jacob Boehme. He became engrossed in him, and thus he got to know the nature of the bad and its coherence with freedom. You find this in his Philosophical Inquiries into the Essence of Human Freedom . There he shows that God is the light and that from the light everything comes that shines that, however, the light has to shine into the darkness and that where light is shadow originates. Only by this comparison, one can realise what one reads in this writing. If you let the sun shine into darkness, there originates shadow; shadow must appear if the light is there, but the light does not generate it. Hence, he says, from the divine primal ground of the light everything great arises in the world. However, as well as the light is opposed to the darkness, the non-ground faces the primal ground, and from this the shadow of the good emerges, the bad. This is the indication of an infinitely deep involvement. Again, you can educate yourselves to the theosophical life if you take up that in yourselves. Another writing by Schelling is still significant: Bruno or On the Divine and Natural Principle of Things (1802/1843). In pleasant dialogue form, like with Plato, he discusses here about the coherence of soul and spirit in the theosophical sense. Therefore, Schelling would be able to become a theosophist. He understood how to practice inner sight. Schelling was also an eager teacher at the Jena University first, and then he worked still at other sites and, finally, withdrew completely. In Munich, he lived a long time and was together with Baader (Franz Xavier von B., philosopher and theologian, 1765-1841), that spirit who renewed Jacob Boehme in such a fine way in the 19th century again. He stimulated Schelling. He wrote scarcely anything in that time. In 1809, his writing about freedom originated. Then he wrote almost nothing up to his call to Berlin by King Friedrich Wilhelm IV, who may be challenged in certain ways, who is not yet appreciated enough concerning insights into big, deep, and internal spiritual connections. In 1841, Schelling was appointed to Berlin. He should explain before the students what he had lived through such a long time. He held two courses of lectures: about the Philosophy of Mythology (1856) and about the Philosophy of Revelation (1858). There he led into the essence of the old mysteries and showed how Christianity originated from them and what Christianity concerns. Then we who live more than half a century later are led automatically to reincarnation and karma. If you become engrossed in the philosophy of mythology and in the philosophy of revelation, you find, this is theosophy. However, all trivial people of that time railed against that. They could not understand what Schelling reported at that time. If the theosophists wanted to become engrossed in these writings, they would see from which depths all that is taken. Fichte could speak of a special spiritual sense because he was one of those who wanted to open the eyes of the human beings. Fichte gave the definition of theosophy already in 1813. He said, “Appear as a sighted man in a world of blind people and speak to them of colours and light. Either you talk to them of nothing — and this is the more fortunate case if they say it, because in this way you soon notice the mistake and stop talking without success — or the more gifted people say, you are a daydreamer.” — All those experience that who are gifted with a special sense. They appear like among blind people. However, this sense can be evoked with everybody, slowly with the one, faster with the other. By the special sense, Fichte shows quite clearly that he knew what depends on in theosophy. This was the real definition of theosophy. Others scooped from such sources, from such currents of the spiritual life. However, I would like to remind of Hegel (Georg Wilhelm Friedrich H., 1770-1831, philosopher) above all. I cannot get involved to explain Hegel's peculiar view. I would also like to remind of the name of an exceptionally gentle person, of Gotthilf Heinrich von Schubert (1780-1860, physician and naturalist), who wrote books about the essence of the soul. Schelling wrote to Schubert still in 1850 when the sixth edition of a book about the essence of the soul had appeared: you are, actually, in a more fortunate position than I am. I must get involved with the world-spanning thoughts, which introduce in the spiritual life. However, you live the intimate side that the human being meets if he investigates all intimacies of the soul. Schubert studied that soul life which is the border area between consciousness, semi-consciousness and unconsciousness, but also the border area between everyday consciousness, dream, and clairvoyance. With Schubert, you already find explanations about the principle that controls the dream world. About that, you can find a lot with him. He studied Swedenborg (Emanuel S., 1688-1772, scientist, philosopher, and mystic) in the time in which it was possible to point to these characteristics of the human spiritual life with great thoughts in a healthy way. He represented the view that there is an etheric body and an even higher etheric body than that which decomposes after death with every human being. Schubert already pointed to that which the Vedanta philosophy calls the “fine body” (sukshma-shariram). He wrote a very nice consideration about this higher body of the human being. You can find there fine remarks with him. You can see how at that time already the single currents flowed into each other, you can see this with a poet who interlaced these things in his poetries, with Heinrich von Kleist (1777-1811), who represented a peculiar prince in his Prince of Homburg and created Katie of Heilbronn , a peculiar figure, too. He was stimulated to them by talks on somnambulism and on higher spiritual life. Schubert speaks of a pre-being of the soul; he also discusses the question of reincarnation. At that time, he did not yet regard it as Christian. However, he speaks of a pre-being whose destiny he exactly pursues. Then from this, the brilliant book originates by Justinus Kerner (1786-1862, practical physician, poet and writer): The Seeress of Prevorst (1829). When in the 19th century the book about this strange woman appeared, he used a lot of theosophy for its explanation. The occultist already recognises Justinus Kerner as an expert in the basic definition that he gives about this seeress (Friederike Hauffe, 1801-1829). He was an expert because he lived in the time, which had such thoughts as I characterised them. He says of the seeress of Prevorst — she had two children and was somnambulistic in the extreme — that the mental-spiritual world was open round her and that she could observe the spiritual side of the human beings. He describes her in such a way: imagine somebody retained at the moment of death, so that the peculiar state continues for some years; the emergence of the etheric body and the odd relationship of the astral body to the etheric body lasted for years. Because her soul condition was in such a way, she was able to behold the still existing part of the etheric body of someone who had lost a limb. She could also perceive many things besides. Kerner gives appropriate explanations even if they are not at the height of our time. You can find explanations also with Eckartshausen (Karl von E., 1752-1803, philosopher, mystic) who also wrote about the inner spiritual development. Kosti's Journey or also The Hieroglyphics of the Human Heart are writings that are adapted to open the human soul to a higher vision. He also described what he calls a soul body appropriately. Another writer is sometimes rather stimulating: Ennemoser (Joseph E., 1787-1854, physician, mesmerist) who wrote theosophy, too, informed a lot of animal magnetism and the mysteries in his works, and contributed much to show the Greek mythology in the right light. Thus, you see a painting of the first time of the 19th century, from the first thoughts that can work educationally on the human being up to the facts that bring theosophy together with immediate spiritualistic experiences. At that time, you find everything in a pure and sometimes nobler way expressed than it was shown later by the respective authors. You can learn much more about magic spiritual life there than in that which was published by Schindler (Heinrich Bruno Sch., 1797-1859, physician and author) and Albertus (?, perhaps hearing defect, probably Carus , Carl Gustav C., 1789 - 1869, physician, scientist, and naturalist). Later the interest changed more and more into an interest, similar to curiosity, the mere urge for knowledge. In the first half of the 19th century, even such spirits who could not go very deeply had the desire of ascending to spiritual heights, developing inner soul organs, and knew something concerning self-knowledge and self-development. Novalis knew how to speak in miraculous tones in his Heinrich of Ofterdingen about that all. He put the big treasure of former initiation memory in that which he has like a recollection of former lives. In the Novices of Sais he shows how Hyazinth gets to know the girl Rosenblüth (rose flower). Only the animals of the wood know something of this extremely subtle love. A wise man comes and tells about the magic life, about spiritual secrets. Hyazinth and Rosenblüth get the desire to walk to the initiation temple of Isis. However, nobody can give some indication, which is the right way to the temple. He walks and walks. There he sits down, tired among nice physical things, in particular also because of that which nature speaks to him. He drops off to dream in a ghostly way. The temple is round him. The curtain is lifted from the veiled picture, and what does he see? Rosenblüth. He lovely describes how Rosenblüth is that feeling of unity, that uniform idea of the whole nature, how it extends over the whole nature, and how he looks for the hidden secret that life often shows to us that we only need to understand. This is wonderfully indicated. Thus, you can prospect with Novalis wonderfully if you get yourselves in how intimately he expressed the experiences of the world at that time. I was allowed here to speak about Goethe, Herder, and Schiller and to show how they were theosophists. In a theosophical way, Novalis just pronounces what is a characteristic trait of that time what controlled it like a theosophical motto spiritually. It is included in the words: “Someone succeeded; he lifted the veil of the goddess at Sais. — However, what did he see? He saw — miracle of miracles — himself.” Thus, the human being comes out, after he has developed the spiritual organs in himself, and searches for himself all over the world. He does not search for himself in himself, he searches for himself in the world, and with it, he searches for God. This search of God in the world, as he expresses it so nicely in this saying, is theosophy.

German Theosophy from the Beginning of the 19th Century

https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA054/English/RSA2014/19060315p01.html

Berlin

15 Mar 1906

GA054-16

It is a frequently mentioned fact that it is exceptionally difficult to obtain an understanding concerning the spiritual-scientific movement with our academic leaders in scientific circles. This is a fatal fact that science is today surrounded by such a big belief in authority. Everything that is scientific exercises such an impressive power in all directions that a spiritual movement has a hard furrow to plough if the predominating part of the scholars, one can say, almost any academic circle treat such a movement like our spiritual-scientific one in such a way, as if it were dilettantism, blind superstition or anything else. It may be deplorable, but understandable in any case, if one hears the judgements of such academic circles about theosophy or spiritual science. If one examines these judgements, it is obvious that they belong to the judgements that were obtained without any expertise. If we then still ask the so-called public opinion, as it is expressed in our journals, we need not to be surprised, if it faces the theosophical movement not quite understanding. For this public opinion is controlled completely by the impressive power of the scientific authority and is completely dependent on it. There are different reasons, which make this clear to us. We can see one of these reasons concerning the German cultural life simply in the fact that the academic circles, actually, left an important impact on our German cultural life, a culminating point of our deepest life of thought completely out of consideration. Indeed, you find some notes about this in any manual of philosophy, in any history of literature; but a really penetrating understanding of this most significant side of our cultural life and of that which around the turn of the 18th to the 19th centuries the most important German thinkers performed does not exist. In particular, there is a lack of understanding how these results of the German life of thought are rooted in the general German cultural life a hundred years ago. If this fact were not such a one, if our academic circles were concerned with that deepening of the German life of thought around the turn of the 18th to the 19th centuries, there would be, for example, an understanding of Fichte's, Schelling's, and Hegel's great life of thought among our philosophers. The compendia of philosophy would not contain only single inadequate extracts of the works, but one would know what generally thought achieved in Germany. Then one would also obtain access to the spiritual-scientific movement from the point of view of scholarship. Of all pre-schools of theosophy or spiritual science which one can go through today this school of the German thought of the turn of the 18th to the 19th centuries is the very best for the present human beings. Indeed, it is not accessible to anybody, because how should the bigger national circles understand the great German thinkers really if the university circles, the academic circles lead the way to this understanding so little, if they do so little to cause a real popularity of these thinkers. One is not allowed to reproach the big audience, those who should turn to theosophy that they are not able to do it. To those, however, whose occupation it would be to let flow in the spiritual treasures of the West in the national culture, to those must be said that they fulfil their obligations in this respect in no way. I do not name unknown names to you, but I maybe have to represent the peculiar fact that one can relate names, which you find in every philosophical compendium, with theosophy. It is peculiar that one likes to say that it is senseless to use the title “Secret Doctrine.” The Western researchers, for example, who concerned themselves with Buddhism, have repeatedly denied that Buddhism contains a secret doctrine that anything would exceed what you can read in the books. It is not at all surprising that such academic circles assert such things. For one can conclude from it that the most important things have remained a secret doctrine to them. How should they know that there is a secret doctrine, because they have never found access to it! The most important that was performed in connection with the great German thinker Johann Gottlieb Fichte is to the majority, also even today, a deep secret doctrine. It is true, as deplorable as it may appear, the German spiritual life of the turn from the 18th to the 19th centuries originated from the so-called Enlightenment. We may characterise this Enlightenment with a few words. It was a necessary event in the modern spiritual development. The most significant spirits of the 18th century had taken up the cause of it. Kant says, enlightenment simply means what can be summarised in the sentence: “Dare to use your own reason” (first by Horace: sapere aude) . This enlightenment was nothing else than an emancipation of the personality, the relief of the personality from the traditions. What one has thought for centuries, what everybody has taken up from the common spiritual substance of the people should be checked. Only that should be valid which the single personality affirms. You know, great spirits developed from the Enlightenment. One only needs to remind of the name Lessing to call one of the best. Everything that is connected with the name Kant is nothing else than a result of the Enlightenment. Someone who has broken with this Enlightenment in a peculiar way is Johann Gottlieb Fichte. If I say, he has broken in peculiar way with this Enlightenment, and then you do not believe that I am determined to represent Fichte as an opponent of the Enlightenment. He has broken in the way that he examines all results of the Enlightenment and has continued building on its basis, but Fichte went quite thoroughly beyond that which is only enlightenment, beyond the trivial. Just Fichte gives somebody who has the possibility to become engrossed in his great lines of thought something that one can obtain among the newer spirits only from him. After we have heard many merely popular talks, we want to hear a talk today, which seems to be far off the usual way, which our spiritual-scientific talks take in this winter. I will endeavour to show something as comprehensibly as possible that took place in the German life of thought, actually, at that time, around the turn from the 18th to the 19th centuries. It can only be sketchy what I have to say. At first this German life of thought impeded the access to the real spiritual world and then to the living and immortal essence of the human being. Today I cannot go into the worth or worthlessness of Kant's philosophy. The official philosophy calls Kant the destroyer and regards his system of theories as a philosophical action first-rate. Today I would like only to remind of a word which is known perhaps also with those who do not have the opportunity to penetrate deeper into the matter, to the word of the “thing in itself.” The human cognitive faculties are limited in the sense of Kant's philosophy. They cannot penetrate to the “thing in itself.” Whichever ideas and concepts we form, whatever we get to know in the world, we deal with phenomena and not with the true “thing in itself” in the sense of Kant's philosophy. This is always concealed behind the phenomena. With it, blind speculation is encouraged — and we have seen it in the spiritual development of Germany very well — which wants to define and restrict the human cognitive faculties in all directions. However, at the same time the trend of the human being to penetrate to the true, to explore the depths of existence should be stopped. It should be shown that the human being cannot automatically approach the primary sources of existence. Now it may be true that such an attitude was necessary in the course of the spiritual life of the 18th century. However, Kant's philosophy put big obstacles in the way of the further development of the spiritual life. Indeed, I know very well that there are people who say, what did Kant different from all those great spirits who have always emphasised that we deal with phenomena that we cannot come to the “thing in itself!” That is apparently right, however, it is wrong. The real spiritual researchers of all times state quite different that the world only consists of phenomena. No true spiritual researcher has ever denied that in such a way, as we investigate the world with senses, understand it with the intellect, it offers us only phenomena. However, higher senses are to be woken in us that go beyond the usual, which penetrate deeper into the sources of existence, can, and must lead slowly and gradually to the “thing in itself.” No Eastern philosophy, no Platonic philosophy, no self-understanding worldview penetrating into the spirit has ever spoken of the world as Maya in another sense. They always said only, to the lower human cognition, a veil is before the “thing in itself,” to the higher human cognition this veil is torn, the human being can penetrate into the depths of existence. The Enlightenment reached a blind alley concerning the question in certain respects, and this is characterised best of all with a remark which you find in the preface to the second edition of Kant's main work Critique of Pure Reason (1781) and with which the Enlightenment can be caught at its despondency because it does not want to advance further. One reads: “I had to override knowledge to create space for faith.” This is the nerve of Kant's philosophy and of that thinking to which the 18th century came and beyond which our philosophical scholarship has not yet come which still suffers from it. As long as it suffers from this illness, philosophy is never destined to understand theosophy. What does that mean: “I had to override knowledge to create space for faith”? Kant says, the thing in itself remains concealed, consequently also the thing in our breast. We do not know what we ourselves are; we can never come to the true figure of the things. As from uncertain worlds the so-called categorical imperative sounds: you shall do this or that. —We hear it, we cannot prove it, however. We just have to believe it. We hear about the divine being. We have to believe it. Just as little as we know about the destiny of the soul, about immortality and eternity. We must believe them. There is only faith in these matters that connect the human being with the divine, because no knowledge can penetrate into the divine. The human being believes knowledge if he presumes to penetrate into the divine. This divine is thereby falsified, is cast in a wrong light due to wild speculation. Therefore, Kant wanted to save all spiritual for the mere faith and apply cognition — what one can know — only to the external impressions, to the appearance. Whatever you may read and study, otherwise, about Kant's philosophy, this thought is the essentials that it depends on. This thought became the essentials in the further development of Kant's thinking. However, someone who broke with this thought definitely out of a courageous attitude was Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1762-1814). It is a peculiar thing that the theosophical thinkers of modern India, the renovators of the Vedanta philosophy made an astounding discovery — namely that the Germans have a great thinker, Johann Gottlieb Fichte. An Indian says this who writes under the name Bhagavan Das (1869-1958). I have got to know German theosophists who have only found out from him that Johann Gottlieb Fichte is a deep German thinker. You can experience a lot in this regard. Weeks ago, I was in a South German city. One of the theosophical friends there said to me, now we have a university lecturer here who means, it would be good if people studied Fichte, because he got the idea that many deep thoughts were in Fichte. — That is a strange confession of a German university professor! If more than one century after Fichte a German university professor makes the discovery that Fichte achieved something great, throws a characteristic light on this kind of German scholarship. Fichte represented the doctrine of the ego, of the human self-consciousness not speculatively, but out of the whole depth of his being, among his Jena students in the last decade of the 18th century. He did not represent it in the same way as we do it today from the spiritual-scientific point of view. He represented it in such a way that a number of persons would have come to theosophy if they had educated themselves according to his great conceptual demands; they would have come to it in a healthy way, illumining the real inside brightly. Not without reason his speeches inspired the Jena students in those days. For the following lived in him. Although he walked on the heights of thought, although he spoke in the purest, clearest, and logically sharpest thoughts, a quite warm and deep immediate personality and being expressed themselves in his thoughts at the same time. He himself pronounced the word that characterises him deepest that everyone has a philosophy, depending on which sort of a person he is. If one expresses this trivially, one could say, it does not depend on whether anybody can think logically well or badly, because one can reason a hollow philosophy very logically, it does not depend on astuteness but on the internal experience, on that which one has fathomed with all his soul forces. This expresses itself in the language. If one is also a flat materialist, nevertheless, he can be a sharp logician, and on the other hand, someone can be a spiritualist and be logically weak. One proves no worldview, but the worldview is the expression of the innermost human being, the inner experience. Fichte pronounced this not only, but lived it also. Kant stimulated him. However, as one is stimulated by that to which one can add the drawback in his inside — because there the deepest organs emerge in the human being —, nevertheless, this was clear to Fichte. Now follow me, I would like to say, for a short moment into the icy, but not less important regions of thoughts from which Fichte got the being of self-consciousness. I do not describe with his own words, because this would be too difficult here, but in outlines, which do not contain less truth. I would like to say what he conjured before his Jena students at that time: there is one thing for everybody in which the “thing in itself” announces itself to him, in which he expresses himself. That is his own inside. Look into it and you discover something that you can discover nowhere else at first. — We see that Fichte knew that not anybody discovers what he has to discover there, because he says a very nice word, even if it is rude to most human beings. He says, if the human beings were able to come to real self-knowledge, they would find the most significant in themselves. However, a few are successful, because they rather regard themselves as pieces of lava on the moon than as self-conscious beings. What is self-consciousness for our time? One shows it as a conglomerate of cerebral atoms. However, one does not strive for recognising himself; one does not do this. There is no great difference whether one says that it is a conglomerate of cerebral atoms or molecules or a piece of lava on the moon. — Here Fichte draws attention clearly to the fact that that knowledge of the inside which only wants to observe how it is not the right knowledge of the inside. For the nature of the human being differs in its inside from any other being. By which does it differ? It differs by the fact that decision and action belong to the nature of the human being. From this icy region of thoughts, we want to come to flowery fields soon. Fichte calls self-knowledge not brooding in oneself, not looking into oneself, no, Fichte regards it as action. This word leads you from the wrong self-knowledge to the true self-development. The human being is not able to look simply into himself in order to recognise who he is. He has to give that to himself, which he shall become. He must become engrossed in the divine of the world and get the sparks from the divine with which he has to kindle his self perpetually. We look at a stone. It is what it is. We recognise it. We look at the plant. It is what it is. We look at our own body, our etheric body, and astral body. They are also that which they are. The human being is only that which he makes of himself, and self-knowledge is an intimate activity, no dead knowledge. While Fichte uses the (German) word “Tathandlung” (~ self-conscious action and result of the action) , he says something that only the old Vedanta philosophy says in this significant kind. He reached the point that just the theosophists seek again. Often and often, I have said here that theosophy wants to show how the human being soars the divine, how it should stimulate the divine strength slumbering in the human being with which then he also becomes aware of the divine round himself. Fichte completely strives for the same. The wrong self-knowledge, he says, consists of the fact that one says, look into yourselves and you find the god in yourselves. The right self-knowledge says something completely different. It says, if you brood in yourself, it is in such a way, as if you look into your own eye. However, this is not the task of the eye. We get to know the light with the eye. Thus, we also get to know the light of the ego with the soul. One can compare the eye with waking the inner self. As little as you find the soul in the organism, the light in the eye, just as little you find the god in yourselves. However, we find the possibility to develop the organs to find this god. The activity in the ego, which develops our spiritual organs, is the being that the human being gives himself. This is the “Tathandlung,” this is Fichte's self-knowledge. From this point, Fichte advances gradually. If you completely settle down, you educate yourselves to his thoughts, then you find a healthy access to theosophy, and nobody has to regret it one day if he settles down into the clear lines of thought of Johann Gottlieb Fichte, because he finds the way to the spiritual life. However, there is a peculiar fact. When Johann Gottlieb Fichte has ascended to these etheric heights of thought, he lacks the view to which he did not come at that time, which the spiritual-scientific worldview brought back like a solution of the world riddle: the teaching of karma and reincarnation. If you see this, then you know to apply it to your own development. The human beings would like to judge all times, according to the same pattern. However, the human spirit is in perpetual development, and every age has other tasks. That century whose end forms in conceptual respect Johann Gottlieb Fichte had the task to emancipate the human personality. This was the good side of the Enlightenment. However, the personality is that member of the human nature, which just does not return, as well as it is. Our deepest essence that expresses itself within the personality returns in the various earth-lives. However, the single life on earth expresses itself in the personality. Let us consider the being of the personality properly. We have four human covers basically that are not to be imagined, however, like onion skins: the physical body, the etheric body, the astral body and in them that which the human being works for, his refined astral body, that part on which the human ego has already worked. We have these four covers. However, in them only the imperishable everlasting essence of the human being, the so-called spiritual triad exists: manas, buddhi, and atman — spirit self, life spirit, and spirit man. These go from earth-life to earth-life and ascend then to higher states of existence. The last external cover expresses itself in the personality. It has still another importance and it has received it more and more in the human development. If we go back to the old times, we find that the human beings appreciated the individuality during the former centuries less and less; instead, the personality became more and more powerful. Today one easily confuses the concepts of individuality and personality. The individuality is the everlasting that runs through the earth-lives. Personality is that which the human being develops during an earth-life. If we want to study the individuality, we have to look at the bottom of the human soul. If we want to study the personality, we have to observe how the essence expresses itself. The essence is born into the people, into the occupation. All that determines the inner being, it personifies it. With a human being who is still on a subordinated level of development one can perceive a little of the work on his inside. The mode of expression, the kind of the gestures and so forth is just in such a way as he has them from his people. However, those are the advanced human beings who give themselves the mode of expression and gestures from their inside. The more the inside of the human being is able to work on his appearance, the higher this develops the human being. Now one could say, the individuality is expressed in the personality. Someone, who has his own gestures, his own physiognomy, has a peculiar character in his actions and in relation to the surroundings, has a distinct personality. Is that lost at death forever? No, this does not get lost. Christianity knows for sure that this is not the case. What one understands by resurrection of the flesh or of the personality is nothing else than the preservation of the personal in all following incarnations. What the human being has gained as a personality remains to him because it is attached to the individuality and this carries it further into the following incarnations. If we have made something of our body that has a peculiar character, this body, this strength, which has worked there, resurrects. As much we have worked on ourselves, as much we have made of ourselves, we do not lose it. Generating awareness of this knowledge is something that has not yet happened. This happens by theosophy. However, it was the task of the Enlightenment to acquire an uncertain feeling. It showed the task of the personality. Johann Gottlieb Fichte has put the idea of the personality in its everlasting importance in his construct of clear ideas. There the right thing immediately emerges for the epoch of the recognition of the everlasting and imperishable in the personality. Fichte accomplished that. One has often said, the great human beings have the big mistakes of their big virtues, and because Fichte was able to measure out the personality with the thought uniquely, he did not penetrate to the individuality; also not his successors. However, they have implanted the thought in the personality. Someone who finds it there carries it in a healthy way through the repeated earth-lives if he approaches spiritual science. It does not depend on dogmas, but on the education that we can obtain in his spirit. Johann Gottlieb Fichte was an educator in the proper sense. It does not depend on the fact that we become servile students of such a man, but that we also go through that strength which he went through. Then we may get other thoughts by his forces in another age. One faces such a spirit in this way. This was expressed in a certain way at his time. His personality can educate us and find pleasant expression in the distant future. Spiritual science is so little dogmatic that it leads to the great human beings and shows that we can learn from them even more than what they have said. The expression of that which they are is the language. However, more than the expression lives in every human being, the immortal soul lives in them to which we can rise as to the true essence. Therefore, Fichte was already in the highest degree stimulating for those, at the end of the 18th century, who were sitting at his feet and listening how he measured out the human personality with world-spanning lines of thought. He inspired them to penetrate conceptionally to the soul and to acquire still quite other treasures from it than Fichte himself did. One of those who sat at Fichte's feet and looked reverentially to him, one of those who got out the philosophical ideas, was the young short-lived German theosophist Novalis (pseudonym of Friedrich von Hardenberg, German Romantic poet and author, 1772-1801). He died around the turn of 18th to the 19th century, not yet thirty years old. Who becomes engrossed in his works goes through the finest training of theosophy. Perhaps it could be to that who is educated in the western science a much better elementary training to go through his tremendous light flashes, than through the Bhagavad Gita or similar writings that remain more or less strange to the West. Just now, it is possible to become engrossed completely in that which this great soul achieved. He wrote a book in which he describes how a young person is introduced in the subterranean structure of the earth, in the geologic layers of the rocks and minerals by great geologists and mineralogical works. There he readily gets thoughts such as, you, rocks, I look only for you, however, what you say I look for continually. — Runes, letters, words were the stones to him, which he investigated as a miner underground; spiritual beings created in the earth and produced every single rock. He saw the spirit and soul in the earth, and every stone was to him the expression of that which the earth has to say to him. Mineralogy and geology became a runic science to him, and he attempted to penetrate to the spirit of the earth, while his great teacher made the layers and resemblances of the rocks clear to him. Just those who work in the depths of the earth are often led to deeper worldviews. Not least, miners did deep looks into the spiritual world. Staying underground has a peculiar effect on the spiritual experience. However, something else appeared with Novalis. To understand it we only need to remember that at the front gate of Plato's school one could read the words: let none but geometers enter here. — The Platonic school demonstrated its elementary knowledge in geometrical forms, and Novalis, who illumined the secrets of existence with so big light flashes, revered mathematics like a religion. It is something sacred to him. Take this as a psychological phenomenon of peculiar kind. These strange human beings are able to feel something sacred and something like music with the abstract lines of mathematics and geometry. How circles and angles form a group together, how the different forms like polyhedra, dodekahedra and such build themselves up, then one can feel something that comes from Novalis speaking about mathematics. However, you can only take up that if you do not take up it in such a way as in our schools, but if you become engrossed in the inner music of space. Mathematics is the access to the infinite truth. Then he heard Fichte, and from him the great truth of the ego as a personality. Then we see in this strange spirit almost the whole occultism reflected in certain ways. For someone who has knowledge in this respect Novalis is a peculiar personality. He is a personality who had already experienced the deepest initiation in former incarnations. Everything was a recollection that he experienced in the last, the third decade of his life. It becomes apparent in his life that it was more recollection of former incarnations than of the current one. This comes out in his imagination. The former incarnations completely became imagination in Novalis because they cast their shadows and found their expression as pieces of art. Thus, we have to understand Novalis as a peculiar, tender, and intimate being. If Fichte arranges his razor-sharp thoughts and carries us off by this sharpness, then Novalis is wonderfully gentle and shows the spiritual life from a completely different side. Thus, he is the necessary supplement for someone who wants to go through the German preliminary stage of theosophy. Our best went through this pre-school in those days. We can call names of many people who attempted to penetrate in their kind, according to their character in those days into the truth which spiritual science gives humanity back today. These are names that are known more or less, however, whose bearers one has to deeper consider. At first, we have Schelling (Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Sch., German philosopher, 1775-1854). If we open ourselves to his youth writings, where he became independent, he works so strongly on that who gets involved with him because he expressed a thought of Paracelsus (Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim, German-Swiss physician, occultist, 1493-1541) in the way usual at that time. This thought was expressed not only by Schelling, but also by the great Steffens (Henrik St., Danish philosopher, 1773-1845), and in particular by the naturalist Oken (originally Lorenz Okenfuß, 1779-1851), by the great predecessor of the modern theory of evolution and founder of the Society of German Naturalists and Physicians. This thought is an eminently theosophical one. It was usual in natural sciences, also in the philosophy of Schelling and Steffens, also in that of Novalis. These thinkers said: if we look out at the world, we see a number of animals. Every animal shows certain human qualities one-sidedly developed. What the amphibians have, what the snails have is also found in the human being. Those snails, amphibians and so on have something one-sidedly physical. If one makes, however, a whole of it, one gets the harmoniously developed human body that summarises everything that is spread out outdoors. As Paracelsus says, we find letters outdoors in nature, and if we compose them, they yield a word and this word is the human being. A great theosophist — not a German one — of the 18th century (presumably Claude de Saint Martin, 1743 - 1803) just took this principle as the basis of his theosophical investigating. Therefore, he came so far to say, if we look at the human being, we see the remaining animal realm. This is the opposite principle of that how one studies these things today. The theorists of evolution of that time said something different from those of today. They said, if you face a person about whom you do not know that he is, for example, a great watchmaker, and then you are not able to recognise the person. At first, you have to become engrossed in his astuteness that makes him create what he produces. What he produces, that is the point. However, nature has produced the human being as a keystone. There you have the compendium of the whole nature. If you understand this in such a way, you understand nature. — One must recognise the remaining nature from the human being and not the human being from nature. If you carry out that really, you also understand how it could emerge as a certain reflection with Schelling and Oken. With Schelling and Oken you can read, the snail is a groping animal, the insect is a light animal, the bird a hearing animal, the amphibian a feeling animal, the fish a smelling animal. Thereby they express how the senses are spread over the single animals. They are harmoniously contained in the human being. One only needs to distribute the qualities of the human being to understand the remaining nature. In 1809, Schelling published a writing, which is of big significance for theosophy. He had got to know the deep German thinker Jacob Boehme. He became engrossed in him, and thus he got to know the nature of the bad and its coherence with freedom. You find this in his Philosophical Inquiries into the Essence of Human Freedom . There he shows that God is the light and that from the light everything comes that shines that, however, the light has to shine into the darkness and that where light is shadow originates. Only by this comparison, one can realise what one reads in this writing. If you let the sun shine into darkness, there originates shadow; shadow must appear if the light is there, but the light does not generate it. Hence, he says, from the divine primal ground of the light everything great arises in the world. However, as well as the light is opposed to the darkness, the non-ground faces the primal ground, and from this the shadow of the good emerges, the bad. This is the indication of an infinitely deep involvement. Again, you can educate yourselves to the theosophical life if you take up that in yourselves. Another writing by Schelling is still significant: Bruno or On the Divine and Natural Principle of Things (1802/1843). In pleasant dialogue form, like with Plato, he discusses here about the coherence of soul and spirit in the theosophical sense. Therefore, Schelling would be able to become a theosophist. He understood how to practice inner sight. Schelling was also an eager teacher at the Jena University first, and then he worked still at other sites and, finally, withdrew completely. In Munich, he lived a long time and was together with Baader (Franz Xavier von B., philosopher and theologian, 1765-1841), that spirit who renewed Jacob Boehme in such a fine way in the 19th century again. He stimulated Schelling. He wrote scarcely anything in that time. In 1809, his writing about freedom originated. Then he wrote almost nothing up to his call to Berlin by King Friedrich Wilhelm IV, who may be challenged in certain ways, who is not yet appreciated enough concerning insights into big, deep, and internal spiritual connections. In 1841, Schelling was appointed to Berlin. He should explain before the students what he had lived through such a long time. He held two courses of lectures: about the Philosophy of Mythology (1856) and about the Philosophy of Revelation (1858). There he led into the essence of the old mysteries and showed how Christianity originated from them and what Christianity concerns. Then we who live more than half a century later are led automatically to reincarnation and karma. If you become engrossed in the philosophy of mythology and in the philosophy of revelation, you find, this is theosophy. However, all trivial people of that time railed against that. They could not understand what Schelling reported at that time. If the theosophists wanted to become engrossed in these writings, they would see from which depths all that is taken. Fichte could speak of a special spiritual sense because he was one of those who wanted to open the eyes of the human beings. Fichte gave the definition of theosophy already in 1813. He said, “Appear as a sighted man in a world of blind people and speak to them of colours and light. Either you talk to them of nothing — and this is the more fortunate case if they say it, because in this way you soon notice the mistake and stop talking without success — or the more gifted people say, you are a daydreamer.” — All those experience that who are gifted with a special sense. They appear like among blind people. However, this sense can be evoked with everybody, slowly with the one, faster with the other. By the special sense, Fichte shows quite clearly that he knew what depends on in theosophy. This was the real definition of theosophy. Others scooped from such sources, from such currents of the spiritual life. However, I would like to remind of Hegel (Georg Wilhelm Friedrich H., 1770-1831, philosopher) above all. I cannot get involved to explain Hegel's peculiar view. I would also like to remind of the name of an exceptionally gentle person, of Gotthilf Heinrich von Schubert (1780-1860, physician and naturalist), who wrote books about the essence of the soul. Schelling wrote to Schubert still in 1850 when the sixth edition of a book about the essence of the soul had appeared: you are, actually, in a more fortunate position than I am. I must get involved with the world-spanning thoughts, which introduce in the spiritual life. However, you live the intimate side that the human being meets if he investigates all intimacies of the soul. Schubert studied that soul life which is the border area between consciousness, semi-consciousness and unconsciousness, but also the border area between everyday consciousness, dream, and clairvoyance. With Schubert, you already find explanations about the principle that controls the dream world. About that, you can find a lot with him. He studied Swedenborg (Emanuel S., 1688-1772, scientist, philosopher, and mystic) in the time in which it was possible to point to these characteristics of the human spiritual life with great thoughts in a healthy way. He represented the view that there is an etheric body and an even higher etheric body than that which decomposes after death with every human being. Schubert already pointed to that which the Vedanta philosophy calls the “fine body” (sukshma-shariram). He wrote a very nice consideration about this higher body of the human being. You can find there fine remarks with him. You can see how at that time already the single currents flowed into each other, you can see this with a poet who interlaced these things in his poetries, with Heinrich von Kleist (1777-1811), who represented a peculiar prince in his Prince of Homburg and created Katie of Heilbronn , a peculiar figure, too. He was stimulated to them by talks on somnambulism and on higher spiritual life. Schubert speaks of a pre-being of the soul; he also discusses the question of reincarnation. At that time, he did not yet regard it as Christian. However, he speaks of a pre-being whose destiny he exactly pursues. Then from this, the brilliant book originates by Justinus Kerner (1786-1862, practical physician, poet and writer): The Seeress of Prevorst (1829). When in the 19th century the book about this strange woman appeared, he used a lot of theosophy for its explanation. The occultist already recognises Justinus Kerner as an expert in the basic definition that he gives about this seeress (Friederike Hauffe, 1801-1829). He was an expert because he lived in the time, which had such thoughts as I characterised them. He says of the seeress of Prevorst — she had two children and was somnambulistic in the extreme — that the mental-spiritual world was open round her and that she could observe the spiritual side of the human beings. He describes her in such a way: imagine somebody retained at the moment of death, so that the peculiar state continues for some years; the emergence of the etheric body and the odd relationship of the astral body to the etheric body lasted for years. Because her soul condition was in such a way, she was able to behold the still existing part of the etheric body of someone who had lost a limb. She could also perceive many things besides. Kerner gives appropriate explanations even if they are not at the height of our time. You can find explanations also with Eckartshausen (Karl von E., 1752-1803, philosopher, mystic) who also wrote about the inner spiritual development. Kosti's Journey or also The Hieroglyphics of the Human Heart are writings that are adapted to open the human soul to a higher vision. He also described what he calls a soul body appropriately. Another writer is sometimes rather stimulating: Ennemoser (Joseph E., 1787-1854, physician, mesmerist) who wrote theosophy, too, informed a lot of animal magnetism and the mysteries in his works, and contributed much to show the Greek mythology in the right light. Thus, you see a painting of the first time of the 19th century, from the first thoughts that can work educationally on the human being up to the facts that bring theosophy together with immediate spiritualistic experiences. At that time, you find everything in a pure and sometimes nobler way expressed than it was shown later by the respective authors. You can learn much more about magic spiritual life there than in that which was published by Schindler (Heinrich Bruno Sch., 1797-1859, physician and author) and Albertus (?, perhaps hearing defect, probably Carus , Carl Gustav C., 1789 - 1869, physician, scientist, and naturalist). Later the interest changed more and more into an interest, similar to curiosity, the mere urge for knowledge. In the first half of the 19th century, even such spirits who could not go very deeply had the desire of ascending to spiritual heights, developing inner soul organs, and knew something concerning self-knowledge and self-development. Novalis knew how to speak in miraculous tones in his Heinrich of Ofterdingen about that all. He put the big treasure of former initiation memory in that which he has like a recollection of former lives. In the Novices of Sais he shows how Hyazinth gets to know the girl Rosenblüth (rose flower). Only the animals of the wood know something of this extremely subtle love. A wise man comes and tells about the magic life, about spiritual secrets. Hyazinth and Rosenblüth get the desire to walk to the initiation temple of Isis. However, nobody can give some indication, which is the right way to the temple. He walks and walks. There he sits down, tired among nice physical things, in particular also because of that which nature speaks to him. He drops off to dream in a ghostly way. The temple is round him. The curtain is lifted from the veiled picture, and what does he see? Rosenblüth. He lovely describes how Rosenblüth is that feeling of unity, that uniform idea of the whole nature, how it extends over the whole nature, and how he looks for the hidden secret that life often shows to us that we only need to understand. This is wonderfully indicated. Thus, you can prospect with Novalis wonderfully if you get yourselves in how intimately he expressed the experiences of the world at that time. I was allowed here to speak about Goethe, Herder, and Schiller and to show how they were theosophists. In a theosophical way, Novalis just pronounces what is a characteristic trait of that time what controlled it like a theosophical motto spiritually. It is included in the words: “Someone succeeded; he lifted the veil of the goddess at Sais. — However, what did he see? He saw — miracle of miracles — himself.” Thus, the human being comes out, after he has developed the spiritual organs in himself, and searches for himself all over the world. He does not search for himself in himself, he searches for himself in the world, and with it, he searches for God. This search of God in the world, as he expresses it so nicely in this saying, is theosophy.

Siegfried and The Twilight of the Gods

https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA054/English/RSA2014/19060322p01.html

Berlin

22 Mar 1906

GA054-17

Eight days ago I was allowed to speak to you about the esoteric core, about the spiritual contents of those great legends in which Central European thinking and feeling express themselves in the first third of the Middle Ages with the renewal of which Richard Wagner achieved something prophetic for our art at the same time. Today another legend type has to occupy us, two legends that Richard Wagner also renewed and which were made accessible to art significantly in our time. The Parzival and the Lohengrin legends should occupy us today. With both these legends we touch a land different from that was which occupied us eight days ago. I want to characterise in a few words once again, what takes, actually, the Siegfried and the Nibelungs legends up and what lives in them. The old spiritual experience of the ancestors expresses itself in the consciousness of the Central European population. This consciousness is sunken in the darkness of the time, and the usual sensory view has already substituted it in the epoch in which these legends originated. It was the old spiritual experience, which still lived like an echo, just as the world of the gods or legends. The legends of the Nibelungs and of Siegfried are echoes of the ancient pagan time with its secret doctrines, with its views of the initiation of the old leaders of the people, and we have found Siegfried as such a great initiate of the Teutons. However, Lohengrin and Parzival are individualities of quite different type. We enter that time with them when Christianity, a worldview completely new to Central Europe, had spread out and won influence. Now the whole being of the newly emerging Christianity and everything that is connected as a result with it lives in these both legends, in the Parzival and in the Lohengrin legends. We want to imagine how the being of medieval-European development expresses itself in this legend world at first. We have emphasised eight days ago that to us the legends of Siegfried and the Nibelungs point to an ancient prehistoric time in which a kind of natural ties of love connected the single tribes, the single parts of the population. Something like an echo of this time is contained in that which Tacitus reports when he says that the Germans still revered an old tribal god at whom they looked up like at a father with whom they were connected by family ties, which extended to tribal communities. The blood, the natural relationship gave that love. Every single tribe had such a tribal divinity that had a kind of ancestor again. This natural love is a result of the blood relationship, resting like a breath on these old times, and just the recollection of these old times and tribal communities, of this old love, based on blood relationship, is expressed in the legend type of the Nibelungs. We have seen that the legend type of the Song of the Nibelungs originated in a time in which the tribal love had already withdrawn. Something else replaced it: greed, everything that is symbolised by the gold that is connected with egoism and is based on it. The old love based on blood relationship was no longer authoritative, but new connections that were based on statutes, contracts and laws. This reversal is reflected in the legend of the Nibelungs. Later, other aims replaced these old communities, which were based on gold, so to say, on possession and mere warlike knightly bravery, which were out for possession. Other ideals gradually appeared with Christianity. The inner being of Christianity maybe was nowhere expressed as magnificently and tremendously as in the legends into which we settle down bit by bit and in which the task of Christianity within Central Europe is represented allegorically: in the Lohengrin and Parzival legends. What did Christianity have as its elixir of life? The absolute equality of all human beings. One felt Christianity that way at least at that time. One felt freedom, equality before the highest that the human being can imagine as the jewel, as the real mission of Christianity. The ancestors of the Teutons were proud of the name of their ancestors, of the name of a tribe or of a family name. They referred to it if they wanted to assign value to themselves in the world. They referred to the law, to titles and names in the time, which had superseded the family love. Now both should no longer be valid, but simply the human being had to be important who felt intrinsically in his core. The human being without title, without name was the Christian ideal. Something great was said with it. The Lohengrin and the Parzival legends express this. How do both legends express this? If we take the Parzival legend, we need only to visualise the structure of the Parzival legend how it lived in the Middle Ages, lived in Wolfram von Eschenbach (~1170-~1220). We have to deal with a young person who grows on, torn out from any community, torn out from that which gave distinction and weight to the human beings at that time. The mother Herzeloide experienced that sufferings, pains could be connected with the old order that was based on titles, distinctions, and names. In the old order, her husband was led to the East where he had an accident. Now she wants to bring her son up far from all those things. He should know nothing about the striving of the worldly knights. However, one day he sees such worldly knights. There he decides to depart, and he starts hiking. We know that this hike leads him to two places that we must consider as something particularly important for the spiritual perception in the middle of the Middle Ages. The first place to which the Parzival comes is the Round Table of King Arthur; the other place is the castle of the Holy Grail. What are these? In the Middle Ages one imagined the Round Table of King Arthur as a community from which all spiritual strength goes out for that which existed in the Middle Ages before the influence of Christianity as worldly knighthood, generally as all worldly. We come back to ancient times, to those times to which we could point already last time in the talk on the Song of the Nibelungs. We know that the Teutons, the ancestors of the German and Anglo-Saxon tribes took an area in possession that other tribes inhabited, the Celts in primeval times. The Celts: one only knows a little about them; history tells a little only about these past times of Europe in which these strange people had big influence which was pushed then by the invading Teutons to the west, but was also forced back there as people. The Celts were forced back as people. Their influence has remained. A spiritual sediment of this old Celtic time exists in Europe. In this Celtic time people still beheld clairvoyantly into the spiritual regions. Ideas of the spiritual world remained from that. Among the Celts, the old clairvoyance was preferably home, the immediate consciousness that one could have experiences in the divine-spiritual world. The stories and dramatic actions are an echo of the instructions that the initiate Celtic priests gave to their pupils and via the pupils to the whole people. There we refer to those primeval times of Europe, when there were real initiates, initiates of the old Celtic paganism on European territory. What I have told to you about the initiation of Siegfried, of Wotan and so on, all that leads back to the old initiations of the old Celtic priests. These old Celtic priests were of the same spirit as in ancient Egypt, in ancient Chaldea or ancient Persia the priest sages were as rulers. They were the rulers. Everything that happened in the world that belonged to the external organisation was done according to the instructions of the priest sages. Everything public, everything common was controlled by the wisdom of these original scholars of Europe. King Arthur about whom one says that he withdrew with his Round Table to Wales and lived there was nothing else than the learnt lord of these sages who formed a spiritual centre, a kind of spiritual monarchy. One felt that this spiritual centre, I would like to say of “original scholars,” with his choice twelve companions was there. This has good reasons. Thus, one tells that King Arthur was nothing else than the successor of that directing scholar of the old Celtic priests in Wales. With it, we immediately recognise that there was something in Europe that we call a Grand Lodge in spiritual science. Let us now realise the concept of a Grand Lodge. You know that we think seriously of development, that humanity develops, that humanity ascends higher and higher, that every single human being can ascend the path of knowledge up to those stages where he himself beholds into the spiritual worlds, where the primal ground behind the world manifests to him. If we speak of the possibility of development of humanity, it is also not abstruse to realise that there are higher developed individualities in humanity already today who have run ahead of the remaining humanity and have walked the paths of knowledge and wisdom due to a life full of renunciation, so that they can be leaders of modern humanity. Today where one levels everything, where one does not want to recognise anything, where one talks of development, but does not want to believe in development, one does not accept this. However, in the times when one knew something of it one really spoke of the existing development. According to a natural principle, we find twelve different forces of the spirit. I have said about Goethe that he himself talks about such a secret brotherhood that he considers as Rosicrucians. One spoke of such a Grand White Lodge in the Middle Ages. From this, the strands went out which controlled life. One recognised that who directed all that in King Arthur, who lived concealed in Wales. Around him were his knights who were, indeed, no longer at the height of the priests of the old Celtic time for whom the time of love had transformed into a time of egoism when one attempted to conquer countries with the sword in the hand. However, they were still under the guidance of the White Lodge. Indeed, the question immediately suggests itself: if there are such lodges — also even today —, why do they not appear? — I have said often enough that it depends not only on the fact that somebody appears, but also on the fact that he can be recognised. Today also, Jesus would probably not be recognised. It is hard to recognise a sage within his time. It belongs just that to it which theosophy or spiritual science wants to bring again to humanity. If it finds its way, one understands such a thing as the Round Table of King Arthur, the directing white lodge. This was the one: Arthur. The other is the castle of the Holy Grail. Only by way of a hint, we can deal with it. One says that the Holy Grail is the chalice in which once Christ Jesus with his disciples took the Last Supper, the wine, and in which his blood was then collected. Then the lance was also brought to Europe with which the side of Jesus was pierced. The chalice of the Holy Grail is on monsalvaesche (mons salvationis = mountain of salvation) where a holy castle was built up. The Holy Grail has the capacity to give everlasting youth, the force of everlasting life generally to somebody who is familiar with its miracles who lives with its sun of grace. Again, these are twelve, but Christian spiritual knights now. The old Templars guard the Holy Grail, and they used the forces, which they suck from this guard to pour out the spiritual knighthood of the heart, of the inner life, over Europe. Thus, one countered the white lodge of the worldly knighthood that moved to Wales with the spiritual knighthood in the castle of the Holy Grail, which is placed on the Spanish mountain monsalvaesche. Which task did the knights have who were in the castle of the Holy Grail? The task of the knights of the Holy Grail was not to make conquests, not to acquire external possession, not to appropriate seigneuries; their task was to make the conquest of the soul life. One tells to us about the treasure of the Nibelungs, about the gold as a symbol of possession, as an aim worth striving for by the Nibelungs, the Holy Grail is the spiritualised treasure of the Nibelungs, the treasure of the soul. What is the strength that goes out from the Holy Grail in reality? What do those twelve knights work who are in its castle? A spark of the divine lives in every human being, as often the theosophical worldview emphasises. The mystics of the Middle Ages had their great ideas in the same time in which also these legends originated. They spoke of the fact that the human being is a fourfold being. There is at first the external physical human being who lives here in this world who strives for possession who is on the lookout for gold. The second one is the mental human being who suffers and is glad who has instincts, desires, and sensations who must be gradually improved. The third human being is an even more internal one. He is a spiritual human being who attains admission to the spiritual world bit by bit. The innermost human being is the divine human being. This is that who today and this was felt in particular in the Middle Ages — is only in the earliest stages. To develop this disposition of the divine spark more and more, to raise the human being to the higher worlds, this one had aimed at in the initiation of the old paganism. One aims at this now within the Christian world in a new way. In addition, the Christian initiation was internalised. You remember from the former talks how the initiation ceremonies were in the old times how the human being had to go through procedures that lifted out the internal soul from the physical body, so that the human being was enraptured to the higher world and could witness the qualities of the higher world. An external procedure belonged to it to go through all that. Christianity should bring an initiation that takes place only in the deepest inside, in the concealed sanctum of the soul. There the god should be searched for, the god, who brought salvation to Christianity by pouring his blood; every single human being in his soul should find this god. The single human being should really be able to attain that which Angelus Silesius, the great Christian mystic, later expressed with the words: “If you rise above yourself and allow God to prevail, then ascension takes place in your mind.” The task of the knights of the Holy Grail was to develop the internal vital spark in the human being. The Holy Grail was nothing else than the deepest inside of the human nature, and it was something uniform because the internal human nature is a uniform one, because a life spent in the pursuit of wisdom raises hope that one could understand what is meant with the big unity, with the big divine spark. They were there as the brothers of the Holy Grail. Parzival wanted to find the way to the Holy Grail. The legend tells now that when he came to the Holy Grail, he found King Amfortas bleeding at that time. One had said to him to ask not much and nothing wrong. Hence, he did not ask for the wounds of the king and not for the meaning of the Holy Grail. That is why he is cast out. He should ask for the qualities of the Holy Grail and the wounds of the king. This belongs to the experiences that are to be done in the divine life that one must ask for it. He must long for it. The Holy Grail exists; one can find it, it is bestowed on everybody, but it does not impose itself. It does not come to us; we must feel the longing for the Holy Grail, the internal sanctum, the divine vital spark in the human soul. We must have the desire to ask for it. If the human soul has found the path up to the god, the god descends to it. The secret of the Holy Grail is the descent of the god who descends, if the human being develops up to the divine. John the Baptist shows this following the baptism of Jesus: a dove came down and sat down on the head, and a voice spoke from heaven: “You are my beloved Son; in you I take delight” (Mark 1:11). The Holy Grail is shown in the figure of a dove allegorically. Parzival was not yet ripe with his first visit in the Grail castle to experience what we have just described. When he felt cast out, something came to his soul that must come to every soul once if it should really become ripe for the last stages of knowledge. Doubt, disbelief, inner mental darkness come to Parzival's soul. Indeed, someone who wants to ascend to knowledge must go through the hard school of doubt once. Not before one has doubted and has gone through the tortures and everything that doubts may bring along, he has acquired that certainty in his inside that he will never lose knowledge again. Doubt is a bad brother, but a purifying brother. Parzival goes through these doubts now, and he brings himself to that knowledge which consists of something else than of intellectual knowledge. Richard Wagner expresses this knowledge with magnificent correctness, maybe not quite philosophically or psychologically correctly but analogously, while he calls Parzival (Parsifal) the “pure fool” who becomes knowing by compassion. Thus, we come to the description of the way that someone has to go through who still has to struggle through to the stages of higher knowledge. You know that it is the path of the pupils and that one distinguishes there three stages. If anybody has acquired the qualities that constitute the preparatory path, if he has purified himself of the uncontrolled ideas and leads a pure life, then he becomes ripe for chelahood, then he becomes ripe to get the guru, the spiritual leader. The first stage of the path to higher knowledge consists of the fact that one learns to behave quite impartially to the world, to practice love without the slightest trace of any prejudice from the inside. Why do the human beings love in the usual life at first? Because they have a blood relationship, because they have been connected by any ties for long. This is right. However, who wants to go the path of knowledge must penetrate to another form of love. Nothing that ties me together with a human being in a special way is allowed to prefer him regarding my love. I am only allowed to ask for that which is outside me. Has my brother or my brother-in-law any advantage? No! With it, I say nothing against the love for our relatives; it should concern only the traits of the human being. Even if he is quite foreign to us, we recognise that he is worthy of our love, then we love him like one who is connected with us for long. Such a human being is on the first level of chelahood. We call him the homeless human being because he has lost what one calls home in the ideal sense. This is also meant by the sentence you find in the New Testament: “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, even his own life, he cannot be a disciple of mine” (Luke 14:26). This sentence means the same, and one felt Christianity that way in Central Europe. No name and no title should give a preference of love. Someone who ascends the path of knowledge should found love for any human being on his innermost worthiness and value. If the human being has climbed up the first steps of the path of knowledge, the hard moments of doubt come. While we get to know the world more and more and delve into love more and more, the more we also get to know the black and bad side of the world. These are the hard days of the initiates. The initiate struggles upwards bit by bit. Then there awakes that soul light which like an internal sun illuminates the spiritual things and beings. We see the objects round ourselves with eyes because the light shines on these objects. Actually, we see the rays only which are reflected by the objects to us. We do not see the spiritual things because no spiritual light shines on them. However, who has advanced so far that the so-called kundalini light shines to him is on the second stage of the path of knowledge. Someone has arrived at the third stage who has succeeded in feeling his ego without preference, who does not esteem himself higher than other human beings, who finds his higher ego in the love to all beings. Who does no longer hope for his own selfish ego, but hears the properties of the beings speaking has arrived at the third stage of the path of knowledge. We call him a swan in the secret doctrine, and this is a term that is used all over the world where there is spiritual research. What does this degree bring? It brings the effluxion about all beings. There we are no longer concluded like within a skin from the world. Foreign pain is our pain, foreign joy is our joy, and we live and are active in the whole existence. The whole earth belongs to us. We feel in everything. Then one does no longer know that one looks at the objects from the outside, then it is, as if one is in them, as if one had penetrated into them by love and thereby knows them. By compassion, by this empathy all knowledge has originated. A hermit, Trevrizent, initiated Parzival in this wisdom. The fact that he is a hermit is typical. He is somebody who is lifted out of the remaining humanity who has really left everything behind: father, mother, brother, sister, and has become a disciple of that who does not know such differences. There Parzival is informed of the higher virtues, and there he becomes ripe for entering the castle of the Holy Grail and for asking which the miracles of the Holy Grail are. He is taken up; he releases the wounded Amfortas and becomes Grail King. An internal, human way, the way that the secret doctrine prescribes all over the world, transferred into the Christian, a way on which Parzival is described. Lohengrin belongs to the Grail Table. He is the son of Parzival. Whereas the passageway of the human being to the higher self is described in Parzival, a historical-social mission of the middle of the Middle Ages is described in Lohengrin. Initiates led the medieval folk consciousness, it was not blind as the scholars imagine. This folk consciousness recorded an important epoch in the middle of the Middle Ages. What happens there? Briefly: an important historical event happened, the so-called urban civilisation started. The old feudal time experiences a mighty revolution. Whereas one dealt once only with land ownership, only with a rural population, now we see in Germany, France, Belgium, in Russia everywhere single cities originating. Cities are founded; one notes a jerk forward in the human development. What had happened there in these foundations of cities? The human beings were torn out from the connections to which they have belonged once. Everybody who felt enslaved went to the city. There he was on his own. There he was only as much worth as he could achieve. The bourgeoisie came into being in the middle of the Middle Ages. This mighty reversal is expressed in the legend of Lohengrin. Whereas Parzival shows how the human being finds a higher ego in himself, how he dedicates himself to the pilgrimage to the higher ego, Lohengrin shows how the medieval folk goes through a tremendous epoch of human development, namely the human being is freed and his personality comes to light from the old organisations. If we want to understand the connection of this historical event with the legend of Lohengrin, we have to know that in all mysticism this stage is symbolised by a female personality. Therefore, Goethe also spoke at the end of the second part of his Faust of the fact that the everlasting-female draws us upwards. This must not be interpreted trivially. In truth, the human soul is meant which pulls up the human being. In the general, the soul is shown as female and that which surrounds the human being from without as male. The striving soul is always shown as female. In the secret doctrine, one knows that the great leaders of humanity, the initiates, further humanity always to a higher stage. Lohengrin is the herald of the Holy Grail. The medieval consciousness regards him as the great initiate leader who furthers humanity to a higher stage in the middle of the Middle Ages. He was the bringer of the urban civilisation, who inspired the bourgeoisie in its originating. This is the individuality of Lohengrin. Elsa of Brabant is nothing else than the symbol of the medieval folk soul which has again to make a developmental step forward under the influence of Lohengrin. This progress in the history of humanity is nicely and tremendously shown in the legend. We have seen that the pupil initiated in the third degree is called a swan. The master who is deeply initiated rises higher, he rises into the transcendent world, in those worlds, to which the human consciousness does not extend. He knows everything that expresses itself in humanity only in his inside. One cannot ask him, where from you are, which name do you have? — It is the swan that brings him from even higher spheres. Hence, the swan brings Lohengrin into the epoch of urban civilisation. Look at the progress, which has been made in the old Hellenism. The gods in Greece are nothing else than deified initiates. Take Zeus, who consorts with Semele; from this affair Dionysus originates. The Greek culture arises from it. All great proceedings of humanity are shown in this way. Elsa should not ask for the name and origin of that who leads her and becomes her husband. It is with all great masters that way; they go unrecognized and unnoticed through humanity. If one asked them, they would be shooed away from humanity. It is necessary that they save the sanctum from profane looks and questions. This would be also the case if one gave people an understanding of the being of such an initiate. At such a moment, such a being would also disappear as Lohengrin also did. Lohengrin is called a son of Parzival. That means that the liberation of the medieval bourgeoisie took place under the influence of Christianity. Thus, we look into the legends of the Middle Ages and see how nicely the facts of the spiritual life are expressed in both legends. The mission of Christianity for the medieval culture became with it the mission of the liberation of the human being from the earthly human body. This mission was shown in both legends. It worked on Richard Wagner in particular. He always tried to show the pure love that makes the human being clairvoyant. Already in 1856, he started a drama, called The Victors : a Jandala girl loves Ananda, a Brahmin young man. However, Ananda is far separated from the love of the Jandala girl because of the caste division. He is not allowed to pursue the love of the Jandala girl. He becomes a victor about his nature becoming a pupil of Buddha. As adherer of Buddha, he finds the victory, there he finds himself again, and there he overcomes the human affection. One tells that the Jandala girl was a Brahmin girl in a former life and rejected the love of a Jandala young man. Then she also becomes a victor and is spiritually united with Ananda, the Brahmin. Later, Wagner wanted to use the figure of Jesus of Nazareth in a drama. He had in mind the complete inner nature of Christianity and the teaching of the free human being who is not bound to title and to anything else. The Holy Grail seeks in the inside of the human soul. In 1857, on Good Friday — Wagner tells — he faced a wonderful nature in Zurich. There something flowed out to him for a moment that expressed the whole mood in him that penetrated the whole knighthood and the Christian knighthood. He says to himself, like by an inspiration, at that day when Christ Jesus died, no one is allowed to bear weapons. At that time, he realised the whole greatness of the figure of Parzival who attained knowledge becoming engrossed in humanity and in all beings. Now he resumes his incomplete piece The Victors in a Christian-modern way. He shows Parzival as somebody who leaves his home who knows nothing about names and titles, about ties and nothing of father and mother. He meets, on one side, the magic castle of Klingsor and the enchantress Kundry. Meeting Kundry he experiences the whole significance of the earthly sensuous life and what it means if the human being gets to know it only by desires. On the other side, he realises in that moment when Kundry kisses him that this sensuous appears in its true acceptation in the human being only if it is free of desires. Richard Wagner nicely shows the sensuousness free of desires how it is gained by the internal strength of the spirit, the Parzival spirit that he calls the Christian one. He shows how it is gained on one side by the Holy Grail and on the other side in the magic castle. On one side by overcoming it, on the other side by deadening it. These are two sides, which are used to ascend to the spirit. The ones deaden the sensuous living ascetically; they take the organs away from themselves in order not to become addicted to weakness. The others remain human beings, they do not want to ascend to higher knowledge this way, but they want to develop the higher to a bigger strength in themselves. Parzival recognised this way as the right one. One has to become stronger as strong as the temptations may be. Then it is that time to be taken up in the Holy Grail. Now he asks correctly and is initiated into the secrets of the Holy Grail, he is ripe for becoming the Grail King. Wagner endeavours to show the Holy Grail. For years, he pursued studies, not academically, but fulfilled with artistic and visionary gifts. He pursued studies, while he complied with the spirit of the medieval legends, so that he really expresses that guidance caused by initiates of the Middle Ages where the old order is represented by Ortrud, the new order by the emerging consciousness of the people which wants to free itself. This consciousness, which the swans introduce, the chelas of the third degree, is symbolised quite appropriately by Elsa of Brabant and Lohengrin. Wagner appropriately shows the greatness that is in it. The renewal of art was crucial to Wagner. He wanted to make something out of art again that came close to religion, he wanted to embody moods with his pieces of art that lead the human beings again to the divine by which he wanted to make the artists religious leaders. Wagner needed topics that led beyond the usual life. He also wanted to represent the spirit of Christianity, the spirit of love for humanity artistically. He felt deeply and seriously, how in the newer time the spirit of egoism, the spirit of the external possession, substituted the spirit of love. He describes that which developed as social order and with which he went along intensively and radically, as pursuit of gold, as a time the real Christian spirit of love must supersede again. He wanted to represent something like love flowing in a world where the gold rules in his music dramas with the means of the supernatural and divine living in the human being. Hence, he also resorts with these questions to the great legends of the Middle Ages. This lived in Richard Wagner. You can realise how theosophy or spiritual science approaches with its view of the myths the art of Wagner. The theosophist realises above all that we have to see in the legends nothing else than pictures and expressions of great truth. The pictures of the development of the external life and the soul were given to the ancient peoples. In the Lohengrin legend, something is made clear, so that the human being knew what happens to him if he has arrived at certain stages. Truth is announced to people in such a way that they can grasp it. There were and there are tribes and peoples that can grasp the great truth only in legend form. Today we are no longer talking pictorially. Spiritual science contains the same truth that was put before the folk in magnificent legends, which Wagner tries to renew. Spiritual science speaks in another way, but what it lets stream into the world is the same spirit. Thus, we feel that not only that is true which Schopenhauer says that the great spirits like Plato and Spinoza, Buddha and Goethe, Giordano Bruno and Socrates, Hermes and Pythagoras understand each other, talk with each other, communicate mentally. Not only this is true, not only the choice individualities understand each other, but also that which lives as truth in the spirit of the people. This sounds together for a big historical sound of the spheres, and we feel this if today we realise what lives in the legends and myths, if we let it rise for the higher soul of the present. Truth lives at all times and expresses itself in the most various forms. If we penetrate into this truth, we understand how the peoples and times speak in these single forms, and we hear it echoing how in the manifold tones the one truth announces itself to all peoples, to all human beings.

Parsifal and Lohengrin

https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA054/English/RSA2014/19060329p01.html

Berlin

29 Mar 1906

GA054-18

This is the 19th of 22 lectures given by Rudolf Steiner at Berlin, and dates from October, 1905 through May of 1906. The title of these lectures are: Riddles of the World and Anthroposophy , in German the title is: Die Weltraetsel und die Anthroposophie . This lecture, which is also known as The Easter Festival , was translated from a shorthand report, unrevised by the lecturer, by an unknown translator. Goethe has in various ways expressed a certain feeling he has often had, he says: When I observe the inconsequence of human passions, desires and actions, I experience the strongest impulse to turn to nature and seek support against the structure of her consequence and logic. — The arrangement of our festivals rests upon the endeavour of humanity since the earliest day to raise their eyes from the chaotic life of human desires, impulses and actions to the great consequential facts of all powerful nature. It is admirable, how well the big festivals are directly related to corresponding phenomena of nature. One such is the Easter festival, representing for the Christian a commemoration of his Redeemer's resurrection, and was earlier celebrated as the awakening of something of especial importance for mankind. We look back to ancient Egypt with its Osiris-Isis-Horus cult expressing the uninterrupted rejuvenation of eternal nature. We then consider Greece, and find there a festival in honour of the God bacchus — a spring festival, connected in one way or another with the awakening of nature in spring. In India we have a spring festival dedicated to Vishnu. The Godhead of the Brahman is divided into three aspects — Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva. Brahman is rightly called the Great Architect of the universe bringing thereinto order and harmony. Vishnu is described as a kind of redeemer, awakener of slumbering life, rescuer, and Shiva is he who sanctifies and elevates the life awakened by Vishnu to the highest possible perfection. A sort of festival was also dedicated to Vishnu. It is said he falls into a sleep at the time of the year when we celebrate Christmas, to awake again at Easter. Those calling themselves his servants celebrate the entire intervening time in a most significant manner: they abstain from certain foods and drinks, and also meat. In that way they prepare themselves for gaining an understanding of the meaning involved when, at the Vishnu-festival, the resurrection is celebrated, — the awakening of entire Nature. The Christmas festival also has a significant relation to great natural phenomena — the power of the Sun becomes weaker, days shorter, and also that the Sun radiates more heat from Christmas onwards, so that Christmas becomes the festival of the reborn Sun. In this sense the Winter festival was felt by Christians. When Christianity, in the 6th and 7th centuries, wished to connect itself with ancient, holy events, the birth of Christ was transformed to the day on which the Sun again rose to a higher altitude. The spiritual significance of the World redeemer was brought into revelation with the physical Sun and awakening, resurrected life. The Easter festival of spring also is brought into connection — as is usual with other festivals — certain solar phenomenon, one coming into expression even in common custom. During the first Christian century the symbol of Christianity was the Cross, at the foot of which is the lamb. Lamb and Ram are synonymous. During the time when Christianity was in preparation, the Sun appeared in the constellation of the Ram or Lamb. The Sun passes through the signs of the Zodiac; each year the Sun advances some distance. About 600-700 years before Christ the Sun had advanced into this zodiacal sign. For 2500 years it advances through it. Before that the sun was in the constellation Taurus — Bull. In those days the nations celebrated events which appeared significant to them in connection with human evolution through the Bull, because the Sun occupied that sign or constellation. As the Sun enters the sign of Aries — Ram or Lamb — the myths and legends the people contained references to the Ram as something significant. The Ram's skin brings Jason across from Kolchis. The Christ Jesus speaks of himself as the Lamb of God, and during the early period of Christianity is symbolised by the Lamb at the foot of the Cross. Thus can Easter be brought into relation with the constellation of the Ram or Lamb, and be considered the festival of the Redeemer's resurrection, because he summons everything to a new life after the death of Winter. With these characteristics only in your mind, the two festivals Christmas and Easter seem rather similar, for the Sun has gained more power since its own festival of resurrection — the Christmas festival; therefore something more should be expressed by Easter. The festival of Easter in its deepest meaning will always be felt to be the greatest festival of the greatest mystery humanity — not merely as a sort of nature-festivity, related to the Sun, but essentially something more; It is indicated in the Christian meaning of resurrection after death . Also in the awakening of Vishnu the awakening after death is indicated. The awakening of Vishnu falls into the period in which the Sun in winter resumes its ascent, and the festival of Easter is a continuation of that ascending solar power which commenced at the festival of Christmas. We must look into the mysteries of human nature very deeply if we would understand the experiences of the old initiates when trying outwardly to express the essentials of the festival of Easter. Man appears as a dual being, connecting a psycho-spiritual essentiality on one side with a physical substantiality on the other. The physical part is convergence of all other natural phenomena in the environment of man; they all appear as a delicate extract in human nature. Paracelsus significantly describes man as a confluence of all outside nature which is like letters of which man forms the word. The sublimest wisdom lies in his organisation; physically he is a temple of the soul. All the laws we can observe in the lifeless stone, the living plant, the animal as subject of pleasure or pain, all these are compounded together in man: in wisdom they are there fused into a unity. When we contemplate the wonderful structure of the human brain with its countless number of cells working together so that all the thoughts and feelings of man may be expressed — everything that, in one way or another, affects the soul — we realise the all-ruling wisdom in the construction of his physical body. When we look out upon the entire outer world we perceive crystallised wisdom. And if we would penetrate all the laws of our surrounding world with our perceptive faculties and then look back upon man, we see concentrated in him the whole of nature, as a microcosm in a macrocosm. It was in this sense that Schiller said to Goethe: “You take into consideration the whole of nature in order to gain light concerning the detail. In the totality you seek the explanation for the individual. From the simple organism you pass step by step to the more complex, so to finally arrive at the most complex of all — man — and construct him genetically from the materials of the all-embracing structure or Nature.” It is by means that marvel of construction the human body — that the soul can direct her eye upon her environment. Through the senses the psychic man observes the world around him, seeking slowly and laboriously — to fathom the wisdom by which it has been built. Let us consider an as yet very undeveloped human being from the following point of view: — his body is the most reasonable creation possible; it is a concentration of the entire Divine reason. But in it resides a very immature soul incapable of developing even an initial thought for the comprehension of the mysterious power ruling in the heart, brain or blood. Very gradually this soul develops to an understanding of the forces which have worked in the construction of this human body. But upon it is impressed the soul of a remote past; man stands there as the crown of creation. Aeons had to pass away before cosmic wisdom was united within that human body. But in the soul of the undeveloped man the cosmic wisdom first begins to grow. At first she barely dreams of the profound thoughts of the universal spirit — the architect of the human being.Yet, everything lying within man in a state of sleep — the psycho-spiritual constitution will in future be understood by man. Cosmic thought has worked through countless ages, — worked creatively in nature in order ultimately to build the crown of its agelong activity — the human body. In it slumbers the cosmic wisdom, so as to recognise itself in the human soul, to construct in the human being an eye with which to perceive itself. Cosmic wisdom without, — cosmic wisdom within — operative in the present as in the past — operative far into a future whose sublimity may only be surmised. The most profound human emotions are evoked when we thus ponder the past and future. When the soul begins to understand the wonder constructed by the wisdom of the cosmos — when she attains thoughtful clarity and illumined knowledge then the sun may represent the most glorious symbol of this inner awakening which opens for the soul the outer world through the medium of the senses. Man receives the light because the sun illuminates objects. What man sees in the outer world is the reflected sunlight. The sun awakens in the soul the power to perceive the outer world. The awakening sun-soul in man, beginning to discover; cosmic thought in the seasons of the year, recognises in the rising sun her liberator. When the sun again begins to ascend in the heavens and the days lengthen, the soul looks towards the sun, saying: To you I owe the possibility of seeing cosmic thought spread out in my environment — cosmic thought that sleeps in me as in all else. — Then man looks upon his earlier existence — the ages preceding his groping search for the cosmic thought. Man is indeed very, very much older than his senses. Spiritual investigation enables us to arrive at the point of time when the senses are only beginning their development, — when they are at their weakest. At that time the senses were not yet the doors through which the soul could perceive her surroundings. Shopenhauer realised this fact and described the turning-point where man became able to use his sense perceptions in the world. That is his meaning, when he says:: The visible world came into being only when an eye existed with which to perceive it. — The sun formed the eye — light created light. Formerly, before any such outer vision existed, man possessed an inner light. In the remote past of human evolution no exterior object stimulated man to outer perception, but from his inner self arose imaginations, ideas, the primitive vision was a vision in the astral light. Humanity possessed a dull, dim clairvoyance. In the Germanic world of the Gods man could also perceive the Gods through a sort of dim, misty astral light. But it gradually became more dim and dark and slowly vanished; It became extinguished by the fierce light or the physical sun which appeared in the heavens and the physical world it illuminated. So the astral vision of man receded, declined. When man looks to the future, it becomes clear that this astral sight must return upon a higher level; all that which has become extinguished by physical vision, must again live, so that a fully conscious clairvoyance may be developed in mankind. To the normal vision of day will be added a still brighter and more luminant human life in the light of the future. To physical vision will come vision in the astral light. The leaders of humanity are those individualities whose renunciations during earth-life enabled them to experience — before death — the state of consciousness called “passing through the portals of death”. This contains all those experiences which later will be the possession of all humanity when they have evolved astral perception which makes visible the psychic and spiritual. This making visible of the psycho-spiritual environment was always called by the initiate the “awakening”, “resurrection”, “spiritual rebirth” — giving to man — a supplement to his gifts of the physical senses, the senses of the Spirit. He celebrates an inner Easter festival who discerns within him the awakening of the new astral vision. So we can understand why this spring festival is related to symbolic ideas such as death and resurrection. In man, the astral light is “dead”. It sleeps. But it will again be resurrected in man. Easter is the festival indicating this future awakening of this astral light. The sleep of Vishnu begins at the Christmas time when the astral light sank into sleep and physical light awoke. When man has advanced sufficiently far to renounce the personal, the astral light re-awakens in him; he can celebrate the feast of Easter, — Vishnu can again awaken in his soul. In cosmic spiritual perception the Easter festival is not connected with the awakening of the sun only, but with the reappearance of the world of plant life in the spring also. As the seed is laid into the soil and there decays in order to awaken to a new life, so had the Astral light to sink into sleep in the human body so that it may be rejuvenated. The symbol of Easter is the seed which sacrifices itself so that a new plant may arise. It is the sacrifice of one phase of nature for the sake of creating a new one. Sacrifice and becoming (germination of the new) — these two are intimately linked together in the Easter festival. Richard Wagner felt this thought profoundly. When he lived in a villa on the banks of the lake at Zurich in 1887 and looked out upon awaking nature, his thoughts concerning it gave rise to others — the deceased and resurrected World saviour, the Christ Jesus, and the thought of Parzifal seeing the Holy of Holies in the soul. All leaders of mankind, who were aware of how the higher spiritual life of man arises out of his lower nature, have comprehended the significance of Easter. Dante therefore described his awakening — in his Divine Comedia — as taking place on Good Friday. That is clear at the very beginning of the poem. Dante experienced his sublime vision in the 35th year of his life; that is the middle of a normal human life. So he reckons 35 years for the development of man's physical perceptive powers; till then he continues absorbing new physical experiences. After that, man is sufficiently matured for spiritual experience to augment the physical; he is ripe for spiritual perception. When the growing, evolving physical powers in man are united, the time is ripe for the awakening of the spiritual. For that rise Dante's vision falls into the period of the Easter festival. A certain contradiction has been said to exist between the Christian conception of Easter and the idea of Karma inherent in Spiritual Science. Certainly, Karma and redemption through the Son of man do appear to oppose one another. This state of indecision is common with people who know little of the basic idea of this anthroposophical thought — a paradox seemingly existing in the simultaneous acceptance of salvation through Christ Jesus and the idea of Karma. Such people say: the ideas of a redeeming God contradicts self redemption through Karma. They fail to understand, in the true sense, the Easter of redemption, nor can they grasp the idea of Karmic justice. It would be wrong to withhold aid from someone suffering by saying: “You yourself are the cause of the trouble,” refuse him help because it must work itself out. That is a misunderstanding of Karma. Karma, to the contrary, says to you: “Help him, who suffers, for you exist to help”. You help to improve the credit balance of the Karmic account of necessity when aiding your fellow man. You give him the opportunity and the strength to carry his Karma; and you, to that extent, are a redeemer from evil . In a similar way, instead of helping the single individual, one can come to the assistance of a whole group or nation of man. When a mighty individuality like that of the Christ Jesus comes to the aid of entire humanity, it is his sacrifice in death which permeates the Karma of mankind. He helped to carry the Karma of the whole of humanity, and we may be quite sure that redemption through Christ Jesus was absorbed and assimilated by the totality of human Karma. The fundamental significance of the resurrection and redemption-concept will be made really comprehensible only through Spiritual Science. A Christianity of the future will unite Karma with redemption. Because cause and effect are complementary in the spiritual world, this great act of sacrifice must also have its effect upon human life. Upon these thoughts of the Easter festival also does Spiritual Science have a deepening effect. The thought of Easter which appears to be written in the stars and which we believe to (we) read in them, is fundamentally deepened by Spiritual Science. We also see the profound meaning of the Easter-concept in the ascendance of the spirit about to be realised in the future. At present, mankind exists amidst inharmonious, disordered conditions. But man knows how the world has emerged from chaos, and that out of his chaotic inner being harmony will ultimately arise. Like the regular paths of the planets round the sun, so will the inner saviour of mankind arise, — herald and creator of unity and harmony amid all disharmony. All humanity shall be reminded by the Easter festival of the resurrection of the spirit from the present obscurity of human nature.

Easter

https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA054/English/Singles/19060412p01.html

Berlin

12 Apr 1906

GA054-19

Today, I would like to speak again to you about inner development. Those who occasionally visit these talks remember that I have already given various statements about this object. Hence, I only touch what has already been discussed earlier and add what exceeds this. I have talked repeatedly about the phenomena of the higher worlds, and the question immediately suggests itself, how do we come to such knowledge? — The way to this knowledge is not so easy that it can be described in one or two hours even in quite superficial way. Nevertheless, I have to drop a hint now and again how one has to imagine this development. You all know that we talk here not only about the usual physical world, but also about the worlds of soul and spirit that we got to know as astral world and devachan. The human being lives in these worlds. He does not belong to one, but to three worlds. He still belongs to much more worlds, but the knowledge of still higher worlds exceeds the usual cognitive capacities of the human being so much that one can talk about these worlds only with difficulty. The question that we must put to ourselves is, how does the human being penetrate up to the astral and spiritual worlds? — These are the worlds in which he lives here, indeed, about which he knows, however, nothing, at first, in which he lives if he does no longer have a sensuous body. Everything that lives as sensuous world round us can carry no weight for us. However, then the other worlds that are attained by higher knowledge have a higher significance to us. One often asks, to which end does the human being need, actually, the knowledge of other worlds than that in which he lives? If he gives his fellow man a treat, to what end does he need to look for higher worlds? — This is an objection that must be recognised very soon as invalid. Those forces, facts, and beings that the human being meets in the higher worlds are not only efficient in these worlds but also in our physical world. For the things are not made by themselves, they have come about by the forces of the spiritual world. We also recognise ourselves only cursorily if we recognise ourselves only by the senses. We perceive with the senses only what happens between birth and death. With the birth of the human being, a whole sum of dispositions and abilities enter the world. Only a superficial judgement can say that the human being should begin with his whole world of dispositions only at the moment of birth or of the embryonic development. In occultism, which deals with the worlds unknown to the senses, one speaks of the fact that the usual human being lacks the ability to discriminate the most significant facts. He does not observe intensely enough how clumsily the human being enters the world, how he learns more and more to use his only as rudiments existing organs of the spiritual life. There we see the one who is very little able to use the organs of his mind, whereas the other controls not only his whole limbs in a quite special way, but also learns to use his cerebral tools quite specially. Just the materialistic thinker would have to say, I believe in the significance of the human organs; however, why do these organs answer to the feelings and sensations of the one human being, and to the feelings and sensations of the other one? Everybody admits that a hammer, which the human being uses for any reasonable performance, must have come about by a reasonable work of thought at first. Everybody believes that concerning the hammer. The materialistic thinker does not believe that concerning the body, the living beings generally. Hence, someone who studies the miraculous constructions of the human brain or heart can never believe that all these things could come about by chance, by any spiritless events. However, these things present themselves with every person in another way than it can be found with the animals. All animals are copies of a general pattern, the particular differences come less into consideration. The word “individuality” makes this difference clear to us at once. Because every human being is an individuality, he comes much more into consideration. Every human being, every individuality prepares his body in his way. For this body has to fit the special predisposition of every human being. When he enters his existence with birth, he existed already spiritually, and he himself has prepared the organs for his individual use, not completely, because he is also an animal creature, but the higher he develops, the more he also controls the construction of his own organs. One could at most believe that a human being — completely existing on the lowest level — has begun at his birth, However, no reasonable thinker can suppose that a thinking being was not yet there before his birth. Everybody can carry out the performances with the hammer; however, nobody is able to do the performances of the brain of the fellow man. Hence, the human being is not understandable without assuming that he exceeds birth and death, but only if one recognises the forces that have prepared the organs of the human thinking already before. The rise to the astral and the spiritual worlds is connected for the single human being with certain difficulties, with renunciations to which he has to submit himself, and with certain dangers. He is accustomed to the world of the senses, but to the other worlds, he is not so accustomed. Above all, we have to realise that the causes of many matters that remain invisible in the world become clear to us in the higher worlds. The human being is thereby surprised, upset. The exercises by which he wants to advance strain him in certain ways too. Because there are dangers, some people say that one can also come to the highest knowledge of the divine world forces if one knows nothing about these spiritual and astral forces concealed behind the sensuous world. Today, one almost argues that the human being can also rise to the divine knowledge without passing the worlds first, which separate him from the highest of all. Only someone can argue in such a way who has no real idea of the higher worlds. A kind of higher knowledge that is also often called theosophical is nothing else than a quite usual knowledge of the human lower self, and if he declares his lower self as his divine ever so much, he finds nothing but his lower self. Only outside himself, the human being finds his higher self, because we are born out of the external world. Some spiritual movements want to divert the human being from the external world; one should look for the higher self only in oneself. This point of view can never lead to a real knowledge; it is unchristian and antichristian at the same time. Only in the orientation to the world, which surrounds us, we find our higher self. We must seek for the god in the invisible worlds and in all external creatures, facts, and processes. If anybody says to us, deny the external world, this external matter does not exist, he denies the divine world; and there is for a big perspective no worse knowledge than turning away from the outside world. Just the deepening in the outside world leads to higher knowledge. Everything physical dries out, if it is raised a little above the earth, everything mental dries out, if it is raised a little above the spiritual world. The human being has to live in the world with the attitude that he belongs to it as the hand to the body. This attitude really leads to higher development. Ask your own inside where the sense of a human being is located. Just as little the human being can turn away from the outside world, just as little the sense of the human being is enclosed in the skin. He belongs to the higher self of the world. While we investigate the higher self of the world, we investigate our own higher selves. It is not possible to agitate for occultism. Only someone who really wants to fulfil the conditions of the higher development must also pledge himself to explain what occultism prescribes for such high development. Hence, the real occult direction of theosophy should not be confused with that which one often calls theosophy externally. It concerns methods proved for centuries. It is left to the free will of every human being when he wants to reach the goal; hence, one cannot object that he is an outsider. The higher development to which every human being can reach takes place slowly and gradually. He lives always in the visible world. You all live not only in the sensuous world, but mental and spiritual forces and events surround you here. These spiritual and mental worlds are there for someone whose spiritual and mental eye is opened. The methods are available to open the spiritual and mental eye of the human being generally. Then he lives only for these worlds; for it is something different to live in these worlds and to perceive in these worlds. The human being lives also in these worlds at night, but he does not perceive them because he still lacks the organs. The higher development lies in the fact that the soul gets organs and thereby learns to perceive. At first, any higher recognising arises at night. While for the only sensually perceiving human being darkness spreads at night, the darkness is illuminated for the mentally perceiving one. There is a light, which can illuminate the world, even if no sun is there, which does not make the table discernible, however, the mental facts. This is the astral light. If you have soul organs, your soul is not blind, and then the human soul can see the astral light where the eyes saw the figure before. The astral light illuminates the soul as the sunlight illuminates the body during the day. Everything that should be developed in the human being exists as a rudiment in him, as well as the human embryo has rudiments of eyes and ears, the rudiments of clairvoyance are in the soul. However, as the human embryo cannot yet see the physical world, the spiritual and mental rudiments must also be developed in the human being. He is an embryo in the mental world now, actually. What does not see the mental and spiritual will see it later. There the consideration begins, what does this soul do during sleep? — The soul is not passive there, even if it does not see. The forces of the physical human being wear themselves out in the course of the day, but the human soul works during sleep on the recovery of the physical forces. Because the soul is occupied with itself, it has no free strength at its disposal to develop organs anew. However, these forces must pay to form something new; thereby something is taken away from the human body. The human spirit has built up his physical body gradually; the soul forms the tools gradually, which the human being uses. The soul works in the same way if the physical body is worn out. During sleep, it fixes everything again. If you use the forces of sleep different, you must compensate it. The harmony of the forces can substitute everything that gets lost in the struggle of the forces. Because the human being feels, thinks, and wills erratically today, where he works perpetually, where he follows any intention, in the job, with every sensation, his forces wear out due to this struggle. If then he intends to take away certain soul forces from his body, he must atone for them with certain performances taking place harmoniously. Hence, the inner development provides particular virtues to start with, so that the strength that is taken away from the body is replaced by rhythm. These virtues are: control of thoughts and actions, impartiality, endurance, equanimity, trust in the whole surroundings. Today, the human being is given away to any idea; however, he must be someone who controls his thoughts. Then he gets rhythm in himself. To accomplish actions from own initiative, to decide to act in such a way that the action is his very own, this produces such a calmness in him that is necessary for the soul. Endurance, standing firmly and certainly, enduring pain, grief, and joy. Further, on, the human being must acquire the biggest impartiality. He is worn out by nothing more than, if he approaches the negative aspects of the things. This causes disharmony and at the same time, he is exhausted. A Persian legend is authoritative that reports to us how Christ Jesus and his disciples once saw a rotting dead dog lying by the wayside. The disciples asked the master not to waste his time with the dog, the animal were too ugly. However, Christ looked at the dog and said which nice teeth the animal has. He looked here for the beautiful in the ugly thing. Any affirmation animates, any negation exhausts and kills. Not only because a moral strength belongs to it to turn to the positive side of a thing, but also because any affirmation animates and makes forces of the soul free and certain. In such an age like ours, nervousness also prevails. Nervousness and negative criticism belong together. The provided virtues are there to release higher forces for the human being. Such virtues, which should make the lower life rhythmical, give the soul forces, so that it can dedicate itself to the higher development. This inner development proceeds completely quietly. I would like to tell some of the matters, which still belong to it. These matters were once the secret of the occult schools, but now they are informed because of certain reasons. If a human being has prepared his soul by such exercises, he is referred to any teacher whom he will find when he should find him. Then he goes through different stages of learning and must use the forces that he has released for the higher soul life. The first thing is that a single opinion is worth nothing at all. The human being as an advanced pupil has thoroughly to overcome his personal opinion, the expression: I believe this or that about that. However, the advanced pupil must understand not only the foolishness of the materialist, but also go through the good reasons in himself, which the materialist can have for himself to understand how somebody could get around to becoming a materialist. He will find that all human beings where they say yes to the things, that is where they recognise the positive side, are mostly right; where they say no, that begins which the advanced pupil must learn to overcome. He must have got to know the reasons and the content of any worldview not only logically, but he must also have lived with it. He must put himself in the soul of any sceptic. The higher forces do not awake unless the pupil does know what can be argued against anything. Who has gone through this also rouses forces in his soul, which come definitely. He must then overcome any superstition; not only the superstition of the African fetishist, but also that of the sophisticated European. Everybody knows the effects of hypnosis. Our European professors, for example, Wundt (Wilhelm W., 1832-1920, physician, physiologist, and philosopher), explained hypnotism saying that certain cerebral parts were not well supplied with blood. However, this is nothing else than the superstition of the African. In this way, you could disprove all materialistic theories that speak of certain cerebral parts only. Even if Haeckel is a great naturalist, it must be clear to everybody that that which this naturalist asserts about these matters is the purest superstition. The pupil must overcome all forms of superstition. The third is the knowledge of the illusion of the personal self, while the human being persuades himself that he can find the higher life in himself. If he has reached this, he is ripe for the second stage. He has to go through the illusion of the personal self; he must recognise its authorisation to get rid of it in so doing. The next is that everything must become a symbol to him, “All that is transitory is only a symbol” (Faust II) . One has to regard anything as a metaphor, a simile of that which it expresses. The single flower, even the single human being must become a metaphor for him; then he feels forces roused in his soul. — If he has learnt for a while to regard the things as metaphors, then he has to learn that the human being is a small world that nothing is in him that does not correspond to the world outdoors. A deep sense is in the Germanic mythology where we are told that from the giant Ymir the whole world is formed. He must get to know how every organ is connected with the world, and then he is able to proportion his own organism. Walking through the world, he is not aware how his organs are connected with the world. He has to learn this. The Eastern occultist even teaches a quite special sitting posture, so that the pupil is also externally in a right relation to the world. Further, on, he has then to learn — this may only be mentioned here — to regulate something consciously that nature regulates, otherwise, in him without his aware assistance. This is the respiratory system at first. If the human being wants to develop higher, his breathing has to become adequate to the big developmental processes. In a strictly prescribed way, he has to inhale, to hold his breath, and to exhale. If the human being regulates his breathing from the spirit, he spiritualises his breath, his life air. With it, he rises from hatha yoga to raja yoga, the royal yoga. Then the highest comes, the exercises of meditation and contemplation, the life of the human being within himself. If he has prepared himself and has practiced in such a way, if he has made his life rhythmic, he is completely ripe for leading an inner life. There are three stages of meditation. It can be organically integrated in the rhythmic respiratory process. At first, he has to start from the sensory world, so that he can distract himself from the external world and from its various external impressions. Taking in hand his whole attention independently helps him in the higher development. If he is able to master his attention in such a way, he must be able to become engrossed completely in the object of his attention, to add nothing else; only one thought must live in him. It is the best if his teacher gives him particular tasks according to his individuality. If he has reached that, he is not distracted if a gun fires a bullet beside him. Then he has to leave the object of his reflection, but to maintain the activity. This brings him in the highest worlds. If he accomplishes this, he attains that condition, which occultism calls dhyana, after he has thought through the object, however, has then dropped it, and lives then in the activity only. He can leave this condition immediately; then his inner eye awakes. He learns to practice the forces of his thinking using external objects. However, he does not come fairly far; he reaches a world, which looks like a kind of skeleton of the higher world. Now, he has to develop a feeling of particular intensity from the object, again excluding all others. Thus, he must be able to feel something quite certain if he has a crystal in his hand; he must feel something if he has an octahedron in his hand. He gets a feeling that one can have towards the lifeless world. We compare the lifeless rock to the living, blood-filled being and say to ourselves, this has sensuousness; however, the water-clear rock is without desire. If I am able to feel how the stone left its desire, how it has become pure and chaste, and If I know how to become engrossed in this feeling, so that the world dies around me and If I let only this feeling live in me — may it be the feeling from the crystal, from the animal, or the human being, and If I can then leave the object, and go back in the same way as just now and come into the state of dhyana, Then I notice that the feeling is not only a feeling, but that it starts becoming light, that feeling starts becoming a light phenomenon. In such a way, that appears which one perceives as a form of thought that one should better call a form of feeling. These are single concepts I wanted to give you today. There have always been teachers who gave the single individuality instructions, tasks suitable for him. Any human being has his own name in the spiritual world; he is even more individual in it than in the physical world, and this own individuality must be taken into consideration carefully, especially in the higher stages concerning higher development. Hence, only a teacher can give what is necessary. I have today given the first steps of that which one calls recognising the self. If the human being learns to feel the objects round himself, and the objects take on colours, which become pictures, then he sees his world of feelings round himself. He must face himself objectively, and then he crosses the threshold where he perceives himself with all that which he is and not yet is. The first guardian of the threshold stands there before us who shows us, thou art that! Anybody must learn to recognise himself, because he gets world knowledge by self-knowledge. However, nobody is allowed to take self-knowledge for knowledge of god. Hence, one could read at the gate of the Delphic temple, recognise yourself (gnothi seauton)! If one has attained self-knowledge, one enters the innermost sanctum of the world where the divine forces prevail and spiritual knowledge is given. If the own inside feels connected with the world inside where one can only speak of inner development, if the human being approaches this knowledge worthily and not in frivolous way or with base motives, then he attains it. He gets what can develop his humanity more and more and makes him a worthier member in the development of humanity. However, nobody has to strive for higher knowledge only on his own. The human being shall develop, increase his forces, and collect knowledge only to become a servant of the whole universe.

Inner Development

https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA054/English/RSA2014/19060419p01.html

Berlin

19 Apr 1906

GA054-20

Indeed, it is attractive to become engrossed in the past and to look around among the great spirits who preceded us. However, with the personality about which we want to speak today quite another matter than the charm of historical consideration comes into question as point of view. It rather matters with Paracelsus (Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim, 1493-1541, physician, occultist) that he can give the human beings very much still today. Just a movement of the spiritual investigation of matters as spiritual science is particularly suitable to unearth the treasure, the spirit of knowledge, the investigation, and enlightenment of nature, which is hidden with Paracelsus. Today, indeed, modern research turns more or less also to spirits like Jacob Boehme, Paracelsus, and others of the end of the Middle Ages. However, the approach of our present science is so different from the spirit, the point of view of a man like Paracelsus that it cannot do justice to him in the true sense of the word. For Paracelsus has to be understood in another way than it normally happens if one becomes engrossed in a spirit of the past. One has to develop a living feeling of the object and the direction of thinking to which he dedicated himself. This is in certain respect such a deepening in the spiritual life, in particular in the spiritual forces and beings that form the basis of nature, and only the spiritual-scientific approach does this. Paracelsus already belongs to an interesting time. It was the time from 1493 to 1541 in which he lived that was either just over or was still right in the middle of the emergence of the bourgeoisie. This exerted a significant influence on the entire spiritual life. Two classes only had the greatest say concerning the spiritual life before the emergence of the bourgeoisie: nobility and clergy. After bourgeoisie had emerged, the intellectual culture was based more on the single personality and its efficiency. Before, the blood relationship, the clanship had a say within the nobility in the worth and the social position of the human being, on the one side, and, on the other side, the whole power and intellectual culture of the church supported the priests. It stood as a whole behind the single personality. Only in the time of the bourgeoisie, the performance of the single was based on the personal efficiency. Hence, everything that meets us in this time of the ending Middle Ages, the emerging bourgeoisie, gets a personal character and the personality has to fight for himself much more. We could quote many of such personalities who had to use their very own forces at that time. One of the strangest and most interesting personalities is just Paracelsus. Other things still came into consideration in his lifetime too. This has been just in the time when the scene of the peoples increased enormously when the big discoveries of distant countries were done, in the time when the just invented art of printing pointed the spiritual life to quite different directions and currents than it was once the case. All that delivers the basic tableau, so to speak, from which this personality of Theophrastus Paracelsus emerges. To all that is to be added that we are concerned with a seldom-prominent person, with a person of revolutionary character in the spiritual sense. He was a person who was aware of that which was performed once in the realms of the spiritual life and how much his own work contrasted with it. In order to understand Paracelsus, one must look at the basic character of his work as a doctor and as a philosopher, and grasp him as a theosophist, as he combined these both soul characters with each other. This personality was uniform. With brilliant look, he tried to grasp the construction of the world edifice. His surprised sight looked up at the secrets of the starry heaven, became engrossed in the construction of the earth and in particular in the construction of the human being himself. This brilliant sight penetrated also into the secrets of the spiritual life. He was also a theosophist, while he tried to enclose the nature of the astronomical knowledge and at the same time the nature of anthropology, the doctrine of the human being in connection with the doctrine of all living beings. Nothing was mere theory in him, everything was immediate in such a way that it was bent on practise, that he wanted to use all that he knew for the welfare, the spiritual and physical health of the human being. This gives his work, his thinking, and investigations the big, immense unity. This makes him appear as sharply carved from one single piece of wood. Thus, he stands before us as an original, elementary personality. There were two schools for him in the field with which he was mainly concerned, with the medical art. The one went back to the old Greek physician Hippocrates (~460-370 B.C.), the other to Galenus (129-200 or 216 A.D., physician, philosopher). The father of medicine, Hippocrates, stood before him like a big ideal. The modern scholar can cope neither with that which that Greek was, nor with that which Paracelsus saw in him. Indeed, it seems rather problematic today if we hear that this medicine differentiated four humours in the human being: black bile, white or yellow bile, blood and phlegm, which were said to have a certain relation to earth, water, air and fire. These should be components of the human nature. Of course, the modern naturalist regards as a childish point of view, which a detailed knowledge had to overcome in the course of time. He does not anticipate that it depends, nevertheless, still on anything else. That is why the modern academic view understands Paracelsus so exceptionally. He did not at all understand these four members of the human nature as usual physical humours and. The naturalist of that old time regarded the substances with which the human body builds itself up from the physical, sense-perceptible substances, only as the external expression of something spiritual, of the real builder of this external body. In spiritual-scientific talks, we have often spoken about this builder of the human body. We have spoken about the etheric body, a fine body, forming the basis of the physical body and all its manifold materials, substances and humours. This etheric body or life body contains the forces to build up the physical body. It is in such a way that this etheric body builds up any. Sensuous research does not suffice to study this etheric body; something else belongs to it, namely intuition, spiritual research. If one uses sensuous expressions of that which is considered for this spiritual research, like black, white, yellow, green et cetera, one only means metaphors of something that is behind. It is quite wrong if one identifies them with our material things. The way in which the old doctors approached the ill human beings in the medical centres was another. It was the intuitive view, which they directed not to the physical, but to the finer, the ethereal underlying the physical. One started out from the idea: if anything is ill, it is less crucial, which external changes are discernible, but what has caused them. The disorder in the external physical body corresponds to the disorder in the etheric body. The old doctors recognised how the etheric body changes in the ill organism, and they were out to cure that force, which is behind the physical body as the sculptor. If I may express myself somewhat roughly, one can say, if anybody has fallen ill with the stomach, he suffers not from the stomach, but from the finer body the expression of which the illness only is. Paracelsus had taken up the spirit of such an intuitive medicine in himself. However, the Roman doctor Galenus worked everywhere like an authority. Indeed, he bases his medicine on these old principles, and if one reads Galenus externally, one gets the idea: what does Paracelsus really intend fighting in such a way against Galenus and taking the older medicine under his wings? Is it not the same? — It could almost seem that way, however, it is not in such a way. For Galenus externalised medicine while he materialised the originally spiritual view. The pupils of Galenus already understood by that which was once meant intuitively, as something externally material. Instead of using the intuitive view, they researched only in the matter, speculated, invented theories. The moral view had got lost. Paracelsus opposes this method, this loss of the intuitive view. He wanted to go back; he wanted to find the means to cure the human beings from the knowledge of the big nature. Therefore, all that was antipathetic to him, which prevailed in those days officially as medicine. He did not want to take as basis that which one can read in the books, but wanted to open the fundamental book, the big book of nature. Everything that had emerged gradually as medicine was spun out from a completely deduced speculation, from a research that knew nothing of the original spiritual view. There one could no longer see the connection between a medicament and an illness because one just did no longer behold what is behind the body because one looked only materially at everything. This caused that Paracelsus said, the light of nature should shine again. It brought him into a sharp conflict with the medicine of his time. Such a great insight, as he had it, his reasonable nature that grasped the big connection with the universe gave him the intensive self-confidence, which has something lovely, in the way in which he behaved towards those who practised science in generally accepted way at that time. However, the pharmacology of that time bears big analogy to that of today, with the difference that our time has no Paracelsus in the medical field. However, confusion and insecurity were almost the same as they are today. This reminds very well of that old time of Paracelsus. If we pursue medicine today, we see how a remedy is invented and then is regarded and rejected as something noxious after five years, how so and so many people are examined, but the big view of the coherence of the human being with nature has completely got lost. That reminds rather well of the time of Paracelsus. It is true that most people do not anticipate that they are again embedded in such a time and that the belief in authority has such an immense power just in this field. One struggles against the belief in authority on one side, and one considers oneself superior campaigning against the old superstition that sends people to Lourdes. One may be right with it, but one does not anticipate that only the form of superstition has changed and that superstition becomes hardly smaller if one sends anybody to Wiesbaden (spa town) and other places. One can see in it something similar as it existed with Paracelsus and his time when one was inclined to oppose the conventional. Paracelsus said, “As I take the four for me, so you have to take them also and to follow me and I have not to follow you, you have to follow me. Follow me, you Avicenna (~980-1037, Persian polymath), Galenus, Rasis (854-927, Persian polymath), Montagnana, Mesue (~777-857, Assyrian physician) and all those from Paris, from Cologne, from Vienna and from the regions of the Danube and Rhine rivers, from the islands, from Italy, from Dalmatia,Sarmatia, Athens, you Greeks, you Arabs, you Israelites, follow me, I do not follow you. I become the monarch and the empire will be mine, and I lead the empire and gird your loins.” That as a characteristic and expression of his personal strength. He believed to owe this strength to his original relationship with the secrets of nature. She expressed herself for Paracelsus in such a way that he saw not only what he saw with his eyes, but with his being, which combined with nature. He undertook big journeys. He did not want to listen to anything scientific from the chairs, but from the dark intuitiveness of the simple people outdoors who had not yet cut the band of feeling with nature; he wanted to learn from them. I would like to bring his soul condition to your mind by a comparison. It is rather nice to see how the animals know instinctively for sure in the field what they have to graze and what they have to leave what serves them for their welfare and what would become detrimental to them. This is based on the relationship of the being with its environment. This relationship exists in the soul forces and is able to choose what is good and what is not good. The being breaks free from nature by the intellect and speculation. It is no superstition, if one says that the simple human being who lives in the countryside has still something of the original forces, which lead the animal to its food instinctively, that this relationship still delivers something of the knowledge how the single herb, how the single stone works on the human being. This feeling is different from the usual knowledge, which, however, is no longer so important for him. Hence, one finds with a human being, who has not yet gone through education, an original certainty what is useful for him within nature. Paracelsus feels related to this original feeling for nature. He emphasises repeatedly that those people are not the right ones who wander the world in such a way that they travel around the world in carriages and apart from the immediate contact with the rural population. Paracelsus travelled differently. He listened to that which the simple man could say to him. The instinct of the simple man became to him the intuition of the ingenious human being. He did not cut the connection between nature and the original intuitive force in the human being. He expresses this in such a way: “By nature I am not spun subtly, it is also not the way of life in my country to acquire something with silk spinning. We are not bred with figs, nor with mead, nor with wheat bread, but with cheese, milk, and oat bread. That cannot make subtle fellows because one is dependent on that which one has got as adolescent. Such a human being is almost rude compared to the subtle men feeling superior, to superfine people, and to those who have grown up in soft clothes and in boudoirs, whereas we grow up in fir cones, therefore, we do not well understand each other.” He knew that he always walked on his journeys through Poland, Hungary to Turkey in the sun, not only in the sun of the physical world, but also in the spiritual sun. What distinguishes Paracelsus is the uniform sight in the spiritual. Hence, the human being is to him not the human being in whom one slips in with the sensory examination, but he is connected with the whole nature. He says, look at the apple and then at the apple pip. You cannot understand how the pip grows if you do not look at the whole apple. That is why one also does not understand the elementary human being if one does not recognise the earth with all its substances and forces, because it has all its strength from the earth. Then a force incorporates a finer materiality in this physical elementary human being. Paracelsus calls it the archaeus. From the elementary body, he distinguishes the finer body, which is the builder of the physical body and the builder of the earth. Thus, he looks from the externally sense-perceptible at the cause, from the body at the life body, from the externally physical at that which as a force forms the basis of it. This is the first member of the human being in the sense of Paracelsus. He regards the second member as a pip in a certain different way. For this second member the apple is the whole world of stars. Just as the elementary body draws his forces and humours from the earth and from that which belongs to it, the second human being draws his forces from that which lives in the stars, from the principles of the stars. Just as the blood, the muscles, the bones, and food juices are composed and the food juices change, are transformed, and as these are dependent on the earthly, Paracelsus summarises the instincts, desires, and passions, the ideas, joy and sorrow, all that as the two basic forces of the human mental nature, sympathy and antipathy. They are expressions of the whole world of stars, as the pip is an expression of the whole apple. Therefore, he calls the second body the astral body or the body related to the world of stars. What works outdoors as gravity or gravitation, as force of attraction and repulsion is in the human being like in an essence as desire and listlessness, as sympathy and antipathy, so that nothing of that which is in the human being as instincts and passions can be understood different from the astrological astronomy as Paracelsus calls it. This is a science about which our time knows precious little. Astronomy took another path. Paracelsus as a doctor wants to know nothing about it. He wants to know how the astral forces are connected in space with the astral body of the human being. He behaves compared to an astronomer like a priest to a requiem parson. A requiem parson is someone who reads the mess and is paid for it, whereas a right priest is someone who penetrates into the spirit. Paracelsus uses clear expressions what others often call rudeness. We have now understood the second part of human wisdom. The third part is that which he calls spirit. This spirit relates to the spiritual world like the pip of the apple to the much bigger apple, like the divine spark in the human being to the whole sum of divine forces in the world. Thus, Paracelsus differentiates in the world: the divine-spiritual, the astrological-astronomical, and the elementary-earthly. The human being contains an essence of them: the human mind from the spiritual-divine, the astral body from the astrological-astronomical, and the physical body from the elementary-earthly. Just as one has to study the material, the plants, and animals and so on if one wants to understand the body of the human being, the doctor has to study and understand what goes forward in the world of the stars if he wants to understand the human being. Because Paracelsus says to himself, one understands an illness only if one goes back to its origin, he looks for the reason of the illness in the desires and passions. He considers the illness as a result of mental fallacy and finally he leads it back to moral qualities even if he also does not lead back these qualities to the stars, because he knows very well that the effect does not happen so fast. He sees an expression of the spiritual everywhere in the physical. That is why he says, someone who wants to investigate the reason of an illness has to study the reason of all the sympathies and antipathies of the soul, and he can study this only if he studies the stars of the human being. Thus, you imagine how he approaches an ill human being. With an intuitive view, this soul digresses from the externally ill limb to that which lives internally in the soul of the human being. From there he goes to the astral influence of the stars and to the elementary influence of the earth. He has this in every single case before him. Just this is spiritual medicine. How he imagines this, and how he tries to make clear with his own picture, he expresses this nicely in this deciphering of the whole world: “This is something great you should consider. Nothing is in heaven and on earth that is not also in the human being, and God who is in heaven and on earth is also in the human being.” — I have often quoted another nice saying where he compares what he wanted to say here. He says, look out at nature. What is there? He sees a mineral, an animal, a plant, these are like single letters and the human being is the word that is composed of these single letters. If one wants to read the human being, one has to collect the single letters in the big book of nature. — This does not mean that Paracelsus picks up the things, but that he tries to get a synopsis of the things in nature. This has always enabled him to keep in sight the whole world with the single special case, which he has to cure as a doctor. Behind all that, the ingenious-moral strength works from which all that arises with him. At last, it is something like moral indignation that rebels in him against the way conventional at that time to cure and to find mixtures for all possible things. He says, I am not there to enrich the apothecaries; I am there to cure the human beings. One has to realise that Paracelsus used words quite unlike in later time if one fairly wants to read his writings. If you read salt, mercury, and sulphur with Paracelsus, one has no right idea automatically, one thinks of what today the human being calls in such a way. Everything that one reads with Paracelsus seems then to be imperfect and childish. Who knows science today has a certain right to regard Paracelsus as childish, but one has to penetrate somewhat deeper. I want to give you an idea how you can get around to understanding what he means if he uses the terms salt, mercury, and sulphur. Paracelsus looks far back into the evolution of the earth, in the evolution of the beings, which live round him, and of the human being. If he looks back in such a way, a time faces him in which the human beings still had forms of existence very different from now. Nobody gets as clear about what has become as Paracelsus. The earth was completely different millions of years ago. We have spoken of the transformation of the earth often enough. He looked back at a human figure that was still completely animal where the hands were still locomotive organs where the human being still lived in air and water. The earth, the surroundings were quite different. Even modern physics looks back at an age in which that which is solid today was still in a liquid state. Paracelsus, who started from the spiritual, saw a spiritual human being in connection with such an earth that still looked quite different from today. On an earth, which was so much warmer than today, the present human being could not live. At that time, the human beings also lived under other conditions. At that time, the metals were still liquid, they could hardly be contained as steam in the air. At that time, the living beings could also not take shape; however, they have developed. Just as today the elementary human being is connected with the physical world as the pip with the apple, the primeval human being was differently connected with the primeval earth and with the entire surrounding astral world. Therefore, that which constitutes the present physical human being, his soul as the astral body and his mind as a divine human being had still to emerge. This was quite different from once. The human being was still closer to the divinity. The astral human being is born out of the astral world, and the physical human being is born out of the entire physical world. Paracelsus spoke in a much greater and nobler sense of the origin of the physical human being from the physical surroundings than our modern theory of evolution. Paracelsus understood this, and he emphasises it also repeatedly, but for him the human being is a confluence of all that which lives outdoors in nature. The human being has passions; he has them in himself, only in reduced form as the lion has them, for example, and as they exist in the environment. If the human being looks at the lion in the sense of Paracelsus, he sees the same force that lives today as his passion in him born out of the astral world. In the lion, it is one-sided, with the human being it is mixed with other forces. The entire animal realm is to Paracelsus like a fanned-out humanity. He sees everything that is distributed in the forms of the animals in himself, invisible in his inner human being. That also applies in certain respect if the human being looks at the earth. The metals that have become physical today are born out from the same being from which the physical human being is born out. Please, understand me properly, because it is far from present ideas. Paracelsus sees back to the time when the physical human body had only built the heart. There are lower animals that have no hearts that still preserve the form that the human being had at that time. This was to Paracelsus the same time when from a much more general essence of the earth the gold also developed, so that a connection exists between the origin of the gold and the human heart. He also sees a connection between abnormalities like cholera and the arsenic. He says to himself, the possibility that cholera could originate depends on the fact that the arsenic is developed from the external world. He considers any single organ as belonging to the human unity and it is in such a way that it belongs to him like any animal, any plant, or any substance in the external world. I would like to read out another remark that shows you how he expresses himself in particular. This is a remark that is got out of a number of remarks of Paracelsus, which one could multiply by thousand. He regards the single human being as specifically related to the physical world and the astral world concerning his single organs and the recognition of their illnesses. It is differentiated in the most certain way. One admires the general expressions of modern pantheism, of the modern view of nature, but this is the purest dilettantism if one does not know that the great Paracelsus cannot be pleased with an all-life, which enjoys life in the single human being. Paracelsus speaks of something concrete: “That is why you should not say, this is cholera, this is melancholia, but this is arsenicus, this is aluminosum; and also he is a Saturnian, that is a Martian, and not: this man suffers from melancholia, that man suffers from cholera. For one part is from heaven, one part is from earth, and they are intermingled like fire and wood, because everything loses its name; since these are two things in one.” As he explains the connection of the heart with the gold, he also explains the connection of certain phenomena with Saturn and another with Mars and that, which is related to Mars. The peculiar mind of Paracelsus positions the human being that way in nature, in the world. Even if there is to correct anything with Paracelsus: it depends on the great, on the comprehensive that lives in this soul. He attributes this to single certain types. Thus, everything that originates as a precipitation in the mineral is elementary to him. At the same time, it originated in the developmental time when the human-bodily formed and took on the figure on earth, which it has today. Hence, every deposit of the mineral, everything salty is connected with the human-bodily, with the animal-bodily. He calls everything Mercurial, changeable that remains liquid after a certain precipitation has taken place. Mercury is to him a typical example of it. Thus, we have a trend towards the solidification of the liquid metal. The soul is also born out of the same universal forces from which the Mercurial was born out. The deeper connection is in such a way that one cannot discuss it publicly at all. Sulphur and the present form of mind have a parallel cause of origin. However, they are not connected allegorically. No — these three things outdoors in the world correspond exactly to the body, the soul, and the mind of the human being. Sulphur is connected according to its nature with the mind, mercury with the soul, and salt with the body of the human being. What the human being takes up besides is related to these in a certain respect because they are born out of them. Therefore, such an example shows us that we have to go in deeper. It is not enough if we understand the expressions of Paracelsus only; we must approach the books of Paracelsus with a deepened preparation, and then we understand him. We have to realise that he always has the whole in mind. Therefore, he says to himself, if the human being has an illness, it is an interruption, a disturbance of a certain balance. He calls it magnetic balance and — as there is never one pole in the magnetic needle, but always north pole and south pole together —, any digestion in the human body belongs to a digestion outdoors in the world, which he searches then. In the etheric human being, he searches the cause of the individual, in the material; he searches the expression of the spirit. In this respect, he calls the material the mummy. One has only to understand this significant expression. It is a certain essence that forms the basis of the bodily; the mummy is different in the healthy and the sick person because the whole and the individual is changed. Therefore, one needs only to recognise the mummy, the changes in the etheric body to recognise what a person lacks. Briefly, we see there into the depth of a spiritual life from which one can learn quite a lot. We have to realise that only a detailed spiritual research can understand again what is contained in Paracelsus. If one understands so detailed, he does no longer appear as a spirit whom one regards only as an interesting historical object, but as a spirit whom one has to consider from a higher point of view and from whom one can still learn quite a lot also in our time — at least from his method. One should position himself to Paracelsus in this way. Someone who does this finds in his lovely-rude manner a difference between the modern way of research and his way, a difference that he already made for his contemporaries. He distinguishes two reasons, the reason that looks into the whole realm of the spiritual life, and the reason that is only bent on the single one. He calls the one the first reason. He calls it in such a way because it leads to the concealed spirit of the things He calls the other reason a public folly compared with the concealed wisdom. He expresses himself even lovelier or more rudely saying, one has to distinguish a human-divine reason and a bestial reason. He does not express himself in such a way that he speaks of the animal and spiritual nature of the human being, but of the bestial one. He considers the human being as a son of the animal genus. The animal is spread in single facets; the animal is summarised in the human being. He says once, the human being is the son of the remaining animal realm. However, if he wanted to be like the other animal beings, they would not understand this, they would look like at a wayward son and would be surprised about that which he has become. Apart from that, you can also receive elementary instructions of certain theosophical basic concepts from Paracelsus. What Paracelsus argues about dream and sleep is in the most eminent sense what also spiritual science has to say about it, only he expresses it in his superb language. If the human being sleeps, the elementary body is in the space, and the astral human being is active. Then the astral human being can dialogue with the stars, so that he only needs to remember the dialogue with the stars to help, to cure the sick person. He is able to lead back all that to the prophets. He esteems them more than all the later ones. He calls Moses, Daniel, and Enoch not magicians, but he says, if one understands them properly, they are the precursors of this great astronomical-astrological medicine, which has worked for humanity. Such a man was allowed to have a self-confidence in certain ways, and the strength of his work flows out from this self-confidence. However, he was clear in his mind also that what he had donated must live on and will live on with those who can recognise it. In spite of it all, a lot of gossip and historical gossip approached him. One examined his skull to slander him because this skull had a hole and one has to think much of such external things. One verified that he fell a victim to drunkenness and broke his skull. One wanted to judge his whole life this way. One can state the parable of Christ Jesus with the dead dog where Christ Jesus pointed to the nice teeth of the animal. The other things of such a personality do not concern us, besides that which we can learn from him, by which he has become a benefactor of humanity who overcame so much and by which he has become immortal. Let me close with his own words that he throws in the teeth of his adversaries: “I want to elucidate and argue in such a way that until the last day of the world my writings must remain and will remain true, and yours are recognised as full of bile, poison, and brood of vipers and are hated by the people like toads. It is not my will that you should fall down or be knocked down a year hence, but you must show your shame after a long time and you certainly fall through the cracks, I shall judge you more after my death than before, and even if you eat my body, you have only eaten filth: the Theophrastus will struggle for the body with you.”

Paracelsus

https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA054/English/RSA2014/19060426p01.html

Berlin

26 Apr 1906

GA054-21

Jacob Boehme (1575-1624) is probably one of the strangest personalities of the last centuries. In the aurora of a quite new time, in the turn of the 16th to the 17th centuries, he stands there with a knowledge and a wisdom, with a worldview which appears like a completion of many centuries. He stands there as a person who was understood a little in the following time up to this day, even if he was called Philosophus Teutonicus and societies existed in Holland, in England, in Germany which tried to make Jacob Boehme's views popular. There have been always persons who occupied themselves with Jacob Boehme. About 1600, when Giordano Bruno died a martyr's death, Jacob Boehme's soul was penetrated by great, immense ideas for the first time. Who starts devoting himself to Jacob Boehme and, besides, goes out from the views of the present time finds his way in him a little. Hence, one can read in the modern books about Jacob Boehme that he showed his view in images which are incomprehensible and dark. If one reads the stuff that has been said about him in newer handbooks, one may say, it is completely comprehensible that one finds Jacob Boehme incomprehensible. What one can read in the handbooks of history of philosophy about him, however, is the most incomprehensible stuff of the world. This is the peculiar phenomenon which one experiences with Jacob Boehme. If one knows the spiritual life of the 19th century exactly, in particular that German spiritual life, which especially philosophical circles influence, one can understand that Jacob Boehme was understood so little. There are hardly bigger contrasts than Jacob Boehme and Immanuel Kant. Whatever the education of the 19th century produced is far away from the spirit of this strange man. All who try to approach Jacob Boehme from the theosophical worldview are surprised that one still needed a theosophical deepening with that nation that had Jacob Boehme. One needs only to know Paracelsus and Jacob Boehme to know theosophy. Everything that they wrote is given from a deep spring, with immense deepness and magic power. Jacob Boehme was one of the greatest magicians of all times, of a greatness that has not yet been reached up to now. In 1575, Jacob Boehme was born as a child of poor people. He was first a herd boy and could hardly read and write. While he tended livestock, already some strange flashes of inspiration lighted up in him. Sometimes it seemed to him, as if any leaf in the trees, as if the animals of the wood had something to say to him, as if all beings of nature spoke to him. Then he was apprenticed to a shoemaker. During his apprenticeship, he had a strange experience that cannot be discussed in the general public concerning its real basis. Jacob Boehme had to look after the shop once when his master and wife stepped out. However, he should sell nothing. A person entered whose eyes made a particular impression on him. This person wanted to buy something. Jacob said to him, he was not allowed to sell anything. The look of the stranger was something quite extraordinary to him. Then the stranger went out. After a few minutes, Jacob heard calling his name. The stranger said to him, Jacob, you are still small now, but you are destined to something great! — Jacob Boehme knew that these words transferred anything remaining to him. Jacob Boehme tells another experience, about a mountain. Once he saw into a cave where something like gold shone to him. Again, it seemed to him like a revelation, like something that would tell about the concealed forces of nature to him. If one touched that all, it would lose its magic, which one can only understand by occult means. Like all young craftsmen of the past, Jacob Boehme started wanderings after his apprenticeship and then settled down as master of his craft in his hometown Görlitz. He began soon to write down what lived in his soul. It is important to illuminate the sensations somewhat that were in this personality. He felt raised above himself if he put pen to paper to write down what was revealed to him. Something was in him like a higher nature. This was so strong in him that — if he was back again in the everyday life and if he wanted to read the written down — he could not understand it. He could not follow that spirit. What he wrote down were words from the beginning, which were taken only from the centre of wisdom. Aurora or the Rising of the Dawn was the first book he wrote. Aurora or the Rising of the Dawn was always a symbol of the birth of the higher self to the mystics if the soul rises above the lower existence. The spiritualisation of the human being was always symbolised by the dawn. At that time, Jacob Boehme wrote words, which sound quite naturally with him because they carry the stamp, the seal of truth. Thus, he said once that he knows that “the sophist reproves him” if he speaks of the beginning of the world and its creation, “because I was not present and did not see it. I say to him that I was present in the essence of my soul and, when I was not yet a self, but because I was Adam's essence I was present and forfeited my glory in Adam.” This simple man, who probably only read Paracelsus if any, had the consciousness that the everlasting soul that lives in the human being is not bound to space and time that there is an expansion of consciousness of this soul by which the human being is able to rise above space and time. Thus, the unity was clear to him, which lives in everything, which lives in every human soul, so that one needs only to remove the narrow borders in order to get a picture, a face that shows everything to us that goes back to the beginning of the creation of the human being. All that was founded on deep devoutness with Jacob Boehme. He says about his soul condition: “When I struggled with God's assistance, a strange light emerged to my soul that was quite foreign to the wild nature. I only recognised in it what God and the human being is, and what God deals with the human being.” It was an immediate experience of Jacob Boehme, the emergence of the divine soul in the usual human soul. This experience that was detached in a completely elementary way from the soul founded his enthusiasm. Thus, we see him grasping the human nature, the historical evolution of the whole humanity in a way, which — if one cannot penetrate to the springs — gives him a hard fight to understand this spirit. What we find with Paracelsus faces us in a spiritualised and transfigured form with Jacob Boehme. It already faces us in his first work, in the Aurora . This work was not printed first, but circulated only as a manuscript among his friends. It fell into the hands of a zealotic preacher. He preached against it and was successful that the City Council of Görlitz forbade Jacob Boehme to write anything in future. One regarded him as such a dangerous person already in those days. However, Jacob Boehme wrote nothing for years. All his other writings date from the last five to six years of his life, that life which one made to him continuously rather hard because one understood nothing of that which lived in this man, For the fanatical priesthood was fulfilled by zealotic hatred for anything that it had not written itself. His works were translated, before they were printed in Germany, into English, into Dutch and other languages. Jacob Boehme's destiny and works are an example of how little the ways of true spiritual life depend on the official education and how difficult it is to overcome the obstacles that are put in the way of the spiritual life by all possible powers. Already in the Aurora, that faces us which lived in Jacob Boehme. At first, he said that something lives in the human being that can outgrow itself, a divine spark of life. This remained nothing abstract to him, but took shape of a big world building and human building in his thoughts, in his world of sensations. Someone who wants to understand Jacob Boehme has to recognise that only a profound spiritual-scientific education can penetrate into that which lived in Jacob Boehme. He knew of the human being that the physical human being has another, more spiritual, finer nature as its basis. Something is between the physical human being and the mental one that Jacob Boehme called “tinctura.” This is an often misunderstood word. At that time, there were also great spirits like for example Newton, who endeavoured for years to become clear in their mind about what Jacob Boehme means speaking of the tinctura. If we look back at former times of the distant past, we find that there the world was still completely different from now. Jacob Boehme was completely filled with an immense doctrine of evolution. As extensive, splendid, and applicable to everything spiritual and sensuous at the same time as Jacob Boehme's view of world evolution understands it, no scientific view has shown it. He looks back at far distant periods when the earth still looked completely different from now. Jacob Boehme understood in a strange way what some naturalists have said in an amateurish way about the primeval condition of the earth. The modern naturalist pursues the living beings back to more imperfect forms. He still says then at best, everything on earth developed from a universal nebula. The forms emerged from the principles inherent in a universal nebula. Jacob Boehme considers this development in much bigger style. He turns his look at all mental beings, at all animal beings, at all minerals, plants, and animals. He is able to behold the former conditions, the forms, which the human being had in former times when these beings were not yet such beings as they are today. In those days, they were included in a kind of original matter from which only the later world has arisen. He sees the world of appearance and the beings as they existed as rudiments at that time. He beholds an earth that is not solid, not air, not water, not fire on which neither animals nor plants do exist, but which contains everything that appeared then. Boehme does not speak of a fantastic primeval nebula, but about the tinctura that was real once when it formed our globe and that rests in secrecy on the basis of the beings today. This tinctura exists in the human being as a spiritual-mental organism behind the physical being. It is also in all other things. From the tinctura, Jacob Boehme derives the creation of all living beings with which he distinguishes seven basic qualities. With it, one comes to a very deep basis of his worldview. Equipped with it, one has a means to solve countless riddles of the world. Besides, Jacob Boehme has a wonderful language, compared with it, our modern language appears grey and lifeless with its concepts. We have to imagine that the tinctura lives in the world like the primeval matter, that in it everything rests like in a maternal womb, that then the forms come out. He calls a type of the forms the acerbic ones. The human forefather was a being with a cartilaginous scaffolding, as well as the cartilaginous fishes have it today. The skeleton crystallised then from the original tinctura; with acerbity the skeleton of the earth crystallised from the original tinctura. Jacob Boehme calls this the salty in the world. One must not imagine that the original acerbic also had the form of a skeleton. However, everything that tended to become solid and earthy, that crystallised from the original spiritual matter was for Jacob Boehme the acerbic, the salty. The second form of nature is that which preserves the internal mobility, so that the parts can perpetually interact with each other. Jacob Boehme calls this the mercurial. The third is the sulfuric, containing the power of fire in itself like a concealed force. What one sees as fire originating from the matter is the one side, and the human and animal passions are the other one. Now they are separated from each other like North Pole and South Pole. The intuition of the folk, as well as Jacob Boehme looked back at a time of the earliest development. There was something that was not a material fire and also not passion from which, however, the fire differentiated on one side, on the other side the passion. At that time, they had a common basis. Jacob Boehme finds the same spiritual basis in the material fire as in the human passion. There is a relationship between that which slumbers in the matter and the human passion. There is something in it that is related to the spiritual side of the fire. The sulphur contains the fire in itself concealed as the body contains the animal passion. Thus, Jacob Boehme distinguishes this four at first, tinctura, salt, sulphur, fire. In the same way as the old German folk intuition looked back at a time when there was neither fire nor passion, Jacob Boehme looks back at such a condition, at such a thing, which becomes the fifth original form of nature if it spiritualises itself. He calls it water. It is water in the sense as we find the water in the Bible, as an external symbol of the soul. The spirit of God hovered over the surface of the water, over the soul forces slumbering in the matter, so that they can be raised. The sixth form of nature originates if the inside penetrates outwardly if the inner life comes to life in such a way that it can be perceived. Jacob Boehme calls it sound. This is any soul expression that the inside of the being has in itself in such a way as the bell the peal. The sound can also express the uniform divine nature. The seventh form then originates, the wisdom, the divine force contained in the world. In these seven forms, Jacob Boehme sees the whole nature included. The lowest member of the human nature has to do something with the salt-like acerbity; then it rises higher and higher up to wisdom. Furthermore, the forces of nature and the human being are related to the solar system. The relationship of all beings expresses itself everywhere. Jacob Boehme also calls tinctura everything that moves like the spiritual life blood through all beings. It is between the world thought and any matter. Jacob Boehme imagines the great master builder of the world as an artist who organised the world sensuous-physically. He calls the connection between the sensuous-physical and the creator of the world tinctura again. He searches it in any single being. This is the difficult in his writings that we have to come to grips with his ideas. The human being is normally glad if he has established a few concepts to himself. Jacob Boehme does not form single abstractions that stand side by side like soldiers. He creeps as it were into all beings. He regards all beings as related, as connected with each other. In order to understand Jacob Boehme you have to make your mind flexible as nature is flexible, so that the concepts can also change as the things in nature change. Theosophists also often establish narrow concepts. However, it does not matter to have a concept, but that you are able to dissolve the concept immediately again. If you have a concept, you must be able to transform it as the things change. Nothing is more obstructive than abstract, carefully weighed concepts. Therefore, those cannot understand Jacob Boehme who read him because they form solid concepts first; however, he follows the living life of the things. The concepts must change, as well as the things change. However, people feel hovering as it were. One has really lost ground if one wants to understand the world. You have to keep the centre in yourselves only. Jacob Boehme's soul painting is a reproduction of nature. He finds in the human mind what is related to the tinctura, the imagination. Imagination is a soul force that is in the middle between the force of thinking and the force of willing. Someone who is able to understand his concepts pictorially and to visualise them in his mind, so that not an abstract picture of the plant faces him, but a plant like of sensuous appearance. That viewable concept is impregnated as it were with real life from within. Someone who is able to do this has imagination. It can be increased in such a way that the human being works creatively and gains influence on that which lives as tinctura in the things. Here begins for Jacob Boehme that alchemy which is able to react on the matter, the tinctura, and from there also on the sensuous things. Thus, the imaginative human being is able to become a magician. Because Jacob Boehme understood this, we are allowed to call him the greatest magician of the new time. Jacob Boehme calls imagination the great virgin of nature, the virgin wisdom. Now, he goes back to the creation of Adam and further on to the original divine imagination. He says, the divine imagination imprinted the original spiritual human being in the matter according to its likeness. He calls this spirit man the original Adam. While this spiritual human being is there from the outset, he shows how the spiritual human being already existed in the original tinctura, how then, however, an entire spiritual change took place in the world creation. He places this change on the fourth day of creation. He did not see this original human being whom he calls the tinctura man with eyes, but inside he was clairvoyant, so that he could clairvoyantly perceive everything that took place in him. Then selfhood, independence appeared in this human being. That came during the fourth day, and the clairvoyant human being became aware of himself, started looking his own being. Spiritual-divine creation was originally all around. The primeval man beheld this clairvoyantly. He saw himself now. This was his renunciation of God. This human being would completely have solidified unless anything else were possible. The human being did no longer behold the world clairvoyantly. The point in time happened when the clairvoyant human being could perceive externally what is divine. At first, sun, moon, and stars are pictures of the divine he had seen once in himself. Thus, the human being had seceded divinity, but due to the senses the world had become perceptible to him. It is the idea of the sensuous perception, which made the ancient tinctura man the material man. He becomes a material human being by his own idea taken from the material world, so that he himself became a sensuous human being from within due to his own imagination of the sensuous. Jacob Boehme saw a deep relationship of all beings, of the animals, plants, and minerals. He said, everything that lives in the world in skin and bone, in flesh and blood and so on is related to something on earth. Jacob Boehme relates the whole social and artistic structure also to the constellations of the planets. He shows the connection of the planets with the human life. All that is so clear to someone who wants to understand him, but so big that a small-minded time cannot understand him. Another question still entered his scope of view, the question of the origin of the evil, the evil in the world, the question, how does the evil come into the world? Is the evil contained in the primal ground of the world? The primal ground is then not a good one. He finds an answer comparing the original good to the light, the pure light. No darkness is included in it. While the light appears, becomes discernible, it appears by the objects with the shadow. Are we allowed to say that darkness is included in the light? Certainly not. Pure light only goes out from the source of the light. However, from the objects the opposite of the light goes out. The light faces us in the world as the primal ground ... (gap in the text) . As it is true that the shadow must be present with the light, it is true that the bad must be in the good. We can compare the divine harmony to the human soul. It penetrates the organism. The soul puts the limbs of the human in motion. The world harmony of the divinity enjoys life in the soul in such a way that the limbs have independence. Although the harmony of the soul forms the basis, the limbs can turn against each other. If freedom should be in the world, the limbs must be able to turn against each other. Freedom and the possibility of the bad belong together, harmony and the possibility of disharmony. Just this thought of Jacob Boehme inspired Schelling (Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Sch., 1775-1854, philosopher), and you find a wonderful representation of that which lives in the freedom of the human being (Philosophical Inquiries into the Essence of Human Freedom , 1809). This writing by Schelling about the freedom of the human being is like an offering to Jacob Boehme. Schelling understood something of Jacob Boehme. Boehme lived on with Goethe and other great spirits of the 19th century. Only when materialism arose, the spiritual life was alienated from Jacob Boehme. Then one understood him less and less. A time comes again in which one will not only understand him but in which one wants to learn from him. A new era approaches for theosophy. A time comes then, when one understands such great spiritual deeds like Jacob Boehme's writings, like the Germanic mythology again when they progress towards a new glorification. A spiritualisation of all wisdom, all human energy can then be caused. If the age comes to an end, which has the task of the external control of all natural forces, then Jacob Boehme will also be understood again. Copernicus, Galilei, and Giordano Bruno also belonged to the same age to which Jacob Boehme belongs. They have the world led to the observation of the sensuous world, the external world. Jacob Boehme appeared just in that age, and his works are like a big summary of all mental achievements of humanity. He arranges all that for the world in the dawn of an age that introduces the materialistic epoch. When the materialistic age has topped out, Jacob Boehme is also found again and everything that is contained in his works. Everything is contained in his works that the world has collected as spiritual treasures. We must not consider the achievements of theosophy as something particular. The theosophical world movement must be something that is alive, that signifies life and growth. If the theosophical society represents this, it understands how to work in the sense of the great spirits of former times, in the sense of Jacob Boehme, it becomes theosophical work in the true sense of the word.

Jacob Boehme

https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA054/English/RSA2014/19060503p01.html

Berlin

3 May 1906

GA054-22

This lecture is meant as an introduction. The aim is to acquaint the audience with the kind of issues investigated by spiritual science, for example, our relation to the spiritual world, evolution and destination, the riddle of birth and death, the origin of life and that of evil, health and illness, and problems of education. During the winter lectures, the scope of spiritual investigation will become apparent. These lectures will also deal — from a spiritual-scientific viewpoint — with subjects such as burning social problems and the tasks facing modern humans. The discourses will demonstrate that spiritual science is not a mere theory, but an inherent necessity in present-day life. Although a great variety of age groups are represented in the audience, the subjects to be discussed should contain something of interest for everyone. Each lecture will be self-contained, yet also have a connection with the rest. The title of the next lecture, “Blood is a very special fluid,” may sound rather sensational, but it is in fact a subject that points to significant aspects of humanity's evolution, on which only spiritual science can throw light. Later lectures will deal with subjects such as, “Man's Existence in the Light of Spiritual Science”; “Who are the Rosicrucians?”; “Richard Wagner and Mysticism”; “What Do Educated People Know About Theosophy?”; and a lecture about religion, “The Bible and Wisdom.” Those in the audience who attended lectures last winter will hear about things that are familiar, though presented from a different aspect. The results of spiritual-scientific investigation can only be fully understood when illumined from different sides. As I said, today's lecture is to serve as an introduction to this winter's programme that will demonstrate what is meant by spiritual-scientific investigation, and the significance of such research of the supersensible for humanity now and in the future. The Theosophical movement emerged thirty years ago, 1 Theosophical Society was founded in 1895. and soon spread world wide. Yet, after thirty years of intensive work, it has not the best reputation. Many people regard Theosophy as something fantastic with no relation to facts, something that belongs in a cloud-cuckoo-land. It cannot be denied that it has often been badly presented, usually through overeagerness and lack of knowledge; at times perhaps even charlatans helped to undermine its reputation. However, today we are concerned with the significance Theosophy can have in the lives of individuals. The prejudices that exist against Theosophy are strong and widespread. Some regard it on a par with spiritism, as something irreconcilable with modern science. People who are engaged in scientific pursuits, or those that simply feel that solution to significant questions can be found in modern science, see no point in devoting themselves to something which seems to contradict well-documented scientific discoveries. They regard Theosophy as illogical, and its appeal restricted to dreamers. Another kind of prejudice comes from religious quarters. There are people who, because of their calling, feel they must protect religion from Theosophy, or they fear that if they accept it, it will create conflict with their religious conscience. They assume that Theosophy aims to establish a new religion or sect. Yet another kind of prejudice stems from the mistaken view that Theosophy is a revival of ancient Buddhism. Here the fear is that in place of Christianity the world is to be inoculated with a kind of neo-Buddhism. Nothing that one can say appears to dispel these three kinds of prejudice. If Theosophy aimed to transplant an ancient religious system into Europe, it would sin against its own fundamental principle, which is to understand every religion and spiritual aspiration. Every great philosophy or world outlook has arisen out of the configuration of a specific civilization; it is not possible to transplant it into a completely different culture. If modern human beings, standing within the European-American civilization, are to receive the impulse for true spiritual progress, it must spring from the vigorous life of their own time. Such impulses cannot be derived from views and ideas of a bygone age; they must have their roots where the human soul has its home. What is needed is the recognition that the inherent possibility in our own culture must be widened and deepened. While every civilization has within it fully matured abilities and inclinations, it also contains seeds for its further evolution. If these seeds are allowed to lie fallow, they become burning questions weighing on the human soul. The seeds for future development in the hidden recesses or a person's inner being must evolve out of necessity. There is no conflict between the world outlook of spiritual science and the great religions. Spiritual science, while resting on its own foundation, seeks to understand all religions. It wishes to show that all the great world religions are based on the same fundamental truth. From these lectures it will become apparent that spiritual science reflects an aspect of all of them. Far from wanting to become another religion, spiritual science aims to awaken understanding for the views of the past as well as for those which, because they are right for the present time, will truly further mankind's progress in the future. Let us objectively consider why spiritual science would neither wish to be a religion nor found a new sect. The lectures to be held this winter will increasingly demonstrate that the time is past for founding new religions. Spiritual truths can no longer be presented the way they were in former times. Founding new religions came to an end with the central religion, Christianity. Christianity is capable of endless development far into the future. Spiritual science should be a means to make Christianity more accessible to the scholarly mind. Its foremost task is to contribute to the comprehension of religion by illumining the wisdom it contains, and by enabling people to find their way into spiritual life. There is no need for new religions; the old ones contain all the wisdom and knowledge we require. What is needed is to present that wisdom in a new form. In so doing, the old forms will also become understandable. The true value of the ancient religions will be restored by spiritual science. Greater tolerance in regard to religious views has come about in recent times. Modern human beings feel that to hate and persecute those who confess a different faith serves no purpose. In fact, the hatred and intolerance that formerly caused so much blood to flow in the name of religion is no longer understood. This tendency to accept and tolerate will continue for a time, but eventually it will prove too weak, too insipid an attitude for progress. When in the nineteenth century the transition took place to a more tolerant attitude, it was a blessing. At that time it was justified and it helped to develop love and humanness. However, what is right and good in one age is not necessarily so in another. The various epochs of world evolution provide human beings with different tasks. The feeling and attitude that was fully justified in the nineteenth century, which kindled noble hopes in human hearts, will prove too feeble and ineffective in the twentieth century when other soul forces are called upon. What is required now is complete mutual understanding, not just tolerance and patience. So far, Christians have tended to take the attitude that, while they do not understand the faith of Muslims or of the Jewish people, and equally they do not understand Christianity, each one tolerates the other's views. This attitude will prove insufficient. In the future, complete understanding is necessary. Human beings must be able to recognize that their faith has developed within a certain culture and that it determines their thoughts and ideals. But life is shared with people of different cultures and with different views, and these a person must endeavor to understand. The truth should result in more than mere patience and tolerance; it should enable a person to enter with understanding into what the others feel and experience. A person's comprehension of Truth must encompass all other faiths. This is an attitude that is very different from that of mere tolerance. Through spiritual science a person should be able to progress to complete understanding. The followers of particular faiths must realize that they have reached certain aspects of Truth, and that Truth takes on different forms in different souls. This is to be expected and should be no cause for division; rather Truth in all its forms should act as a unifying force. Such an attitude is positive and humane, and brings people together. Also, it is on a higher level than tolerance, and has a greater ennobling effect on the human soul because it is based on insight and love. Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, 2 Helena Petrovna Blavatsky (1831–1891) was the founder of the Theosophical Society and a Russian occultist. founder, always saw Theosophy as having the mission to provide knowledge. She recognized that modern human beings are always bound to ask (a) questions about a person's fate and destination, birth and death, infinity and eternity; (b) questions about illness and pain; and (c) about what happens after death when a person has laid aside the body. Every human being asks these questions. The task of religion has always been to provide spiritual rather than merely theoretical answers, to give a person strength, consolation and reassurance. From religion, we are meant to obtain answers to the crucial questions of existence. Religion should enable us to go through life fulfilling daily tasks, feeling calm and secure, and possessing knowledge that reaches beyond everyday affairs to encompass immortality. If we understand the human soul, then we know that no one can be strong and capable unless a certain comprehension of the riddles of life are reached. Only knowledge prevents them weighing on the soul, giving rise to doubt and uncertainty that makes a person weak. Without inner security of knowledge, a person is lost when faced with greater issues and unable to cope even with everyday affairs. It will increasingly be recognized that insightful knowledge is the only true basis for vitality and strength of soul. The theosophical movement acknowledges this fact and sees it as its task to provide such knowledge. But why the need for spiritual science when through all the epochs of evolution, religion has existed to answer life's burning questions? The answer is that times have changed. What satisfied our ancestors no longer satisfies modern people. There is plenty of evidence of that today, and it will become even more obvious as time goes on. Religion does of course answer many questions, but the answers are formulated in a way that leaves people dissatisfied. The reason is that human nature has changed, and this leads people to attempt to find substitutes for the answers that no longer satisfy them either in history or in natural science. People who longingly seek answers in modern science are especially those to whom the Bible and religion no longer speak. But modern science has to acknowledge that it has no answers to life's most important questions. Its enormous achievements in the realm of physical data are fully acknowledged by spiritual science; the results arrived at through painstaking research spanning the whole globe are indeed impressive. But when it comes to questions about the meaning of life or mankind's future evolution, it fails to provide answers. Those who have tried, and the many who are still trying, to find through natural scientific investigation what religion no longer provides, discover only disappointment. By contrast, spiritual science exists for the very purpose of throwing light on life's riddles and burning questions. However, those who still find satisfaction in what traditional religion has to offer will be unable to recognize what spiritual science is about, but what satisfies one today may not do so tomorrow. The founder of the Theosophical Society saw it as an ideal to provide concrete knowledge about life's deepest riddles. The claim that spiritual research is scientific is fully justified, as anyone will acknowledge who becomes acquainted with the methods whereby it is carried out. It aims to provide a spiritual world view with a scientific basis that will speak to the most erudite and also the simplest mind. Yet there are those who feel that Theosophy is an interference and that it is better to leave people with their old faith, or better still to do something to restore the old faith, as science is incapable of providing answers to spiritual questions. That is an unrealistic view; people who hold it do not see what is happening all around them. Theosophy endeavors to be fully conscious of the tendencies that are coming to the fore. Let one example suffice to illustrate the urgent necessity for a world outlook based on spiritual insight. Let us consider for a moment what is taking place in a country where for centuries religion has had a strange history. In Spain, orthodox religious faith has up till now had a strong grip on its people. But a change is taking place in this country where religious influence extends even to trivial everyday affairs. Who would have thought, a few years ago, that what we are now witnessing could possible occur in Spain. Only a short time ago the ruling power would have nothing to do with any so-called modern ideas. Just consider how rigid was the faith of the woman who preceded her son, the present king, Alphonso XIII. She has had no inclination to deviate one iota from the ways and customs that over the centuries have become firmly entrenched in the whole fabric of the state. Imagine the contrast to what is taking place now: This woman sits in Lourdes where she can indulge in the old ways and customs, while in Spain the young king is obliged to allow new ideas to saturate the rigid system. A liberal minister is shaking up the establishment, and is ruthlessly introducing new laws on education and marriage. This is a sign that the impulses of the time ( Zeitströmungen ) are making themselves felt, and against that, mere human opinion is powerless. What must come about is proper understanding of the change in attitude that is taking place. Most of those in office are blind to such changes. They are unprepared and do not know what to do. It is not realized that neither such impulses are stronger than arbitrary opinions, nor that the needs of humanity at a particular time must be met with understanding and open minds. In our time people are too conscious to just accept what is imposed upon them. But everyone is required to understand the impulses of the times in which we live, and guide these impulses in the right direction. In no other way can healthy progress be ensured. History is made by human beings, but when it is made in spite of them, the result is chaos. Harmony and justice can come about only through cooperation. The age one lives in makes demands; it is up to the individual to recognize what they are. Just to sit-back in comfort and let things take their course is not enough. That is an attitude that rather hampers progress. The impulses of one's age must not be ignored. Human beings are destined to absorb into their heart and mind, into their whole being, impulses from the supersensible realm so that they become effective in the world. What does that imply? A thoughtful person will recognize that very much is implied in what has just been said. It is obvious to deeper insight that without a foundation of spiritual life, no material civilization can prosper. No state, no community has ever endured without a religious foundation. Let someone earnestly try to found a community consisting solely of people whose interests are purely materialistic, that is people with no knowledge of spiritual things, who accept as valid only materialistic views. Things would not deteriorate into chaos straightaway only because people would still have a vestige of ideas and ideals. No social system can endure unless it is built upon the foundation of religious wisdom. An individual is a bad practitioner who believes that practical minds are enough to ensure success. A person who wants to see material conditions continue to make progress must recognize that a foundation of spiritual insight and religion is imperative. If we want to give a human being bread, we must also give him something that will nourish the soul. In the periodical Lucifer , I once wrote that no one should be given bread without receiving also a world outlook that to give bread without giving also spiritual sustenance could only do harm. At first sight, this statement may not seem valid, but in the article it is substantiated. What is taking place in Spain is only a special instance of what is happening everywhere. One must be an ostrich with one's head in the sand not to see it. But what is it that is needed at the present time to further true progress? The need is for specialized knowledge. Just as special knowledge is necessary for the provision and distribution of material necessities like clothing, so is special knowledge necessary for meeting a human's spiritual needs. Ancient civilizations have depended upon the trust placed in priests and wise men. We must not criticize the systems of past cultures; they have been suitable for their particular epoch. When a culture is no longer acceptable, for the people can no longer live according to the old customs, the remedy does not lie in fighting it, but — in change and progress of the spiritual life. In earlier times people turned to the priest for words of comfort and assurance. Today we need spiritual investigators, people who can speak about the supersensible world in wes that correspond to our time, and are therefore acceptable and understandable to modern humans. Let us consider what is to be done if things remain the way most of our contemporaries find satisfactory. The situation in Spain can be regarded as symptomatic. Perhaps you think that old arrangements will give way to new ones and people will become accustomed. But no new arrangement will have a chance of success unless there is also a change of heart. A spiritual outlook must begin to pulsate like life-blood through our whole modern civilization. When conflict arises nowadays over spiritual or social issues, there is nowhere people can turn for counsel concerning life's most important questions. Let us look at what usually happens in such cases. Many people expect to find through natural science, that is, through knowledge of physical data, the kind of answers that have formerly been obtained from religion. Recently a conference of scientists took place in Stuttgart where weighty problems were discussed. (But can it be said that modern human beings are able at such places to find answers to spiritual questions? To questions concerning eternity or the meaning of death? At such conferences it becomes apparent that modern physical research is embarking an some strange investigations.) For those with interest in these things, I may mention that at Stuttgart methods were discussed in detail concerning the way organs from one organic being could be transplanted into another. Another point of great interest was the way the advent of the microscope had transformed all research. Now it was possible, by mixing and dissolving certain substances, to produce from lifeless matter something with the semblance of life. Many more things were mentioned, all of which called for respect and admiration in regard to modern scientific research. But people wonder about the sense and purpose of all the extraordinary things physical researchers are busy investigating. Who is there among the scientists of this modern Olympus of cultural life that can answer questions about the meaning of life? No attention was given to questions of this nature at the latest scientific conference, whereas only two years ago Ledebur 3 Ledebur (?) was a chemist from Breslau. a chemist from Breslau, made an extraordinary speech in which he pleaded for psychological research to be stopped. And it is noteworthy that at a gathering of scientists Theodor Lipps 4 Theodor Lipps (1851–1914) was a philosopher. could still speak on the subjects: natural science and philosophy. In the midst of reports on purely physical research, he threw in remarks to the effect that, unless natural science is able to arrive at a spiritual understanding of the phenomenon of man, it will never reach the status of a world view. “When man,” he said, “looks into his inner being, he finds the ‘I,’ and when he widens it to encompass the ‘world-I,’ he finds contentment.” The situation is truly extraordinary. After all, the theosophical movement, where you will not find such vague general answers given to important questions, has existed for thirty years. Theosophy discusses subjects, such as a person's life before birth and after death, his experiences when attaining spiritual sight and so on, concretely and in detail. But what happens? After such specific knowledge has been available for thirty years, these issues are dealt with in commonplace and trivial ways that cannot possibly satisfy anyone. When the most important questions of life are discussed, all that is offered is a web of unworldly abstract thought — nothing but a play on meaningless words that appeals only to people with an interest in abstract philosophy. When those who long for answers to the heart's deepest questions turn to official authorities, they find nothing but powerlessness and ignorance. Yet it is of utmost importance that there should exist, within external science, advancing as it does at great speed, a center of spiritual life, a place where human beings can find concrete knowledge about supersensible issues — a knowledge that would throw light also on the spiritual content preserved in old religious faiths and customs. If knowledge of the spiritual world is presented with the same scientific acumen as natural science, it would speak to the human soul and influence social life, just as was formerly the case with religion. Once that happens, religious life will assume new forms, while the old forms that have become influenced by materialism will disappear. It is very important that the full significance of religion is recognized. Today there are many people — in France it is very much the fashion — who say that morality can be established without religion. It is maintained that humans [can] be moral without religion. This shows no comprehension whatever of spiritual laws. If religious worship is traced through the consecutive historical epochs, it will be found that a new cult arose in each, with special significance for that particular time. The cult of Hermes arose in Egypt, in India, the Rishis, in Persia, Zarathustra, and among the Hebrews emerged the cult of Moses. In our time, it is Christ Jesus, the greatest founder of religion in modern times. These cultures became great because their exponents understood the needs of their time. The exponents of Christianity will also work effectively when once again the needs of the human heart are understood. When a civilization comes into being, the primary constituent is always religious faith, that is, a sum of views, feelings and ideas about what is regarded as spiritually the most exalted. There will be awareness that the world's foundation is of divine origin, and that death is vanquished. All the great civilizations draw their spiritual creativity from the faith on which they are founded. The great creative works of ancient Egypt, Persia, Greece, and Christian times would never have come into existence had they not originated from human thought and beliefs. Indeed, even the most materialistic culture stems originally from a person's knowledge of the supersensible. Thus, the most basic constituent of a civilization is faith. The second thing of importance to consider is the effect of this faith on an individual's inner life. The thoughts and ideas a person formulates about supersensible matters have an uplifting effect; they fill a person's soul with feelings of harmony and joy. Whenever people have felt inwardly happy and secure, aware that their lives have a higher meaning, it has always been due to religious faith. Such feelings transform themselves into contentment and confidence in life. Thus, it can be said that when a civilization comes into being, we first of all recognize the presence of faith, and second feelings of exaltation, contentment and confidence in life. The third thing to consider belongs to the sphere of the will. This is the sphere of morality and ethics. Ethics, that is, moral philosophy, influences not only morals, and acts of will, but also all social arrangements, all laws, and all affairs of state. It influences art, which belongs to the sphere of feeling. To think that morality can exist without religion is an illusion. Morality arises in the sphere of feeling. At first a person will have certain opinions about spiritual issues; second these will give rise to feelings of contentment and security; and third to will impulses that tell him: This is good; that is evil. How does it come about that so many are subject to the illusion that morality can be established without the foundation of religion? It happens because morality, this third component of a culture, is the last to disappear. When a civilization declines, the first to diminish is faith, that is, doubt arises about religion. However, even if the invigorating certainty of faith is absent for a long time, people still retain the feelings engendered by faith. When at last even inherited religious feelings have vanished, the morality that originated from the faith will still persist. Those who today believe that morality exists without a foundation of religious faith do not themselves have to rely on such an impossibility. They subsist on the remnant of inherited moral qualities. It is only because they have retained the morality of the past that people who think spiritual qualities are mere fantasy can act morally. Many believe they have overcome the need for religion, yet their moral life originated from religion. Socialists tend to want to establish morality without a foundation, that is, without religion. The reason they can talk about the subject at all, and the reason also for things not collapsing into chaos straightaway, is solely that they retain in the bodily organism the old morality that they want to eradicate. Even the political changes socialists want to bring about are based on the old morality. If progress is to come about, there must be a renewal of spiritual knowledge. When it is possible to draw people's attention to the spiritual forces that are streaming into our world all around us, this knowledge will create feelings of security and impulses towards moral actions in their soul. Then we will no longer have to rely on riches inherited from the past, but on those that spring from our own culture. There is nothing illogical in the knowledge of higher worlds of which spiritual science speaks. The supersensible is not treated as something remote and inaccessible; it is extraordinary that certain philosophic views maintain that no educated person can believe in a supersensible world. Such views demonstrate ignorance of the specific sense in which spiritual science speaks about the supersensible. I have often made clear by means of the following comparison what I mean by that. For someone born blind, the world of color and light is a “beyond” in relation to the accessible world. In other words, we have access to a world only if we have organs with which to perceive it. The moment sight is restored an individual no longer has to rely on others in order to determine that light and color exist. Then, a person experiences a new world but one which in reality was always there. In regard to the spiritual world of which spiritual science speaks, the situation is exactly the same. Knowledge of the spiritual world is again attainable through spiritual science. Just as there always were enlightened human beings able to see into the spiritual world, so there are individuals today who have developed spiritual organs. They are able to perceive the spiritual aspect of physical phenomena and see beyond the portal of death. They perceive that part of the human being constitutes the immortal being that survives after death. Their task is to impart detailed information of this spiritual research, thus making spiritual knowledge possible once more. It is cheap to say: Give me the means to see for myself. Actually, anyone can attain the means, provided that person seeks guidance of the right kind. Spiritual science constitutes such guidance and it is accessible to everyone. The very first requirement, however, is the ability to rise above the usual way of looking at things. The person must, as it were, say: Here is someone who tells me he can see into the spiritual world, and who relates many specific details. He speaks about what happens to humans after death, about spiritual forces and beings that are invisible to ordinary sight, and that permeate the world about us. As yet I cannot see that world, but if I keep an open mind and pay attention to my feelings and inner sense for Truth, I shall know whether what I hear sounds probable or the reverse. I can further apply logical thinking to the matter, and see if life itself bears out what I am told. Having listened calmly to everything and found nothing to contradict common sense, I shall attempt to look at the world in light of this knowledge and see if it explains human destiny. By assuming spiritual scientific views to be correct, I will be able to test whether they explain things and make life understandable. I shall also gradually discover if spiritual knowledge does give one inner strength, joy and confidence in life. In other words, I will discover whether there is a basis for accepting the words of the initiate. This attitude I adopt is the same in regard to spiritual knowledge as that adopted by a remarkable person in regard to the ordinary world of light and color. The life of the deaf, mute and blind Helen Keller 5 Helen Adams Keller (1880–1968) was an author and lecturer. She was born deaf, blind and mute. She became famous for her triumph over her disabilities. was often described. Up to the age of seven, she was like a little wild animal. Then there came to her a teacher of genius, Anne Sullivan, 6 Anne Sullivan (1866–1936) was Helen Keller's teacher. She was partially blind herself. and then her education was far above average. She had never heard sound or seen color and light; all her life had been one of silent darkness. But she had allowed everything that those around her experienced of color, light and sound to affect her soul. Recently a new book of hers was published, entitled Optimism . This small volume showed that not only was she knowledgeable about the affairs of the present time, but also about the life and language of the Greeks and Romans. Although she had never experienced it herself, she described the beauty of creation conveyed by sight and hearing. Her little book showed that she had gained more than just mental pictures from what had been described to her; she had gained inner strength and confidence in life. In the same way, people who do not close their mind will gain strength, confidence and hope for the future from listening to the description of someone with spiritual sight and hearing. Inner uncertainty causes weakness, and creates an inability to cope with life. Individuals who listen to someone with spiritual sight will gradually become aware of things that they were not aware of before. Spiritual knowledge will make people efficient and capable. Impulses must flow from the spiritual world like new life-blood and permeate our political and social systems, bringing about a transformation of our whole civilization. You must realize that spiritual knowledge is in our time closely connected with the most important questions and problems. When these press in upon us from all sides in various forms, we must acknowledge the need for deeper understanding. That the spiritual-scientific view of the world is shaped through prophetic knowledge of what must come will be born out by the lectures to be held this winter. They will throw light not only on the great civilizations, but also on everyday life. The results of spiritual research show clearly what is needed to ensure the healthy progress of mankind, and also what provides the individual with inner strength, courage, and joy in life. There are still many who laugh at what spiritual science has to say about supersensible issues. As they believe they are practical folks, they will have nothing to do with such unpractical nonsense. But the spiritual-scientific movement will carry on its work. The time will come when even people who are now among the fainthearted, skeptical doubters will turn to those who have absorbed spiritual knowledge because they need solutions to the great riddles and questions that will burden the soul — not arbitrary human questions, but questions posed by life with great force. Already in the near future, spiritual knowledge will be needed more and more if human evolution is to progress.

Supersensible Knowledge

The Significance of Supersensible Knowledge Today

https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA055/English/AP1987/19061011p01.html

Berlin

11 Oct 1906

GA055-1

The title of today's lecture no doubt reminds you of a passage in Goethe's Faust , when Faust, representing striving man, enters into a pact with evil powers, represented by the emissary from hell, Mephistopheles. Faust is to sign the pact in blood. At first he regards this as a joke, but Goethe undoubtedly meant the words spoken by Mephistopheles at this point to be taken seriously: “Blood is a very special fluid.” Goethe 1 Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) was a German poet, novelist, and playwright. commentators usually provide curious interpretations of this passage. You will be aware that so much has been written about Goethe's Faust that it can fill libraries. I naturally cannot go into what every commentator has said about this particular passage, but it all amounts more or less to what is said by a recent commentator, Professor Jacob Minor. 2 Jacob Minor (1855–1912) was professor of philology. Like others, he regards Mephistopheles' remark to be ironic, but Minor adds a curious sentence. I quote it in order to illustrate the amazing things said about Goethe's Faust . Minor states: “The devil is an enemy of blood.” He goes on to point out that as blood invigorates and sustains human life, the devil, being an enemy of the human race, must of necessity be also an enemy of blood. Minor is quite right when he further demonstrates that in sagas and legends blood always plays the kind of role it plays in Goethe's Faust . The oldest version of the Faust legend clearly describes how Faust makes a slight cut in his left hand with a penknife, dips a quill in the blood in order to sign the agreement, and as he does so, the blood, flowing from the wound, forms the words: “Oh man, escape!” This is all quite correct, but what about the remark that the devil is an enemy of blood and for that reason demands the signature written in blood? Can you imagine anyone wishing to possess the very thing he abhors? The only reasonable interpretation of the passage is that Goethe, as well as earlier writers of Faust legends, wishes to show that the devil regards blood as especially valuable, and that to him it is important that the deed is signed in blood rather than in neutral ink. The supposition must be that the representative of the powers of evil believes, or rather is convinced, that he will gain a special power over Faust by possessing at least a drop of his blood. It is quite obvious that Faust must sign in blood, not because the devil is his enemy, but because he wants to have power over him. The reason behind this passage is a strange premonition that if someone gains power over an individual's blood, one gains power over the person. In short, the feeling is that blood is a very special fluid and it is the real issue in the fight for an individual's soul between good and evil. A radical change must come about in our modern understanding and evaluation of the sagas and myths handed down since ancient times. We cannot go on regarding legends, fables and myths as childlike folklore or pretentiously declare them to be poetical expressions of a nation's soul. The poetic soul of a nation is nothing but a fantasy product of donnish officialdom. Anyone with true insight into the soul of a people knows with certainty that the contents of fables and myths, depicting powerful beings and wonderful happenings, is something very much more profound than mere invention. When with knowledge provided by spiritual research we delve into sagas and myths, allowing the mighty primordial pictures to act on us, we begin to recognize the profound ancient wisdom they reveal. To begin with, one naturally wonders how it was possible for primitive man, with his unsophisticated views, to depict in the form of fables and myths, cosmic riddles that are unveiled and described in exact terms by means of modern spiritual research. This at first seems very surprising. However, as further research reveals how these ancient fables and myths came into existence, one ceases to be amazed, and all doubt vanishes. One discovers that myths and fables, far from containing naive views, are filled with primordial wisdom. A thorough study of myths and fables yields infinitely more insight than today's intellectual, experimental sciences. Admittedly the approach to such a study must be with spiritual scientific methods. Whatever legends have to say about blood is important, because in earlier times an individual's inherent wisdom made him aware of the true significance of blood, this special fluid that in human beings is a stream of flowing life. Whence this wisdom came in ancient times is not our concern today; it will be the subject of a later lecture, though an indication will be given at the close of this one. Today we shall look at the significance of blood in human evolution and its role in cultural life. However, our discussion will not be from a physiological, or any other natural scientific point of view, but from that of spiritual science. It will be a help if before pursuing our subject we remind ourselves of a maxim that originated within the civilization of ancient Egypt, where the priestly wisdom of Hermes held sway. This maxim, which expresses a fundamental truth, is known as the Hermetic maxim and runs as follows: As above, so below. All kinds of trivial explanations of this saying are to be found, but the one that concerns us today is the following. It is obvious to spiritual science that the world accessible to our five senses, far from being complete in itself, is a manifestation of a spiritual world hidden behind it. This hidden world is called, according to the Hermetic axiom, the “world above, or the upper world.” The sense world spread all about us, perceptible to our senses and accessible to our intellect, is called the “world below,” and is an expression of the spiritual world above it. The physical world is therefore not complete to the spiritual researcher, but is a kind of physiognomic expression of the soul and spirit world behind it, just as when looking at a human face one does not stop short at its shape and features, but recognizes them as an expression of the soul and spirit behind them. What everyone does instinctively when faced with an ensouled being, the spiritual researcher does in regard to the whole world. The axiom, As above, so below, when applied to a human being, means that a person's soul impulses come to expression on the face. A hard, coarse face denotes coarseness of soul, a smile inner joy, and tears inner suffering. Let us now apply the Hermetic axiom to the question: What is wisdom? Spiritual science has often pointed to the fact that human wisdom is related to experience, particularly to painful experience. For someone actually in the throes of pain and suffering, the immediate experience will no doubt be inner discord. But when pain and suffering have been conquered, when only their fruits remain, a person will say that from the experience a measure of wisdom is gained. The happiness, enjoyment and contentment life brings one gratefully accepts; but more valuable by far, once it is overcome, is the pain and suffering, for to that people owe what wisdom they possess. Spiritual science recognizes in wisdom something like crystallized pain; pain transformed into its opposite. It is interesting that modern research, with its more materialistic approach, has come to the same conclusion. A book well worth reading was published recently about the mimicry of thought. The writer is not an anthroposophist, but a natural scientist and psychologist. He sets out to show that a person's thought life reveals itself in the physiognomy, and draws attention to the fact that a thinker's facial expression always suggest assimilated pain. Thus, you see emerging, interspersed with more materialistic views, a confirmation of an ancient maxim that originated from spiritual knowledge. This will happen more and more frequently; you will find ancient wisdom gradually reappearing within the framework of modern science. Spiritual research confirms that everything that surrounds us in the world: the configuration of minerals, the covering of vegetation, the world of animals, is the physiognomic expression of the life of spirit behind it. It is the “below” reflecting the “above.” Spiritual science maintains that what thus surrounds us can be properly understood only when one has knowledge of the “above,” that is, knowledge of the prototypes, the primordial beings from whom it all originated. Today we shall turn our attention to that which creates on earth its physiognomic expression in the blood. Once the spiritual background of blood is understood, it will be recognized that such knowledge must of necessity influence our spiritual and cultural life. The problems human beings are facing today are momentous and pressing — especially educational problems involving not only the young but also entire populations. These particular problems are bound to increase as time goes on. The great social upheavals taking place make this evident to anyone. Demands causing anxiety are continually made, whether in the guise of the woman question, the labor question or the peace question. These are all problems that become understandable once insight is gained into the spiritual nature of blood. Another question, similar in nature, which is again coming to the fore, is that of race. The racial problem cannot be understood unless one understands the mysterious effect when blood of different races is mingled. And finally, there is the problem of colonization that also belongs in this category. This problem has become even more pressing since attempts have been made to tackle it more consistently than was formerly the case. It arises when cultivated people are to share their lives with uncultivated people. Certain questions ought to be asked when attempts are made to tackle the problem: To what extent is it possible for a primitive people to assimilate a strange culture? Can a savage become civilized? What here comes under consideration are vital and far-reaching questions of existence, not just concern about doubtful morality. It is unlikely that one will find the right way of introducing a strange culture to a people if it is not known whether it is on an ascending or descending line of evolution; whether this or that aspect of its life is ruled by its blood. When the significance of blood is discussed, all these things come under scrutiny. The physical composition of blood will be known to you from science in general. In humans, and also in the higher animals, blood is truly the stream of life. Our inner bodily nature is in contact with the external world through the fact that we absorb into the blood the life-giving oxygen from the air, a process by which the blood is renewed. The blood that meets the instreaming oxygen acts as a kind of poison, as a kind of destroyer within the organism. This blue-red blood, by absorbing the oxygen, is transformed into red, life-giving blood through a process of combustion. This red blood that penetrates all parts of the organism has the task to absorb directly into itself substances from the outer world, and deposit them as nourishment along the shortest route within the body. Humans and the higher animals must of necessity first absorb nutritive substances into the blood, then, having formed the blood, absorb into it oxygen from the air and finally build up and sustain the body by means of the blood. A knowledgeable psychologist once remarked that the blood circulating through the body is not unlike a second person who, in relation to the one made of bone, muscle and nerve, constitutes a kind of outer world. And indeed our entire being constantly takes from the blood what sustains it, and gives back what it cannot use. One could say that a person carries in his or her blood a double ( Doppelgänger ) who, as a constant companion, furnishes him or her with renewed strength and relieves a person of what is useless. It is entirely justified to refer to blood as a stream of life and compare its importance with that of fibre. What fibre is for the lower organism. blood is for the human being as a whole. The distinguished scientist Ernst Haeckel 3 Ernst Haeckel (1834–1919) was a German biologist who supported Darwin's theory of evolution and his theory of ontogeny or the development of an individual organism. has probed deeply into nature's workshop, and in his popular works he quite rightly points out that blood is the last to develop in an organism. When tracing the stages of development in a human embryo, one finds rudiments of bone and muscle long before there is any indication of blood formation. Only late in embryonic development does formation of blood and blood vessels become apparent. This leads natural science to rightly conclude that blood made its appearance only late in world evolution, and that forces already in existence had first to reach a stage of development comparable to that of blood before they could accomplish what was necessary in the human organism. When as embryos human beings repeat once more the earlier stages of human evolution, they adapt to what existed before blood first made its appearance, This a person must do in order to achieve the crowning glory of evolution: the enhancement and transmutation of all that went before into that special fluid that is blood. If we are to enter into the mysterious laws of the spiritual realm that hold sway behind blood, we must first take a brief look at some of the basic ideas of spiritual science. You will come to see that these basic ideas are the “above,” and that this “above” comes to expression in the laws that govern blood, as it does in all other laws, as if in a physiognomy. There are in the audience some who are acquainted with the basics of spiritual science; they will allow a brief repetition for the sake of others who are present for the first time. In any case, repetitions help to make these basic ideas clearer, as light will be thrown on them from a different aspect. In fact, what I am going to say may well appear as just a string of words to those who as yet know nothing about spiritual science, and are therefore unfamiliar with this outlook on life. However, when ideas behind words seem to have no meaning, it is not always the ideas that are at fault. In this context a witty remark made by Georg Christoph Lichtenberg 4 Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (1744–1799) was a physicist and satirical writer. is apt. He said: If a head and a book collide and the result is a hollow sound, it is not always the book's fault. So, too, when some of our contemporaries pass judgment on spiritual truths, which to them seem like a string of words, it is not always spiritual science that is at fault. However, those acquainted with spiritual science will know that the references made to higher beings are to beings that really do exist, even if they cannot be found in the physical world. Spiritual science recognizes that humans, as they appear in the sense world to physical sight, represent only a part of their true being. In fact, behind the physical body there are several more principles that are invisible to ordinary sight. Human beings have the physical body in common with the so-called surrounding lifeless mineral world. In addition, they have a life body, or ether body. What is here understood by ether is not that of which natural science speaks. The life body or ether body is not something speculative or thought out, but is as concretely visible to the spiritual senses of the clairvoyant as are physical colors to physical sight. The ether body is the principle that calls inorganic matter into life and, in lifting it out of lifelessness, weaves it into the fabric of life. Do not for a moment imagine that the life body is something the spiritual investigator thinks into the lifeless. Natural science attempts to do that by imagining something called the “principle of life” into what is found under the microscope, whereas the spiritual investigator points to a real definite entity. The natural scientist adopts, as it were, the attitude that whatever exists must conform to the faculties a person happens to have; therefore, what he or she cannot perceive does not exist. This is just about as clever as a blind person saying that colors are nothing but a product of fantasy. The person to pass judgment on something must be the one who has experienced it, not someone who knows nothing about it. Nowadays one talks of “ignorabimus” and “limits of knowledge”; this is possible only as long as human beings remain as they are. But, as spiritual science points out, we are constantly evolving, and once we develop the necessary organs, we will perceive, among other things, the ether body, and will no longer speak of “limits of knowledge.” Agnosticism is grave obstacle to spiritual progress because it insists that, as human beings are as they are, their knowledge can only be limited accordingly. All that can be said to this is that then human beings must change, and when they do they will be able to know things they cannot now know things they cannot now know. Thus, the second member of a person's being is the ether body, which one has in common with the vegetable kingdom. A human being's third member is the astral body. This name, as well as being beautiful, is also significant; that it is justified will be shown later. Those who wish to find another name only show that they have no inkling as to why the astral body is so named. In humans and animals, the astral body bestows on living substance the ability to experience sensation. This means that not only do currents of fluid move within it, but also sensations of joy, sorrow, pleasure and pain. This capacity constitutes the essential difference between plant and animal, although transitional stages between them do exist. A certain group of scientists believes that sensation should be ascribed also to plants, but that is only playing with words. Certainly some plants do react when something approaches them, but it has nothing to do with sensation or feeling. When the latter is the case, an image arises within the creature in response to the stimulus. Even if certain plants respond to external stimuli, that is no proof that they experience inner sensation. The inwardly felt has its seat in the astral body. Thus, we see that creatures belonging to the animal kingdom consist of physical body, ether or life body, and astral body. Human beings tower above the animal through a specific quality, often sensed by thoughtful natures. In his autobiography, Jean Paul 5 Jean Paul (Jean Paul Friedrich Richter, 1763–1825), German author. relates the deep impression made upon him when, as a small child, standing in the courtyard of his parent's house, the thought suddenly flashed through his mind: “I am an ‘I,’ I am a being who inwardly calls himself ‘I.’ ” What is here described is of immense significance, yet generally overlooked by psychologists. A subtle observation will illustrate what is involved: In the whole range of speech, there is one small word that in its application differs from all others. We can all give a name to the objects in this room. Each one of us will call the table, “table,” the chairs, “chairs,” but there is one word, one name that can only refer to the one who speaks it: the little word “I.” No one can call someone else “I.” The word “I” must sound forth from the innermost soul to which it applies. To me, everyone else is a “you,” and I am a “you” to everyone else. Religions have recognized that the “I” is that principle in us that makes it possible for the human soul to express its innermost divine nature. With the “I” begins what can never enter the soul through the external senses, what must sound forth in its innermost being. It is where the monologue, the soliloquy, begins in which, if the path has been made clear for the spirit's entry, the divine Self may reveal itself. In religions of earlier cultural epochs, and still in the Hebrew religion, the word “I” was called: “The unutterable name of God.” No matter how it is interpreted according to modern philology, the ancient Hebrew name for God signifies what today is expressed by the word “I.” A hush went through the assembly when the initiate spoke the “Name of the Unknown God”; the people would dimly sense the meaning contained in the words that resounded through the temple: “I am the I am.” Thus, the human being consists of physical body, ether body, astral body and the “I” or the essential inner being. This inner being contains within itself the germ of the three further evolutionary stages that will arise out of the blood. They are: Manas or Spirit Self, in contrast to the bodily self; Buddhi or Life Spirit; and a human's true spiritual being: Atma or Spirit Man, which today rests within us as a tiny seed to reach perfection in a far-off future; a stage to which at present we can only look to as a far-distant ideal. Therefore, just as we have seven colors in the rainbow and seven tones in the scale, we have seven members of our being that divide into four lower and three higher. If we now look upon the three higher spiritual members as the “above” and the four lower as the “below,” let us try to get a clear picture of how the above creates a physiognomic expression in the below as it appears to physical sight. Take first what we have in common with the whole inorganic nature, that is, that which crystallized into the form of a person's physical body. When we speak of the physical body in a spiritual-scientific sense, it is not what can be seen physically that is meant, but the combination of forces behind it that constructed this form. The next member of our being is the ether body, which plants and animals also possess, and by means of which they are endowed with life. The ether body transforms physical matter into living fluids, thus raising what is merely material into living form. In animal and human the ether body is permeated by the astral body, which calls up in the circulating fluid inner participation of its movement, causing the movement to be reflected inwardly. We have now reached the point where the being of humans can be understood insofar as they are related to the animal kingdom. The substances, such as oxygen, nitrogen, hydrogen, sulphur, phosphorus, and so forth, out of which our physical body is composed, are to be found outside in inorganic nature. If the substances transformed by the ether body into living matter are to attain the capacity to create inner mirror images of external events, then the ether body must be permeated by the astral body. It is the astral body that gives rise to sensations and feelings, but at the animal level does so in a specific way. The ether body transforms inorganic substances into living fluids; the astral body transforms living substance into sensitive substance. But — and of this please take special note — a being composed of no more than the three bodies is only capable of sensing itself. It is only aware of its own life processes; its existence is confined within the boundaries of its own being. This fact is most interesting, and it is important to keep it in mind. Look for a moment at what has developed in a lower animal: inorganic matter is transformed into living substance, and living mobile substance into sensitive substance. The latter is to be found only where there is at least the rudiment of what at a higher stage becomes a developed nervous system. Thus, we have inorganic substance, living substance, and nerve substance capable of sensation. In a crystal you see manifest certain laws of inorganic nature. (A crystal can be formed only within the whole surrounding nature.) No single entity could exist by itself separated from the rest of the cosmos. If we were to be transferred a mile or two above the earth's surface, we would die. Just as we are conceivable only within the environment to which we belong, where the necessary forces exist that combine to form and sustain us, so too, in the case of a crystal. A person who knows how to look at a crystal will see it as an individual imprint of the whole of nature, indeed of the whole cosmos. Georges Leopold Chrètien Cuvier 6 Georges Leopold Chretien Couvier (1769–1832) was a French comparative anatomist and the founder of paleontology. is quite right when he says that a competent anatomist is able to deduce from a single bone to what kind of animal it belongs, as each kind has its own specific bone formation. So you see that in the form of a crystal a certain aspect of the whole cosmos is reflected, just as an aspect of the whole cosmos is imprinted on living substance. The fluid circulating in a living creature is a small world that mirrors the great world. When substance possesses not only life, but also experiences inner sensation, it mirrors universal laws; it becomes a microcosm that dimly senses within itself the whole macrocosm. As the crystal is an image of cosmic form, so is sentient life an image of cosmic life. The dullness of consciousness in simple creatures is compensated by its immense range, for mirrored in it is the whole cosmos. The constitution of humans is simply a more intricate structure composed of the three bodies already found in simple sentient creatures. If you consider people while disregarding their blood, you have beings built up from the same substances as those to be found in their environment. Like the plant, human beings contain fluids that call mineral substances to life, which in turn incorporate a system of nerves. The first nerves to appear are those of the so-called sympathetic nervous system. In humans it extends along both sides of the vertebral column, forming a series of knots from which it branches out and sends threads to the various organs, the lungs, the digestive tract and so on. In the first instance, the sympathetic nervous system gives rise to the kind of sentient life just described. But a person's consciousness does not reach down far enough to experience the cosmic processes it mirrors. The surrounding cosmic world out of which the human being, as a living being, is created, mirrors itself in the sympathetic nervous system. There is in these nerves a dull inner life. If human beings could dive down consciously into the sympathetic nervous system, while the higher nervous system fell asleep, they would behold in a world of light the workings of the great cosmic laws. Human beings once had a clairvoyant faculty that has been superseded. However, it can still be experienced, if through certain measures the function of the higher nervous system is suspended, setting free the lower consciousness. When that happens, the world is experienced through the lower nervous system in which the environment is mirrored in a special way. Certain lower animals still have this kind of consciousness. As explained, it is extremely dull, but provides a dim awareness of a far wider aspect of the world than the tiny section perceived by humans today. At the time when evolution had reached the stage of the cosmos being mirrored in the sympathetic nervous system, another event occurred in human beings. The spinal cord was added to the sympathetic nervous system. The system of brain and spinal cord extended to the organs, through which contact was established with the outer world. Once their organisms had reached this stage, humans were no longer obliged to be merely a mirror for the primordial cosmic laws; the mirror image itself now entered into relationship with the environment. The incorporation of the higher nervous system in addition to the sympathetic nervous system denoted the transformation that had occurred in the astral body. Whereas formerly it participated dully in the life of the cosmos, it now contributed its own inner experiences. Through the sympathetic nervous system, a being senses what takes place outside itself; through the higher nervous system, what takes place within itself. In individuals at the present stage of their evolution, the highest form of the nervous system is developed; it enables people to obtain from the highly structured astral body what is needed to formulate mental pictures of the outer world. Therefore, a person has lost the ability to experience the environment in the original dull pictures. Instead, individuals are aware of their inner life, and build within the inner self a new world of pictures on a higher level. This world of mental pictures mirrors, it is true, a much smaller section of the outer world, but does so much more clearly and perfectly. Hand in hand with this transformation, another one occurred on a higher evolutionary level. The reorganization of the astral body became extended to the ether body. Just as the ether body through its reorganization became permeated with the astral body, and just as there was added to the sympathetic nervous system that of the brain and spinal cord, so what was set free from the ether body — after it had called into being the circulation of living fluids — now transformed these lower fluids into what we call “blood.” Blood denotes an individualized ether body, just as the brain and spinal cord denote an individualized astral body. And through this individualizing comes about that which expresses itself as the “I.” Having traced man's evolution up to this point, we notice that we are dealing with a gradation in five stages: First the physical body (or inner forces); second the ether body (or living fluids, to be found also in plants); third the astral body (manifesting itself in the lower or sympathetic nervous system); fourth the higher astral body emerging from the lower astrality (manifesting itself in the brain and spinal cord); and finally the principle that individualizes the ether body. Just as two of humanity's principles, the ether, and astral bodies, have become individualized, so will the human being's first principle, built up out of external lifeless substances, that is, the physical body, become individualized. In present day humanity there is only a faint indication of this transformation. We see that formless substances come together in the human body, that the ether body transforms them into living forms, that through the astral body the outer world is reflected and becomes inner sensation, and finally this inner life produces of itself pictures of the outer world. When the process of transformation extends to the etheric body, the result is the forming of blood. This transformation manifests itself in the system of heart and blood vessels, just as the transformation of the astral body manifests in the system of brain and spinal cord. And, as through the brain the outer world becomes inner world, so does this inner world become transformed through the blood into an outer manifestation as the human body. I shall have to speak in similes if I am to describe these complicated processes. The pictures of the external world made inward through the brain are absorbed by the blood and transformed into vital formative forces. These are the forces that build up the human body; in other words, blood is the substance that builds the body. We are dealing with a process that brings the blood into contact with the outer world; it enables it to take from it the most perfect substance, oxygen. Oxygen continually renews the blood, endowing it with new life. In tracing human development, we have followed a path that leads from the outer world to humanity's inner world and back to the outer world. We have seen that the origin of blood coincides with our ability to face the world as an independent being, a being able to form his or her own pictures of the external world from its reflection within the self. Unless this stage is reached, a being cannot say “I” to itself. Blood is the principle whereby “I-hood” is attained. An “I” can express itself only in a being who is able independently to formulate the pictures the outer world produces within the self. A being who has attained “I-hood” must be able to take in the outer world and recreate it within the self. If we possessed only a brain without a spinal cord, we would still reproduce within ourselves pictures of the outer world and be aware of them, but only as a mirror image. It is quite different when we are able to build up anew what is repeated within ourselves; for then what we thus build up is no longer merely pictures of the outer world; it is the “I.” A being who possesses brain and spinal cord will not only mirror the outer world, as does a being with only the sympathetic nervous system, but will also experience the mirrored picture as inner life. A being who in addition possesses blood will experience inner life within the self. The blood, assisted by oxygen taken from the outer world, builds up the individual body according to the inner pictures. This is experienced as perception of the “I”. The “I” turns its vision inwards into a person's being, and its will outwards to the world. This twofold direction manifests itself in the blood, which directs its forces inwards, building up a person's being, and outwards towards the oxygen. When humans fall asleep they sink into unconsciousness because of what the consciousness experiences within the blood, whereas when they, by means of sense organs and brain, form mental pictures of the outer world, then the blood absorbs these pictures into its formative forces. Thus, the blood exists midway between an inner picture-world and an outer world of concrete forms. This becomes clearer if we look at two phenomena. One is that of genealogy, that is, the way conscious beings are related to ancestors, the other is the way we experience external events. We are related to ancestors through the blood. We are born within a specific configuration, within a certain race, a certain family and from a certain line of ancestors. Everything inherited comes to expression in our blood. Likewise, all the results from an individual's physical past accumulates in the blood, just as within it there is prepared a prototype of that person's future. Consequently, when the individual's normal consciousness is suppressed, for example under hypnosis or in cases of somnambulism or atavistic clairvoyance, a much deeper consciousness becomes submerged. Then, in a dreamlike fashion, the great cosmic laws are perceived. Yet this perception is nevertheless clearer than that of ordinary dreams even when lucid. In such conditions all brain activity is suppressed, and in deep somnambulism even that of the spinal cord. In this condition what the person experiences is conveyed by the sympathetic nervous system; the individual has a dull, hazy awareness of the whole cosmos. The blood no longer conveys mental pictures produced by the inner life through the brain; it only conveys what the outer world has built including everything inherited from ancestors. Just as the shape of a person's nose stems from his or her ancestors, so does the whole bodily form. In this state of consciousness a person senses his ancestors in the same manner that waking consciousness senses mental pictures of the outer world. A person's blood is haunted by his ancestors; he dimly participates in their existence. Everything in the world evolves, also human consciousness. If we go back to the time when our remote ancestors lived, we find that they possessed a different type of consciousness. Today, during waking life we perceive external objects through the senses, and transform them into mental pictures that act an our blood. Everything a person experiences through the senses is working in not only his blood but also in his memory. By contrast, a person remains unconscious of everything bestowed by ancestors. We know nothing about the shape of our inner organs. In the past all this was different; at that time the blood conveyed not only what it received from outside through the senses, but also what existed in the bodily form, and as this was inherited, we could sense our ancestors within our own being. If you imagine such a consciousness enhanced, you will get an idea of the kind of memory that corresponded to it. When our experiences are confined to what can be perceived through the senses, then only such sense perceptible experiences are remembered. A person's consciousness comprises only his experiences since childhood. In the past this was different, because the inner life contained all that was brought over through heredity. A human's mental life depicted ancestors' experiences as if they were his own. A person could remember not only his own childhood, but his ancestors' lives, because they were contained in the pictures absorbed by his blood. Incredible as it may seem to the modern materialistic outlook, there was a time when human consciousness was such that an individual regarded both his and his forefathers' physical experiences as his own. When someone said: “I have experienced... ,” he referred not only to personally known events but also to events experienced by his ancestors. It was a dim and hazy consciousness compared with modern human waking consciousness, more like a vivid dream. However, it was much more encompassing, as it included not only his own life but the lives of ancestors. A son would feel at one with his father and grandfather, as if they were sharing the same “I.” This was also the reason he did not give himself a personal name but one that included past generations, designating what they had in common with one and the same name. Each person felt strongly that he was simply a link in a long line of generations. The question is how this form of consciousness came to be transformed into a different one. It happened through an event well-known to spiritual historical research. You will find that every nation the world over describes a significant moment in history when a new phase of its culture began — the moment when the old traditions begin to lose their influence, and the ancient wisdom that had flowed down the generations via the blood begins to wane, although the wisdom still finds expression in myths and sagas. A tribe used to be an enclosed unit; its members married among themselves. You will find this to be the case in all races and peoples. It was a significant moment in the history of mankind when this custom ceased to be upheld — the moment when a mingling of blood took place through the fact that marriage between close relations was replaced by marriage between strangers. Marriage within a tribe ensured that the same blood flowed through its members down the generations; marriage between strangers allowed new blood to be introduced into a people. The tribal law of intermarriage will be broken sooner or later among all peoples. It heralds the birth of the intellect, which means ability to understand the external world, to understand what is foreign. The important fact to bear in mind is that in ancient times a dim clairvoyance existed out of which arose sagas and legends, and that the clairvoyant consciousness is based on unmixed blood, whereas our awakened consciousness depends on mixed blood. Surprising as it may seem, marriage between strangers has resulted in logical, intellectual thoughts. This is a fact that will increasingly be confirmed by external research, which has already made a beginning in that direction. The mingling of blood extinguishes the former clairvoyance and enables humanity to reach a higher stage of evolution. When a person today goes through esoteric training and causes clairvoyance to reappear, that person transforms it to a higher consciousness, whereas today's waking consciousness has evolved out of the ancient dim clairvoyance. In our time, a person's whole surrounding world in which he acted came to expression in the blood; consequently, this surrounding world formed the inner in accordance with the outer. In ancient times it was more a person's inner bodily life that came to expression in the blood. A person inherited, along with the memory of his ancestors' experiences, also their good or bad inclinations; these could be traced in his blood. This ancestral bond was severed when blood became mingled through outside marriages. The individual began to live his own personal life; he learned to govern his moral inclinations according to his own experiences. Thus, ancestral power holds sway in unmixed blood; that of personal experience in mixed blood. Myths and legends told of these things: “That which has power over thy blood has power over thee.” Ancestral power over a folk came to an end when the blood, through being mingled with foreign blood, ceased to be receptive to its influence. This held good in all circumstances. Whatever power wishes to subjugate a person will have to exert an influence that imprints itself in his blood. Thus, if an evil power wishes dominance over an individual, it must gain dominance over his or her blood. That is the profound meaning of the quotation from Faust, and the reason the representative of evil says: “Sign your name to the pact in blood; once I possess your name written in your blood, I shall have caught you by the one thing that will hold man. I shall then be able to pull you over to my side.” That which possesses a person's blood possesses that person, and possesses the human “I. ” When two groups of human beings confront one another, as used to be the case in colonization, then only if there is true insight into evolutionary laws is there any possibility of foreseeing if the foreign culture can be assimilated. Take the case of a people that is very much at one with its environment, a people into whose blood the environment has as it were inserted itself. No attempt to graft upon it a foreign culture will succeed. It is simply impossible, and is also the reason why in certain regions the original inhabitants became extinct when colonized. One must approach such problems with insight and realize that anything and everything cannot be forced upon a people. It is useless to demand of blood more than it is able to endure. Modern science has discovered recently that if blood from one animal is mixed with that of another not akin to it, the two types of blood prove fatal to one another. This is something that has been known to spiritual knowledge for a long time. Just as unrelated types of blood if mixed cause death, so is the old clairvoyance killed in primitive humanity when blood from different lines of descent are mingled. Our modern intellectual life is entirely the outcome of the mingling of blood. Once this approach is adopted it will be possible to study what effect the mingling of blood has had on the various people in the course of history. Thus, when the blood of animals from different evolutionary stages is mixed the result is death, whereas that is not the case when the species are related. The human organism survives when, through marriage, blood is mingled with strange blood; here the result is the extinction of the original animal kind of clairvoyance, and the birth in evolution of a new consciousness. In other words, something happens in humans, but on a higher level, that is similar to what happens in the animal kingdom where strange blood kills strange blood. In the human kingdom strange blood kills the hazy clairvoyance that is based on kindred blood. Therefore, it is a destructive process that gave rise to the modern human wakeful day-consciousness. The kind of spiritual life that resulted from intermarriage has been destroyed in the course of evolution; while the very thing that destroyed it, that is, marriage between strangers, gave birth to the intellect and today's lucid consciousness. What is able to live in a person's blood lives in that person's “I.” Just as the physical principle comes to expression in the physical body, the ether body comes to expression in the system of living fluids, and the astral body in the system of nerves, so does the “I” come to expression in the blood. Physical principle, ether body and astral body are the “above” blood; the “I” forms the center; and physical body, living fluids and nervous system are the “below.” Therefore, whatever power wishes to dominate humans must take possession of their blood. These are things that must be taken into account if progress is to be achieved in practical life. For example, just because the “I” comes to expression in the blood, a people's racial character can be destroyed through colonization, when more is demanded than the blood can endure. Not till Beauty and Truth become part of a person's blood does he truly possess them. Mephistopheles wants power over Faust's “I”; that is why he seizes Faust's blood. So you see that the quotation, which is the Leitmotiv of this lecture, arose out of profound knowledge. Blood is indeed a very special fluid .

Supersensible Knowledge

Blood is a Very Special Fluid

https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA055/English/AP1987/19061025p02.html

Berlin

25 Oct 1906

GA055-2

The next three lectures of this winter's cycle will have more of an inner connection than the others, that is: Today's upon the origin of suffering, the next upon the origin of evil, and the following: Illness and Death. Yet each of these three lectures will be complete and comprehensible in itself. When man looks at the life around him, when he examines himself and tries to investigate the meaning and significance of life, he finds before life's door a remarkable figure — in part a warning figure, in part a completely enigmatic one: Suffering. Suffering, so closely bound up with what we shall consider in the next lectures on evil, illness and death, seems to man sometimes to grip so deeply into life as to be connected with its very greatest problems. Hence the problem of suffering has occupied the human race since earliest times, and whenever there is an endeavour to estimate the value of life and to find its meaning, people have above all tried to recognize the role played by suffering and pain. In the midst of a happy life suffering appears as a destroyer of peace, as a damper-down of the pleasure and hope of life. Those who see the value of life in pleasure and happiness are those who feel the most this peace-destroyer, suffering. How else would it be explicable that in a people so full of joy and happiness of life as the Greeks, such a dark spot in the starry heavens of the beauty of Greece could arise as the saying of the wise Silenus? Silenus in the train of Dionysos asks: What is the best for man? The best for man is not to be born, and if he is once born, then the second best is to die soon after birth. Perhaps you know that Friedrich Nietzsche in seeking to grasp the birth of tragedy out of the spirit of ancient Greece linked on to this saying in order to show how, on the basis of Greek wisdom and art, suffering and man's sadness over suffering and all connected with it play a role full of significance. But now we find another, hardly much later, saying from ancient Greece. It is a short phrase which shows how a glimmering arises that the pain and sorrow of the world do not play merely an unhappy role. It is the expression which we find in one of the earliest Greek tragedians, Aeschylos, that out of suffering grows knowledge. Here are two things brought together, one of which no doubt a great part of mankind would like to blot out, whereas it looks on the other, knowledge, as one of the highest possessions of life. People at all times have believed that they must recognise that life and suffering are deeply entwined — at least the life of modern man and of the higher creatures on our globe. Thus at the beginning of the Biblical story of Creation the knowledge of good and evil and suffering are intimately bound up with one another. Yet we also see on the other hand, in the midst of the Old Testament conception how, out of a dark view of sorrow, a bright light-filled one dawns. When we look around us in the Old Testament and study the Creation story in regard to this question it is clear that suffering and sin were brought together, that suffering was looked on as the consequence of sin. In the modern mode of thinking, where the materialistic concept of the world penetrates everywhere, it is no longer easy to grasp how the cause of suffering can be sought for in sin. But through spiritual research and the power to look back into earlier ages, it will be found to be not so meaningless to believe in such a connection. The next lecture will show us that it is possible to see a connection between evil and suffering. But for ancient Jewry it was impossible to explain the cause of suffering. We see in the centre of this view that brings suffering and sin into connection the remarkable figure of Job. It is a figure which shows us, or is meant to show us, how suffering and unspeakable pain can be connected with a completely guiltless life, how there can be unearned pain and suffering. We see dawning in the consciousness of this unique tragic personality, Job, yet another connection of pain and suffering, a connection with the ennobling of man. Suffering appears to us then as a testing, as the root of a climbing upwards, of a higher development. Suffering in the sense of this Job-tragedy need in no way have its origin in evil, it can itself be first cause, so that what proceeds from it represents a more perfect phase of human life. All of that lies somewhat remote from our modern thinking, and the generality of our modern educated public can find but little connection with it. You need only think back in your life, however, and you will see how perfection and suffering very often appeared together and how mankind has always been aware of this connection. Such a consciousness will form a bridge to what we are to consider today in the light of spiritual investigation, namely, the connection between suffering and spirituality. Remember how in some tragedy the tragic hero has stood before your eyes. The poet leads the hero again and again through suffering and conflicts full of suffering until he comes to the point where pain reaches its climax and finds relief in the end of the physical body. Then there lives in the soul of the spectator not alone sympathy with the tragic hero and sadness that such sufferings are possible, but it appears that from the sight of suffering man was exalted and built up, that he has seen the suffering submerged in death and that out of death has come the assurance that victory exists over pain. Yes, even over death. Through nothing in art can this highest victory of man, this victory of his highest forces and impulses, victory of the noblest impulses of his nature be brought so sublimely before the eyes as by a tragedy. When the experience of pain and suffering has preceded the consciousness of this victory, and, from the deeds that can again and again take place before the eyes of the spectator in the theatre, we look up to what is still felt by a great part of modern humanity as the highest fact of all historical evolution; when we look up to the Event which divides our chronology into two parts — to the Redemption through Christ Jesus — then it can strike us that one of the greatest upliftings, one of the greatest upbuildings and hopes of victory which has ever taken root in the heart of man has sprung from the world historic sight of suffering. The greatly significant feelings, cutting deep into the human heart, of the Christian world-conception, these feelings which for so many are the hope and strength of life, give the assurance that there is an eternity, a victory over death. All these supporting and uplifting feelings spring from the sight of a universal suffering, a suffering that befalls innocence, a suffering occasioned through no personal sin. So we see here too that a highest element in the consciousness of humanity is linked to suffering. And when we see how these things, small and great, ever again rise to the surface, how they actually form the elemental part of the whole of human nature and consciousness, then it must indeed seem to us as if in some way suffering is connected with the highest in man. This was only meant to point to a basic impulse of the human soul which continually asserts itself and which stands as a great consolation for the fact that there is suffering. If we now enter more intimately into human life we shall find phenomena which show us the significance of suffering. We shall have to point here symptomatically to a phenomenon which perhaps seems hardly connected; but, if we nevertheless examine human nature more closely, we shall see that this phenomenon too points to the significance of certain aspects of suffering. Think once more of a work of art, a tragedy. It can only arise if the poet's soul opens wide, goes out of itself and learns to feel another's pain, to lay the burden of a stranger's suffering upon his own soul. And now compare this feeling not perhaps just with a comedy — for then we should get no good comparison — but with something which in a certain way also belongs to art, with the mood which gives rise to caricature. This mood, perhaps with ridicule and derision, draws in caricature what goes on in the soul of the other and appears in external action. Let us try to put before us two men of whom the one conceives an event or a human being tragically, while the other grasps it as caricature. It is not a mere comparison, not a mere picture when we say that the soul of the tragic poet and artist appears as if it went out of itself and became wider and wider. What, however, is revealed to the soul through this expansion? The understanding of the other person. One understands the life of another through nothing so much as by taking upon one's own soul the burden of his pain. But what must one do if one wants to caricature? One must not go into what the other feels, one must set oneself above it, drive it away, and this driving from oneself is the basis of the caricature. No-one will deny that just as through tragic compassion the other personality becomes deeply comprehensible, what appears in the caricature is what lives in the personality of the caricaturist. We learn to know the superiority, the wit, the power of observation, the phantasy of the one caricaturing rather than the one caricatured. If we have shown in some way that suffering is nevertheless connected with something deep in human nature then we may hope that through a grasp of the actual nature of man the origin of pain and suffering can also become clear to us. The spiritual science which we represent here takes its starting point from the fact that all existence has its origin in the Spirit. A more materialistic view sees Spirit only as a crowning of perceptible creation, above all as a fruit of physical nature from which it proceeds. In the last two lectures (11 and 25th October 1906. The former is not translated. The latter is “The Occult Significance of Blood”.) it was shown how in the light of spiritual research we have to picture the whole man — the physical or bodily, the man of soul and the spiritual man. What we can see with our eyes, perceive externally through the senses, what materialism considers the sole being of nature, is to spiritual research nothing but the first member of the human being — the physical body. We know that in respect of its substances and laws this is common to man with all the rest of the lifeless world. But we know too that this physical body is called to life through what we call the etheric or life-body. We know this because for spiritual research the life-body is not a speculation but a reality which can be seen when the higher senses slumbering in man have become open. We look upon the second part of the human being, the etheric body, as something which man has in common with the rest of the plant world. We regard the astral body as the third member of man's being; it is the bearer of sympathy and antipathy, of desire and passion which man has in common with the animal. And then we see that man's self-consciousness, the possibility of saying “I” to oneself, is the crown of human nature, which man has in common with no other being. We see that the “I” arises as the blossoming of the three bodies, physical, etheric and astral. So we see a connection of these four bodies to which spiritual research has always pointed. The Pythagorean “quadrature” is nothing else than the four-foldness, physical body, etheric body, astral body and I or ego. Those who have occupied themselves more deeply with spiritual science know that the I works out from itself what we call Spirit-Self or Manas, Life-Spirit or Budhi, and the actual Spirit-Man or Atma. That is once more put before you so that we may orientate ourselves in the right way. Man therefore appears to the spiritual investigator as a four-membered being. Now comes the point where genuine spiritual research, which sees behind the beings with the eyes of the spirit and penetrates to the deeper laws of existence, differs profoundly from a purely external way of observing. It is true that as man stands before us we say too that chemical and physical laws must be the foundation of the body, of life, the foundation of sensation, consciousness, self-consciousness. But when we penetrate existence with spiritual science we see that things are just the reverse. Consciousness, which arises out of the physical body, which in the sense of phenomenon appears to be the last, is to us the original creative element. At the base of all things we perceive the conscious Spirit and therefore the spiritual researcher sees how senseless is the question: Where does the Spirit come from? — That can never be the question. It is only possible to ask: Where does matter come from? For spiritual research matter has sprung from Spirit, is nothing but densified Spirit. As a comparison, picture a vessel with water in it. Think of one part of the water being cooled down until it turns to ice. Now what is the ice? It is water, water in another form, in a solid condition. This is the way that spiritual research looks at matter. As water is related to ice so is Spirit to matter. As ice is no more than a result of water, so is matter nothing else than a result of Spirit, and as ice can become water again, so can Spirit originate again out of matter, can proceed from matter, or, reversed, matter can again dissolve into Spirit. Thus we see Spirit in an eternal circulation. We see the Spirit which flows through the whole universe, we see material beings arise out of it, densifying, and we see again on the other hand beings which cause the solid to evaporate again. In all that surrounds us today as matter is something into which Spirit has flowed and become rigid. In every material being we see rigidified Spirit. As we need only bring the necessary heat to the ice to turn it into water again, so we need only bring the necessary Spirit to the beings around us to renew the Spirit in them. We speak of a rebirth of the Spirit which has flowed into matter and is hardened there. Thus does the astral body — the bearer of likes and dislikes, of desires and passions — appear to us not as something which could originate from physical existence, but as the same element as lives in us as conscious Spirit, as what appears to us as the element flowing through the whole world and being dissolved again out of matter, through a process of human life. What appears as last is at the same time the first. It has produced the physical body and likewise the etheric body, and when both have reached a certain degree of development appears to be born out of them anew. This is how spiritual research looks at things. Now these three members — we only use words for clarifying — appear to us under three distinct names. We perceive matter in a certain form, appearing to us in the outer world in a certain way. We speak of the Form, of the shape of matter and of the Life which appears in the Form and lastly of Consciousness which appears within the Life. So we speak as of three stages: physical body, etheric body, astral body, and also of three stages: Form, Life, Consciousness. Only from Consciousness does Self-consciousness arise. We shall not occupy ourselves with that today but only in our next lecture. People at all times and particularly in our own day have pondered much over the actual meaning of life and its origin. Modern natural science has been able to give few clues to the meaning and nature of life. One thing, however, the more recent natural science has accepted for some time, something which has been expounded again and again as a fact by spiritual science also. This is namely: Life within the physical world is fundamentally distinguished as to substance from the so-called lifeless only through the manifoldness and complexity of its formation. Life can be present only where a much more complicated structure is found than exists in the realm of the lifeless. You know, perhaps, that the basic substance of life is a kind of albuminous substance for which the expression “living albumen” would not be out of place. This living albumen differs essentially from dead lifeless albumen through one characteristic. Living albumen disintegrates directly it is forsaken by life. Dead albumen, that for instance of a dead hen's-egg, cannot be kept for any length of time in the same condition. It is the essential character of living substance that the moment when life has left it, it can no longer hold its parts together. Although we cannot go further into the nature of life today, yet one phenomenon can point to something that is deeply connected with life and characterises it. And what is this characteristic? It is just this peculiarity of living substance that it disintegrates when life has gone out of it. Think of a substance denuded of life — it decays, it has the peculiarity of dispersing. What then does life do? It sets itself again and again against disintegration; thus life preserves. That is the youth-giving element of life: it ever resists what would take place in its substance. Life in substance means: resistance to decay. Compare with life the external process of death and it will be clear that life does not show what characterises the process of death — the disintegration in itself. Far more does it ever and again rescue substance from decay, sets itself against decay. Thus, inasmuch as life ever renews the substance which is falling to pieces in itself, it is the foundation of physical existence and of consciousness. This has not merely been a verbal explanation; it would have been one if what it signifies were not continuously carried on. You need, however, only observe a living substance and you will find that it continually takes up matter from outside, incorporates it into itself, inasmuch as portions of itself become destroyed: a process through which life perpetually works against destruction. We have, in fact, to do with a reality. To throw off old material and form new again — that is life. But life is not yet sensation, not yet consciousness. It is a childish kind of imagination that makes many scientists have such a false idea of sensation. To the plants to which we must ascribe life, they also attribute sensation. If one says that because many plants close their leaves and flowers on an external stimulation, as if they felt it, then one could also say that blue litmus paper, which goes red through outer stimulus, has sensation. We could also ascribe sensation to chemical substances because they react to certain influences. But that is not enough. To have sensation the stimulus must be reflected inwardly. Only then can we speak of the first element of consciousness, of sensation and feeling. And what is this first element of consciousness? When in further investigation of the world we raise ourselves to the next higher stage and try to comprehend the nature of consciousness, we shall not do so immediately, but shall nevertheless feel it dawn a little into the soul, just as we could explain a little the nature of life. Consciousness can arise only where there is life, can spring only from life. If life arises out of apparently lifeless matter, since the combination of the material is so complicated that it cannot preserve itself and must be seized upon by life in order to prevent continual decay, then consciousness appears to us within life as something higher. Whenever life is continually destroyed as life, where a being stands close to the threshold between life and death, where life threatens all the time to vanish again from the living substance, then consciousness arises. And as in the first place substance would have disintegrated if life did not permeate it, so now life seems to us to be dissipated if a new principle, consciousness, is not added to it. We can grasp consciousness only by saying: Just as life is there in order to renew certain processes, for lack of which matter would decay, so is consciousness there to renew again and again the life that would otherwise die. Not every life can always renew itself inwardly in this way. It must have reached a higher stage, if it is to renew itself from itself. Only a life that is so strong in itself that it perpetually bears death within can awaken to consciousness. Or does no life exist which in every moment has death in itself? You need only look at the life of man and remember what was said in the last lecture: “Blood is a very special fluid”. Human life renews itself continually out of the blood, and a clever German psychologist has said that man has a double (Doppelgänger) from whom he continually draws strength. But the blood, has another power as well: it continually creates death. When the blood has deposited the life-awakening substances on the bodily organs, then it carries the life-destroying forces up again to the heart and lungs. What flows back into the lungs is poisonous to life and makes life continually perish. When a being works against disintegration and decay then it is a living being. If it is able to let death arise within it and to transform this death continually into life, then consciousness arises. Consciousness is the strongest of all forces that we encounter. Consciousness, or conscious spirit, is that force which out of death, which must be created in the midst of life, eternally makes life arise again. Life is a process which is concerned with an outer world and an inner world. Consciousness, however, is a process which has to do only with an inner world. A substance which can die externally cannot become conscious. A substance can only become conscious that creates death in its own centre and overcomes it. Thus death — as a gifted German theosophist has said — is not only the root of life but also the root of consciousness. When we have grasped this connection then we need only look at the phenomena with open eyes and pain will appear comprehensible. All that gives rise to consciousness is originally pain. When life manifests externally, when life, air, warmth, cold encounter a living being then these outer elements work upon it. But as long as they only work upon it, as long as they are taken up by the living being, as they are taken up by the plant as bearer of internal life-processes, so long does no consciousness arise. Consciousness first arises when these outer elements come into opposition with the inner life and a destruction takes place. Consciousness must result from destruction of life. Without partial death a ray of light is not able to penetrate a living being, the process can never be stimulated in the living being from with consciousness arises. But when light penetrates into the surface of life, produces a partial destruction, breaks down the inner substances and forces, then that mysterious process arises which takes place everywhere in the external world in a quite definite way. Picture to yourselves that the intelligent forces of the world had ascended up to a height where outer light and outer air were foreign to them. They remained in harmony with them only for a time, then they came to completion and an opposition arose. If you could follow this process with the eye of the spirit, then you could see how when a ray of light penetrates a simple being, the skin becomes somewhat transformed and a tiny eye appears. What is it therefore that first glimmers there in the substance? In what does this fine destruction (for it is destruction) manifest? In pain, which is nothing else than an expression for the destruction. Whenever life comes up against external nature destruction takes place, and when it becomes greater even produces death. Out of pain consciousness is born. The very process which has created your eye would have been a destructive process if it had gained the upper hand over the nature that had developed up to the human being. But it has seized upon only a small part with which out of the destruction and partial death it could create that mirroring of the external world which we call consciousness. Consciousness within matter is thus born out of suffering, out of pain. When we realise this connection of suffering and pain with the conscious spirit that surrounds us, we shall well understand the words of a Christian initiate who knew such things fundamentally and intuitively, and saw pain at the basis of all conscious life. They are the words: In all Nature sighs every creature in pain, full of earnest expectation to attain the state of the child of God. — You find that in the eighth chapter of Paul's Epistle to the Romans as a wonderful expression of this foundation of consciousness in pain. Thus one can also understand how thoughtful men have ascribed to pain such an all-important role. I should like to quote just one example. A great German philosopher says that when one looks at all Nature around one, then pain and suffering seem to be expressed everywhere on her countenance. Yes, when one observes the higher animals they show to those who look more deeply an expression full of suffering. And who would not admit that many an animal physiognomy looks like the manifestation of a deeply hidden pain? If we look at the matter as we have just described it then we see the origin of consciousness out of pain, so that a being who builds consciousness out of destruction causes a higher element to arise from the decay of life, creates itself continuously out of death. If the living could not suffer, never could consciousness arise. If there were no death in the world never in the visible world could Spirit exist. That is the strength of the Spirit — that it remoulds destruction into something still higher than life, and so in the midst of life forms a higher state, consciousness. Ever further and further we see the various experiences of pain develop to the organs of consciousness. One sees it in the animals which for an external defence have only a reflex consciousness, just as man shuts the eye as protection against a danger to it. When the reflex movement is no longer enough to protect the inner life, when the stimulus becomes too strong, then the inner force of resistance rises up and gives birth to the senses, sensation, eye and ear. You know perhaps from many a disagreeable experience, or perhaps even instinctively, that this is so. You know indeed out of a higher state of your consciousness that what has been said is a truth. An example will make it still clearer. When do you feel certain interior organs of your organism? You go through life and do not feel your stomach or liver or lungs. You feel none of your organs as long as they are sound. You feel them only when they give you pain, and you really know that you have this or that organ only when it hurts you, when you feel that something is out of order there and that a destruction-process is beginning. If we take this example and explanation then we see that conscious life is continually born from pain. If pain arises in life it gives birth to sensation and consciousness. This giving birth, this bringing forth of a higher element, is reflected again in consciousness as pleasure, and there would never be a pleasure unless there had been a previous pain. In the life below which just raises itself from physical material, there is as yet no pleasure. But when pain has produced consciousness and works further creatively as consciousness, then this creating is on a higher level and is expressed in the feeling of pleasure. Creation is based on desire and pleasure. Pleasure can only appear where inner or outer creation is possible. In some way creation lies at the base of every happiness, as every unhappiness is based on the necessity of creation. Take something that expresses suffering on a lower level, the feeling of hunger, for instance, which can destroy life. You meet this with nourishment, and the food taken in becomes enjoyment because it is the means of enhancing, producing life. So you see that higher creation, pleasure, arises on the basis of pain. Thus before the pleasure there is suffering. The philosophy of Schopenhauer and Eduard von Hartmann can therefore say with justification that suffering is a common feeling of life. However, they do not go back far enough, to the origin of suffering, do not come to the point where suffering is to evolve to something higher. The origin of suffering is found where consciousness arises out of life, where spirit is born out of life. And therefore we can also understand what dawns in man's soul of the connection of suffering and pain with knowledge and consciousness, and we could still show how a nobler, more perfect state is born out of pain. Those who have heard my lectures fairly often will remember the allusion to the existence of a sort of initiation, whereby a higher consciousness enters and man raises himself from a mere sense-perception to the observation of a spiritual world. It was said that forces and faculties slumber in the human soul which can be drawn out of it, just as the power of sight can be produced through operation in someone born blind, so that a new man arises to whom the whole world seems transformed to a higher stage. As in the case of one born blind, so do things appear in a new light to the spiritually born. Yet this can come about only if the process which has just been described is recapitulated on a higher level, when what is united in the average man becomes separate and a kind of destruction-process enters the lower human nature. Then the higher consciousness, the beholding of the spiritual world, can enter. There are three forces in human nature: thinking, feeling and willing. These three depend on the physical organisation of man. Certain acts of will appear after certain thought and feeling processes have taken place. The human organism must function in the right way if these three forces are to harmonise. If certain transmissions are interrupted, certain parts diseased, then no proper harmony exists between thinking, feeling and willing. If the organs of will are crippled a man is unable to transform his thoughts into will-impulses. He is weak as a man of action; he can doubtless think, but cannot resolve to put thoughts into reality. Another case is when a person is not in a position to let his feelings be guided rightly through thoughts, to bring his feelings into harmony with the thoughts behind them. Insanity is fundamentally nothing else than this. A harmony between thinking, feeling and willing is to be found in the normally-constituted man of today as against a sufferer. This is right for certain stages of evolution, but it must be noted that this harmony exists in present-day man unconsciously. If he is to be initiated, however, if he is to see into the higher . worlds, then these three members, thinking, feeling, willing, must be separated from one another. The organs of will and feeling must suffer a division, and therefore the physical organism of an initiate is different from that of a non-initiate. Anatomy could not prove that, but the contact between thinking, feeling and willing is interrupted. The initiate would be able to see someone suffering deeply without being stirred by any feeling, he could remain quite calm and merely look on. Why is that so? In an initiate nothing must be inter-linked unconsciously; he is a compassionate man out of freedom and not because something external compels him to be. That is the difference between an initiate and a non-initiate. Such a higher consciousness creates, as it were, a higher substance and the human being falls apart into a feeling-man, a will-man and a thought-man. Ruling over these three there appears for the first time the higher, new-born man, and from the level of a higher consciousness the three are brought into accord. Here again must death, destruction, also intervene. Should this destruction arise without at the same time a new consciousness springing up, then insanity would appear. Insanity would therefore be nothing else than the condition in which the human entity was shattered without the creation of the higher, conscious authority. So here too there is a double element: a kind of destroying process of the lower by the side of a creating process of the higher. As poison is created in the blood in the veins, and as in the normal man consciousness is created between the red and the blue blood, so in the initiated man the higher consciousness is created inwardly in the co-operation of life and death. And the state of bliss arises from a higher pleasure, creation, that proceeds from death. This is what man instinctively feels when he senses the mysterious connection between pain and suffering and the highest that man can attain. Hence the tragic poet, as his hero succumbs to suffering, lets this suffering give rise to the feeling of the victory of life, the consciousness of the victory of the eternal over the temporal. And so in the destruction of the earthly nature of Christ Jesus in pain and suffering, in anguish and misery, Christianity rightly sees the victory of eternal life over the temporal and transitory. So too our life becomes richer, more full of content, when we let it extend over what lies outside our own self, when we can enter into the life that is not our own. Just as we create a higher consciousness out of the pain stimulated through an external ray of light and overcome by us as living being, so a creation in compassion is born when we transform the sufferings of others in our own greater consciousness-world. And so finally out of suffering arises love. For what else is love than spreading one's consciousness over other beings? When we deprive ourselves, give away, make ourselves poorer to the extent that we give to the other being, when we are able, just as the skin receives the ray of light and is able out of the pain to form a higher being, an eye; when we are able through the expansion of our life over other lives to absorb a higher life, then love, compassion with all creatures, is born in us out of that which we have given away to the other. This also underlies the expression of the Greek poet: Out of life grew learning; out of learning, knowledge. Here again, as already mentioned in the previous lecture, a knowledge based on the most recent research of natural science touches the results of old spiritual investigation. The older spiritual research has always said that the highest knowledge can proceed solely from suffering. When we have a sick limb and it has given us pain, then we know this limb best of all. In the same way we know best of all what we have deposited in our own soul. Knowledge flows from our suffering as its fruit. The same too underlies the Crucifixion of Christ Jesus which was soon followed, as Christianity teaches, by the outpouring into the world of the Holy Spirit. We now understand the coming forth of the Holy Spirit from the Crucifixion of Christ Jesus as a process indicated in the parable of the grain of corn. The new fruit must arise from destruction, and so too the Holy Spirit, which poured itself out over the Apostles at the Feast of Pentecost, is born from the destruction, the pain endured on the Cross. That is clearly expressed in St. John's Gospel (7.39) where it is said that the Spirit was not yet there, for the Christ was not yet glorified. One who reads this Gospel more deeply will see for himself that significant things emerge from it. One can hear many people say that they would have not missed pain, for it had brought them knowledge. Everyone who has died could teach you that what I have now said is true. Would people fight against the destruction going on in them up to actual death if pain had not stood continually beside them like a guardian of life? Pain makes us aware that we have to take precautions against the destruction of life. Out of pain we create new life. In the notes of a modern natural scientist on the expression of the thinker, we read that on the countenance of the thinker something lies like a repressed pain. When there is the enhancement which flows from knowledge attained through pain, when it is therefore true that from suffering we learn, then it is not without justification — as we shall see in the next lecture — that the Biblical story of Creation brings the knowledge of good and evil into connection with pain and suffering. And so it has always been rightly emphasised by one who looks deeper how the origin of purification, the lifting up of human nature, lies in pain. When the spiritual-scientific world-conception with its great law of destiny, karma, points from a man's present suffering to what he did wrongly in earlier lives, then we understand such a connection only out of man's deeper nature. What we brought about in the external world in an earlier life is transformed from base forces into lofty ones. Sin is like a poison which becomes remedy when it is changed into substance of life. And so sin can contribute to the strengthening and raising of man; in the story of Job pain and suffering are shown to us as an enhancement of knowledge and of the Spirit. This is meant to be only a sketch which is to point to the connection between earthly existence and pain and suffering. It is to show how we can realise the meaning of suffering and pain when we see how they harden, crystallize in physical things and organisms up to man, and how through a dissolution of what has hardened, the Spirit can be born in us again, when we see that the origin of suffering and pain is in the Spirit. The Spirit gives us beauty, strength, wisdom, the transformed picture of the original abode of pain. A brilliant man, Fabre d'Olivet, made a right comparison when he wished to show how the highest, noblest, purest in human nature arises out of pain. He said that the arising of wisdom and beauty out of suffering is comparable to a process in nature, to the birth of the valuable and beautiful pearl. For the pearl is born from the sickness of the oyster, from the destruction inside the pearl-oyster. As the beauty of the pearl is born out of disease and suffering, so are knowledge, noble human nature and purified human feeling born out of suffering and pain. So we may well say with the old Greek poet, Aeschylus: Out of suffering arises learning; out of learning, knowledge. And just as in respect of much else, we may say of pain that we have grasped it only when we know it not only in itself but in what proceeds from it. As so many other things, pain too is known only by its fruits.

The Origin of Suffering the Origin of Evil Illness and Death

The Origin of Suffering

https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA055/English/SBC1980/19061108p01.html

Berlin

8 Nov 1906

GA055-3

It is characteristic of the whole of modern literature that it speaks so little of evil; materialism simply does not concern itself with evil. A materialistic explanation can apparently be found for suffering, illness and death; but not for evil. In the case of the animal one speaks of cruelty, destructiveness, but one cannot call the animal evil. Evil is confined to the human kingdom. Modern science tries to grasp the human being out of the animal and eliminates all differences between man and beast. It must therefore also deny evil. In order to find evil one must enter fully into human qualities and acknowledge that man lays claim to a kingdom of his own. We will now consider this question from the standpoint of spiritual science. There is an original human wisdom which penetrates to the actual nature of things lying behind the purely external appearance. In earlier ages this wisdom was preserved in narrow circles to which entry was vouchsafed only after strict tests. Before someone secured admission he must have proved to the guardian of the wisdom that he would use his knowledge only in the most selfless way. During the last decades the elementary part of this wisdom-science has for certain reasons been popularised. More and more of it will flow into daily life. We are standing only at the beginning of this development. Now how is evil connected with actual human nature? It has often been sought to explain evil. People have said that there is no evil in the actual sense of the word — it is a diminished good, it is the worst good. For as there are different grades of existence in everything, so too in goodness. Or they say: As the good is an original power, so too is evil. In particular this view was expressed in the Persian Myth of Ormuzd and Ahriman. Occult science is the first to show how evil is to be understood out of the depths of human nature and the whole nature of the cosmos. If one denies it one can in no way grasp it. One must understand what task and mission evil has in the world. From the development of man in the future we see how men have grown out of the past and what evil is to signify in their path of evolution. Spiritual science teaches of the existence of certain highly evolved men, the initiates, and it has been taught in the Mystery Schools of all times how man can bring himself to such a stage of evolution. Definite exercises were prescribed there which develop man in quite a natural way. They are exercises of meditation and concentration which are to give man another kind of sight which cannot be attained with the intellect and the five senses. Meditation in the first place leads away from the grasp of the senses. Through inner soul-work man becomes free of the senses. Something then takes place similar to the operation on a man born blind. There is a kind of operation which opens man's spiritual eyes and ears. It will be attained in the development of the whole human race in the course of a long period of time. But one must not disclaim the world when one wishes to rise higher; an ascetic fleeing from the world does not serve clairvoyance. Clairvoyance is the fruit of what the soul collects in the sense-world. Greek philosophy beautifully compared the human soul with a bee. The world of colour and light offers the soul honey which it brings with it into the higher world. The soul must spiritualise sense experience and carry it up into higher worlds. Now what is the task of the soul which is free from the body? We touch here upon an important principle. Each being when it has developed to a higher stage becomes guide and leader of those beings and forms through which it has passed. When man has so spiritualised himself that he no longer needs the physical body he works on the world from outside as spiritual leader. Then the mission of this planet is fulfilled and it goes over to another embodiment. The Earth will then obtain a new planetary existence, and men will then be the gods of the new planet. The body of humanity which is forsaken by the Spirit will be a lower kingdom. We bear in us now a double nature: that which will rule on the next planet and that which will be the lower kingdom. Just as the Earth will incorporate itself afresh so has it also perfected itself out of earlier processes of evolution. Just as the human beings will be the gods of the next planet, so were the Beings who now lead us, men on the previous planet and they had as lower element what we are as men on Earth. In this way we see the connection of the Earth with processes which lie in the past and in the future. The present stage of man was once the stage of the Beings who are the creators and leaders of men today, the Elohim, who manifest as leaders of human evolution. And on the future planet men will have advanced so far that they themselves are leaders and guides. But one must not think that there will be an exact recapitulation: the same is never repeated. Nothing happens in the world twice; there was never the earthly existence that there is now. Earth-existence signifies the Cosmos of Love; existence on the previous planet signifies the Cosmos of Wisdom. We are to evolve love from its most elementary stage to its highest. Wisdom rests hidden on the foundation of earth-existence. One should not speak therefore of the “lower” physical human nature, for it is really the most perfected form of man. One should look at the wisdom-filled structure of a bone, for instance the upper thigh bone. We see there solved in the most complete way the problem of how to carry the greatest possible mass of weight with the employment of the least material and force. One should look at the marvellous structure of the heart, of the brain, The astral body does not indeed stand higher. It is the “enjoyer” which makes continual attacks on the wisdom-filled heart. It will still take a long time to become as perfect and wise as the physical body. But it must become so, for that is the course of evolution. The physical body had to evolve too; what is wise in it had to develop out of unwisdom and error. Evolution of wisdom preceded the evolution of love; love is not yet perfected. It is to be found in the whole of nature, in plant, animal and man from the lowest sex-love to the highest spiritualised love. Immense numbers of beings which the love-urge brought forth are destroyed in the battle for existence. Conflict is active wherever love is, the entry of love brings conflict, necessary conflict. But love will also overcome it and change conflict into harmony. Wisdom is the characteristic of physical nature and where this wisdom is permeated by love is the beginning of earthly evolution. Just as today there is conflict on the earth so was error to be found on the earlier planet. Remarkable fabulous beings wandered about — errors of nature which were not capable of evolution. Love grows out of the loveless and wisdom proceeds from unwisdom. Those who attain the goal of earthly evolution will bring love into the next planet as a force of nature, just as wisdom was once brought to Earth. The humanity of the Earth look up to the gods as to the bringers of wisdom. The men of the following planet will look up to the gods as to the bringers of love. Wisdom is granted to men as divine revelation from the men of the earlier planet. All the kingdoms of the world are connected with one another. If there were no plants then in a short time the breath of life would become tainted; for men and animals inhale oxygen and breathe out life-destroying carbonic-acid. Yet the plants inhale carbonic-acid and give out oxygen. Here then the higher depends on the lower for the breath of life. And it is the same in all the kingdoms. As animal and man depend on the plants, so are the gods dependent on man. That was so beautifully expressed by Greek mythology where the gods receive nectar and ambrosia from the mortals. Both signify love; love is created within the human race. And the race of the gods breathes in love; it is the gods' nourishment. Love which is created by man is food to the gods. That is much more real than — say — electricity, however peculiar it seems at first, Love appears to begin with as sex-love and evolves up to the highest divine love. But all love, lower and higher, is breath of the gods. Now it might be said: If all that is true then there can be no evil. But wisdom underlies the world, love evolves. Wisdom is the guide of love. Just as all wisdom is born out of error, so does love struggle to the heights only out of conflict. Not all the beings of the previous planet rose to the height of wisdom. Beings remained behind and they stand approximately between gods and men. They still need something from man, nor can they clothe themselves in a physical body. One calls them Luciferic beings, or groups them together under the name of their leader, Lucifer. How does Lucifer work upon man? Not as the gods do. The divine approaches the noblest in man; it cannot and must not approach the lower. Only at the end of evolution will wisdom and love celebrate their nuptials. But the Luciferic beings approach the lower, unevolved element of love. They form the bridge between wisdom and love. Thus does wisdom first mingle with love. That which applies only to the impersonal is thus entangled with personality. On the earlier planet wisdom was an instinct as love is today. A creative wisdom-instinct prevailed, as today a creative love-instinct. Wisdom led man instinctively; but through the fact that wisdom drew away and no longer guided, man became self-conscious and realised that he was an independent being. In the animal wisdom is still instinctive and so the animal is not yet self-conscious. Wisdom, however, wished to lead and guide man from outside, unconnected with love. Then Lucifer came and implanted human wisdom into love. And human wisdom looks up to divine wisdom. In man wisdom became enthusiasm and love itself. Had only wisdom exercised its influence, man would have become only good; he would have used love solely for the building up of earthly consciousness. But Lucifer brought love into connection with the self, and self-love was added to self-consciousness. That was beautifully expressed in the Paradise story: “... and they saw that they were naked.” That means that human beings saw themselves for the first time; previously they had seen only the surrounding world. They had only an earthly consciousness, but not a self-consciousness. Now men could put wisdom into the service of the self; from then on there was selfless love for the surroundings and love for the self. And the self-love was bad and the selflessness was good. Man would never have obtained a warm self-consciousness without Lucifer. Thinking and wisdom now entered into the service of the self and there was a choice between good and evil. Love must turn to the self only in order to set the self in the service of the world. The rose may adorn herself only in order to adorn the garden. That must be inscribed deeply into the soul in a higher occult development. In order to be able to feel the good, man had also to be able to feel the evil. The gods gave him enthusiasm for the higher. But without evil there could be no self-feeling, no free choice of good, no freedom. Good could have been realised without Lucifer, but not freedom. In order to be able to choose good man must also have the bad before him; it must dwell within him as the force of self-love. But self-love must become love of all. Then evil will be overcome. Freedom and evil have the same original source. Lucifer makes man humanly enthusiastic for the divine. Lucifer is the bearer of light; the Elohim are light itself. If the light of wisdom has kindled wisdom in man, then Lucifer has brought light into man. But the black shadow of evil had to intermingle; Lucifer brings a shrunken, blemished wisdom but this can penetrate into man. Lucifer is the bearer of external human science which stands in the service of egotism. In pupils of occultism therefore selflessness as regards knowledge is demanded. What the leaven of the old dough means for the new bread: this, from the earlier planet, Lucifer means for us. Evil is good in its place; with us it is no longer good. Evil is good out of place. The absolute good of a planet always brings evil too in one of its parts to the new planet. Evil is a necessary course of evolution. One must not say that the world is imperfect because it contains evil. Far rather is it perfect precisely on that account. When lovely figures of light are shown in a painting together with evil devils, the picture would be spoilt if one wanted to cut out the devil-figures. The creators of the world needed evil in order to bring the good to unfoldment. A good must first be broken on the rock of evil. The All-Love can only be brought to its highest blossoming through self-love. Goethe is therefore right when in “Faust” he makes Mephistopheles say he is “... part of that Power that ever would the Evil do, and ever does the Good.”

The Origin of Suffering the Origin of Evil Illness and Death

The Origin of Evil

https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA055/English/SBC1980/19061122p01.html

Berlin

22 Nov 1906

GA055-4

When the spiritual scientific movement began its activity some thirty years ago, its aim was not to satisfy curiosity about the spiritual worlds, but to make spiritual knowledge available to a wider public, and provide insight that will help to solve not only spiritual but also everyday practical problems. One such problem is the subject of today's lecture. It belongs to everyday life and must be of interest to everyone. Knowledge of human nature and problems of education are intimately connected. No aspect of social life can benefit more from spiritual research than education, because it is possible to provide practical guidelines in this realm through supersensible knowledge. In order to deal with this subject we must look once more at the nature of human beings. That aspect of their being that is grasped by the intellect is for spiritual science only part of their nature. The physical, bodily aspect that we can see and touch a person has in common with the rest of the natural world. The spiritual investigator's research is not based on speculation, but on what is discovered through the higher sense of clairvoyant sight. This reveals the ether body as the second member of a person's being. It is a spiritual organism that is considerably more delicate and refined than the physical body. It has nothing to do with physical ether, and is best described as a sum of forces or currents of energy rather than as substance. The ether body is the architect of the physical body. The latter has crystallized out of the ether body much as ice crystallizes out of water. We must therefore regard everything that constitutes the physical aspect of a person's being as having evolved out of the ether body. Human being's have this member in common with all beings endowed with life, that is, with the vegetable and animal kingdoms. In shape and size the ether body coincides with the physical body except for the lower part, which differs in shape from the physical. In animals the ether body extends far beyond the physical. For someone who has developed the spiritual faculties that slumber in every human being, there is nothing fantastic about this description of the ether body, just as it is not fantastic for a person who can see to describe colors to a blind person as blue or red. The third member of a person's being, the astral body, is the bearer of all kinds of passions, lower as well as higher, and also of joys and sorrows, pleasure and pain, cravings and desires. Our ordinary thoughts and will-impulses are also contained in the astral body. Like the ether body, it becomes visible when the higher senses are developed. The astral body permeates the physical and ether bodies and surrounds humans like a kind of cloud. We have it in common with the animal kingdom; it is in continuous movement, mirroring every shade of feeling. But why the name “astral?” The physical substances of which the physical body is composed connect it with the whole earth; in like manner is the astral body connected with the world of stars. The forces that permeate it and condition a person's destiny and character were given the name “astral” by those who were able to look deeply into their mysterious connection with the astral world that surrounds the earth. The fourth member of a person's being, the power that enables him or her to say “I,” makes the human being the crown of creation. This name can only be applied to himself; it expresses the fact that what speaks is the soul's primordial divine spark. The designations of everything else we share with others; they can reach a person's ear from outside, but not the name that refers to what is god-like in each individual human soul. That is why in Hebrew esoteric schools it was called the “inexpressible name of God — Jahve,” the “I am the I am.” Even the priest could utter it only with a shudder. This “I am the I am” the soul ascribes to itself. The human physical body is related to the mineral kingdom, the ether body to the vegetable kingdom and the astral body to the animal kingdom. The “I” humans have in common with no other earthly being; the “I” makes a person the crown of creation. This fourfold entity has always been known in esoteric schools as the “quaternity of man's nature.” These four bodies develop in each individual in a particular way from childhood till old age. That is why, if we are to understand a person, we must always consider each human being individually. A person's characteristics are indicated already in the embryo. However, humans are not isolated beings; they develop within a certain environment, and can thrive only when surrounded by all the beings of the universe. During embryonic life they must be enveloped by the maternal organism, from which they become independent only when a certain stage of maturity is reached. During further development, the child goes through more events of a similar nature. Just as the physical body while still at the embryonic stage must be enveloped by the maternal organism, so is it surrounded after birth by spiritual sheaths related to spiritual realms. The child is enveloped by an etheric and an astral sheath; the child reposes in them as he did in the womb before birth. At the time of the change of teeth an etheric covering loosens itself from the ether body, as did the physical covering at physical birth. That means that the ether body is born and becomes free in all directions. Up to then an entity of like nature to itself was attached to it, from which spiritual currents flowed through it as physical currents flowed from the maternal covering through the child before birth. Thus, the child is born for a second time when the ether body is born. Meanwhile the astral body is still surrounded by its protective sheath, a covering that strengthens and invigorates it up to the time of puberty. Then that too withdraws; the birth of the astral body takes place; and the child is born for the third time. The fact that a threefold birth takes place indicates that the three entities must be considered separately. While it is impossible for external light to reach and harm the eyes of the unborn child, it is not impossible, but certainly highly damaging to the soul, if influences foreign to it are brought to bear on the ether body before it has become completely independent. The same applies to the astral body before puberty. We should, according to spiritual science, avoid all education and training before the change of teeth, except such that have a bearing on the child's physical body; we should in fact influence the ether body as little as we influence the child's physical body before it is born. However, just as the mother must be cared for, because her health influences the development of the embryo, so one should now respect the inviolability of the ether body for the sake of the child's healthy development. This is so important because before the change of teeth only the physical body is ready to be influenced by the external world; all training should therefore be restricted to what concerns the physical body. Any external influence of the ether body during this period is a violation of laws according to which human beings develop. The human ether body is different from that of the plant world because in a person it becomes the bearer of his enduring traits such as habit, character, conscience and memory, and also temperament. The astral body is the seat of the life of feelings already mentioned, and also of the ability to discern, to judge. These facts indicate when it becomes right to exert influence on the natural tendencies. In the period up to the seventh year, the child's bodily faculties develop; they become independent and self-contained. The same applies between the seventh and the fourteenth years to habits, memory, temperament and so on; between the fourteenth and the twentieth or twenty-second years is the time when the faculty of the critical intellect develops, and an independent relation to the surrounding world is attained. All these things indicate that different principles of education are required in the various life periods. Special care must be taken up to the seventh year with everything that affects the physical body. This encompasses a great many things. It is a time when all the essential physical organs are gradually developing and the effect on the child's senses is of immense importance. It matters greatly what it sees and hears and generally absorbs. The faculty most prominent at this time is imitation. The Greek philosopher Aristotle 1 Aristotle (384–322 B.C.) was a Greek philosopher and one of the most influential thinkers of his time. remarked that human beings are the most imitative of all animals. This is especially true of the child before the change of teeth. Everything is imitated during this time, and as whatever enters the child through its senses as light and sound works formatively on the organs, it is of utmost importance that what surrounds the child should act beneficially. At this age nothing is achieved by admonition; commands and prohibitions have no effect whatever. But of the greatest significance is the example. What the child sees, what happens around him, he feels must be imitated. For instance: the parents of a well-behaved child were astonished to discover that he had taken money from a cashbox; greatly disturbed, they thought the child had inclinations to steal. Questioning brought to light that the child had simply imitated what he had seen his parents do every day. It is important that the examples the child sees and imitates are of a kind that awaken its inner forces. Exhortations have no effect, but the way a person behaves in the child's presence matters greatly. It is far more important to refrain from doing what the child is not permitted to do than to forbid the child to imitate it. Thus, it is vital that during these years the educator is an exemplary example, that he or she only does what is worthy of imitation. Education should consist of example and imitation. The truth of this is recognized when insight is attained into the nature of human beings and confirmed by the results of education based upon it. Thus, because the ability to understand what things mean is a faculty of the ether body, the child should not learn the significance of the letters of the alphabet before the change of teeth; before then, he or she should do no more than trace their form with paint. Spiritual research makes all these subtleties understandable and throws light even on details of what should be done. Everything the child perceives, also in a moral sense, acts on the formation of its physical organs. It makes a difference whether the child is surrounded by pain and sorrow or happiness and joy. Happiness and joy build sound organs, and lay the foundation for future health. The opposite can create a disposition towards illness. Everything that surrounds the child should breathe an atmosphere of happiness and joy, even down to objects and colors of clothing and wallpaper. The educator must ensure that it does so, while also taking into account the child's particular disposition. If a child is inclined to be too earnest and too quiet, it will benefit from having in its surroundings rather sombre, bluish, greenish colors, while the lively, too active child should have yellow, reddish colors. This may seem like a contradiction, but the fact is that through its inherent nature the sense of sight calls up the opposite colors. The bluish shades have an invigorating effect, while in the lively child the yellow-reddish shades call up the opposite colors. Thus, you see that spiritual investigation throws light even on practical details. The developing organs must be treated in ways that promote their health and inner forces. The child should not be given toys that are too finished and perfect, such as building blocks or perfect dolls. A doll made out of an old table napkin on which eyes, nose and mouth are indicated is far better. Every child will see such a homemade doll as a lady attired in beautiful finery. Why? Because it stirs its imagination, and that induces movement in the inner organs and produces in the child a feeling of well-being. Notice in what a lively and interested manner such a child plays, throwing itself body and soul into what the imagination conjures up, while the child with the perfect doll just sits, unexcited and unamused. It has no possibility to add anything through imagination, so its inner organs are condemned to remain inactive. The child has an extraordinarily sound instinct for what is good for it, as long as only the physical body has become free to interact with the external world, and as long as it is in the process of development. The child will indicate what is beneficial for himself. However, if from early on this instinct is disregarded, it will disappear. Education should be based on happiness, on joy and the child's natural cravings. To practice asceticism at this age would be synonymous with undermining its healthy development. When the child approaches the seventh year and the milk teeth are gradually being replaced, the covering of the ether body loosens and it becomes free, as did the physical body at physical birth. Now the educator must bring to bear everything that will further the development of the ether body. However, the teacher must guard against placing too much emphasis on developing the child's reason and intellect. Between the seventh and twelfth years, it is mainly a question of authority, confidence, trust and reverence. Character and habit are special qualities of the ether body and must be fostered; but it is harmful to exert any influence on the reasoning faculty before puberty. The development of the ether body occurs in the period from the seventh to the sixteenth year (in girls to the fourteenth). It is important for the rest of a person's life that during this period feelings of respect and veneration are fostered. Such feelings can be awakened in the following way: by means of information and narration, the lives of significant people are depicted to the child, not only from history, but from the child's own circle, perhaps that of a revered relative. Awe and reverence are awakened in the child, which forbid him to harbor any critical thoughts or opposition against the venerated person. The child lives in solemn expectation of the moment he will be permitted to meet this person. At last the day arrives and the child stands before the door filled with awe and veneration; he turns the handle, enters the room that for him, is a holy place. Such moments of veneration become forces of strength in later life. It is immensely important that the educator, the teacher, is at this time a respected authority for the child. A child's faith and confidence must be awakened, not in axioms, but in human beings. People around the child with whom he has contact must be his ideals; the child must also choose such ideals from history and literature: "Everyone must choose the hero whose path to Olympus he will follow," is a true saying. The materialistic view that opposes authority and undervalues respect and reverence is utterly wrong. It regards the child as being already self-reliant, but its healthy development is impaired if demands are made upon the reasoning faculty before the astral body is born. What is important at this time is that memory is developed. This is best done in purely mechanical fashion. However, calculators should not be used; tables of multiplication, poems and so on should be committed to memory in quite a parrot fashion. It is simply materialistic prejudice that maintains that at this age such things should be inwardly felt and understood. In the old days educators knew better. At the ages between one and seven all kinds of songs were sung to the children, like the good old nursery rhymes and children's songs. What mattered was not sense and meaning but sound; the children were made aware of harmony and consonance; we often find words inserted purely for the sake of their sound. Often the rhymes were meaningless. For example: “Fly beetle fly, your father is away; your mother is in Pommerland, Pommerland, fly beetle fly.” Incidentally, in the idiom of children “Pommerland” meant motherland. The expression stemmed from a time when it was still believed that human beings were spiritual beings and had come down to earth from a spiritual world. Pommerland was the Land of spiritual origin. Yet it was not the meaning in such rhymes that was important, but the sound; hence, the many children's songs had no particular sense. This is the age when memory, habit and character must be established, and this is achieved through authority. If the foundation of these traits is not laid during this period, it will result in behavioral shortcomings later. Just because axioms and rules of conduct have no place in education until the astral body is born, it is important that the pre-puberty child, if he is to be properly educated, can Look up to authority. The child is able to sense a person's innermost being, and that is what it reveres in those with authority. Whatever flows from the educator to the child forms and develops conscience, character and even the temperament — its lasting disposition. During these years allegories and symbols act formatively on the ether body of the child because they make manifest the world-spirit. Fairy tales, legends and descriptions of heroes are a true blessing. During this period, the ether body must receive as much care as the physical body. During the earlier period it was happiness and joy that influenced the forming of the Organs; from seven to fourteen (in this case boys to sixteen), the emphasis must be on everything that promotes feelings of health and vigor. Hence, the value of gymnastics. However, the desired effect will not be attained if the instructor aims at movements that solely benefit the physical body. It is important that the teacher be able to intuitively enter into how the child inwardly senses himself, and in this way to know which movements will promote inner sensations of health, strength, well-being, and pleasure in the bodily constitution. Only when gymnastic exercises induce feelings of growing strength are they of real value. Not only the external aspect of the bodily nature benefits from correct gymnastic exercises, but also the way a person inwardly experiences the self. Everything artistic has a strong influence on the ether, as well as the astral body. Music of excellence, both vocal and instrumental, is particularly important, especially for the ether body. And there should be many objects of true artistic beauty in the child's environment. Most important of all is religious instruction. Images of things supersensible are deeply imprinted in the ether body. What is important here is not the pupil's ability to have an opinion about religious faith, but that he receives descriptions of the supersensible, of what extends beyond the temporal. All religious subjects must be presented pictorially. Great care must be taken that what is taught is brought to life. Much is spoiled in the child if it is burdened with too much that is dull and lifeless. What is taught in a lively interesting manner benefits the child's ether body. There should be much activity and doing; this has a quickening effect on the spirit. That is true also when it comes to play. The old kind of picture books have a stimulating effect because they contain figures that can be pulled by strings and suggest movement and inner life. Nothing has a more deadening effect on the child's spirit than putting together and fixing some structure, using finished geometrical shapes. That is why building blocks should not be used; the child should create everything from the beginning and learn to bring to life what he forms out of the lifeless. Our materialistic age extinguishes life through mass-produced lifeless objects. Much dies in the young developing brain when the child has to do meaningless things like, for example, braiding. Talents are stifled and much that is unhealthy in our modern society can be traced back to the nursery. Inartistic lifeless toys do not foster trust in spiritual life. A fundamental connection exists between today's lack of religious belief and the way young children are taught. Once puberty is reached, the astral covering falls away; the astral body becomes independent. With the awakening feelings for the opposite sex, the ability to judge, to form personal opinion, also awakens. Only now should appeal be made to the reasoning faculty, to the approval or disapproval of the critical intellect. That is not to say that the moment the human being has reached this age he is capable of forming independent judgment, let alone do so earlier. It is absurd for such young people to judge issues or to have a say in cultural life. A young person under the age of twenty has an as yet undeveloped astral body, and can no more make sound judgments than a baby still in the womb can hear or see. Each life period requires a corresponding influence. In the first, it is a model to imitate; in the second an authority to emulate; the third requires rules of conduct, principles, and axioms. What is of utmost significance for the young person at this time is the teacher, the personality that will guide the student's eagerness for learning and his desire for independence in the right directions. Thus, the spiritual scientific world conception provides an abundance of basic principles that help the teacher's task of developing and educating the young generations. We have shown that spiritual science is applicable to everyday life and capable of practical intervention in important issues. We must understand all the members of the human being, and the way they are interrelated in order to know when to influence which member in a truly beneficial way. The embryo will be affected if the expectant mother is not properly nourished; for its sake the mother must be cared for. Similarly, what later still surrounds and protects the child must also be cared for, as that in turn will benefit the child. This holds good on both physical and spiritual levels. Thus, as long as the child still slumbers as if within an etheric womb and is still rooted in the astral covering, it matters greatly what happens in the environment. The child is affected by every thought, every feeling, every sentiment motivating those around him, even if not expressed. Here a person cannot maintain that one's thoughts and feelings do not matter as long as nothing is said. Even in the innermost recesses of their hearts, those around the child cannot permit themselves ignoble thoughts or feelings. Words affect only the external senses, whereas thoughts and feelings reach the protecting sheaths of the ether and astral bodies and pass over to the child. Therefore, as long as these protective coverings envelop the child, they must be cared for. Impure thoughts and passions harm them just as unsuitable substances harm the mother's body. Thus, even subtle aspects are illumined by spiritual science. Through knowledge of the human being the educator gains the insight needed. Spiritual science does not aim to persuade; it is not a theory, it is practical knowledge applicable to life. Its effect is beneficial, for it makes human beings healthier both physically and spiritually. It provides effective truth that must flow into every aspect of life. There is no better way for spiritual science to serve humanity than fostering social impulses in the young during the formative years. What takes place in human beings during the time they grow up and mature is one of life's greatest riddles; those who find practical solutions will prove true educators.

Supersensible Knowledge

Education in the Light of Spiritual Science

https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA055/English/AP1987/19061201p01.html

Cologne

1 Dec 1906

GA055-5

Today our subject is one that undoubtedly concerns all human beings, for the words “illness” and “death” express something which enters in every life, often as an uninvited guest, often too in a vexing, frustrating, frightening guise, and death presents itself as the greatest riddle of existence; so that when anyone has solved the question of its nature he has also solved that other question — the nature of life. Frequently we hear it said that death is an unsolved riddle — a riddle which no-one will ever solve. People who speak thus have no idea how arrogant these words are; they have no idea that there does exist a solution to the riddle which, however, they do not happen to understand. Today, when we are to deal with such an all-embracing and important subject, I beg you particularly to bear in mind how impossible it is for us to do more than answer the above question: “What do we understand by illness and death?” Hence we cannot go into detail where such things as illness and health are concerned, but must confine ourselves to the essential question: How do we arrive at an understanding of these two important problems of our existence? The most familiar answer to this question concerning the nature of death, one that has held good for centuries but today has little importance attached to it by the majority of educated people, is contained in St. Paul's words: “For the wages of sin is death”. As we have said in previous lectures, for many centuries these words were in a way a solution of the riddle of death. Today those who think in modern terms will not be able to make anything of such an answer; they would be mystified by the idea that sin — something entirely moral and having to do only with human conduct — could be the cause of a physical fact or should be supposed to have anything to do with the nature of illness and death. Perhaps it will be helpful if we refer to the present utter lack of understanding of the text “the wages of sin is death”. For Paul and those who lived in his day did not attribute at all the same meaning to the word “sin” that is done by the philistine of today. Paul did not think of sin as being a fault in the ordinary sense nor one of a deeper kind; he understood sin to be anything proceeding from selfishness and egoism. Every action is sin that has selfishness and egoism as its driving force — in contrast to what springs from positive, objective impulses — and the fact that the human being has become independent and conscious of self pre-supposes egoism and selfishness. This must be recognised when we make a deep study of the way in which a spirit such as that of Paul thinks. Whoever is not content with a merely superficial understanding of both Old and New Testament records but penetrates really to their spirit, knows that a quite definite method of thinking — one might call it that of innate philosophy — forms the undercurrent of these records. The undercurrent is something of this kind: All living creatures in the world are directed towards a determined goal. We come across lower beings who have a perfectly neutral attitude towards pleasure and pain, joy and sorrow. We then find how life evolves, something being bound up with it. Let those who shudder at the word teleology realise that here we have no thought-out theory but a simple fact — the whole kingdom of living beings right up to man is moving towards a definite goal, a summit of the living being, which shows itself in the possibility of personal consciousness. The initiates of the Old and New Testaments looked down to the animal kingdom; they saw the whole kingdom striving towards the advent of a free personality, which would then be able to act out of its own impulses. With the essential being of such a personality is connected all that makes for egoistic, selfish action. But a thinker like St. Paul would say: If a personality who is able to act egoistically lives in a body, then this body must be mortal. For in an immortal body there could never live a soul who had independence, consciousness, and consequently egoism. Hence a mortal body goes together with a soul having consciousness of personality and a one-sided development of the personality towards impulses to action. This the Bible calls “sin” and thus Paul defines death as the “wages of sin”. Here indeed you see that we have to modify certain biblical sayings because in the course of centuries they have become inverted. And if we do modify them, not by altering their meaning but by making it clear that we change the present theological meaning back to its original one, we see that we often find a very profound understanding of the matter, not far removed from what today we are once again able to grasp. This is mentioned in order to make our position clear. But the thinkers, the searchers after a world-conception, have in all ages been occupied with the question of death, which for thousands of years we may find answered in apparently the most diverse ways. We cannot embark upon an historical survey of these solutions; hence let us mention here two thinkers only, that you may see how even present-day philosophers cannot contribute anything of consequence about the question. One of these thinkers is Schopenhauer. You all know the pessimistic trend of his thinking, and whoever has met with the sentence: “Life is a precarious affair and I have decided to spend my life to ponder it”, will understand how the only solution Schopenhauer could arrive at was that death consoles us for life, life for death; — that life is an unpleasant affair and would be unbearable were we not aware that death ends it. If we are afraid of death we need only convince ourselves that life is not any better than death and that nothing is determined by death. — This is the pessimistic way in which he thinks, which simply leads to what he makes the Earth-spirit say: “You wish that new life should always be arising; if that were so, I would need more room.” Schopenhauer therefore is to a certain extent clear that for life to propagate, for it to go on bringing forth fresh life, it is necessary for the old to die to make room for the new. Further than this Schopenhauer has nothing of weight to bring forward, for the gist of anything else that he says is contained in those few words. The other thinker is Eduard von Hartmann. Von Hartmann in his last book has dealt with the riddle of death, and says: When we look at the highest evolved being we find that, after one or two new generations, a man no longer understands the world. When he has become old he can no longer comprehend youth; hence it is necessary for the old to die and the new again to come to the fore. — In any case you will find no answer here that could bring us nearer to an understanding of the riddle of death. We will therefore contribute to the present-day world-conceptions what spiritual science — or anthroposophy, as we call it today — has to say about the causes of death and illness. In so doing, however, one thing will have to be made clear — that spiritual science is not so fortunate as the other sciences as to be able to speak in a definite manner about every subject. The modern scientist would not understand that when speaking of illness and death a distinction has to be made between animal and man; and that if the question in our lecture today is to be understood we must limit ourselves to these phenomena in human beings. Since living beings have not only their abstract similarity to one another, but each one has his own nature and individuality, much that is said today will be applicable also to the animal kingdom, perhaps even to the plants. But in essentials we shall be speaking about men, and other things will be drawn upon merely by way of illustration. If we want to understand death and illness in human beings we must above all consider how complicated human nature is in the sense of spiritual science; and we must understand its nature in accordance with the four members — first the outwardly visible physical body, secondly the etheric or life body, then the astral body, and fourthly the human ego, the central point of man's being. We must then be clear that in the physical body the same forces and substances are present which are in the physical world outside; in the etheric body there lies what calls these substances to life, and this etheric body man possesses in common with the whole plant-kingdom. The astral body which man has in common with the animals is the bearer of the whole life of feeling — of desire, pleasure and its opposite, of joy and pain. It is only man who has the ego and this makes him the crown of earthly creation. In contemplating man as physical organism we must be aware that within this physical organism the other three members are working as formative principles and architects. But the formative principle of the physical organism works only in part in physical man, in another part is active essentially the etheric body, yet in another the astral body, again in a further part man's ego is active. To spiritual science men consist from the physical side of bones, muscles, those members that support man and give him a form sufficiently firm to move about on the earth. In the strictest sense of spiritual science these things alone are reckoned as belonging to the members which come into being through the physical principle. To them are added the actual sense-organs, where we have to do with physical contrivances — in the eye with a kind of camera obscura, in the ear with a very complicated musical instrument. It is a question here of what the organs are built from. They are built by the first principle. On the other hand all the organs connected with growth, propagation, digestion and so on, are not built simply in accordance with the physical principle, but with that of the etheric or life body, which permeates the physical organs as well. Only the structure built-up in accordance with physical law is in the care of the physical principle, the processes of digestion, propagation and growth, however, being an affair of the etheric principle. The astral body is creator of the whole nervous system, right up to the brain and the fibres which run to the brain in the form of sense-nerve fibres. Finally the ego is the architect of the circulatory system of the blood. If, therefore, in the true sense of spiritual science we have to do with a human organism, it is plain to us that even within the physical organism these four members are blended in a man like four distinct dissimilar beings who have been made to work together. These things which jointly compose the human organism have quite different values, and we shall estimate their significance for men if we look into the way in which the development of the individual members is connected with the human being. Today we shall speak more from the physiological standpoint of the work of the physical principle in the human organism. This work is accomplished in the period from birth to the change of teeth. At that time the physical principle works upon the physical body in the same way as, before the birth of a child, the forces and substances of the mother's organism work upon the embryo. In the physical body from the seventh year until puberty, the working of the etheric body is paramount, and, from puberty on, that of the forces anchored in the astral body. Thus we have the right conception of man's development when we think of the human being as enclosed within the mother's body up to the moment of birth; with birth he, as it were, pushes back the maternal body and his senses become free, so that it is then possible for the outer world to begin having its effect on the human organism. The human being thrusts a sheath away, and his development is understood only when we grasp that something that resembles a physical birth takes place in spiritual life at the changing of the teeth. At about the seventh year the human being is actually born a second time; that is to say, his etheric body is born to free activity just as his physical body is at the moment of physical birth. As before birth the mother's body works on the human embryo, up to the change of teeth spiritual forces of the cosmic ether in a similar way work upon the etheric body of the human being, and about the seventh year these forces are thrust back just as the maternal body is at the time of birth. Up to the seventh year the etheric body is as if latent in the physical body, and about the time the teeth are changed what happens to the etheric body can be compared to the igniting of a match. It is bound up with the physical body, but now comes to its own free, independent activity. The signal for this free activity of the etheric body is indeed the change of teeth. For anyone who has a deeper insight into nature this change of teeth holds a quite special place. In a human being up to his seventh year we have to do with the free working of the physical principle in the physical body; but united with it and not yet delivered from their spiritual sheaths are the etheric principle and astral principle. If we study the human being up to his seventh year we find that he contains a great deal of what is founded on heredity, which he has not built up with his own principle but has inherited from his ancestors. To this belongs what are called the milk teeth. Only the teeth that come with the change of teeth are the creation of the child's own principle, which physically has the task of forming firm supports. What is expressed in the teeth is working within up to the time they change; it comes, as it were, to a head and produce in the teeth the hardest part of those members that give support, because it still has bound up within it as bearer of growth the etheric or life body. After the casting off of this principle, the etheric body gains its freedom and works upon the physical organs up to the time of puberty, when a sheath, the outer astral sheath, is thrust away as the maternal sheath is thrust away at birth. The human being at puberty has his third birth, this time in an astral sense. The forces that were working in connection with the etheric body now come to a culmination with their creative activity in man by bringing him his sex maturity, with its organs and capacity for propagation. As in the seventh year the physical principle comes to maturity in the teeth, creating in them the last hard organs, whereby the etheric body, the principle of growth, becomes free, in like manner the moment the astral principle is free it sets up the greatest concentration of impulses, desires, for the outer expressions of life, in so far as we have to do with physical nature. As we have the physical principle concentrated in the teeth, the principle of growth is thus concentrated in puberty. Then the astral body, the sheath of the ego, is free and the ego works upon the astral body. The man of culture in Europe does not follow simply his impulses and desires; he has purified them and transformed them into moral perceptions and ethical ideals. Compare a savage to an average European, or perhaps to a Schiller or Francis of Assisi, and it may be said that the impulses of these men have been purified and transformed by their ego. Thus we can say that there are always two parts of this astral body, one arising out of original tendencies, and the other which the ego itself has brought forth. We understand the work of the ego only when we are clear that a man is subject of re-incarnation — to repeated lives on earth — that he brings with him through birth in four different bodies the outcome and the fruits of former earth-lives, which are the measure of his energy and forces for the coming life. One man — because earlier he has brought things to this point — is born with a great deal of energy in life, with forces strong to transform his astral body; another will soon grow weak. When we are able to investigate clairvoyantly how the ego begins to work freely on the astral body and to gain mastery over the desires, impulses and passions, then — if we are able to estimate the amount of energy brought by the ego — we might say: this amount suffices for the ego to work on the transformation for such and such a time and no more. For every human being who has reached puberty possesses a certain amount of energy from which can be estimated when he will have transformed all that comes from his astral body, according to the forces that has been apportioned to him in his life. What man in his heart and mind (Gemüt) transformed and purified, maintains itself. So long as this amount lasts he lives at the cost of his self-maintaining astral body. Once this is exhausted he can summon-up no more courage to transform fresh impulses — in short he has no more energy to work upon himself. Then the thread of life is broken, and this must be broken in accordance with the measure apportioned to each human being. The time has then arrived when the astral body has to draw its forces from the principle of human life lying nearest to it, namely, from the etheric body, the time when the astral body lives at the expense of the force stored up in the etheric body. This comes to expression in the human being when his memory, his creative imaginative force, gradually disappears. We have often heard here how the etheric body is the bearer of creative imagination, of memory and of all that we call hope and courage in life. When these feelings have acquired a lasting quality they cling to the etheric body. They are then drawn upon by the astral body, and after the astral body has lived in this way at the expense of the etheric body and has sucked up all it had to give, the creative forces of the physical body begin to be consumed by the astral body. When these are consumed, the life-force of the physical body disappears, the body hardens, the pulse becomes slow. The astral body finally feeds upon this physical body too, deprives it of its force; and when it has thus consumed it there is no longer any possibility for the physical body to be maintained by the physical principle. If the astral body is to reach the point of being free, so that it becomes part of the life and work of the ego, it is then necessary that in the second half of life this emancipated astral body — once the measure of its work being exhausted — should consume its sheaths just as they were formed. In this way the individual life is created out of the ego. The following is given as an illustration. Imagine you have a piece of wood and that you set it on fire; were the wood not constituted as it is you would be unable to do so. Flames leap out of the wood, at the same time consuming it. It is in the nature of a flame to get free of the wood and then to consume the mother-ground from which it springs. Now the astral body is born three times in this way, consuming its own foundations as the flame consumes the wood. The possibility for individual life arises through the consuming of foundations. The root of individual life is death, and were there no death there could not be any conscious individual life. We understand death only by seeking to know its origin; and we form a concept of life by recognising its relation to death. In a similar way we learn to know the nature of illness, which throws still more light on the nature of death. Every illness is seen to be in some way a destroyer of life. Now what is illness? Let us be clear what happens when a man as a living being confronts the rest of nature. With every breath, with every sound nourishment and light that he takes up into himself, a man enters into a mutual relation with the nature all around him. If you study the matter closely you will find, without being clairvoyant, that outside things actually form and build the physical organs. When certain animals migrate in dark caverns, in time their eyes atrophy. Where there is no light there can no longer be eyes susceptible to light; vice versa, eyes susceptible to light can be formed only where there is light. For this reason Goethe says that the eye is formed by the light for the light. Naturally the physical body is built in accordance with the ways of its inner architect. Man is a physical being and outer substances are the materials out of which — in harmony with the inner architect — the whole man is built. Then will the relation of individual forces and substances give us a very different picture. Those who have had the true mystic's deeper insight into these matters will have particularly much to tell us here. For Paracelsus the whole external world is one great explanation of the human organism, and a man is like an extract of the whole external world. When we see a plant, in accordance with Paracelsus we may say: In this plant is an organism conforming to law, and there is something in man which, in the healthy or the sick organism, corresponds to this plant. Hence Paracelsus calls a cholera patient, for example, an “arsenicus”, and arsenic is to him the cure for cholera. Thus there exists a relation between each of man's organs and what is around him in nature; we need only take a natural substance, give it human form, and we have man. The single letters of an alphabet are set out in the whole of nature, and we have man if we put them together. Here you get a notion of how the whole of nature works upon man, and how he is called upon to piece his being together out of nature. Strictly speaking, everything in us is drawn from nature outside and taken up into the process of life. When we understand the secret of bringing the external forces and substance to life, we shall be able to form a concept of the nature of illness. We touch here on ground where it is difficult for educated men of today to understand that there are many spheres in medicine which work in a nebulous way. What a suggestive effect it has in a present-day gathering when someone skilled in nature-healing mentions the word “poison”. What is a poison and how does anything work unnaturally in the human organism? Whatever you introduce into the human organism works in accordance with the laws of nature, and it is a mystery how anyone can speak as if it could work in the body in any other way. Then what is a poison? Water is a strong poison if you consume it by the bucketful in a short time; and what today is poison could have the most beneficial effect if rightly administered. It depends always on the quantity, and under which circumstances, one takes a substance into oneself; in itself, there is no poison. In Africa there is a tribe who employ a certain breed of dog for hunting. But there is a fly in those parts carrying a poison deadly to the dogs that they sting. Now these savages of the Zambesi river have found a way of dealing with this sting. They take the pregnant dogs to a district where there is an abundance of tsetse flies and let these animals be bitten, choosing the time when they are just going to whelp, with the result that the puppies are immune and can be used for hunting. Something happens here which is very important for the understanding of life — a poison is taken up into a life process, where a descending line passes over in an ascending one, in such a way that the poison becomes a substance inherent in the organism. What is thus taken from external nature strengthens us and is of use to us. Spiritual science shows us that in this way the whole human organism is built up — if we like to put it so, simply out of things that were originally poisons. The foods you enjoy today have been made edible by their harmful effects being overcome through a recurrent similar process. We are all the stronger for having thus taken such substances in us; and we make ourselves defenseless against outer nature by rejecting them. — In regions where medicine is founded on occultism, the doctor throws his whole personality into the process. There are cures, for example, for which the doctor administers to himself some kind of snake poison in order to use his saliva as a means to heal bites from that species of snake. He introduces the poison into his own life-process, thereby making himself the bearer of healing forces; he grows strong, and so strengthens others to resist the poison in question. All that is most harmless in the organism has arisen in this way and the organism has need of the incorporation into it of the external world — of nature; but then it must also be possible for the matter to swing over to the other side like a pendulum. The possibility is always there when a man is exposed to such substances — and at all times he is so exposed — that the effects of the remedy are reversed. The organism is strengthened to resist the remedy the moment it is strong enough to absorb the substance. It is impossible to avoid illness if we wish for health. All possibility of strengthening ourselves against outside influences rests on our being able to have diseases, to become ill. Illness is the condition of health; this development is an absolute reality. It belongs to the very nature and condition of health that a man is obliged to acquire his strength. What survives the beat of the pendulum contains the fruit of immunity from sickness — even from death. Whoever goes further into these things will indeed gain some kind of understanding of the nature of illness and of death. If we wish to be strong, if we wish for health, then as a preliminary condition we must accept illness into the bargain. If we want to be strong we must arm ourselves against weakness by taking the weakness into us and transforming it into strength. When we grasp this in a living way we shall find illness and death comprehensible. These concepts will be brought to mankind by spiritual science. Today this may well speak to the understanding of many people, but when the understanding has fully accepted the matter it will bring about in man a deep, harmonious mood of soul which will then become the wisdom of life. Have you not heard that it is possible for anthroposophical truths derived from occultism to become dangerous? Haven't we countless opponents who assert that anthroposophy must be accepted for the strengthening of human beings — that it is not just a subject for discussion but something which proves itself in life to be a spiritual means of healing. Spiritual science knows too that the physical is built up from the spiritual. If the spiritual forces work upon the etheric body, they work also health giving in the physical body. If our conceptions of the world and of life are sound, then these sound thoughts are most potent remedies, and the truths given out by anthroposophy work injuriously only on those natures who have grown weak through materialism and naturalism. These truths must be taken into the body to make it strong. Only when it produces strong human beings does anthroposophy fulfil its task. Goethe has answered our questions about life and death in a most beautiful way when saying that everything in nature is life and that nature has only invented death to have more life. 1 “Life is here fairest invention, death but her artifice whereby to have much life.” Hymn to Nature. And we might say that besides death she has invented illness to produce greater health; therefore she has had to make of wisdom an apparently harmful remedy, in order that this wisdom may work upon mankind in a strengthening and healing way. This is just the difference between the world movement of spiritual science and other movements — that it promotes strife and discussion when logical proof of it is demanded. Anthroposophy is not meant simply to be confirmed by logical argument; it is something to make human beings both spiritually and bodily sound. The more it shows its effect on life outside by so enhancing it that life's sorrows are transformed into the happiness of life, the more will anthroposophy prove itself in a really living way. However firmly people today believe they are able to bring forward logical objections to it, spiritual science is something which, appearing to be poison, is transformed into a means of healing, and then works in life in a fructifying way. It does not assert itself by mere logic. It is not to be merely demonstrated — it will prove itself in life.

The Origin of Suffering the Origin of Evil Illness and Death

What Do We Understand by Illness and Death

https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA055/English/SBC1980/19061213p01.html

Berlin

13 Dec 1906

GA055-6

When we discuss subjects such as that of today's lecture, we must keep before our mind's eye mankind's whole evolution. Only then can we understand the evolution of the individual, and guide the young through education. At the center of education is the school. We shall attempt to understand what is required of education on the basis of human nature and a person's evolution in general. We see a person's being as consisting of four distinct members: physical body, ether or life body, astral body, and at the center of the being, the “I.” When an individual is born, only the physical body is ready to receive influences from the external world. Not until the time of the change of teeth is the ether body born, the astral body not until puberty is reached. The faculties of the ether body, such as memory, temperament, and so on, are, up to the change of teeth, protected by an etheric sheath, just as the physical senses of eyes and ears are protected before physical birth by the material body. The educator must during this time leave undisturbed what should develop naturally of itself. Jean Paul expressed it by saying that no world traveller learns as much on his far-flung journeys as the little child learns from his nurse before the age of seven. Why then must we have schools for children? What only evolves after the physical birth has taken place is in need of a protective covering just as the embryo needs the protection of the maternal body. Not until a certain stage of development is reached does the human being begin a life that is entirely new. Up to then his life is a repetition of earlier epochs. Even the embryo repeats all primordial stages of evolution up to the present. And after birth, the child repeats earlier human evolutionary epochs. Friedrich August Wolf 1 Friedrich August Wolf (1759–1805) was a philologist. describes the stages through which a human being evolves from childhood onwards as follows: The first epoch, lasting up to the third year, he calls the "golden, gentle, harmonious age" corresponding to the life of today's Indian and South Sea Islander. The second epoch, up to the sixth year, reflects the Asiatic wars and their repercussions in Europe, and also the Greek heroic age, as well as the time of the North American savage. The third epoch, up to the ninth year, corresponds to the time from Homer 2 Homer (8th centure B.C.) was a Greek epic poet who wrote the Iliad and Odyssey . to Alexander the Great. 3 Alexander the Great (356-323 B.C.) was king of Macedonia and conqueror of the Persian Empire. The fourth epoch, up to the twelfth year, corresponds to the time of the Roman Empire. The fifth epoch, up to the fifteenth year, when the inner forces should be ennobled through religion, corresponds to the Middle Ages. The sixth epoch, up to the eighteenth year, corresponds to the Renaissance. The seventh epoch, up to the twenty-first year, corresponds to the Reformation, and in the eighth epoch, lasting up to the twenty-fourth year, a human reaches the present. This system is on the whole a valuable spiritual foundation, but it must be widened considerably to correspond to reality. It must include the whole of a human being's evolutionary descent. A person does not stem from the animal kingdom, though certainly from beings who, in regard to physical development, were far below what human beings are today. Yet in no way did they resemble apes. Spiritual science points back to a time when human beings inhabited Atlantis; 4 Atlantis is a mythical continent, said to have sunk into the sea. Plato describes it in the Timaeus and Critias , and Steiner mentions it frequently. compared with modern human beings the Atlantean's soul and spirit were differently constituted. Their consciousness could be termed somnambulistic; the intellect was undeveloped — they could neither count nor write, and logical reasoning did not exist. But they beheld many aspects of the spiritual world. The will that flowed through their limbs was immensely strong. The higher animals such as apes were degenerate descendants of the Atlanteans. Our dream consciousness is a residue of the Atlantean's normal pictorial consciousness, which could be compared with that of a person experiencing vivid dreams during sleep. But the pictures of the Atlantean were animated, more vivid than those of today's most fertile imagination. Furthermore, an Atlantean was able to control his pictures, which were not chaotic. We see an echo of this consciousness when young children play, investing their toys with pictorial content. The human being first descended into physical bodies during Lemurian time. A person repeats that event during physical birth. At that time, having descended into a physical body, a person begins developing through soul and spirit to ever higher levels. The Lemurian and Atlantean epochs are repeated in a child's development up to the seventh year. Between the change of teeth and puberty that epoch of evolution is repeated in which great spiritual teachers have appeared among men. Buddha, 5 Buddha, Guatama (c. 563–483 B.C.) the founder of Buddhism. Plato, 6 Plato (c. 427–347 B.C.) was a Greek philosopher who founded the academy where Aristotle studied. Pythagoras, 7 Pythagorus (c. 570–c. 500 B.C.) was a Greek philosopher who founded the Pythagorean school. Hermes, 8 Hermes was a Greek god and messenger of the gods. He was the god of roads, commerce, invention, cunning, and theft. Identified by the Romans with Mercury. Moses, 9 Moses (c. 13th century B.C.) was a Hebrew lawgiver and prophet who led the Israelites out of Egypt. and Zarathustra 10 Zarathustra (c. 6th century B.C.) was a Persian. The religion Zoroastrianism is based an his teachings. are some of the latter. In those days, the influence of the spiritual world was much greater, a fact we find preserved in heroic legends and sagas. It is therefore important that what is taught during this period of the child's life conveys the spirit of the earlier cultural epochs. The period between the seventh and fourteenth years corresponds in the child to the time up to the twelfth century, the time when cities were founded. The main emphasis must now be on authority and community. The children should experience something of the power and glory that surrounded the early leaders. The most important issue that concerns a school is therefore the teacher. The teacher's authority must be self-evident for the children, just as what was taught by the great teachers was self-evident to the human soul. It is bad; it does great harm if the child doubts the teacher. The child's respect and reverence must be without reservation, so that the teacher's kindness and good will — which he naturally must have — seem to the child like a blessing. What is important is not pedagogical methods and principles, but the teacher's profound psychological insight. The study of psychology is the most important subject of a teacher's training. An educator should not be concerned with how the human being ought to develop, but with the reality of how the student in fact does develop. As every age makes different demands, it is useless to lay down general rules. It is not knowledge or proficiency in pedagogical methods that matter in a teacher, but character and a certain presence that makes itself felt even before the teacher has spoken. The educator must have attained a degree of inner development, and must have become not merely learned, but inwardly transformed. The day will come when a teacher will be tested, not for knowledge or even for pedagogical principles, but for what he or she is as a human being. For the child the school must be its life. Life should not just be portrayed; former epochs must come to life. The school must create a life of its own, not draw it from outside. What the human being will no longer be able to receive later in life he must receive at school. Pictorial and symbolic concepts must be fostered. The teacher must be deeply aware of the truth that: “Everything transient is but a semblance.” When the educator presents a subject pictorially the teacher should not be thinking that it is merely allegory. If the teacher fully participates in the life of the child, forces will flow from his or her soul to that of the child. Processes of nature must be described in rich imaginative pictures. The spiritual behind the sense-perceptible must be brought to life. Modern teaching methods fall completely in this respect, because only the external aspects are described. But a seed contains not only the future plant, it contains forces of the sun, indeed of the whole cosmos. A feeling for nature will awaken in the child when the capacity for imagery is fostered. Plants should not merely be shown and described, the child should make paintings of them; then happy human beings for whom life has meaning will emerge from their time at school. Calculators ought not to be used; one must do sums with the children on living fingers. Vigorous spiritual forces are to be stimulated. Nature study and arithmetic train the power of thinking and memory; history the life of feeling. A sense for what is noble and beautiful awakens love for what is worthy of love. But what strengthens the will is religion; it must permeate every subject that is taught. The child will not immediately grasp everything it is capable of absorbing; this is true of everyone. Jean Paul made the remark that one should listen carefully to the truth uttered by a child, but to have it explained one must turn to its father. In our materialistic age too little is expected of memory. The child first learns; only later does it understand, and only later still will it grasp the underlying laws. Between the seventh and fourteenth years is also the time to foster the sense for beauty. It is through this sense that we grasp symbolic meaning. But most important is that the child is not burdened with abstract concepts; what is taught should have a direct connection with life. The spirit of nature, in other words the facts themselves existing behind the sense-perceptible, must have spoken to the child; it should have a natural appreciation of things before abstract theories are introduced, which should only be done after puberty. There is no need for concern that things learnt may be forgotten once school days are over; what matters is that what is taught bears fruit and forms the character. What the child has inwardly experienced it will also retain; details may vanish but the essential, the universal, will remain and will grow. No education can be conducted without a religious foundation; without religion a school is an illusion. Even Haeckel's Riddle of the Universe contains religion. No theory can ever replace religion, nor can a history of religion. A person who is basically of a religious disposition, who has deep conviction, will also be able to convey religion. The spirit that lives in the world also lives in humans. The teacher must feel that he or she belongs to a spiritual world-order from which a mission is received. There is a saying that a person's character is formed partly by study and partly by life. But school and education should not be something apart from life. Rather should it be said that a person's character will be rightly formed when study is also life.

Supersensible Knowledge

Education and Spiritual Science

https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA055/English/AP1987/19070124p01.html

Berlin

24 Jan 1907

GA055-7

Spiritual science more than any other science is in a position to say something about so-called spiritual or mental illness. The name is actually misleading; one cannot speak of the spirit being ill. Furthermore, there is widespread confusion among lay people as well as professionals, mainly because of the way such illnesses are presented in popular literature. The descriptions are thought of as the reality. Megalomania, persecution-mania, religious-mania are spoken of, but these terms only point to symptoms. No one can become insane by being occupied with religious ideas. Yet the most curious statements are put forward, for example that the discord between old and modern world conceptions was the cause of Friedrich Hölderlin's 1 Friedrich Hölderlin (1770–1843) was among the greatest of German lyric poets. His images were usually derived from classical Greek themes. illness. The illness from which he suffered would still have overtaken Hölderin even if he had not been a poet; though in that case he would have expressed himself differently. When a deeply religious person becomes mentally ill, his religious ideas become distorted. Had he been steeped in materialistic ideas, then they would have become distorted. The cause of mental illness is deeply rooted in human nature where it must be sought. All the medical professions can offer in this field are hypotheses, doubt and conjecture. It is indeed difficult from a materialistic viewpoint to come to any conclusive ideas in this realm. Many illnesses that in fact belong in this category are not regarded to do so by the medical profession, for example, querulousness, religious sectarianism and fanaticism. People of the latter kind are possessed by certain hallucinary ideas which, because they have great suggestive power over weaker personalities, can result in veritable epidemics of fanaticism. The question may be asked: How is it possible for insanity to establish itself in human nature? To answer this question we must turn our attention to the four lower members of a person's being: the physical, etheric and astral bodies, and the “I.” The “I” works on the other three members, especially on the astral body, ennobling and purifying it and by compelling it not to follow urges and impulses blindly. The “I” also works on the ether body, particularly through higher impulses, especially of an artistic nature. Under this influence the astral body divides into two parts, one that is purified and one that is not. This occurs also in the ether body, and gradually the purified parts become ever larger. The “I” also works on the physical body, but unconsciously. Only when a high level of initiation is reached can work on the physical be done consciously. To answer our question, we must also bear in mind the fact of repeated lives. When we go to sleep something takes place that is similar to what occurs at death. When we go to sleep the astral body and the “I” separate from the physical body, and all cravings and sensations sink into dark oblivion. Only the physical and etheric bodies remain on the bed. At death the ether or life body too separates from the physical body, and in the hours that follow, while the human being is still connected with the ether body, there passes, in mighty pictures before the soul, the whole of a person's past life. This lasts until the ether body also separates from that individual and disperses into the general worldether. However, only the substance of the ether body separates from the person. Throughout future times an essence, like a memory-picture, remains with the astral body and the “I.” These first of all pass over into the condition called “kamaloca” or the region of desire, where everything within the astral body that still clings to earthy life is separated from it. What is not yet ennobled detaches itself; the rest accompanies the soul into the future. This also applies to the physical body, but only to a very slight extent, and only in the case of highly evolved individuals. When the incarnation that will follow draws near, the human being unites once more with what was left behind in order to continue its purification. The more often a human being incarnates, the stronger becomes his character and his moral sense, and the more numerous and greater the talents and abilities. What we need to bear in mind above all, if we are to understand how insanity arises, is the Hermetic axiom: As above, so below; as below, so above. A smiling face immediately conveys cheerfulness, tears inner sadness. Cheerfulness and sadness we must in this instance see as the “above”, and laughter and tears, that is, the material expression of cheerfulness and sadness, as representing the “below.” When someone has been rightly brought up and educated, he Looks at life with different eyes. To him a flower is seen as the expression of the Earth-Spirit's sadness or cheerfulness. For him this is not just a poetic notion, anymore than the soul is a poetic notion. The spirit of the earth is the foundation of earth existence and is related to it as the above. Everything material is a condensed spirit just as ice is condensed water; as ice can be melted to become water, so can matter be transformed into spirit. We distinguish in human beings the following physical components that correspond to their higher, that is, their above members: first the purely physical, what is built according to purely physical laws, especially the sense organs. What builds a crystal could also build the human body, though it would be an organism without life. Second, we have everything connected with digestion, growth and propagation built by the ether body; third, the nervous system (brain and spinal cord) built by the astral body; fourth, the blood circulation, of which the "I," living in the blood, is the architect. Thus, we have: Everything physical is subject to the laws of physical heredity, but so too are the organs of propagation, the nervous system and the blood circulation. The individuality of a human being must unite with a physical body that is subject to these laws. This means that the “I,” together with the ennobled parts of the astral and ether body, and perhaps part of the physical body, must establish harmony between itself and what is inherited. This usually happens through the fact that the spiritual, by transforming itself, adapts to the physical. But what happens when that is not possible, when for example an astral body encounters a nervous system to which it cannot adjust, and therefore cannot make use of? Delusion caused by visual defect is not regarded as a mental illness. A book by Moritz Benedict, 2 Moritz Benedict (1835–1920) was a criminologist. the criminologist and anthropologist, though not written from a spiritual scientific viewpoint, has much of interest to say on this subject. He suffered from a partial cataract in the left eye that impaired his sight. He describes his own experiences: When in the dark he looked in a certain direction and saw spectres of a peculiar kind; he was once so startled that he grabbed a weapon. The explanation for this kind of phenomenon is as follows: A healthy person is not conscious of the inner constituents of his eye but, if there are irregularities, he becomes aware of them in such a way that they appear as reflected forms, approaching from outside. However, this is something that holds true also for the rest of a person's organism. Normally we are only conscious of what comes to us from outside, not of what goes on inside. When the "above" is in harmony with the “below,” one is not at all conscious of inner processes. But, if for instance, the brain is clumsy and sluggish so that the astral body is unable to make use of it, then the astral body suffers disturbance. It projects itself outwardly just as it does when the eye is impaired. It becomes conscious of itself, and feelings of hopes, wishes and cravings, that is, the attributes of the astral body, are projected and appear as forms approaching from outside. Madness, querulousness, hysteria — all conditions in which a person cannot make his feelings agree with what goes on around him — belong to this category. The ether body can also suffer disturbance through inner abnormalities. It contains our mental pictures of the outside world. As long as it is not conscious of itself it receives these pictures in their true form, but if they become projected outwards due to a disturbance of the ether body, the result is delusions and Paranoia. When that aspect of the physical body that should bring about the accord with the physical environment becomes disturbed, becomes conscious of itself, it leads to idiocy. A human being can become what is called “demented” when the physical body is too ponderous, too unwieldy, so that the astral body is unable to master it. If on the other hand the physical organs are too mobile so that they fail to express the soul's intentions, the result is paralysis. A multitude of such cases exist. They may be due to any number of causes. This is true especially of delusions; they can arise from either projections or a sickening of the astral body. The effect may be so strong that delirium sets in; such attacks imprint themselves in the ether body and give rise to delusions. These imprints are like scars from the wounds in the astral body, and are much more difficult to heal than the delirium itself. Glaucoma is often a forerunner of madness. We must now remind ourselves that human beings go through a threefold birth, first that of the physical body, then at the time of the change of teeth the ether body is born, and at puberty the astral body. It may happen that the disharmony between the “above and the “below” only becomes noticeable at the time when the astral body is born, because up to that time the astral covering that protected it maintained the harmony. Once it is born the astral body is left to itself, and the discord with the physical body becomes apparent. The form of mental illness that results comes to expression, for the young person suffers from hallucinations, and will often give one and the same answer to a variety of questions. This is called “weak-mindedness or imbecility.” It does not come about suddenly, but is gradually prepared from the age of twelve onwards. The preliminary signs are depression, tiredness, argumentativeness, headaches, problems with digestion and with sleep. The condition is extremely difficult to cure; and it is sad that most parents punish their children for such illness, mistaking it for naughtiness. The spirit itself is always healthy; it cannot be ill, but when it can find no harmony with the “below” it becomes distorted. A face reflected in a convex mirror is distorted, but no one assumes that the real face must therefore also be distorted. The various forms of insanity are the distorted reflections of the spirit in the physical. Consequently, it is quite useless to attempt a cure by means of abstract logical reasoning; such methods have no effect whatever. Nothing is more remote from concentrated spirit than shadowy abstract logic — and our bodily organs are concentrated spirit, albeit not our spirit — whereas passionate, imaginative, pictorial ideas and images are more akin to spirit, and are capable of driving out the distorted images that cause the condition. Such counter-images must be provided by the strength and power of another personality. An individual cannot through explanations convince the ill person that he is illogical, whereas vivid, strong counter-images will be effective. For example, the power of the other's personality must prove to the sick person that he can, after all, do what he thought was beyond him. In the realm of so-called spiritual or mental illnesses, natural and spiritual science must work together. What is needed is detailed research so that the counter-images applicable in specific cases are always available. These too are not normal in the usual sense, as they must, to be effective, swing towards the opposite extreme. Spiritual science is neither remote from life nor passive; it aims to contribute to practical life. To be effective in the world one must of necessity learn to understand the spiritual forces that constitute its foundation. If we are to understand the nature of what is physical, we must recognize that the material world is an imprint of the spiritual world. To Hellenbach who says: “What possible concern of ours is all this spirit-rabble?” we must reply: “Well, as human rabble is our concern, and as human beings are connected with the spiritual world, we wish to find the bridge between the two.

Supersensible Knowledge

Insanity in the Light of Spiritual Science

https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA055/English/AP1987/19070131p01.html

Berlin

31 Jan 1907

GA055-8

Spiritual science aims to be an influence in practical life, to be a source of strength and confidence. It is for people who wish to be effective in life, not for the merely curious. Knowledge of the spirit has always existed. It has been fostered in circles where it was recognized that human beings are capable of developing spiritual forces of greater capacity than the ordinary intellect. In these circies there was awareness of the fact that healing was connected with holiness; it was felt that the Holy Spirit was the wholly healthy spirit that united itself with mankind's soul to bring healing to the world. This aspect is the one least understood. Spiritual knowledge guides the human soul away from narrow attitudes and egoistical aims; it points to universal issues that unite the individual with the cosmos. Nevertheless, the higher forces it bestows often are used as an incentive for egoistical striving. It is often made to serve egoism despite the fact that its very nature is to lead human beings away from the personal; people demand that through spiritual science egoistical wishes should be fulfilled from one day to the next. There once existed in Africa a brotherhood — the Therapeutae, which fostered spiritual knowledge. In the region where Christianity arose, the same sect was known as the Essenes. The narre indicates that the brotherhood was concerned with healing, which they practiced by combining their spiritual insight with knowledge of matter. When spiritual knowledge is absorbed, healing forces are absorbed also. Spiritual science is an elixir of life; though it cannot be proved by argument the proof will be seen when it is assimilated, then applied to life, and health follows. However, a person might as well know nothing about spiritual science if all that person can do is talk glibly about reincarnation and karma. If its effect is to be experienced, a person's whole inner being must be steeped in spiritual science; one must live it every hour of the day, and calmly be able to wait. In this connection Goethe's saying is apt: "Consider the what, but even more consider the how." Spiritual science is rightly understood if it is assimilated like a spiritual food, and allowed to grow and mature within a person. It is rightly understood if, in moments of sorrow or happiness, of devotion and exaltation, or when life threatens to fall apart, a person experiences the hope, strength and incentive to action it brings. Spiritual science must become a personal quest. The striving human being, looking at the stars, will recognize the eternal laws that guide them through cosmic space. When clouds sail across the vault of heaven, when the sun rises in splendor, or the moon in silent majesty, a person will see all these phenomena as the expression of soul-spiritual universal life. Just as we recognize the look an a face, or the movement of a hand as the expression of the soul and spirit in human beings, when we look at the past we look at the same time up to the spirit whose imprint in the physical is everywhere in evidence. Absorb the spirit, and you absorb health-giving forces! Not, however, in lazy comfort; there are people who entertain the most trivial notions while declaring that all one needs is to be in tune with the infinite. That has nothing to do with knowledge of the spirit. Spiritual knowledge must penetrate a human's innermost being. It is not through some magical formula that we discover the spiritual world. What is required is that we enter with patience and love into every being, every event. The spiritual world is there and should not be sought as if it has no connection with the physical. Wherever we find ourselves placed in life, there we must seek it; then spiritual knowledge becomes a personal quest. There are people who have no sense for music or paintings; likewise there are people with no sense for what is spiritual. The following incident illustrates a common notion of what is spiritual: One evening in a small town, a strange light was noticed to pass across the church wall. Soon it was a topic of conversation all over the town. As no natural explanation was found, it was determined that it was a spiritual phenomenon. Actually, the fact that it was seen by many already made this highly unlikely. If a person was able to perceive a genuine spiritual event, certain spiritual organs and capabilities must first be developed. In our time this is a rare event; so the fact that the strange light was seen by many people is a sure proof that it was not a spiritual manifestation. And indeed an explanation was soon forthcoming: An elderly lady with a lantern was in the habit of walking her dog in the evening. On one particular night the light happened to be noticed. Investigation of such meaningless suppositions was pointless. The most significant spiritual manifestations are to be found in the objects and events around us every day. Wisdom is science, but also more than science. It is science that is united with, not apart from, reality. At any moment it can become decision and action. Someone who is knowledgeable about scientific laws is a scientist; someone who immediately knows how to apply knowledge so that it becomes reality is wise. Wisdom is science becoming creative. We must so contemplate, so merge with the laws of nature that they become an inner force. Through his contemplation and exact observation of individual plants, Goethe arrived at his inner perception of the archetypal plant. The idea of the archetypal plant is a product of spiritual intuition; it is a plant-image that can come to life within us; from it numberless plants can be derived which do not as yet exist, but could exist. In someone who has become a sage laws are not bound to the particular, they are eternal living entities. This is the realm of Imagination; of ideas that are not abstract but creative images. Abstract concepts and ideas may lead to science, but not to wisdom. Had Goethe remained at the conceptual stage, he would never have discovered the archetypal plant. It must be seen so vividly and so exactly that one can draw it, including root, stem, leaves and fruit, without it resembling any particular plant. Such an image is not a product of fantasy. Fantasy is related to imagination as shadow is to reality; however, it can be transformed and raised to become imagination. We may not as yet have access to the world of imagination, but it is a world that is attainable. We must develop soul forces that are objective, comparable to the forces active in our eyes. We would be surrounded by perpetual darkness if the eyes did not transform the light falling upon them into colored images and mental pictures. Anyone who believes we must just wait for some nebulous manifestation of the Spirit to appear has no comprehension of the inner work required of human beings. The soul must become active, as the eyes are active transforming light. Unless the soul creates pictures, and images within itself, the spiritual world cannot stream in. The pictures thus created will maintain objectivity provided they are not prompted by egoistic wishes; when their content is spiritual, then healing forces stream into a person's soul. When the ability is attained to transform the concepts of spiritual science into vivid pictures full of color, sound and life; when the whole world becomes such a picture, then this wisdom becomes in all spheres of life a healing force, not only for ourselves, but for others, for the whole world. Even if the pictures we create in the soul are not accurate, it will not matter; they are corrected by that which guides us. Paracelsus was a sage of this kind. He immersed himself in all aspects of nature and transformed his knowledge into vigorous inner forces. Every plant spoke to him, revealing the wisdom inherent in nature. Animals have wisdom of a certain kind; their instincts are wise. However, they do not individually possess a soul. Animals share a group soul that as spiritual wisdom influences them from outside. All animals whose blood can be mixed without ill effect have a common soul, that is, a group soul. Wisdom thus acting from outside has become individualized in humans. Every human being has his own individual soul whose influence comes from within. The price human beings pay is loss of certainty. Uncertainty is characteristic of human knowledge and scientific pursuit. Human beings are obliged to grope their way; they must search, select and experiment. However, they have the possibility to evolve, to reach higher stages; the knowledge they are obliged to attain through effort, through trial and error, they can transform so that it becomes wisdom once more. What is already in existence must, as it were, become recast within human beings, must become color-filled, light-filled, sound-filled imagination; then they attain wisdom. Paracelsus had attained such wisdom; he approached every plant, every chemical substance and instantly recognized its healing properties. An animal immediately knows, through its unconscious instincts, what is beneficial for it. Paracelsus knew through conscious wisdom that illness would benefit from a particular substance. The Therapeutae and Essenes 1 Essenes (200 B.C. to A.D. 100) were a sect that flourished in Palestine. In their monastic community, they strictly observed the law of Moses. had the same kind of wisdom. It is insight that cannot be attained through experiments; knowledge is transformed into imaginative wisdom. The plant then discerns its own image in the human soul and changes it; in that instant the human being not only senses, but also knows what healing properties the plant possesses. Spiritual science has no objections to natural science; in fact, no one who is serious in his spiritual scientific striving will neglect to acquaint himself with the achievements of ordinary science; he will, however, go further; he will transform such knowledge into creative wisdom. We know that the human being consists of physical body, ether body, astral body and the ”I.” Ordinary knowledge penetrates only as far as the astral body of which it becomes a part, whereas imaginative knowledge reaches the ether or life body, filling it with the Life Spirit, making human beings powerful healers. The immense difference between the effect of abstract concepts and that of imaginative knowledge is easiest to see in an incident where the effect was painful in nature: A man was present when his brother had a leg amputated. As the bone was cut it made a strange sound; at that moment the man felt a fierce pain in his leg at the place corresponding to where his brother's Operation was taking place. For a long time he could not rid himself of the pain, even when his brother no longer felt any. The sound emitted from the bone had, through the Power of imagination, impressed itself deeply into the man's ether body and produced the pain. A physician in Berne once made an interesting experiment. He took an ordinary horseshoe and connected to it two wires of the type used in electrical machinery. Everyone thought the gadget must be electrified, and those who touched it were certain they felt an electric current; there were even some who were convinced they experienced a violent shock. All these effects were produced simply by what the persons concerned imagined to themselves; no remonstration convinced them otherwise. People became rich by manufacturing pills from ordinary bread. The pills were supposed to cure all kinds of illnesses, but were especially popular for curing sleeplessness. A lady, a patient in a sanatorium, took such a pill regularly every evening and enjoyed sound sleep. One night she decided to take her own life and swallowed as many of these pills as she could lay her hands on. It was discovered, and the doctors were greatly alarmed; she showed all the signs of someone dying. One doctor remained calm, the one who had manufactured the pills. Human beings have a natural ability to turn the merely known into vivid images. Hypnotism relies on this fact. The hypnotist excludes the astral body and introduces a pictorial content directly into the ether body, but this is an abnormal process. The pictures we ourselves produce are imprinted on the ether body. If they are derived from the spiritual world they have the power to eradicate unhealthy conditions, which means that harmony is brought about with universal spiritual currents. This brings about healing because unhealthy conditions always originate from egoism, and we are now lifted above our ordinary mental life, which is dimmed. This process must occur every so often, for example during sleep; then the astral body, together with the “I,” separates from the physical and etheric bodies and unites with the spirit of the earth. From this spiritual region the astral body imprints health-giving pictures into the ether body. This process is unconscious except in highly evolved human beings. It was Plato who said that eternal ideas are behind everything. The clairvoyant sees the spiritual in every plant whose very form is built up from such spiritual images. These eternal ideas, these spiritual images, human beings are able to absorb and thus become creative. Their health-giving effect acts throughout nature. Strictly speaking, it is only a human being that becomes ill; only people take the spirit into their inner being and must bring it to life once more. Imaginative wisdom will bring a person health. When knowledge is transformed into wisdom, the spirit creates the imagination. Spiritual science is such wisdom, and has the ability more than anything else to be a healing force, especially in the sense of preventing illness. This, admittedly, is not easy to prove. However, through spiritual science, life-giving forces flow into human beings keeping them youthful and strong. Wisdom makes a person open and receptive because it is a foundation from which love for all things grows. To preach love is useless. (The Therapeutae and Essenes were wise; they were also most compassionate and loving.) When wisdom warms the soul, love streams forth; thus we can understand that there are people who can heal through the laying on of hands. Wisdom pours forces of love through their limbs. Christ was the wisest and therefore also the greatest healer. Unless love and compassion unite with wisdom, no genuine help can be forthcoming. If someone lying in the street with a broken leg is surrounded by people full of compassion, but without knowledge, they cannot help. The doctor who comes with knowledge of how to deal with a broken leg can help, for his wisdom transforms his compassion into action. Basic to all help provided by human beings is knowledge, insight and ability. We are always surrounded by wisdom because wise beings created the world. When this wisdom has reached its climax it will have become all-encompassing love. Love will stream towards us from the world of the future. Love is born of wisdom, and the wisest Spiritual Being is the greatest healer. From Christ is born the Holy, that is, the Healing Spirit.

Supersensible Knowledge

Wisdom and Health

https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA055/English/AP1987/19070214p01.html

Berlin

14 Feb 1907

GA055-9

The saying above the ancient Greek Temple: “Know Thyself,” has resounded to mankind down the ages like a summons to earnest self-introspection. And indeed it expresses one of the greatest truths, but even more than other great truths it is all too easily misunderstood. The real meaning points to something powerful and universal. Originally it neither suggested that a person should contemplate his ordinary everyday self, nor expect to find the sum total of all knowledge within his own being. Rightly understood, the call is for knowledge of the higher self. But where is a person's higher self to be found? We can by means of a comparison make clear where the higher self exists, and what the saying means: We know for certain that without eyes we would not perceive light; it is, however, equally certain that we would not have eyes had the light flooding all space not first created them. Out of an originally lower organism without sight, knowing only darkness, the light enticed forth the eyes. Hence the truth of Goethe's saying: “The eyes are created by the light for the light.” However, the purpose of the eyes is not to perceive themselves. From the point of view of the eye, we must say that they fulfill their task all the better the more they forget themselves and recognize their creator — the light. The true mission of the eyes is to forget their inner being and recognize what created them, that is what to the eyes is the higher self — the light. The situation is the same in regard to a person's ordinary self; that too is nothing but an organ, a tool; and self-knowledge becomes ever greater the more this self can forget itself and become aware of the spirit-light, existing in the eternal world, that created our spiritual eyes and continually does so. Therefore, self-knowledge rightly understood means self-development. This we must keep in mind and see as background to today's lecture, which concerns the subject of self-knowledge in the highest sense of the word. Taking all aspects of an individual's nature into consideration, let us look at the way he evolves during his life between birth and death. In so doing, we must not forget that when a person starts his life an earth he is not a newly created entity; he brings certain qualities with him. Repeated earth lives are behind him, during which the fundamental character of his individuality has already been established. We must consider a person's existence after death if we are to recognize what he brings with him through birth. That existence will reveal what he has retained throughout the time between death and new birth, and so brings with him into a new life. Let us remind ourselves that at death the human being leaves behind only the physical corpse. The main difference between death and sleep is that the human being asleep possesses a physical and an etheric body; only the astral body and what we call “I” are lifted out. Just as an architect is needed to create a building, as the bricks do not come together of themselves, so do the physical forces need the ether body as an inner architect. The ether body holds together the physical matter and forces from birth to death. At every moment it prevents the chemical combinations from falling apart. But at death it leaves the physical body, which consequently is left behind as the decaying corpse. Thus, in sleep it is only the “I” and astral body, the bearer of pleasure and pain, cravings and sentiments, that leaves, whereas in death the ether body also leaves and remains with the astral body and the “I” for a short time. This is an important moment in a person's existence. During that short time there passes before the human soul with lightning speed a mighty memory tableau of his whole past life. This tableau is like a painting, and just as we do not feel the stab of the dagger depicted in a painting, so do we not experience either pleasure or pain in what the tableau portrays. We stand before our past life as objective observer. Then comes the time when the ether body withdraws and disperses into the general world ether. However, something of the ether body remains, which is like an extract or a summary of the past life. The tableau becomes indistinct and dissolves, but the extract remains united with a person throughout his further journey. In fact, an essence or extract also remains of the physical body, which is of course not something that can be seen with physical sight; it is like a center of energy that remains with the ether body; it is what gives the physical body its human form. After the ether body has dissolved, the astral body still remains. An individual now passes through a condition during which he gradually adjusts to being without a physical environment. We must realize that everything a person has experienced as lower enjoyment clings to the astral body. The physical body has no cravings; it experiences no pleasure, but is the instrument that enables the astral body to obtain enjoyment. Take the case of a gourmet. It is not the physical body that enjoys the food, but the astral body that uses the physical body as a tool to enjoy it. The craving remains after the physical body is laid aside, but now the tool for obtaining satisfaction is lacking. This indicates the nature of the astral body's existence after death, comparable to someone suffering thirst in a region for the length and breadth of which there is no water. Instincts, cravings and passions are now felt by the astral body as burning thirst, not because the objects of its desires are not there, but because the organs are lacking through which satisfaction can be obtained. That is why religion speaks of the ordeal by fire that human beings undergo after death. The human being remains in kamaloca for as long as the astral body retains a longing for the physical body. Gradually it frees itself of its dependence on what surrounded it when clothed in a physical body. Someone who has purified his passions already during life, so that instead of coarser enjoyments he takes pleasure in what is beautiful, artistic and spiritual, will shorten his time kamaloca. On the other hand, those who only find pleasure in things for which a physical tool is needed will remain a long time in the region of burning thirst. Eventually what is not purified falls away like a kind of astral corpse, comparable to what is left behind of the physical and etheric bodies. The more of the astral body a person has purified, the more he is able to retain and add to the extracts from the physical and etheric bodies. With these three extracts, a person passes into the essentially spiritual world where everything the “I” has experienced and has acquired during earthly life is perfected. Some people enter life possessing great talents, discernible already in childhood, and only waiting to be brought out. A person can bring such talents because his earthly experiences were transformed into abilities during his sojourn in Spirit Land. In the course of each life on earth, a person adds something new to the extracts of his three bodies. If a person is born with special talents, it shows that he has made good use of his former lives. He has as it were added many pages to the record of his experiences and achievements. When he enters a new life he receives a physical body from physical ancestors. The core of his being, bringing the fruits of former experiences, is drawn to a family that can provide the physical characteristics he needs for making use of the already acquired capabilities. The characteristics a person inherits do not determine his actions or his abilities; all they provide is the tool with which to express them. However, the tool is essential. A master pianist needs an instrument, and so does the incarnating individuality. If a person is to express himself properly in the physical world, the new body that clothes him must be the right tool. This tends to give rise to the mistaken view that everything is inherited. Heredity certainly plays a part, but only insofar as the incarnating individuality feels drawn to parents that can provide him with the most suitable tool. Everything as yet not purified that was left behind at different stages gathers again about the person. He must receive it back in order to continue the purification of the being. We have already discussed various aspects of what takes place during the first half of a person's life. In order to see how his fate and fortune in later life depends upon the way his physical, etheric and astral bodies develop during the first half, we must repeat some aspects connected with school life and education that reach further completion in the second half. This is an important issue, and it is essential to recognize certain significant laws. These are laws that apply in general, though they may become modified in various ways. In order to adjust properly to life and recognize one's destination ever more clearly, the working of these laws must be understood. Let us begin with birth. We know that-at physical birth only the physical body is fully born. The organs could develop before birth because the embryo is completely protected by the surrounding maternal sheath. Only when this is pushed aside is this body exposed to the physical elements. The ether body is not born yet, even less the astral body; they are still surrounded by an etheric and an astral sheath. These sheaths, visible only to spiritual sight, are not part of a person's own nature, but they envelop and protect him. At the change of teeth in the seventh year when the ether body is born, the etheric sheath is pushed aside as was the maternal body at physical birth. And only at puberty is the astral body born and fully exposed to the influences of the external world. It must be realized that in the first seven years of life only what is described as the essence or extract of the former physical body is freed; this is what gives the physical its form, guiding its structural development. The organs grow larger, but their shape and function are inherent in them. It is of the greatest importance that everything in the environment of the growing child enables the physical structure to unfold in the best possible way. The essential aspect of this period can be summed up in two significant words: imitation and example. At this age the child Imitates everything that goes on or exists around him. It is this activity of imitation that coaxes the inner organs to develop their inherent form. The brain of a seven-year old may still be incomplete, but the foundation for the child's further development is laid, and any lack cannot be made up later. The appearance of the second teeth marks the end of the activity of the physical principle, which is the principle of structure and form. The teeth are the outwardly visible sign that the bones and joints and also the softer organs have consolidated. The influence of light is what entices the power of sight to the surface in the eyes. As already mentioned, it is best not to give children perfect dolls and similar toys. A healthy child will only get pleasure from it for a short while. A knot in a table napkin with indications of eyes and ears will provide far more pleasure; this is because the child's fantasy becomes active in providing what the doll lacks. This encourages the development of the inner Organs; they become strong, as a muscle becomes strong when activated. The environment should provide happiness, pleasure and enjoyment because it calls up in the child inner feelings and activity that flow like strong up-building forces through its organs. A bad environment at this time in the child's life does more to harm the organs than anything else. The notion, based on false asceticism, that the child benefits from being accustomed to an austere, lackluster existence is utterly wrong. As regards nourishment, if the child is given the right food it will develop a liking for what is beneficial, whereas wrong food will cause sickness. Through spiritual science we can gain insight into what would be done at every age. Thus, we must be clear that as the physical principle is at work in the first seven years, and should be left undisturbed, our primary concern must be to do what is right and healthy for the child's bodily nature. Regarding nutrition it must be realized that there exists a spiritual bond between mother and child, especially during the early years; the mother who breast-feeds her child pays heed to this relationship. The milk contains more than its physical, chemical components; spiritually it is related to the child. It is evident from spiritual research that the milk issues from the mother's ether body. Because the child's own ether body is not born yet, it can at first only tolerate what has been prepared by another ether body. Statistical evidence shows that of those who die in infancy, 16 to 20 percent have been breast-fed by their own mother, while 26 to 30 percent have not. This is an indication of the close affinity between the ether bodies. The affinity expresses itself physically in family likeness. Traits and characteristics pointing to the line of descent develop and become established during the first years. What is of paramount importance from the seventh to the fourteenth year can also be summed up in two significant words: emulation and authority . This is the time when it is essential that the evolving human being can look up to someone who for him or her incorporates all that is good, beautiful and wise. To the child this person must be the embodiment of everything contained in maxims and precepts. Preaching moral axioms has far less effect than presenting to the child ideal examples to emulate — examples showing the path to Olympus. To be able at this age to look up to someone with feelings of deepest reverence and respect is of great significance for the rest of a person's life. What matters here is of course the emulation. This is why the teaching of history should be so conducted that figures illustrating wisdom and strength of character are brought before the child. From descriptions of the characteristics of a folk or a race, one proceeds to descriptions of individuals where ancestry no longer plays a part. Emulation of relatives widens to become emulation of strangers. The child's horizon expands through awareness of other people; the ether body also widens beyond its own race and clan. Whereas before the change of teeth, features that show family likeness become defined, now when the child's life widens beyond the family circle, his gestures, that is, what is distinctly individual, become characteristic. At this time the etheric sheath dissolves. Influence can now be brought to bear an the ether body. This influence should come from people who, because of what they themselves are, can bring out the attributes stored in the child's ether body. Furthermore, now that the ether body, after the seventh year, is no longer restricted, those basic traits, the fruits brought over from former incarnations, begin to develop. Consequently, a true principle of education demands that the educator should now, as it were, stand back and consider just what it is the child has brought over; for thanks to the freed ether body the organs should now become stronger and increase in size. Up to the seventh year physical forces elaborated and plastically formed the organs, but now our task is to instill into these organs, as they grow larger, all the attributes related to the ether body, such as conscience, energy and morality. Everything we bring the child must be pictorial and imbued with a pure spiritual delight in the world, for these are qualities that must be so deeply imprinted that they become part of the ether body. If the human being is to develop a strong character, his ether body must be able to evolve unimpeded. The educator must at this time say to himself: What I am dealing with is not something to be molded arbitrarily; I may do irrevocable harm unless I pay heed to what the child has brought over from the ether body of his former life. This is also the reason why it is important that physical exercises produce a feeling in the child of growing strength and increase of stature. The child should experience a sensation of growing, not just physically, but morally. These feelings work plastically on the ether body, as the physical principle did earlier on the physical body. The astral attributes which an individual brings with him develop while the astral body is still surrounded by its astral sheath, as did the physical organs while still surrounded by the maternal body before birth. Only when puberty is reached does the astral body become free, that is, become open to external influence. Only now should appeal be made to the power of judgment and abstract thought. Before puberty the child should not be obliged to form personal opinions and judgments. The ability to do so is not present until the astral body is born. Before puberty the child should be able to look up to those with authority and obtain from them the important beliefs and opinions; to be obliged to formulate personal opinion at this time only leads to astral distortions. Not only is it absurd for anyone so young to have opinions about this or that belief or confession, but it is also detrimental to healthy development. It is a sign that something important has been neglected in his education. It shows the child has not had the opportunity to develop that great inner strength that matures under the influence of the right kind of authority. At this time, from the fourteenth year onwards, when the astral body is born, slowly and gradually the power of judgment begins to ripen and leads to convictions. Artistic accomplishment, religious and moral feelings now set their stamp on the countenance. A child now faces the world as a distinct individual. This gradual process lasts up to the twenty-first or twenty-third year. It is an important moment when at the time of puberty awareness of other people as individuals awakens. Just as: “All that is transient but as symbol is sent,” so too is the becoming aware of the other sex symbolic. Only now does the human being attain a personal relationship to the world; thus, love of the individual awakens. Up to then the relationships are more universally human, whereas now personal judgment plays a part. The astral extract a person brought over into life is now freed and able to develop. It comes to expression as high ideals, beautiful hopes and expectations of life, all of which are forces that are essential to human beings. A person's development will take the right course if, rather than having something external imposed upon him, his inherent inclinations and talents are brought out during his school days. Ideals are not simply there; they originate in forces that are astir within youth which at this time strive for expression. Nothing is worse for later life than an absence of feelings of great hopes and expectations; right up into the twenties, they constitute real forces. The more we are able to bring out a person's inner inclinations and talents brought over from former lives, the more we benefit his development. Not until the twenty-third year does this come to an end; then a person is ready to begin his “years of apprenticeship” ( Wanderjahre ). Only now is the “I” born; only now does a person face the world as an independent personality. Now is the “I,” as a result of collaboration with his four members, in direct contact with the world. The fruits of former life experiences no longer have to be inwardly developed; an individual is ripe to face the reality of the world. If a person is obliged to do so earlier, his best talents and abilities are spoiled; the essence brought over as forces is deadened. It is a sin against youth if the person is exposed to the prosaic aspects of life at an earlier age. Now a person matures; the time has come when that individual is truly able to learn from life. He approaches his “years of mastery” (Meister-jahren) between his twenty-eighth and thirty-fifth years. However, these time limits must not be taken too rigidly. About the thirty-fifth year a human being reaches the middle of life. Those with spiritual insight have always regarded this age as extremely important. They have recognized that, while up to the twenty-first year a person evolves, the talents and abilities contained as predispositions in his three bodies — and up to the twenty-eighth year what the world offers him — now at the age of thirty-five he begins to work on his three bodies. First of all a person strengthens the astral body. Up till now the world has taught him, but now his judgment begins to carry weight with his fellowmen. It would be well if his opinions have not been so far too definite, too conclusive; they should not become consolidated until about the age of thirty-five. From now on the astral body becomes ever denser; if up till now the person has been a learner, he or she can now become an adviser. A person's judgments have significance and are taken into account when problems are in the balance. The apprentice has become counselor. After the thirty-fifth year and beyond, the astral body influences the “I,” the blood and the nervous system; it acts on growth and has a stabilizing, consolidating effect that results in a certain firmness. What a human being absorbs in his life of thoughts and feelings of a spiritual nature comes to expression as cultural interest and courage. One could therefore also call this “a period when the systems of blood and nerves are elaborated.” It all comes to an end physically when the ether body begins to withdraw its activity from the external aspect of the physical body, at about the thirty-fifth year. It is also the reason why a human then ceases to grow; a person solidifies, fat begins to be deposited; the strength of the muscles diminishes. It all stems from the fact that the ether body is withdrawing. However, it also means that forces are released as they no longer have to work on the physical body. They can now unite with what has inwardly been elaborated: a person becomes wise. It was well-known in ancient times that in public life a person's counsel could not be of value until the ether body began to withdraw from the physical body. Only then was a person ready to enter public life; only then could his or her talents be of benefit to the people and the state. Human beings withdraw more and more into their inner being after the thirty-fifth year. No longer does a person have the longings and expectations of youth; he is instead capable of judgment, which one feels carries weight. At the same time certain abilities connected with the ether body, such as memory, begin to wane. About the fiftieth year the physical principle also begins to withdraw. More and more calcium is deposited while the tissue becomes slack. The withdrawing physical principle gradually unites with the etheric principle; what has gone into the Bones, muscles, blood and nerves begins to develop a life of its own. The human being becomes more and more spiritual. All this is certainly greatly enhanced and furthered if the early education was right, particularly as far as the astral body is concerned. Unless the astral body has experienced youthful joy and expectation, it will not now contain what it should be able to imprint on the denser ether body. If that is lacking, then the strong inner life described cannot unfold. We find instead what is called the “childishness of old age.” People who in their youth failed to be imbued with fresh vigorous forces will begin in old age to dry up. It is especially important to take note of this fact from the point of view of spiritual science. With the thirty-fifth year, the most favorable time arrives for attaining spiritual insight and developing spiritual faculties. A person's karma is particularly auspicious when this does not happen too late in life. The forces that otherwise flow into the bodily nature are becoming free and are at our disposal. As long as a person is obliged to direct his forces outwards, he cannot direct them inwards; that is why the age of about thirty-five is the most favorable time for developing spiritual insight. Development in the first half of life proceeds according to specific time sequences; as indicated by spiritual science, they also exist in the second half, but are not so sharply defined. Human beings begin to work towards the future in the second half of life. What they inwardly develop at an older age becomes in the future organ and body-building forces; later they participate in cosmic forces. What will thus exist in the future is already indicated in the first half of life. Young people in particular may find this division oppressive; not, however, if spiritual science has been absorbed and understood. When human life is surveyed from a higher viewpoint, it is precisely through such details that one gains practical insight into life's requirements. One must have patience and be able to wait until the organs that are necessary in a particular sphere have developed.

Supersensible Knowledge

Stages in Man's Development in the Light of Spiritual Science

https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA055/English/AP1987/19070228p01.html

Berlin

28 Feb 1907

GA055-10

Today's subject, the Rosicrucians, is one which few people are able to connect even remotely adequate ideas. And indeed, it is not easy to arrive at anything conclusive about what the name implies. For most people it remains extremely vague. If books are consulted, one is informed that the Rosicrucians are thought to be some Und of sect that flourished in the early centuries of German culture. Some say that it is impossible to verify whether anything serious or rational ever existed behind the fraud and charlatanry associated with the name. On the other hand, some learned books do proffer a variety of information. If what is written about Rosicrucianism is true, one could only come to the conclusion that it has consisted of nothing but idle boasting, pure fraud or worse. Even those who have attempted to justify it, do so with an air of patronage, though they may have found that Rosicrucianism is able to throw light on certain subjects. But what they have to say about it, for example, that it is involved with alchemy, with producing the philosopher's stone, the stone of the wise, and other alchemical feats, does not inspire much confidence. However, these feats were for the genuine Rosicrucian nothing but symbols for the inner moral purification of the human soul. The transformations represented symbolically how inner human virtues should be developed. When the Rosicrucians spoke of transforming base metals into gold, they meant that it was possible to transform base vices into the gold of human virtue. Those who uphold that the great work of the Rosicrucians is to be understood as being symbolic are met with the objection that in that case Rosicrucianism is simply trivial. It is difficult to see the need of all these alchemical inventions, such as the transformation of metals, simply to demonstrate the obvious fact that a human being should be moral and change his vices into virtues. However, Rosicrucianism contains things of far greater import. Rather than further historical description, I shall give a factual account of Rosicrucianism. The historical aspect need concern us only insofar as we learn from it that Rosicrucianism has existed in the Occident since the fourteenth century, and that it goes back to a legendary figure, Christian Rosenkreuz, 1 Christian Rosenkreuz (15th century) was the founder of Rosicrucianism, a group of secret brotherhoods claiming esoteric wisdom in the late Middle Ages. about whom much is rumored, but history has little to say. One incident that appears as a basic feature of various accounts can be summed up by saying that Christian Rosenkreuz — that is not his real name, but the one by which he is known — made journeys at the end of the fifteenth and the beginning of the sixteenth centuries. On journeys through the East he became acquainted with the book M — — — — , a book from which, so we are mysteriously told, Paracelsus, the great medieval physician and mystic, gained his knowledge. This account is true, but what the book M — — — — actually is, and what study of it signifies, is known only to initiates. External information about Rosicrucianism stems from two writings that appeared at the beginning of the seventeenth century, the so-called Fama Fraternitatis in 1614, and a year later the Confessio , two books much disputed among scholars. The disputes were by no means confined to the usual controversy about books, that is, whether Valentin Andreae, 2 Valentin Andreae (1586–1654) theologian, wrote about Rosicrucianism. who in his later years was an ordinary normal clergyman, was really the author. In this case it was also disputed whether the author meant the books to be taken seriously or whether they were meant as satire, mocking a certain secret brotherhood known as the Rosicrucians. These two publications were followed by many others proffering all kinds of information about Rosicrucianism. Someone without knowledge of the true background of Rosicrucianism, who picks up the writings of Valentin Andreae, or indeed any other Rosicrucian document, will find nothing exceptional in them. In fact, right up to our own time, it has been impossible to gain even elementary knowledge of this spiritual stream that still exists, and has done so since the fourteenth century. Everything published, written or printed is nothing but fragments, lost through betrayal into public hands. Not only are these fragments inaccurate; they have undergone all kinds of distortions through charlatanry, fraud, incomprehension and sheer stupidity. As long as it has existed, genuine Rosicrucianism has been passed an by word of mouth to members sworn to secrecy. That is also why nothing of great importance has found its way into public literature. We shall speak today about certain elementary aspects of Rosicrucianism that can now be spoken of in public, for reasons which at the moment would take us too far to explain. Only when they are known can one make any sense of what is found in the often grotesque, often merely comic, but also often fraudulent, and seldom accurate information. Rosicrucianism is one of the methods whereby what is called "initiation" can be attained. What initiation is has often been a subject of discussion in our circles To be initiated means that faculties slumbering in every human soul are awakened. These faculties enable a person to look into the spiritual world that exists behind our physical world. The physical world is an expression of the spiritual world of which it is a product. An initiate is someone who has applied the method of initiation, a method as exact and as scientifically worked out as those applied in chemistry, physics or any other science. The difference is that the method of initiation is not applied to begin with to anything external, but only to the human being; he is the instrument, the tool through which knowledge of the spiritual world is attained. An individual who genuinely strives to attain knowledge of the spirit recognizes the deep truth contained in Goethe's words: Mysterious by Day's broad light, Nature retains her veil, despite our clamors, and what she won't reveal to human mind or sight Cannot be wrenched from her with levers, screws or hammers. ( Faust , Part I, Night. trans. Bayard Taylor. ) Deep indeed are the secrets nature holds, but not as impenetrably deep as those maintain who are too comfortable to make the effort. The human spirit is certainly capable of penetrating nature's secrets: not, however, through the soul's ordinary faculties, but through higher ones, attained when its hidden forces have been developed through certain strictly circumscribed methods. A person who gradually prepares will eventually reach a point where knowledge attainable only through initiation is revealed to him; to speak in Goethe's sense: The great secret is revealed of what “ultimately holds the world together” — a revelation that is truly a fruit of initiation. It has often been explained that the early stages of initiation can be embarked upon by anyone without any danger whatever. A prerequisite for the higher stages is the very highest conscientiousness and devotion to Truth in spiritual research. When an individual approaches the portals through which he looks into quite different worlds, he realizes the truth of what is often emphasized: that it is dangerous to impart the holy secrets of existence to great masses of people. However, to the extent that modern humanity is able, through inner preparation, gradually to find their way to the highest secrets of nature and the spiritual world, to that extent can they also be revealed. The spiritual scientific movement is a path that guides human beings to the higher secrets. A number of such paths exist. That is not to say that the ultimate truth attainable takes different forms. The highest truth is one . No matter where or when human beings ever lived or live, once they reach the highest Truth, it is the same for all. It is comparable to the view from the mountaintop, which is the same for all who reach it, no matter what different paths they choose to get there. When one stands at a certain spot an the mountainside, when a path is available, one does not walk round the mountain for another path. The same applies to the path of higher knowledge, which must be in accordance with a person's nature. What comes into consideration here is too often overlooked, that is, the immense differences in human nature. The people of ancient India were inwardly organized differently from modern people. This difference in the higher members is apparent to spiritual research, though not to the external science of physiology or anatomy. It is thanks to this fact that we have preserved up to our own time a wonderful spiritual knowledge, and also the method whereby initiation was achieved — the path of yoga. This path leads those who are constituted like the people of ancient India to the summit of knowledge. For today's European it is as senseless to seek that path as it would be to first walk to the opposite side of the mountain and use the path there rather than the path available where one stands. The nature of today's European is completely different from that of the Oriental. A few centuries before the Christian era began, human nature was different from what it was to become a few centuries later. And today it is different again. As we have seen, initiation is based upon awakening in human beings certain forces. Bearing this in mind, we must acknowledge that a person's nature must be taken into account when methods are developed whereby he becomes the instrument able to perceive and to investigate the spiritual world. The wonderful method developed by the Rishis, the great spiritual teachers in ancient India, is still valid for those belonging to the Indian race. At the beginning of the Christian era the right method was the so-called Christian-Gnostic path. The human being who stands fully within today's civilization needs a different method. That is why in the course of centuries and millennia the great masters of wisdom who guide mankind's evolution change the methods that lead to the summit of wisdom. The Rosicrucian method of initiation is especially for modern people; it meets the needs of modern conditions. Not only is it a Christian path, but it enables the striving human being to recognize that spiritual research and its achievements are in complete harmony with modern culture, and with modern humanity's whole outlook. It will for long centuries to come be the right method of initiation into spiritual life. When it was first inaugurated, certain rules were laid down for its adherents — rules that are basically still valid, and because they are strictly observed, Rosicrucians are not recognized by outsiders. Never to let it be known that one is a Rosicrucian is the first rule that only recently has been slightly modified. While the wisdom is fostered in narrow circles, its fruits should be available to all humanity. That is why until recently no Rosicrucian divulged what enabled him to investigate nature's secrets. Nothing of the knowledge was revealed; no hint was given theoretically or otherwise, but work was done that furthered civilization and implanted wisdom in ways hardly noticeable to others. That is the first basic rule; to elaborate it further would lead too far. Suffice it to say that today this rule has been partly relaxed, but the higher Rosicrucian knowledge is not revealed. The second rule concerns conduct, and may be expressed as follows: Be truly part of the civilization and people to which you belong; be a member of the class in which you find yourself. Wear the clothes that are worn generally, nothing different or conspicuous. Thus, you will find that neither ambition nor selfishness motivates the Rosicrucian; he rather strives wherever possible to improve aspects of the prevailing culture, while never losing sight of the much loftier aims that link him with the central Rosicrucian wisdom. The other basic rules need not concern us at the moment. We want to look at the actual Rosicrucian training as it still exists and has existed for centuries. What it is possible to say about it deals only with the elementary stages of the whole system of Rosicrucian schooling. Something ought to be said about this training that applies to spiritual scientific training, namely, that it should not be embarked upon without knowledgeable guidance. What is to be said about this subject you will find in my book Knowledge of Higher Worlds and its Attainment . The preliminary Rosicrucian training consists of seven stages that need not be absolved in the sequence here enumerated. The teacher will lay more emphasis on one point or another, according to the pupil's individuality and special needs. Thus, it is a path of learning and inner development, adapted to the particular pupil. These are the seven steps: The sequence in which the student passes through these preliminary stages of Rosicrucian training depends on the students personality, but they must be absolved. What I have said about it so far, and also what I am going to say, must be looked upon as describing the ideal. Do not think that these things can be attained from one day to the next. However, one can at least learn the description of what today may seem a far distant goal. A start can always be made provided it is realized that patience, energy and perseverance are required. The first stage or study , suggests to many something dry and pedantic. But in this case what is meant has nothing to do with erudition in the usual sense. One need not be a scholar to be an initiate. Spiritual knowledge and scholarship have no dose connection. What is here meant by study is something rather different, but absolutely essential; and no genuine teacher of Rosicrucianism will guide the pupil to the higher stages if the student has no aptitude for what this first stage demands. It requires the student to develop a thinking that is thoroughly sensible and logical. This is necessary if the pupil is not to lose the ground under his feet at the higher stages. From the start it must be made clear that, unless all inclination towards fantasy and illusion is overcome, it is all too easy to fall into error when striving to enter spiritual realms. A person who is inclined to see things in a fanciful or unreal light is of no use to the spiritual world. That is one reason; another is that though a person is born from the astral world, that is from the spiritual world next to the physical, as much as he is born from the physical world, what he experiences there is completely different from anything seen with physical sight or heard with physical ears. One thing, however, is the same in all three worlds — in the physical, the astral or spiritual, and the devachanic world — and that is logical thinking. It is precisely because it is the same in all three worlds that it can be learned already in the physical world, and thus provide a firm support when we enter the other worlds. If one's thoughts are like will-o-the-wisps so that no distinction is made between what is merely depicted and reality, then one is not qualified to rise into higher worlds. This happens for example in modern physics when the atom, which no one has even seen, is spoken of as if it were a material reality. However, what we are discussing now is not what is generally meant by thinking. Ordinary thinking consists of combining physical facts. Here we are concerned with thinking that has become sense-free. Today there are learned people, including philosophers, who deny the existence of such thinking. Modern philosophers of great renown tell us that human beings cannot think in pure thoughts, only in thoughts that reflect something physical. Such a statement simply shows that the person concerned is not capable of thinking in pure thoughts. However, it is the height of arrogance to maintain that something is impossible just because one cannot accomplish it oneself. Human beings must be able to formulate thoughts that are not dependent on what is seen or heard physically. A person must be able to find himself in a world of pure thought when his attention is completely withdrawn from external reality. In spiritual science, and also in Rosicrucianism, this is known as self-created thinking. Someone who resolves to train his thinking in this direction may turn to books on spiritual science. There he will not find a thinking that combines physical facts, but thoughts derived from higher worlds, which present a self-sustaining continuous thinking. And as anyone can follow it, the reader is able to rise above the ordinary trivial way of thinking. In order to make accessible the elementary stages of Rosicrucianism, it was necessary to make available in print and through lectures, material that had for centuries been guarded in closed circles. However, what has been released in recent decades is only the rudiments of an immeasurable, far-reaching world knowledge. In the course of time more and more will flow into mankind. Study of this material schools the pupil's thinking. For those who seek a still stricter schooling, my books Truth and Knowledge and The Philosophy of Freedom are particularly suitable. Those two books are not written like other books; no sentence can be placed anywhere but where it stands. Each of the books represents, not a collection of thoughts, but a thought-organism. Thought is not added to thought, each grows organically from the preceding one, like growth occurs in an organism. The thoughts must necessarily develop in like manner in the reader. In this way a person makes his own thinking with the characteristic that is self-generating. Without this kind of thinking the higher stages of Rosicrucianism cannot be attained. However, a study of the basic spiritual scientific literature will also school thinking; the more thorough schooling is not absolutely necessary in order to absolve the first stage of Rosicrucian training. The second stage is the acquisition of imaginative thinking . This should only be attempted when the stage of study has been absolved, so that one possesses an inner foundation of knowledge and has made one's own thoughts that follow one another out of inner necessity. Without such a foundation it is all too easy to lose the ground under one's feet. But what is meant by imaginative thinking? Goethe, who in his poem, The Mysteries , showed his profound knowledge of Rosicrucianism, gave a hint at what imaginative thinking was, in the words uttered by the Chorus Mysticus, in the second part of Faust : “All things transitory but as symbols are sent.” The knowledge that everything transitory was mere symbol was systematically cultivated wherever a Rosicrucian training was pursued. A Rosicrucian had to acquire an insight that recognizes in everything, something spiritual and eternal. In addition to ordinary knowledge of what he encountered an his journeys through life, a Rosicrucian had to acquire imaginative knowledge as well. When someone meets you with a smiling face, you do not stop short at the characteristic contortion of his features, you see beyond the physiognomic expression and recognize that the smile reveals the person's inner life. Likewise you recognize tears to be an expression of inner pain and sorrow. In other words, the outer expresses the inner; through the physiognomy you perceive the depths of soul. A Rosicrucian has to learn this in regard to the whole of nature. As the human face, or the gesture of a hand, is the expression of a person's soul life, so, for the Rosicrucian, everything that takes place in nature is an expression of soul and spirit. Every stone, plant and animal, every current of air, the stars, all express soul and spirit just as do shining eyes, a wrinkled brow or tears. If you do not stop short at today's materialistic interpretation that regards what the Earth-Spirit says in Goethe's Faust as poetic fantasy, but recognize that it depicts reality, then you know what is meant by imaginative knowledge. In the tides of life, in action's storm, A fluctuant wave, A shuttle free, Birth and the Grave, An eternal sea. A weaving, flowing Life, all-glowing, Thus at time's humming loom 'tis my hand prepares The garment of Life which the Deity wears! If for you these words of the Earth-Spirit depict spiritual reality, then you will know that you possess a deeper logic, and can calmly accept being called a fool by materialists who only think they understand. As the human physiognomy expresses the life of the human soul, so does the physiognomy of the earth express the life of the Earth-Spirit. When you begin to read in nature, when nature reveals its mysteries, and different plants convey to you the Earth-Spirit's cheerfulness or sorrow, then you begin to understand imaginative knowledge. Then you will also recognize that it is this that is presented as the purest and most beautiful expression of the striving for imaginative knowledge in Rosicrucianism, and also in what preceded Rosicrucian¬ism, the ideal of the Holy Grail. Let us look for a moment at the true nature of the Holy Grail. This ideal is always found in every Rosicrucian school. The form it takes I shall describe as a conversation which, however, never took place in reality because what I shall summarize could only be attained in the course of long training and development. However, what I shall say does convey what is looked up to as the Quest of the Holy Grail: Look how the plant grows out of the earth. Its stem strives upward; its roots are sunk into the ground, pointing towards the centre of the earth. The opening blossom contains its reproductive organs, which bear the seeds through which the plant continues beyond itself. Charles Robert Darwin, 3 Charles Robert Darwin (1809–1882) the English naturalist who first formulated the theory of evolution. the famous natural scientist, is not the first to point out that, if a person is compared to the plant, it is the root, not the blossom, that corresponds to his head. This was said already by esoteric Rosicrucianism. The calyx, which chastely strives towards the sun, corresponds to the reproductive organs that in human beings are situated downwards. Human beings are inverted plants. A person turns downwards and covers up in shame the organs that the plant chastely turns upward to the light. To recognize that the human being is the plant inverted is basic to Rosicrucianism, as indeed to all esoteric knowledge. Human beings turn their reproductive organs towards the centre of the earth; in the plant they turn towards the sun. The plant root points towards the centre of the earth; human beings Lift their heads unfettered towards sunlit spaces. The animal occupies a position between the two. The three directions indicated by plant, animal and human are known as the cross. The animal represents the beam across, the plant the downward, the human being the upward pointing section of the vertical beam. Plato, the great philosopher of antiquity, stated that the World¬Soul is crucified on the World-Body. He meant that human beings represent the highest development of the World-Soul, which passes through the three kingdoms of plant, animal and human. The World-Soul is crucified on the cross of plants, animal and human kingdoms. These words of Plato are spoken completely in the sense of spiritual science and present a wonderful and deeply significant picture. The pupil in the Rosicrucian school had repeatedly to bring the picture before his mind of the plant with its head downward and the reproductive organs stretching towards the beam of the sun. The sunbeam was called the “holy lance of love” that must penetrate the plant to enable the seeds to mature and grow. The pupil was told: Contemplate man in relation to the plant; compare the substance of which man is composed with that of the plant. Man, the plant turned upside down, has permeated his substance, his flesh, with physical cravings, passion and sensuality. The plant stretches in purity and chastity the reproductive organs towards the fertilizing sacred lance of love. This stage will be reached by an individual when he has completely purified all cravings. In the future, when earth evolution has reached its height, a person will attain this ideal. When no impure desires permeate the lower organs, a person will become as chaste and pure as the plant is now. That individual will stretch a lance of spiritual love, the completely spiritualized productive force, towards a calyx that opens as does that of the plant to the holy lance of love of the sunbeam. Thus, the human being's development takes him through the kingdoms of nature. He purifies his being until he develops organs of which there are as yet only indications. The beginning of a future productive power can be seen when human beings create something that is sacred and noble — a force they will fully possess once their lower nature is purified. A new organ will then have developed; the calyx will arise on a higher level and open to the lance of Amfortas, as the plant calyx opens to the sun's spiritual lance of love. Thus, what the Rosicrucian pupil depicted to himself represents on a lower level the great future ideal of mankind, attainable when the lower nature has been purified and chastely offers itself to the spiritualized sun of the future. Then human nature, which in one sense is higher, in another lower than that of the plant, will have developed within itself the innocence and purity of the plant calyx. The Rosicrucian pupil grasped all of this in its spiritual meaning. He understood it as the mystery of the Holy Grail 4 Holy Grail, a cup or chalice, associated in medieval legend with unusual powers, especially the regeneration of life and water, and later with Christian purity. Became identified with the cup used at the Last Supper and given to Joseph of Arimathea. — mankind's highest ideal. He saw the whole of nature permeating and glowing with spiritual meaning. When everything is thus seen as symbol of the spirit, one is on the way to attain imaginative knowledge; color and sound separate from objects and become independent. Space becomes a world of color and sound in which spiritual beings announce their presence. The pupil rises from imaginative knowledge to direct knowledge of the spiritual realm. That is the path of the Rosicrucian pupil at the second stage of training. The third stage is knowledge of the occult script. This is no ordinary writing, but one that is connected with nature's secrets. Let me at once make clear how to depict it. A widely used sign is the so-called vortex, which can be thought of as two intertwined figure 6's. This sign is used for indicating and also characterizing a certain type of event that can occur both physically and spiritually. For example, a developing plant will finally produce seeds from which new plants similar to the old one can develop. To think that anything material passes from the old plant to the new is materialistic prejudice without foundation and will eventually be refuted. What passes over to the new plant is formative forces. As far as matter is concerned, the old plant dies completely; materially its offspring is a completely new creation. This dying and new coming-into-being of the plant is indicated by drawing two intertwining spirals, that is, a vortex, but drawing it so that the two spirals do not touch. Many events take place, both physical and spiritual, that correspond to such a vortex. For example, we know from spiritual research that the transition from the ancient Atlantean culture to the first post-Atlantean culture was such a vortex. Natural science only knows the most elementary aspects of this event. Spiritual science tells us that the space between Europe and America, which is now the Atlantic Ocean, was filled with a continent on which an ancient civilization developed, a continent that was submerged by the Flood. This proves that what Plato referred to as the disappearance of the Island of Poseidon is based on facts; the island was part of the ancient Atlantean continent. The spiritual aspect of that ancient culture vanished, and a new culture arose. The vortex is a sign for this event; the inward-turning spiral signifies the old civilization and the outward-turning the new. As the transition took place from the old culture to the new, the sun rose in spring in the constellation of Cancer — as you know the sun moves forward in the course of the year. Later it rose in early spring in the constellation of Gemini, then in that of Taurus and later still in that of Aries. People have always felt that what reached them from the vault of heaven in the beams of the early spring sun was especially beneficial. This is why people venerated the ram when the spring sun rose in the constellation of Aries; it is also the reason for legends such as “The Golden Fleece” and others. Earlier than that the sun rose in spring in the constellation of Taurus, and we find in ancient Egypt the cult of the bull Apis. But the transition from Atlantis to post-Atlantis took place under the constellation of Cancer, whose sign is the intertwining spirals — a sign you find depicted in calendars. There exist hundreds and thousands of such signs that the pupil gradually learns. The signs are not arbitrary; they enable those who understand them to immerse themselves in things and directly experience their essence. While study schools the faculty of reason, and imaginative knowledge the life of feelings, knowledge of the occult script takes hold of the will. It is the path into the realm of creativity. If study brings knowledge, and imagination spiritual vision, knowledge of the occult script brings magic. It brings direct insight into the laws of nature that slumber in things, direct knowledge of their very essence. You can find many who make use of occult signs, even people like Eliphas Levi. This can provide an idea of what the signs look like, but not much can be learned, unless one is knowledgeable about them already. What is found in books an the subject is usually erroneous. The signs used to be regarded as sacred, at least by the initiates. If we go back far enough, we find that strict rules concerning their secrecy were imposed, incurring severe punishment if broken, to ensure they were not used for unworthy purposes. The fourth stage is known as the preparation of the philosopher's stone (the stone of the wise). What is written about it is completely misleading; often it is such grotesque nonsense that if true anyone would be entitled to be scornful. What I am going to say will give you a great deal of insight into the truth of the matter. At the end of the eighteenth century there appeared in an earnest periodical a notice concerning the philosopher's stone. It was clear from the wording of the notice that its author had some knowledge of the matter, yet gave the impression that he did not fully understand. The notice read: The philosopher's stone is something that all are acquainted with, something they often handle, and is found all over the world. It is just that people do not know that it is the philosopher's stone. A peculiar description of what the philosopher's stone was supposed to be, yet word for word quite correct. Consider for a moment the process of human breathing. The regulation of the breath is connected with the discovery, or preparation of, the philosopher's stone. At present human beings inhale oxygen and exhale carbon dioxide, that is, what is exhaled is a compound of oxygen and carbon. A person inhales oxygen, life-giving air, and exhales carbon dioxide, which is poisonous to both human and animal. If animals, who breathe like human beings, had alone populated the earth, they would have poisoned the air, and neither they nor humans would be able to breathe today. So how does it come about that they are still able to breathe? It is because plants absorb the carbon dioxide, retain the carbon and give back the oxygen for human and animal to use again. Thus, a beautiful reciprocal process takes place between the breath of humans and animal, and the breath, or rather assimilation, of the plant world. Think of someone who every day earns five shillings and spends two. He creates a surplus, and is in a different position than someone who earns two shillings but spends five. Something similar applies to breathing. However, the significant point is that this exchange takes place between human beings and the vegetable kingdom. The process of breathing is indeed quite amazing, and we must look at it in a little more detail. Oxygen enters the human body; carbon dioxide is expelled from it. Carbon dioxide consists of oxygen and carbon; the plant retains the carbon and gives a person back the oxygen. Plants that grew millions of years ago are today dug out of the earth as coal. Looking at this coal we see carbon that was once inhaled by the plants. Thus, the ordinary breath, just described, shows how necessary the plant is to a person's life. It also shows that when humans breathe they accomplish only half the process; to complete it they need the plant that possesses something they lack to transform carbon into oxygen. The Rosicrucians introduce a certain rhythm into the breath, detail of which can only be imparted directly by word of mouth. However, certain aspects can be mentioned without going into details. The pupil receives definite instruction concerning rhythmic breathing accompanied by thoughts of a special nature. The effect must be thought of as comparable to the persistent drip of water that wears away the stone. Certainly even the most highly developed person will not attain, by breathing in the Rosicrucian manner, a complete transformation of the inner life processes from one day to the next. However, the gradual change wrought in the human body leads eventually to a specific goal. At some time in the future a person will be able to transform within his own being carbonic acid into oxygen. Thus, what today the plant does for human beings — transforming the carbonic acid in the carbon¬will be done by man himself when the effect of the changed breath has become great enough. This will take place in an organ he will then possess, of which physiology and anatomy as yet know nothing, but which is nevertheless developing. An individual will accomplish the transformation himself. Instead of exhaling carbon a person will use it in his own being; with what he formerly had to give over to the plant he will build up his own body. All this must be thought of in conjunction with what was said about the Holy Grail: that the purity and chastity of the plant nature would pan over into human nature. When a person's lower nature has reached the highest level of spirituality, it will in that respect be once more at the level of the plant as it is today. The process that takes place in the plant, a person will one day be able to carry out in his own being. He will more and more transform the substance of his present body into the ideal of a plant body, which will be the bearer of a much higher and more spiritual consciousness. Thus, the Rosicrucian pupil learns the alchemy that eventually will enable a person to transform the fluids and substances of the human body into carbon. Thus, what the plant does today — it builds its body from carbon — human beings will one day accomplish. He will build a structure from carbon that will be a person's future body. A great mystery lies hidden in the rhythm of the breath. You will now understand the notice about the philosopher's stone alluded to earlier. But what is it that human beings will learn in regard to building up the human body in the future? They will learn to create ordinary coal — which is also what diamonds consist of — and from it build their body. Human beings will then possess a higher and more comprehensive consciousness. They will be able to take the carbon out of themselves and use it in their own being. They will form their own substance, that is, plant substance made of carbon. That is the alchemy that builds the philosopher's stone. The human body itself is the retort, transformed in the way indicated. Thus, behind the rhythm of the breath lies hidden what is alluded to as the search for the philosopher's stone; though what is usually said about it is pure nonsense. The indications given here have only recently reached the public from the School of the Rosicrucians; you will not find them in any books. They represent a small part of the fourth stage: The quest of the philosopher's stone. The fifth stage, or knowledge of the microcosm , the small world, points to something said by Paracelsus to which I have often referred, namely, that if we could draw an extract out of everything around us, it would prove to be like an extract taken from mankind. The substances and forces within us are like a miniature recapitulation of what exists in the rest of nature. When we look at the world around us we can say: What is within us is like a copy of the great archetype that exists outside. For example, take what light has brought about in human beings: ft created the eyes. Without eyes we would not see the light; the world would remain dark for us, and likewise for the animals. Those animals that wandered into dark caves to live, in Kentucky, lost the ability to see. If light did not exist we would not have eyes. The light enticed the organs of sight out of the organism. As Goethe said: “The eye is created by the light for the light, the ear by the sound for the sound.” Everything is born from the microcosm. Hence, the secret that under certain instruction and guidance it is possible to enter deeply into the body, and investigate not only what pertains to the body, but to the spiritual realm, and also to the world of nature around us. A person who learns under certain conditions to immerse himself with certain thoughts meditatively in the inner eye will learn the true nature of light. Another area of great significance is between the eyebrows at the root of the nose. By meditatively sinking into this point one learns of important spiritual events that took place as this part of the head was formed from the surrounding world. Thus, one learns the spiritual construction of the human being. He is completely formed and built up by spiritual beings and forces. That is why he can, by delving into his own form, learn about the beings and forces that built up his organism. A word must be said about delving into one's inner being. This penetrating down from the “I” into the bodily nature, and also the other exercises, ought only to be undertaken after due preparation. Before a start is made the powers of intellect and reason must be strengthened. That is why in Rosicrucian schools the training of thinking is obligatory. Furthermore, the pupil must be inwardly morally strong; this is essential as he may otherwise easily stumble. As a student learns to sink meditatively into every part of his body, other worlds dawn in him. The deeper aspects of the Old Testament cannot be understood without this sinking into one's inner being. However, it must be done according to certain directions provided by a spiritual scientific training. Everything that is said here in this respect is derived from the spiritual world and can only be fully understood when one is able to discover it again within oneself. Man is born out of the macrocosm; within himself as microcosm he must rediscover its forces and laws. Not through anatomy does man learn about his own being, but through looking into his being and inwardly perceiving that the various areas emit light and sound. The inward-looking soul discovers that each organ has its own color and tone. Human beings will have direct knowledge of the macrocosm when they learn to recognize, through a Rosicrucian training, what it is in their own being that is created from the universe. Once they know their inner being through meditatively sinking into the eye, or into the point above the root of the nose, human beings can spiritually recognize the laws of the macrocosm. Then, through their own insight, they will understand what it is that an inspired genius describes in the Old Testament. An individual looks into the Akasha Chronicle and is able to follow mankind's evolution through millions of years. This is insight that can be attained through a Rosicrucian training. However, the training is very different from what is customary. Genuine self¬knowledge is neither reached by aimless brooding within oneself nor in believing, as is often taught nowadays, that by looking into oneself the inner god will speak. The power to recognize the great World-Self is attained by immersing oneself in the organs. It is true that down the ages the call has resounded: “Know thyself,” but it is equally true that within one's own being the higher self cannot be found. Rather, as Goethe pointed out, one's spirit must widen until it encompasses the world. That can be attained by those who patiently follow the Rosicrucian path and reach the sixth stage, or becoming one with the macrocosm . Immersing oneself in one's inner being is not a path of comfort. Here phrases and generalities do not suffice. It is in concrete reality that one must plunge into every being and phenomenon and lovingly accept it as part of oneself. It is a concrete and intimate knowledge, far removed from merely indulging in phrases like: “Being in harmony with the world”; “being one with the World-Soul,” or “melt together with the world.” Such phrases are simply valueless compared with a Rosicrucian training. Here the aim is to strengthen and invigorate human soul-forces, rather than chatter about being in tune with the infinite and the like. When a human being has attained this widening of the self, then, the seventh stage is within reach. Knowledge now becomes feeling; what lives in the soul is transformed into spiritual perception. A person no longer feels that he lives only within himself. He begins to experience himself in all beings: in the stone, plant and animal, in everything into which he is immersed. They reveal to him their essential nature, not in words or concepts, but to his innermost feelings. A time begins when universal sympathy unites him with all beings; he feels with them and participates in their existence. This living within all beings is the seventh stage, or attaining godliness ( Gottseligkeit ), the blessed repose within all things. When the human being no longer feels confined within his skin, when he feels himself united with all other beings, participating in their existence, and when his being encompasses the whole universe so that he can say to it all: “Thou are that,” then the words which Goethe, out of Rosicrucian knowledge, expresses in his poem The Mysteries will have meaning: “Who added to the cross the wreath of roses?” However, these words can be spoken not only from the highest point of view, but from the moment that “the cross wreathed in roses” — what this expresses — has become one's ideal, one's watchword. It stands as the symbol for a human being's overcoming the lower self in which he merely broods, and his rising from it into the higher self that leads a person to the blissful experience of the life and being of all things. He will then understand Goethe's words in the poem: West-East Divan And until thou truly hast This dying and becoming, Thou art but a troubled guest O'er the dark earth roaming. Unless one can grasp what is meant by the overcoming of the lower, narrow self and the rising into the higher self, it is not possible to understand the cross as symbol of dying and becoming — the wood representing the withering of the lower self, and the blossoming roses the becoming of the higher self Nor can the words be understood with which we shall dose the subject of Rosicrucianism — words also expressed by Goethe, which as watchword belong above the cross wreathed in roses symbolizing sevenfold man: The power that holds constrained all humankind, The victor o'er himself no more can bind. Von der Gewalt, die alle Wesen bindet Befreit der Mensch sich, der sich überwindet.

Supersensible Knowledge

Who are the Rosicrucians?

https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA055/English/AP1987/19070314p01.html

Berlin

14 Mar 1907

GA055-11

To link Richard Wagner 1 Richard Wagner (1813–1883) was a major German opera composer. with mysticism, as we shall do in today's consideration, will easily give rise to objections based on the misconception that to speak about an artist from a particular spiritual-scientific viewpoint is impermissible. Other objections will be directed against mysticism as such. Today we shall look at Richard Wagner's relation to art on the one hand and mysticism on the other. The objection can be made that Wagner never spoke, or even hinted at, some of the things that will be mentioned. Such an objection is so obvious that anyone would have thought of it before speaking. It must be borne in mind that when a cultural phenomenon such as Richard Wagner is to be considered, one cannot be limited to say only what Wagner spoke about. That would make a discussion on any issue from a higher point of view impossible. No one would suggest that a botanist or a poet should refrain from expressing what he discovered, or what he felt about plants and other phenomena. When discussing issues, whether cultural or natural, one cannot be limited to say only what the phenomenon conveys. In that case the plant should be able to convey to the botanist the laws of its growth; and the feelings and sentiments it aroused in the poet would be unjustified. The reality is that in the human soul, precisely what the external world is unable to say about itself is revealed. It is in this sense that what I have to say about the phenomenon that is Richard Wagner must be taken. Certainly a plant knows nothing of the laws, however, it nevertheless grows and develops. Similarly, an artist need not be aware of the laws inherent in his nature of which the observer with spiritual insight is able to speak. The artist lives and creates according to these laws as the plant creates according to laws that are subsequently discovered. Therefore, the objection should not be made that Wagner did not speak about things that will be indicated today. As regards other objections concerned with mysticism, the fact is that people, educated and uneducated alike, speak of mysticism as of something obscure. In comparison with what is known as the scientific world view, they find it nebulous. This has not always been so. The great mystics of the early Christian centuries, the Gnostics, have thought otherwise, as does anyone with understanding of mysticism. The Gnostics have called it “mathesis,” mathematics, not because mysticism is mathematics, but because genuine mystics have striven for a similar clarity in the ideas they derive from spiritual worlds. Properly understood, mysticism, far from being obscure or sentimental, is in its approach to the world crystal clear. Having now shown that the two kinds of objections are invalid, let us proceed with today's considerations. Richard Wagner can indeed be discussed from the highest spiritual scientific viewpoint. No seeker after Truth of the nineteenth century strove, his whole life long, more honestly and sincerely to discover answers to the world-riddles than Richard Wagner. His house in Bayreuth he named, “Inner Peace” ( Wahnfried ), saying that there he found peace from his “doubts and delusions” ( sein Wähnen Ruhe fand ). These words already reveal a great deal about Richard Wagner. What is meant by error and delusion is all too well-known to someone who honestly and sincerely pursues the path to higher knowledge. This happens irrespective of whether the spiritual realm a person believes he will discover finds expression through art, or takes some other form. He is strongly aware of the many deluding images that come to block his path and slow his progress. That person knows that the path to higher knowledge is neither easy nor straightforward — that truth is reached only through inner upheavals and tribulations. Moreover, he is aware that dangers have to be met, but also that experiences of inner bliss will be his. A person who travels the path of knowledge will eventually reach that inner peace that is the result of intimate knowledge of the secrets of the world. Wagner's awareness and experience of these things comes to expression when he says: “I name this house ‘Inner Peace’ because here I found peace from error and delusions.” ( “Weil hier mein Wahnen Ruhe fand, Wahnfried sei dieses Haus genannt.” ) Unlike many artists who attempt to create out of fantasy that lacks substance, Wagner saw from the start an artistic calling as a mission of world historical relevance; he felt that the Beauty created by art should also express truth and knowledge. Art was to him something holy; he saw the source of artistic creativity in religious feelings and perceptions. The artist, he felt, has a kind of priestly calling, and that what he, Richard Wagner, offered to mankind should have religious dedication. It should fulfill a religious task and mission in mankind's evolution. He felt that he was one of those who must contribute to their era something based on the fullness of truth and reality. When spiritual science is properly understood, it will be seen that, far from being a gray theory remote from the real issues, it can help us to understand and to appreciate on his own terms a cultural phenomenon such as Richard Wagner. Wagner had a basic feeling, an inner awareness, that guided him to the same Truth about mankind's origin and evolution as that indicated by spiritual science. This inner awareness linked him to spiritual science and to all genuine mysticism. He wanted a unification of the arts; he wanted the various branches of art to work together, complementing one another. He felt that the lack, the shortcomings, in contemporary art forms was caused by what he called “their selfishness and egoism. Instead of the various art forms going their separate ways, he saw their working together as an ideal, creating a harmonious whole to which each contributed with selfless devotion. He insisted that art had once existed in such an ideal form. He thought to recognize it in ancient Greece prior to Sophocles, 2 Sophocles (c. 495 B.C.–406 B.C.) was a great Athenian dramatist and one of the founders of Greek tragedy Euripides 3 Euripides (c. 480 B.C.–406 B.C.), a Greek dramatist. and others. Before the arts separated, drama and dance, for example, had worked together and had selflessly created combined artistic works. Wagner had a kind of clairvoyant vision of such combined endeavor. Although history does not speak of it, his vision was true and points back to a primordial time when not only the arts but also all spiritual and cultural streams within various people worked together as a harmonious whole. Spiritual science recognizes that what is known today as art and science are different branches originating from a common root. Whether we go back to the ancient cultures of Greece, Egypt, India or Persia, or to our own Germanic origin, everywhere we find primordial cultures where art and science are not separated. However, this is a past that is beyond the reach of external research, and is accessible only to clairvoyant vision. In the ancient civilizations, art and science formed a unity that was looked upon as a mystery. Mystery centers existed for the cultivation of wisdom, beauty and religious piety before these became separated and cultivated in different establishments. We can visualize what took place within the mysteries, with in these temples, which were places of learning and also of artistic performances. We can conjure up before our mind's eye the great dramas, seen by those who had been admitted to the mysteries. As I said, ordinary history can tell us nothing of these things. The performances were dramatic musical interpretations of the wisdom attained within the mysteries, and they were permeated with deep religious devotion. A few words will convey what took place in those times of which nothing is known save what spiritual science has to say. Those admitted to the Mysteries came together to watch a drama depicting the world's creation. Such dramas existed everywhere. They depicted how primordial divine beings descended from spiritual heights and let their essence stream out to become world-substance that they then shaped and formed into the various creature's of the kingdoms of nature: the mineral, plant and animal kingdoms, and that of humans. In other words, divine essence streamed into and formed everything that surrounded us, and it finally celebrated a kind of resurrection within the human soul. Thoughtful people have always felt that the world is of divine origin, that the divine element attains consciousness in the human soul, and, as it were, looks out through human eyes observing itself in its own creation. This descent and resurrection of the divine element was enacted in Egypt, in the drama of Osiris, and dramatized also at various places of initiation in Greece. Those who were permitted to watch saw how art and knowledge combined to depict in dramatic form the creation of the world. Deep feelings of religious piety were called up in the onlooker by this drama, which might be said to be the archetypal drama. With reverence and awe the onlooker watched the gods descend into matter, to slumber in all beings, and resurrect within human beings. Filled with awe, the onlooker experienced a mood described once by Goethe in the following significant words: “When man's whole being functions as a healthy entity, and he feels the world to be a great, beautiful, worthy and estimable unity; when pleasure in the harmony gives him pure delight, then, had it self-awareness, the whole universe, feeling it had reached its goal, would shout for joy, and admire the pinnacle of its being and achievement.” A wondrous, deeply religious mood filled the hearts of those who watched this drama of the creation of the world. And not only was a religious mood created, but the drama also conveyed the kind of knowledge that was later imparted in scientific concepts to explain the creation of the world and its beings. However, at that time one received, in the form of pictures, a knowledge that was both scientific and religious. Science and religion were one. Richard Wagner had a dim feeling that such harmony had once existed. He looked back to a very old culture in ancient Greece that still had a religious character. He saw that in gray antiquity music, drama, dance and architecture did not operate as separate undertakings; they all functioned in conjunction with one another: Knowledge, art and religion were a unity. He concluded that as they separated the arts became self-seeking, egoistical. Wagner looked back as it were to a far distant past when human beings were not so individual, when a person felt as a member of his dass, of his whole tribe, when the folk spirit was still regarded as a concrete reality. In that ancient time a natural selflessness had existed. And the thought came to him that man, in order to become an individual, a personality, had to leave the old clan-community to enable the personal element to assert itself. Only in this way could man become a free being, but the price was a certain degree of egoism. Wagner looked back to what in a primordial past had held people together in communities, a selflessness that had to be left behind so that human beings could become more and more conscious. He had an intuitive presentiment about the future; he felt that once individual freedom and independence had been attained, humans would have to find the way back to fellowship and caring relationships. Selflessness would have to be consciously regained, and loving kindness once more would have to become a prominent factor of life. For Wagner the present linked itself with the future, for he visualized as a distant ideal the existence of selflessness within the arts. Furthermore, he saw art as playing a significant role in evolution. Human development and that of art appeared to him to go hand in hand; both became egoistical when they ceased to function as a totality. As we see them today, drama, architecture and dance have gone their independent ways. As humanity grew more and more selfish, so did art. Wagner visualized a future when the arts would once more function in united partnership. Because he saw a commune of artists as a future ideal, he was referred to as “the communist.” He aimed to contribute all he could to bring forth harmony among the arts; he saw this as a powerful means of pouring into human hearts the selflessness that must form the Basis for a future fraternity. He was a missionary of social selflessness in the sphere of art; he wanted to pour into every soul the impulse of selflessness that brings about harmony among people. Richard Wagner was truly possessed of a deep impulse of a kind that could only arise and be sustained in someone with a deep conviction of the reality of spiritual life. Richard Wagner had that conviction. Already his work The Flying Dutchman bears witness to his belief in the existence of a spiritual world behind the physical. You must bear in mind that I do not for a moment suggest that Wagner himself was conscious of the things I am indicating. His artistic impulse developed according to spiritual laws, as a plant develops according to laws of which it is not conscious, but which are discovered by the botanist. When a materialist observes his fellowmen, he sees them as physical entities isolated from one another, their separate souls enclosed within their bodies. He consequently believes that all communication between them can only be of an external physical nature. He regards as real only what one person may say or do to another. However, once there is awareness of a spiritual world behind the physical, one is aware also of hidden influences that act from person to person without a physical agent. Hidden influences stream from soul to soul, even when nothing is outwardly expressed. What a person thinks and feels is not without significance or value for the person towards whom the thoughts and feelings are directed. He who thinks materialistically only knows that one can physically reach and assist another person. He has no notion that his inner feelings have significance for others, or that bonds, invisible to physical sight, link soul to soul. A mystic is well aware of these bonds. Richard Wagner was profoundly aware of their existence. To clarify what is meant by this, let us look at a significant legend from the Middle Ages that to modern humans is just a legend. However, its author, and anyone who recognizes its mystical meaning, is aware that this legend expresses a spiritual reality. The legend, which is part of an epic, teils us about Poor Henry who suffered from a dreadful illness. We are told that only if a pure maiden would sacrifice herself for him could he be cured of his terrible infliction. This indicates that the love, offered by a soul that is pure, can directly influence and do something concretely for another human life. Such legends depict something of which the materialist has no notion, namely, that purely spiritually one soul can influence another. Is the maiden's sacrifice for Poor Henry ultimately anything else than a physical demonstration of what a large part of mankind believes to be the mystical effect of sacrifice? Is it not an instance of what the Redeemer on the Cross had bestowed on mankind; is it not an instance of that mystical effect that acts from soul to soul? It demonstrates the existence of a spiritual reality behind the physical that can be sensed by man, and led Wagner to the legend of The Flying Dutchman — the legend of a man so entangled in material existence that he can find no deliverance from it. The Flying Dutchman is with good reason referred to as the “Ahasverus of the sea,” that is, The Wandering Jew of the sea. Ashasverus' destiny is caused by the fact that he cannot believe in a Redeemer; he cannot believe that someone can guide mankind onwards to ever greater heights and more perfect stages of evolution. An Ashasverus is someone that has become stuck where he is; human beings must ascend stage by stage if they are to progress. Without striving, he unites himself with matter, with external aspects of life, and becomes stuck in an existence that goes on and on, at the same level. He pours scorn on Him that leads mankind upwards, and remains entangled in matter. What does that mean? Existence keeps repeating itself for someone who is completely immersed in external life. Materialistic and spiritual comprehension differ, because matter repeats itself, whereas spirit ascends. The moment spirit succumbs to matter, it succumbs to repetition. That happens in the case of The Flying Dutchman . Various peoples related this idea to the discoveries of foreign lands; the crossing of oceans and reaching foreign shores was seen as a means of attaining perfection. He who lacked the urge, who did not sense the spirit's call, became stuck in sameness, in what belongs solely to matter. The Flying Dutchman, whose whole disposition is materialistic, is abandoned by the power to evolve, by the power of love, which is the means to ascend to ever greater perfection. He becomes entangled in matter and consequently in the eternal repetition of the same. Those who suffer inability to ascend, who lack the urge to evolve, must come under the influence of a soul that is chaste and pure. Only an innocent maiden's love can redeem the Flying Dutchman. A certain relationship exists between a soul that is as yet untouched by material life and one that has become entangled in it. Wagner has an instinctive feeling for this fact, and portrays it with great power in his dramas. Only someone with his mystical sense, and perception of the spirit behind the physical, would have the courage to take on a cultural mission of the magnitude Richard Wagner has assigned to himself. It has enabled him to visualize music and drama in ways no one has thought of before. He has looked back to ancient Greece, to a time when various art forms still played an integral part in performances, when music expressed what the art of drama could not express, and eternal universal laws were expressed through the rhythm of dance. In older works of art, where dance, rhythm and harmony still collaborated, he recognized something of the musical-dramatic element of the artistic works of antiquity. He acquired a unique sense for harmony, for tonality in music, but insisted that contributions from related arts were essential. Something from them must flow into the music. One such related art was dance, not as it has become, but the dance that once expressed movements in nature and movements of the stars. In ancient times, dance originated from a feeling for laws in nature. Man in his own movements copied those in nature. Rhythm of dance was reflected in the harmony of the music. Other arts, such as poetry, whose vehicle is words, also contributed, and what could not be expressed through words was contributed by related arts. Harmonious collaboration existed among dance, music and poetry. The musical element arose from the cooperation of harmony, rhythm and melody. This was what mystics and also Richard Wagner felt as the spirit of art in ancient times, when the various arts worked together in brotherly fashion, when melody, rhythm and harmony had not yet attained their later perfection. When they separated, dance became an art form in its own right, and poetry likewise. Consequently, rhythm became a separate experience, and poetry no longer added its contribution to the musical element. No longer was there collaboration between the arts. In tracing the arts up to modern times, Wagner noticed that the egoism in art increased as human beings egoism increased. Let us now look at attempts made by Wagner to create something harmonious within the artistic one-sidedness he faced. This is the sphere that reveals his greatness as he searched for the true nature of art. To Richard Wagner, Beethoven 4 Ludwig van Beethoven (1770–1827) was a German composer born in Bonn. and Shakespeare 5 William Shakespeare (1564–1616) was an English poet, playwright and actor-manager of the Globe Theatre. represented artists who one-sidedly cultivated the two arts he particularly wanted to bring together, music and drama. He only had to look at his own inner being to recognize the impossibility of conveying, merely through words, the whole gamut of human feelings, particularly feelings that do not manifest externally through gestures or words. Shakespeare was in his view a one-sided dramatist because dramatic words on their own are incapable of expressing things of deeper import. Only when inner impulses have become external action, have become part of space and time, can they be conveyed through dramatic art. When watching a drama, one must assume the impulses portrayed to be already experiences that are past. What one witnesses is no longer drama taking place within the. person concerned; it has already passed over into what can be physically seen and heard. Whatever deeper feelings and sensations are the basis for what is portrayed on the stage cannot be conveyed by the dramatist. In music, on the other hand, Wagner regarded the symphonist, the pure instrumentalist, to be the most one-sided, for he conveyed in wonderful tone and scales the inner drama, the whole range of human feelings, but had no means of expressing impulses once they became gestures, or became part of space and time. Thus, Wagner saw music as able to express the inner life, but unable to convey what came to expression outwardly. Dramatic art, on the other hand, when refusing to collaborate with music, only conveyed impulses when they became externalized. According to Wagner, Shakespeare conveyed one aspect of dramatic art, and Mozart, 6 Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–1791), Austrian composer. Haydn 7 Franz Joseph Haydn (1732–1809), Austrian composer who established the accepted classical forms of the Symphony, string quartet, and piano sonata. and Beethoven another. In Beethoven's Ninth Symphony Wagner sensed something that strove to break away from the one-sidedness of this art form, strove to burst the Shell and become articulate, strove to permeate the whole world and envelop mankind with love. Wagner saw it as his mission not to let this element remain as it was in the Ninth Symphony , but to bring it out still further into space and time. He wanted it not only to be an external expression of a soul's inner drama, but also to flow into words and action. He wanted to present on the stage both aspects of dramatic art: in music, the whole range of inner sensations, and in drama, the aspect of those inner sensations that come to external expression. What he sought was a higher unity of Shakespeare and Beethoven. He wanted the whole of humanity represented on the stage. When we watch some action taking place on the stage, we should become aware of more than can be perceived by eyes and ears. We should be able to be aware also of deeper impulses residing in the human soul. This aspect caused dissatisfaction in Wagner with the old type of opera. Here the dramatist, the poet and the musician worked separately on a production. The poet wrote his part, the musician then came along and interpreted what was written through music. But the task of music is rather to express what poetry by itself cannot express. Human nature consists of an inner as well as an outer aspect. The inner cannot be portrayed through external means; the outer aspect can indeed be dramatized, but words are incapable of conveying impulses that live within human beings. Music should not be there to illustrate the poetry, but to complete it. What poetry cannot express should be conveyed by music. That was Wagner's great ideal and the sense in which he wanted to create. He assigned to himself the mission to create a work of art in which music and poetry worked together selflessly. Wagner's basic idea was of mystical origin; he wanted to understand the whole human being, the inner person as well as what he revealed outwardly. Wagner knew that within human beings a higher being resides, a higher self that was only partially revealed in space and time. He sought to understand that higher entity that rises above the everyday. He felt that it must approached from as many sides as possible. His search for the superhuman aspect of man's being, for that which rises above the merely personal, led him to myths. Mythical figures were not merely human, they were superhuman: They revealed the superhuman aspect of a person's being. Characters like Siegfried and Lohengrin do not display qualities belonging to a single human being, but to many. Wagner turned to the superhuman figures portrayed in myths because he sought understanding of the deeper aspects of the human being. A clear look at his work reveals how deep an insight he had attained into mankind's evolution. In The Ring of the Nibelung and Parsifal we witness, powerfully presented, great riddles of humanity's existence. They reveal his intuitive perception, his deep feelings for all mankind. We can do no more than turn a few spotlights on Wagner's inner experiences as an artist. In so doing we soon discover his strong affinity with what could be called "man's mythical past." His particular interest in the figure of Siegfried can easily be understood when seen in connection with his concept of mankind's evolution. Looking back to ancient times, Wagner saw that formerly the bond between human beings was based on selfless love within the confines of a tribe. Human consciousness at that time was duller; he did not yet experience personal independence. Each one felt himself, not so much an individual, but rather as a member of his tribe. He experienced the tribal soul as a reality. Wagner felt that especially traits in European culture can be traced back to the time when natural instinctive love united human beings in interrelated groups, a time of which spiritual science also speaks when showing that everything in the world evolves, and that today's clear consciousness gradually evolved from a different type, of which there are still residues. In pictures of dream-consciousness Wagner recognized echoes of a former picture-consciousness that had once been the normal consciousness of all mankind. The waking consciousness of today replaced a much duller type; while it lasted, human beings were much closer to one another. As Wagner recognized, those related were bound together by natural love connected with the blood. Not until later did individuality, and with it egoism, assert itself. However, this constitutes a necessary stage in man's evolution. The subject I shall now bring up will be familiar to those acquainted with spiritual science, but others may find it somewhat strange. The lucid day-consciousness now existing in Europe evolved from the very different consciousness of a primordial human race that preceded our own — a humanity that existed on Atlantis, a continent situated where the Atlantic Ocean is now. Those who take note of what goes on in the world will be aware that even natural science speaks of an Atlantean continent. A scientific journal, Kosmos , recently carried an article about it. Physical conditions on Atlantis were very different; the atmosphere in which the ancestors of today's European lived was a mixture of air and water. Large areas of the continent were covered with huge masses of dense mist. The sun was not seen as we see it, but surrounded by enormous bands of color due to the masses of mist. In Germanic legends a memory is preserved of that ancient country, and given descriptive names such as Niflheim or Nibelungenheim . As the Hood gradually submerged the Atlantean continent, it also gave shape to the German plains. The Rhine was regarded as a remnant of the Atlantean "Being of Mist” that once covered most of the countries. The water of the Rhine was thought to have originated in Nibelungenheim or Nebelheim ( Nebel means “mist”), to have come from the dense mist of ancient Atlantis. Through a dreamlike consciousness, full of premonition, all this is told in sagas and myths wherein is described how conditions caused the people to abandon the area and how, as they wandered eastwards, their dull consciousness grew ever more lucid while egoism increased. A consequence of the former dull consciousness was a certain selflessness, but with the clearer air, consciousness grew brighter and egoism stronger. The vaporous mist had enveloped the people of Atlantis with an atmosphere saturated with wisdom, selflessness and love. This selfless, love-filled wisdom flowed with the water into the Rhine and reposed beneath it as wisdom, as gold. But this wisdom, if taken hold of by egoism, provides it with power. As they went eastward, the former inhabitants of Atlantis saw the Rhine embracing the hoard of the gold of wisdom that had once been a source of selflessness. All this is intimated in the world of sagas that took hold of Wagner. He had such inner kinship with that lofty spiritual being who preserves memory of the past, whose spirit lives in sagas and myths, that he extracted from myths the whole essence of his view of the world. We therefore witness, dramatized on the stage and echoing through his music, the consequences of human egoism. We see the Ring closing, as Alberich takes the gold of the Rhine from the Rhine Maidens . Alberich is representative of the Nibelungs, who have become egoistic, of the human being that forswears the love through which he is a member of a unity — a dan or tribe. Wagner links to the plan that weaves through the legend the power of possession — that the ancient world arises before his mind's eye, the world that has produced Walhalla, the world of Wotan, and of the ancient gods. They represent a kind of group-soul possessing traits that a people have in common. But when the Ring cioses around man's “I,” the individual too is taken hold of by greed for gold. Wagner sensitively portrays what lives in Wotan as group-soul qualities, and in human beings become egoistic craving for the Rhine-gold. We hear it in his music; how could one fail to hear it? It should not be said that something arbitrary is at this point inserted in the music. No human ear could fail to hear in that long E-flat major in the Rhine-gold the impact of the emerging human “I.” Wagner's deep mystical sense can be traced in his music. We are shown that Wotan has to come to terms, not with the consciousness that had become individualized, but with that which had not yet become so, and still strongly acts as group-consciousness. When he tries by stealth to take away the Ring from the giant, he meets this consciousness in the figure of Erda. She is clearly representing the old all-encompassing consciousness through which knowledge is attained clairvoyantly of the whole environment. The words spoken at this point are most significant: To thee is known What lies hidden in the deep, What weaves in air and water Through mountain and valley. Thou breathest through The wele of existence; When heads ponder Thy sense emerges. It is said that to thee All things are known. The old consciousness that held sway in Nebelheim cannot be better described than in the words: My sleep is a dreaming My dream is a musing My musing is ruled by wisdom. The old consciousness was a dreaming consciousness, but in this dream human beings knew of the whole surrounding world. The dream encompassed the depth of nature and spun its wisdom from person to person, whose musing and actions all stemmed from this dreaming consciousness. Wotan meets it in the figure of Erda with the result that a new consciousness arises. What is of a higher order is always depicted in myths and sagas as a female figure. In Goethe's Faust it is indicated in the words of the Chorus Mysticus : “The eternal feminine draws us upwards and on.” Various peoples have depicted a person's inner striving towards a higher consciousness as a union with a higher aspect of the being that is seen as feminine. What is depicted as a marriage is a person's union with the cosmic laws that permeate and illumine his soul. For example, in ancient Egypt we see Isis, and as always the female figure that is looked up to as the higher consciousness has characteristics that correspond to those of the particular people. What a people feels to be its real essence, its true nature, is depicted as a female figure corresponding to this ideal — a feminine aspect with which the individual human being becomes united after death, or also while still living. As we have seen, man can rise above the sensual, either by leaving it behind, and in death uniting with the spirit, or he may attain the union while still living by attaining spiritual sight. In either case, this higher self is depicted in Germanic myths as a female figure. The warrior who fought courageously and died on the battlefield is regarded by ancestors of today's Middle European as someone who, on entering the spiritual world, would be united with this higher aspect of his being. Hence, the Walkyries are shown to approach the dying warriors and carry them up into spiritual realms. Union with the Walkyrie represents union with the higher consciousness. The Walkyrie Brunnhilde is created through the union of Wotan and Erda. Siegfried is to be united with her and guided into spiritual life. Thus, the daughter of Erda represents the higher consciousness of initiation. Siegfried represents the new, the different human being that has come into existence. Because of the configuration and higher perfection of his inner being, he is united with the Walkyrie already in life. The hidden wisdom in Germanic legends comes to expression in Wagner's artistic creation. He shows that through the Götterdämmerung (Twilight of the Gods), the old group-soul consciousness must die out as the new individual consciousness develops in Siegfried . Wagner had a deep awareness of the great mysteries connected with mankind's evolution. A human being's inner experiences he expressed through music, his action through dramatic art. His sense for the mystical aspect of evolution enabled him to portray a person's higher development. It made him place at the centre of one of his dramas the figure of Lohengrin. Who is Lohengrin? He can be understood only when seen an the background of the momentous upheavals taking place all over Europe at the time when the legend was living reality. Only then can we understand what Wagner had in mind when he depicts Lohengrin's relationship with the Lady he names as Elsa von Brabant. Throughout Europe a new epoch was dawning; An individual's striving personality was coming to the fore. Though described in prosaic terms, these phenomena hide events of greatest significance. In France, Scotland, England and as far away as Russia, a new social structure was developing, in the form of the “Free City.” In rural districts, people still lived in groups, in clans; those who wanted to escape flocked to the cities. The urban environment promoted individual consciousness and feelings of independence. People in the city were those who wanted to strip off the bonds of clan or tribe; they wanted to live their own lives in their own way. In reality a mighty revolution was taking place. Up till then a person's name decided where he belonged and his status. In the City, a person's name was of no importance, family background of no concern. What counted was personal ability; in the city individuality developed. The evolution from selflessness to individuality became an evolution from individuality to brotherhood. The legend depicted this. In the middle of the Middle Ages the old social structure was being replaced with a new structure, within which each person contributed according to his individual capacity. Formerly, Leaders and rulers, were always descended from priestly and aristocratic families. The fact that they came from such a background was what mattered; they must have the “right” blood. In the future that would be of no account; someone chosen as leader might be completely unknown as regards descent, and it would be regarded as irreverent to link him with a particular name. The ideal was seen in the great individuality, in the anonymous sage who continued to grow and develop; he was not significant because of his descent, but because of what he was. He was a free individual acknowledged by others just because his achievements were his own. In this sense, Lohengrin comes before us as representative of man, leading men to freedom and independence. The lady who becomes his wife represents the consciousness described as that of city-dweller of the Middle Ages. He who mediates between the Lofty Being that guides mankind and the people is always associated with great individuality, and is always known by a specific name. Through spiritual knowledge he is known by the technical name “Swan,” which denotes a particular stage of higher spiritual development. The Swan mediates between ordinary people and the Lofty Being that leads humanity. We see a reflection of this in the legend of Lohengrin. If we are to do justice to the wisdom found in legends, to things revealed through Wagner's artistry, we must bring to it an open mind and mobile ideas. If taken in a narrow, pedantic sense, we are left with empty words instead of being inwardly fired with enthusiasm by the far-reaching vistas opened up through his work. I must be permitted to bring these things before you in concepts that point to a greater perspective. A figure like Lohengrin must be presented in light of its world-historical background and significance. And we must recognize that an understanding of this significance dawned in Wagner, enabling him to give it artistic form. The same also applies to Wagner's comprehension of the Holy Grail. We concerned ourselves with the Holy Grail in the previous lecture: “Who are the Rosicrucians?” It is indeed a remarkable fact that at a certain moment there arose in Wagner an inkling of the great teaching that flourished in the Middle Ages. Before that happened, another idea, as it were, prepared the way, but first it led him to create a drama called The Victor; this was in 1856. The Victor was never performed, but the idea it embodied was incorporated into his Parsifal . The Victor depicted the following: Ananda, a youth of the Brahman caste, was loved by a Tschandala maiden; because of the caste system he cannot reciprocate the love. Ananda became a follower of Buddha, and he eventually conquered his human craving: He gained victory over himself. To the maiden was then revealed that in a former life she was a Brahman and had overcome her love for the youth who was then of the Tschandala caste. Thus, she too was a victor. She and Ananda were spiritually united. Wagner renders a beautiful interpretation of this idea, taking it as far as reincarnation and karma in the Christian-Anthroposophical sense. We are shown that the maiden herself, in a former life, brought about the present events. Wagner has worked on this idea in 1856. On Good Friday, 1857, he was sitting in the Retreat, “the sanctuary on the green hill.” Looking out over the fields watching the plants come to life, sprouting from the earth, an inkling arose in him of the Power of the germinating force emerging from the earth in response to the rays of the sun: a driving force, a motivating force that permeates the whole world and lives in all beings; a force that must evolve, that cannot remain as it is; a force that, to reach higher stages, must pass through death. Watching the plants, he felt the force of sprouting life, and turning his gaze across the Lake of Zürich to the village; he contemplated the opposite idea, that of death — the two polar concepts to which Goethe gives such eloquent expression in his poem, Blessed Longing . And until thou truly hast, This dying and becoming, Thou are but a troubled guest O'er the dark earth roaming. Goethe rewrote the words in his hymn to nature saying: “Nature invented death to have more life; only through death can she create a higher spiritual life.” On Good Friday, as the symbol of death came before mankind in remembrance, Wagner sensed the connection between life, death and immortality. He felt a connection between the life sprouting from the earth and the Death on the Cross, the Death that is also the source of a Christian belief that life will ultimately be victorious over death, will become eternal life. Wagner sensed an inner connection between the sprouting life of spring and the Good Friday belief in Redemption, the belief that from Death on the Cross springs Eternal Life. This thought is the same as that contained in the Quest for the Holy Grail, where the chaste plant blossom, striving towards the sun, is contrasted with human desire filled nature. On the one hand Wagner recognized that human beings steeped in desires; on the other he looked towards a future ideal — the ideal that human beings shall attain a higher consciousness through overcoming their lower nature, shall attain a higher fructifying power, called forth by the Spirit. Looking towards the Cross, Wagner saw the blood flowing from the Redeemer, the symbol of Redemption, being caught in the Graul Chalice. This picture, linked itself within him to the life awakening in nature. These thoughts were passing through Wagner's soul on Good Friday, 1857. He jotted down a few words that later became the basis from which he created his magnificent Good Friday drama. He wrote: "The blossoming plant springs from death; eternal life springs from the Death of Christ." At that moment Wagner had an inner awareness of the Spirit behind all things, of the Spirit victorious over death. For a time other creative ideas pushed those concerned with Parsifal into the Background. They came to the fore once more near the end of his life, when, clearer than before, they conveyed to him a person's path of knowledge. Wagner portrayed the path to the Holy Graul to show the cleansing of a human beings' desire nature. As an ideal this is depicted as a pure holy chalice whose image is the plant calyx's chaste fructification to new creation by the sunbeam, the holy lance of love. The sunbeam enters matter as Amfortas' lance enters sinful blood. But there the result is suffering and death. The path to the Holy Grail is portrayed as a cleansing of the sinful blood of lower desires till, on a higher level, it is as pure and chaste as is the plant calyx in relation to the sunbeam. Only he who is pure in heart, unworldly, untouched by temptation, so that he approaches the Holy Grail as an "innocent fool" filled with questions of its secret, can discover the path. Wagner's Parsifal is born out of his mystical feeling for the Holy Grail. At one time he meant to incorporate the idea into his work Die Wibelungen, an historical account of the Middle Ages. He wanted to elevate the concept of Emperor by letting Barbarossa journey to the East in search of the original spirit of Christianity, thus combining the Parsifal legend with history of the Middle Ages. This idea led to his wonderful artistic interpretation of the Good Friday tradition, so that it can truly be said that Wagner has succeeded in bringing religion into art, in making art religious. In his artistic new creation of the Good Friday tradition, Wagner had the ingenious idea of combining the subject of faith with that of the Holy Grail. On the one hand stands the belief that mankind will be redeemed, and on the other, that through perfecting its nature humanity itself strives towards redemption; the belief that the Spirit permeating mankind — a drop of which lives in each individual as his higher self — in Christ Jesus foreshadowed humanity's redemption. All this arose as an inner picture in Wagner's mind already on that Good Friday in 1857 when he recognized the connection between the legend of Parsifal and Redemption through Christ Jesus. We can begin to sense the presence of the Christ within mankind's spiritual environment when, with sensitivity and understanding, we absorb the story of the Holy Graul. And it can deepen to concrete inner spiritual experience when we sense the transition from the midnight of Maundy Thursday — events of Maundy Thursday — to those of Good Friday, which symbolize the victory of nature's resurrection. Wagner's Parsifal was inspired by the festival of Easter. He wanted new life to pour into the Christian festivals, which originally were established out of a deep understanding of nature. This can be seen especially in the case of the Easter festival, which was established when it was still known that the constellation of sun and moon affected human beings. Today people want Easter celebrated an an arbitrarily chosen date, which shows that the festival is no longer experienced as it was when there was still a feeling for the working of nature. When the spirit was regarded as a reality it was sensed in all things. If we could still sense what was bequeathed to us through traditions in regard to the festivals, then we would also have a feeling for how to celebrate Good Friday. Richard Wagner did have that feeling, just as he also perceived that the words of the Redeemer: “I am with you to the end of the world,” called human beings to follow the trail that led to the lofty ideal of the Holy Grail. Then people who lived the Truth would become redeemers. Mankind is redeemed by the Redeemer. But Wagner adds the question: "When is the Redeemer redeemed?" He is redeemed when He abides in every human heart. As He has descended into the human heart, the human heart must ascend. Something of this was also felt by Wagner, for from the motif of faith he lets sound forth what is the mystical feeling of mankind in these beautiful words from Parsifal : Greatest Healing Wonder Redemption for the Redeemer! These words truly show Wagner's deep commitment to the highest ideal a person can set himself: to approach that Spiritual Power that came down to us and lives in our world. When we are worthy, we bring what resounds at the dose of Richard Wagner's Parsifal: Redemption for the Redeemer.

Supersensible Knowledge

Richard Wagner and Mysticism

https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA055/English/AP1987/19070328p01.html

Berlin

28 Mar 1907

GA055-12

In a previous lecture, 1 unknown reference we discussed spiritual science in relation to religious records. Today we shall attempt to enter more deeply into the Bible, at least in a few instances. The Bible is after all a religious document that today is known to every educated person. From the spiritual scientific point of view, it will be easiest if, in our approach, we start with the New Testament. In the earlier lecture, we discussed how certain critical comments concerning the Bible are to be understood in the light of spiritual science, in particular those concerned with the actual writing of the four Gospels and Scriptures in the Old Testament. Today we shall look at more positive aspects and, while bearing in mind what was dealt with in the previous lecture, go straight to the subject from the spiritual scientific viewpoint. You will be aware that someone who, out of a heartfelt need of his Christian faith, turns to the four Gospels known as the Gospel according to Matthew, to Mark, to Luke and to John, comes up against what appear to be insoluble contradictions. A modern person, however great his faith, can have no notion of how differently one approached the Bible in an earlier more religious age. Nor can a person have any idea of the significance attached to the word Bible or to the expression, the Word of God. We must realize that for centuries the faithful were in no doubt that the writers of the religious records were inspired. Consequently, every word in the Bible was regarded as holy, as from divine inspiration only truth could come. People saw the Bible as dealing with great world questions, and they fastened onto every word, for it was impossible for them to believe that fault could be found in what men of God had written under divine inspiration. Modern human beings find it difficult to transport themselves into such a mood and attitude. They read the Gospel of Matthew and that of Luke and find two different genealogies of Jesus of Nazareth. Already in the third place, above the name of Joseph, they find in Matthew the name Solomon, in Luke the name Nathan; going further they find many more names that differ, and ask, How is it possible that a document, which for centuries has been considered a source of Truth, can contain such contradictions? Here we see the seed of all the doubts aroused by disparities in the Gospels and consequently doubt that they were in fact inspired. By subjecting the Gospels to detailed scrutiny we believe to have discovered what can be accepted as more or less genuine. In regard to the fourth Gospel, the conclusion is drawn that as it is so different from the others it cannot be a historical record at all. It is understandable that the modern person becomes critical when faced with contradictions that are impossible to explain away by even the most open-minded individual. However, we must ask ourselves how it came about that no one for centuries, for millennia, noticed these contradictions that are now criticized. It is difficult to believe that only very stupid people ever handled the Bible. Perhaps it could be argued that only very few people had access to the Bible; before the art of printing, the majority of the faithful did not. Consequently, they could not pass judgment on something about which they were not informed by the leading few who did have access to the Bible. But are we really to believe that those few were all so stupid that they did not notice what is pointed out by today's critics? Some historians maintain that only slowly, through the power of the church, did these documents come to be appreciated. Reverence for the Bible arose only gradually. It is said that the Bible cannot stand up to close historical investigation. Looking at events that took place in the early Christian centuries, the conclusion is drawn that the Ecumenical Council of Nicea 2 Council of Nicaea was called by Emperor Constantine. It formulated the Nicene Creed in A.D. 325. decided which Gospels were true, and there it was ordained: “These are the true Holy Scripts.” Unprejudiced investigation does not bear this out. Looking back we come to personalities who lived in the early days of Christendom. From them we learn that, for example, in the year A.D. 160 a so-called harmonizing of the Gospels took place. This meant collating the Gospels and bringing them to present a uniform picture, a procedure that was later repeated. And indeed, careful examination of the Gospels as they were in the second century showed that already then they contained what we know as the New Testament. We find that the early Church Fathers in particular spoke with the deepest reverence about the Bible, which suggests that they certainly had the belief that the Bible had been inspired by a higher spiritual source. Already in Origen 3 Origen (c. 185–A.D. 254) was an early Christian Church Father and writer. we encounter the same reverent approach to the biblical records as is later to be found in the faithful, whether of learned or of simple faith. When these things are considered, all prejudice must be set aside. In the early centuries the attitude of learned people towards Christianity was by no means the same as that of modern people. Today one risks being accused of repudiating the true words of the Bible, of being an agnostic and unfit to call himself a Christian by people with orthodox viewpoints. These people should recognize that to interpret the Bible in ways that differ from their own is not the equivalent of doubting its truth. It was the Church Father Augustine 4 Augustine, Saint (354–430) a Christian theologian and writer. The most prominent of the Latin Fathers of the Church. who said: “What is known today as Christian religion is ancient; in fact, what was the true primordial religion is today called Christianity.” These words are in great contrast to the usual experience of those who interpret the Bible in the light of spiritual science. The hostility, often coming from family and friends, is nothing short of tragic. Spiritual scientific explanations are harshly rejected as having nothing to do with the Bible. Such reactions are based on complete ignorance of the Bible itself. It is also pretentious, for it proclaims an understanding of the Bible that cannot be faulted. If only such people would recognize that their attitude to the spiritual scientific explanations is in effect like saying: “What I find in the Bible is the only truth.” Spiritual science, far from having a negative approach to the Bible, seeks to unravel its deep truths. The main concern is that these religious records should be properly understood. Those who simply find it more comfortable to remain within views to which they have become accustomed are not in a position to oppose spiritual science. Rejection of true explanations is often based on deep seated hostility, though sometimes it is simply too much effort to learn something new. No Christian with any understanding of a certain passage from the Sermon on the Mount, often quoted by me, could maintain that attitude. The passage, when rightly translated reads: "Blessed are those who are beggars of the spirit, for within themselves they shall find the Kingdom of Heaven." No words could better or more beautifully express the inner feeling and disposition of the spiritual scientist than this passage from the Sermon on the Mount. What do we mean by the inner disposition of the spiritual scientist? We mean an inner impulse to strive to develop the deepest kernel of our being, our spirituality. What builds our body comes from substances that surround us; likewise our inner being comes from the spirit that lives, and always did live all about us. Just as it is true that our body is, as it were, a drop from the sea of material reality, so is it true that our soul, our spirit, is a drop from the sea of the all-encompassing Universal Spirit. As the drop of water is of the same substance as the sea from which it is taken, so is that which lives in the deepest recess of the human soul godlike. Human beings are able to recognize God because God lives within them and human beings are themselves spiritual. Furthermore, if a person truly will, he can attain that spiritual world that is all about him. However, for that to come about something is needed — something which can be simply expressed by saying: Do not ever stand still. Human beings must experience progress, must be conscious of evolving, rather than merely having faith that it will happen. It means never to lose sight of the fact that not only have human beings developed to their present stage from inferior levels, but also that at every moment they can develop further. In this instance we are not concerned with the fact that a person's external being has altered in the course of evolution, but rather with the fact that the human soul can climb upwards from stage to stage. In striving for perfection, a human being's soul is capable of improving from day to day. Today we may learn something new; we inwardly grasp something we did not know before; through our will we become capable of achieving something we could not manage before. If we remain at what we understand today, at what our will is capable of today, then we do not evolve. We must never lose sight of the fact that as well as the forces that are already developed within us, we possess others still slumbering. It is comparable to the seeds of new plants that slumber within the seed that has already become a plant. If we never forget that we possess such forces, our will grows stronger; it reaches higher stages of development and we become aware that our soul begins to evolve spiritual eyes and ears. We must not think of this as something trivial, but recognize that the development of the human soul and spirit is of universal significance. When we see in the physical world, a relationship between animal forms and the noble human form, it does not justify the assumption that a person has developed from the animal, even if natural science has established that, as regards the physical structure, there is greater similarity between the lowest developed human being and the highest developed ape, than between the lowest and highest developed ape. This observation, however, led natural science to regard human beings as having descended from the ape. The famous natural scientist Thomas Henry Huxley 5 Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–1895). He supported Darwin's theory of evolution. He coined the word “agnostic.” He also was a natural scientist. spoke about it as a great heresy in 1859. This view influenced practically everything he wrote. However, those who recognize spiritual development say: Granted that man, in regard to his external bodily form, is closer to the highest evolved ape, than the latter to the lowest of its own species, it is equally true that a human being who has reached a certain stage in spiritual development is further from the lowest developed human being, than the latter from the highest evolved animal. When evolution is followed through, the higher stages are seen to continue up into spiritual realms where what is described by spiritual science takes place, and which to spiritual sight is as much a reality as physical evolution is to physical sight. Spiritual knowledge has always existed. Natural science today only acknowledges an evolution that starts with the lowest animal form and continues up to that of man. Spiritual science is in hin agreement with that evolution. It also acknowledges the enormous difference between the lowest form of life, barely visible even through the microscope, and the perfect structure of the human organism. A person's physical structure does indeed pass through innumerable evolutionary stages from the most imperfect to the most perfect. However, the spiritual scientist sees the evolution of soul and spirit as just as real. The difference he sees is just as great between the highly advanced human being, the initiate, and the person who has barely begun to develop his slumbering forces. An initiate is someone who has attained spiritual faculties by developing to ever greater perfection forces that are inherent in every human soul. The difference between the lower stages of soul development and those attained by an initiate is actually greater than the difference between the lowest living structure and that of human beings. A person who knows that initiates exist also knows that the possibility to develop spiritually is a reality. With this insight there dawns in the human soul a feeling, an attitude that says: I look up to a godlike ideal of man, the seed of which slumbers within me. I know that in the future it will become reality, though as yet it is only slightly indicated. I know also that I must exert all my powers to attain that ideal. With this insight into spiritual development man becomes a “beggar of the spirit”; he feels himself blessed. In the spiritual scientific sense the passage from the Sermon an the Mount is a truly wonderful saying: “Blessed are those who are beggars of the spirit, for within themselves they shall find the Kingdom of Heaven.” Those acquainted with old linguistic usage will not imagine that what is here meant by heaven is something existing in an unknown beyond. In those days heaven was understood to be wherever man is. Where we are is where heaven is, that is, the spiritual world. A blind person will see the world full of color when successfully operated upon; likewise a person whose spiritual eyes are opened sees around him a new world. What a person sees was actually always about him, but he sees it in a new way. He sees the way he must be able to see if he is to attain his higher humanity. He will know that heaven is not somewhere else, is not in another place or time. He recognizes the Truth when Christ says: “Heaven is in the midst of you.” Where we are is the Kingdom of Heaven; it penetrates everything physical. As ice swims in water out of which it has condensed, so does matter swim in a sea of spirit out of which it has condensed. Everything physical is condensed, transformed spirit. In the animal kingdom we see the physically imperfect side by side with the physically more perfect; in the human kingdom we see all stages of spiritual development: One person has forged ahead, another remained at a lower stage. This indicates how in the spiritual scientific sense, human beings are connected with evolution. One person's interest lies in the realm of modern science, another's in the realm of human cultural development from the savage to the highly advanced individual who has attained insight into the spiritual world around him. The initiates always had insight into all the stages of human spiritual development. One spoke of the initiate as of someone who possessed greater knowledge than anyone else. Such initiates were mentioned in every epoch. Let us make it clear in what sense one spoke of those initiated into the spiritual world. We have often discussed the fact that in ancient times people had clairvoyant consciousness. The term "clairvoyant" did not refer to clarity, but to the fact that it penetrated through the external to the soul. A residue of this dull, dim consciousness can be seen in today's consciousness in dreams. Our clear waking consciousness developed from it. At the time when in general a person's consciousness was dull and dim, though clairvoyant, a few were initiates. In what sense did this consciousness differ from that of the rest of humanity? It differed because those who were initiates already experienced something of the type of consciousness that mankind in general attained today. They reached at an earlier stage something that belonged to the future. Already they saw the world the way humanity in general sees it today. That is to say, they investigated the world through the physical organs, through sight and hearing, and grasped things through the intellect. That is the sense in which they were initiates. An initiate attained ahead of time something that belonged to the future. There are also initiates today; who have already developed the higher clairvoyant consciousness, that is, the higher perception that mankind in general will possess in the future. The initiate was looked up to in ancient times by those who understood. They said to themselves: The initiate's outlook, his understanding of the would, is the outlook and understanding all human beings will possess in the future. He is the embodiment of a future ideal; through what he is, is revealed what we shall become. In the course of time the initiate will lead a great number of human beings to attain what he has attained. In this sense, the initiate was a prophet or a messiah. He was also called a “first-born.” But those to be initiated had to pass through many stages. Before the stage of initiation was attained, many different degrees of learning and schooling of the will must be passed through. As a plant must go through many stages from root through leaf and blossom before bearing fruit, so a human being strove upwards in stages of ever greater insight, till finally the pupil became an initiate. He attained progress by going through certain schooling that anyone can adopt. Those who deny that such a schooling is possible do so out of ignorance. They have as yet not discovered that through schooling, a person's spiritual eyes and ears can be opened so that he attains a higher kind of perception. It is the task of spiritual science to provide knowledge of such schooling. In my book Knowledge of the Higher Worlds and its Attainment , you will find this subject is dealt with in great detail. There are many reasons why this knowledge is essential in our time. I will mention just one. It is a tragedy that because human intellect and reasoning power have progressed too far, he is no longer able to believe in the ancient religious records. He no longer experiences them as the embodiment of the words of God. The fact that the human soul no longer receives the ancient knowledge causes it torment and depression. What is needed is the knowledge presented in a new form, and this is what spiritual science wishes to provide. Those who are initiates today are able — as were initiates in ancient times — to foresee humanity's future evolution. However, human development must follow certain rules. Just as one must adopt a definite method if one wishes to become an astronomer, likewise must a certain method be adopted if one is to develop spiritually. No one should wish to attempt to do so without guidance; that would be like wishing to become a mathematician without consulting any authority. Someone needs show the way, but no other kind of authority is required, and it is nonsense to talk about blind faith and dependence in relation to spiritual science. Throughout the millennia, right back to antiquity, there were always books in existence, or rather not actual books, but traditions handed down by word of mouth, of the rules of initiation. These rules were not permitted to be written down. They consisted of indications that the candidate for initiation had to follow when setting out to attain all the stages of development that lead to initiation. Even today certain indications are not written down, but imparted directly to those worthy to receive them. These indications the neophyte must observe if he is to attain the highest goal. A principle of initiation was always in existence, that is rules for the birth of the spirit in man. He who dedicated himself to spiritual striving was guided through exercises and conduct of life an ever higher levels. Once the highest was attained, the initiate would reveal to him the deepest secrets. One word more about this codex for initiation. Today things are different; the procedure of initiation also progresses. In ancient times, the neophyte was brought to a condition of ecstasy. This word had a different meaning; it did not indicate "being out of one's mind" but becoming conscious on a higher level. The spiritual guide led the neophyte to this condition of higher consciousness. Strict rules were observed; the prescribed length for the condition to last was three and one-half days. This procedure is no longer followed; today the consciousness is not subdued. But in ancient times a state of ecstasy, of rapture, was produced during which the neophyte knew nothing of what went on about him; to the external world he was like someone asleep. However, what was experienced in this condition differed considerably from the experiences of a contemporary person when the external objects disappear from his consciousness, on falling asleep. The neophyte experienced a world of spirit; all about him there was light, astral light. This is different from physical light; it appears like a sea of spirituality out of which spiritual beings emerge. If a very high stage had been attained, sound would also be experienced. What in the ancient Pythagorean schools was called “the harmony of the spheres” was heard. (What today we understand intellectually as universal laws are experienced as a kind of spiritual music at this level of consciousness. Spiritual forces are revealed as harmony and rhythm, but must not be thought of as ordinary music. The spiritual world, the heavenly world, resounds in the astral light.) In this world into which the neophyte was led, he learned to know stages of godliness that humanity will attain in a far distant future. During the three and one-half days a person experienced all this as reality, as Truth. These things may sound extraordinary to many, but there are, and always were people who recognize that a spiritual reality exists that is as real as the one perceived through physical senses. After three and one-half days the initiate was guided back to the sense world enriched with knowledge of spiritual existence, and prepared to bear witness of the spiritual world. All initiates on their return to the ordinary world uttered certain words that were always the same: "Oh my God, how thou has glorified me!" These words expressed the sensation felt by the one just initiated as he set foot again in the everyday world. Those who guided the initiation knew all the stages by heart; later when writing came more into use certain things were written down. But there always existed a typical or standard description of the life of an initiate. One said as it were: "He who is accepted into the cult to be initiated must live according to certain rules and pass through the experience which culminates with the words: "Oh my God, how thou hast glorified me!" If you could depict the way an initiate necessarily had to live, the way you could depict someone wishing to carry out experiments in a chemical laboratory, then you would obtain a picture typical of someone striving to attain a higher development, typical of someone to be awakened to a higher life. Such a codex of initiation always existed or was at least known by heart by those concerned with initiation. Knowing this, we can understand why the descriptions of different initiates of various people are similar This fact contains a great secret, a great mystery. The people always looked up to their initiates, insofar as they knew of them. What was said about initiates was not the kind of thing modern biographers relate about famous people; what was told was the course of the spiritual life experienced by the initiate. We can therefore understand why descriptions of the life of Hermes, Zarathustra, Buddha, Moses and Christ are similar It was because they had to experience a certain life if they were to become initiates. Their lives were typical of that of an initiate. In the outer structure of the spiritual biography we can always see a picture of the initiate. We can now answer the question: Who were the writers of the gospels? In my book, Christianity as Mystical Fact, you will find this question answered in greater detail from the viewpoint of spiritual science, and also indications of the spiritual authenticity of the Gospels. Here I can only give a few hints! In my book is explained that what is written in the Gospels is derived from ancient records of initiation. Naturally what initiates wrote differs in regard to incidentals, but all essentials were always the same. We must realize that the writers of the Gospels had no other sources than the ancient codex of initiation. When we look into the details, we recognize in the Gospels different forms of initiation. They differ because the writers knew initiation from different regions. This we shall understand when we consider how the writers of the Gospels were connected with Christ. The best way to form an idea of this connection is to think of the significant words at the beginning of the Apocalypse. 6 Apocalypse was a prophetic revelation about Armageddon. Jewish and Christian writings appeared in Palestine between 200 B.C. and A.D. 1500. The One who dictates the content to John is named "The First and the Last, the Alpha and Omega." This refers to that Being who is always present, through all changes from generation to generation, from human race to human race, from planet to planet; the Being that endures through all transformations. If we call this Being God, of whom a particle lives within each of us, then we sense our relationship to this Alpha and Omega. Indeed, we recognize it as the ultimate ideal, the ultimate goal of striving human beings. At this point we must remind ourselves of a forgotten custom. Nowadays, names are bestowed more or less haphazardly. We do not feel any real connection between a person and his name. The further back we go in human history, the greater the importance and significance of the name. Certain rules were observed when a name was given. Even not so very long ago, it was the custom to consult the calendar, and give the newly born the name mentioned on the day of its birth. It was assumed that the child had sought to be born on the day that bore that name. When someone attained initiation he was given a new name, an initiation name that expressed a person's innermost nature, expressed what the spiritual leader had recognized to be his significance to the world. As you know, we find in the New Testament many sayings attributed to Jesus. Their deeper meaning can be understood only if approached from the viewpoint of initiation and understanding of the significance of bestowing names. For example, if someone had reached an as yet not so high level spiritually, and one wished to give him a corresponding name, it would be one that expressed characteristics of the astral body. If a person had reached a higher level, the name would express characteristics of the ether body. If it was to express something that was typical, it would be derived from characteristics of the physical body. In ancient times, names were related to the person and expressed his essential nature. You will remember that in the Gospels Jesus often describes what He is in words that refer back to the word “I.” This you find particularly in the Gospel according to John. We must now bear in mind that we distinguish four members in a person's being: physical body, ether body, astral body and “I.” The “I” will increase more and more. It is inherent in a person's “I” to develop towards initiation. In undeveloped people it is imperfect, in the initiate perfect and powerful. You will now understand from the way names were given that Christ did not refer to Himself as an ordinary human being with an ordinary human “I.” In John's Gospel He often indicates that He is identical with the “I am, as in the sentence, "I and the Father are One." He describes Himself as identical with the human being's deepest nature. This He does because He is the Eternal, the Christ, the Alpha and Omega. Those who lived at the time of Christ saw Him as a Divine Being who carried about Hirn a physical body, a being in whom the spirit is the all-important, whereas in human beings the physical is the all-important. For human beings the outstanding characteristic was expressed in the name. When we ponder this we find that it opens the door to many of the mysteries contained in the Bible. We shall understand what it means when Moses stands before Jehovah as messenger and asks: “Whom shall I tell the people has sent me?” And we hear the significant words: “Tell the people that the ‘I am’ sent thee.” What does Jehovah refer to? He points to the deepest and most significant aspect of a person's being, to that which lies deeply hidden in every human soul, to the human's “I.” We find that when we come to this fourth member, then the “I” is a name we must bestow an ourselves. The godlike within human beings must speak. It begins to speak in what appears to live in human beings as a mere point , aa a tiny insignificant seed, which can however develop to infinite greatness. It is this aspect of a person's being that gave Moses his task and said: “Tell them that the ‘I am’ sent thee.” A divine seed lies within every human soul enveloped inthe physical, etheric and astral bodies. It appears as a mere point to which we say: “I am. But this member of our being, which appears so insignificant, will become by far the most important. The essence of the human being teils Moses: “I am the I am.” This illustrates the significance connected with the giving of a name. Whenever a reference is made to the “I am” it is also a reference to a certain moment in humanity's evolution that is indicated in the Bible, and often referred to in my lectures: the moment when physical man became an ensouled being. Physical man, as he is today, has developed from lower stages. Only when the Godhead had endowed him with a soul was man able to develop higher stages of his being. What descended from the bosom of the Godhead sank into the physical body and developed it further. In the Bible this moment is indicated in only a few words; it actually stretched over long epochs. Before that time, the human bodies did not possess what is essential — essential also for physical man today — if the “I” is to develop: the ability to breathe through lungs. A human being's physical ancestors did not originally breathe through lungs, which only developed in the course of time from a bladder-like organ. The human being could receive a soul only when he had learned to breathe through lungs. If this whole event is summed up in one sentence, you have the saying in the Bible: "And the Lord God breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul." In regard to the name Jehovah, we find that it means something like blowing, or rushing wind. The word Jahve expresses the inrush of breath with which the spirit, the “I” drew into man. The physical breath enabled man to receive his soul. Therefore, in the name Jahve is expressed the nature of the inrushing breath with which the “I am the I am” poured part of its Being into human beings. What we are told in the Bible truly represents a world event depicting the entry into a human being of the eternal aspect of his nature. Whether we think of man as he is today or as he was thousands of years ago, the nature, the “Being of the I” ( Ichwesen ) always was. Think of the highest revelation of this “Eternal I,” when all external aspects are irrelevant. Think of a human being in whom can be recognized the most inward nature of the “Eternal I” in all its greatness and might, and you have an idea how the first followers of Christ saw Hirn. What in ancient time was revealed on earth only as a spark, was revealed in Jesus of Nazareth in its highest glory. He was the greatest initiate because He was the most Godly, so that He could say: “Before Abraham was, I was.” He incorporated that which existed before Abraham, 7 Abraham, the biblical father of the Hebrew people and first of the patriarchs, was regarded as the founder of the ancient Hebrew nation. Isaac 8 Isaac, the son of Abraham and Sarah. and Jacob. 9 Jacob of the Old Testament was the son of Isaac and Rebecca and was the father of the twelve patriarchs. He is that to which striving mankind looks up as the greatest ideal. They are those mentioned in the Sermon on the Mount as: “Blessed are those who are beggars of the Spirit, for within themselves they shall find the Kingdom of Heaven.” These words applied to the followers of Christ. But how could they give a description of the life of the highest God incarnated? What description would be worthy of Hirn? Only the one that was contained in the canon of initiation, describing the rules of initiation. There was described the way the one to be initiated must from stage to stage pass through certain experiences which culminated in the words: “Oh my God, how thou hast glorified me!” (The transcript of this lecture ends at this point.)

Supersensible Knowledge

The Bible and Wisdom

https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA055/English/AP1987/19070426p01.html

Berlin

26 Apr 1907

GA055-13

Someone who speaks about occult science today, or even of the mission of occult science in our time, may probably prepare himself for meeting the most different attitudes. On one side, we have to admit that the term “occult science” causes the opinion of our contemporaries that it concerns something dark to the highest degree or something mystic in the worst sense that only can originate or excite interest with persons with unclear thinking, at least only with such people who have no idea of the big progress in the field of knowledge. How many people say to you, only such human beings use the term “occult science” who stand apart from the big progress of natural sciences or other knowledge in our time. If on one side already by pronouncing the term “occult science” some opposition arises, we are not at all allowed to deny that such opposition is justified to a considerable degree. Since, as weird as it may appear, one has to say the following. The real occult scientist who is aware of the progress of the so-called science or knowledge in our time and who only wants to go beyond the scope of certain superficialities must say that such opponents may be for him less dangerous contemporaries, less detrimental ones than others who count themselves among the followers, even among the apostles of the so-called occult science. It is weird that one pronounces such a thing, is it not? However, it is true. The term occult science has something tempting for many people. The opponents reproach the occultist so easily that people come running if one speaks about something mysterious, so that those who are of unclear mind or too lazy to put themselves on the ground of knowledge or too weak to open themselves to knowledge are of full interest if talk is of anything dark, full of secret. Thus, one says, the occultist is very popular, and in certain sense, he counts on this strange instinct in the human nature, on the pursuit of the spiritual in the worst sense of the word. I do not deny that there are many people in our chaotic time who are only driven by this dark instinct of the human nature to occult science. If then the opponents of occult science see what such ostensible followers cause, what they often assert and how they relate to the knowledge of our time, then one does not need to be surprised if our opponents come to the just characterised judgement. If the occultist were afraid, one could maybe make the absurd, but true assertion that he would have to be much more afraid of a big number of his followers than of his opponents. For these opponents will have to accomplish such turnabout which I characterise maybe already in the course of this talk, however, in particular in the next talk about natural sciences. For today, it is my task to clarify the significance and mission of the so-called occult science in our time. I do that in narrative way. If you see through the program of the winter talks, you see the term changed. With some talks, you read “occult” science, with other “spiritual” science. This has happened at every single place with full care, although the spiritual science, as I represent it here, is synonymous with occult science. Do not understand the word “occult” in the composition of occult science in such a way, as if with it anything secret and dark is meant. The talk itself shows you why I just use this term occult science for the sum of truth and knowledge about which we want to speak in the course of the winter. If we want to say what occult science is based on, we must give a quite simple answer at first. We must say, the occult science rests on two convictions: first on the conviction that behind that which our senses show in the outside world which our mind can take up in sense-perception and experiences, behind that which eyes can see and hands can seize, there is a higher world, an invisible supersensible one. This is one conviction. The other conviction is that the human being is able to grasp and behold this supersensible, invisible world developing his own cognitive forces and abilities. If we pronounce these both things, we have said on what any so-called occult science is based. Straight away, however, our contemporaries raise important objections here. Firstly, our education has a direction which says there, we do not need it at all to speak of any supersensible world, any invisible world; these are yesteryear's prejudices — thank God! Many people say so. And it is not yet long ago — today, indeed, such voices become quite rare — that those who considered themselves to be the most enlightened, the most advanced ones said, the orientation to invisible, to supersensible backgrounds of the things belongs to a childish, naive age of the human development. In those days, one did not yet stand firmly on the ground of scientific knowledge when one still believed to solve the riddles of existence by all kinds of fiction and imagination. However, the newer time has taught the human beings that the research using the experience of the external senses does not need to fall back on such supersensible forces or beings, but that the world, as we see it by the senses, is explicable of its own terms. If we can explain the world from itself — so the materialists and monists say and many of our contemporaries are such — if we can discover the sensuous causes within the sensuous world, we have no reason to refer to extrasensory beings. This radical direction generally wants to break with all views of the supersensible. One cannot deny that this view has to allege weighty reasons for itself. Who wants to misjudge the enormous progress of the external natural sciences in the course of the last centuries and in particular in the last century? Who does not admire these research results, on one side going up to the phenomena of the starry sky, and on the other side diving down to the secrets of the smallest living beings, into the secrets of the substances and the sensuous existence? Who does not stand admiring even before ambitious speculations, as they go out from such great discoveries of single researchers as those of the radium? Moreover, who will not see that it has something brilliant if now those standing on the ground of such a radical positivism or materialism say, the researcher is still far away from solving all riddles of existence by sensuous investigation. However, have patience; the time will come when natural sciences make clear that which a thick veil still covers today. The time will come when the scientists unravel the past world in the layers of the earth and when they recognise nature in her creating, when the wholly sensuous research will illumine the past. The time will also come — someone will say rightly who stands on the ground of research — when one adds certain materials to unliving substances in the laboratory, so that one will succeed in producing living substances in the laboratory. Perhaps, this still appears a bold idea today; however, the development goes in this direction, and then you, occult scientist, can pack up and go home because you do no longer have the right to speak of supersensible things when we have shown that even life originates by a combination of materials and forces. The whole series of the talks has to give the answer to such objections. It would be careless to want to give an answer already today. I want only to say one thing that should show typically how ambiguous the objections are which one makes against the apparently arcane occult science. While the natural sciences assert with a certain right that once the time comes when from only unliving substances life comes into being, and this research thereby believes to state something that brings the occult science completely down, it is true that occult science has always known this! Yes, because it has known this, it could stand so firmly! One misjudges the true character of occult science completely if one makes such allegations against it. The entire answer will arise in the course of the talks. There are other contemporaries who say, it may be quite good that there is something supersensible behind our sensory world; but the human being can know nothing of such a supersensible world with his talents and capabilities and, hence, he is not allowed to speak about it if should be talk of science. This is an opinion that is much more widespread. One does not want generally to decide the question of the supersensible, one wants to leave it quite uncertain, to make it the object of a wholly subjective, arbitrary faith whether there are senses to be able to perceive the supersensible. The human being cannot look behind the external nature and he leaves the ground of knowledge, moves into the field of arbitrary faith if he tries to overstep the limits of the external nature. Occult science faces this view in the following way. It says, you have examined the cognitive faculties of the human being. You have shown that he cannot come — applying his cognitive faculties — behind nature where the supersensible begins. Now you say, because we have proved this, occult science or the science of the supersensible is impossible. — Someone who speaks in such a way assumes that occult science disagrees with him. However, this is not the case. Occult science completely agrees with him, it stands accurately on the same point of view. Occult science says, you have examined your cognitive faculties; you have shown exactly how far one can come with them. You have shown that one cannot come with it in the supersensible realm. You are completely right; but you only make one mistake, the mistake that you do not keep to the positive that you do not claim only what you know, but also what you cannot know, while you state that nobody can know it. Here we meet a characteristic of our contemporaries standing on the so-called scientific base that does not come from science, from knowledge but from a general feeling, an unspoken instinct of our time. Admittedly, this instinct becomes only obvious if one checks the events of our time a little as an impartial, quiet observer. Look at any journal, any newspaper, and any popular or even academic book that deals from any direction with such questions, as I have put them. You will find nothing more often than the saying that is from a higher spiritual point of view a fateful one: we are only able to know this and that. One cannot judge this or that. Convince yourselves whether you cannot always find this “one” or “we” if talk is of these things! It is rather insignificant, but it comes from a deeply nested instinct. It is the belief that everybody has a certain infallibility of knowledge because not only he himself can understand but also the human beings generally what “we” can know and cannot know. From this instinct, our contemporaries cannot bring themselves to believe that there can be a real development of recognising. Nevertheless, how absurd is this view if the human being considers it in relation to his own life! Imagine only, when does the point of time occur for the single human being when he can decide where the limits of his ability of discriminating are? Is he able to decide where the limits of the cognitive faculties are at the age of 25, 36, sixty or even already of ten years? Is there not development in any life? Do we not put up other assertions in childhood than in the later life? Are we allowed to think that we cannot learn anything from anybody in the world, that nobody in the world can know more than we do? Nevertheless, this is as an instinct in the nature of our contemporaries that everybody determines the limits of the cognitive faculties of his own accord. This assertion has not only has arisen from this instinct, but numerous works, which deal on thousands of pages with it. They start, if one looks behind the scenery, from nothing but the belief that the human being lives in this instinct. However, the occultist objects the following. He says, concerning that knowledge from which you think that it is clear to you, you are completely right, you cannot recognise more there. However, there is a development of the cognitive faculties. If you want to penetrate into the supersensible world, you have to develop the extrasensory cognitive faculties. This is possible! — Thus, the viewpoint of occult science does not at all contradict to that which these people say. It agrees with them. It says only, the human being still has another cognitive faculty in himself that is without these limits, and that he can develop. Now, does anybody have the right to say that anything like the development of the cognitive faculty is impossible if we consider it from the viewpoint of clear logical thinking? What can he say? He can only say, I do not know it, it is unknown to me. He can set the limit to himself through which he cannot look into such a development. If he says, my limit of cognitive faculties is not sufficient to do this, he has to say, I do not know. — Then he is also not allowed to decide anything on such facts. Anybody who knows nothing of the extrasensory world is not allowed to say whether it exists or not, but only somebody who knows something of it. Occult science stands just on the viewpoint of positivism in its whole universality. The occultist says, nobody has to decide on what one can know or on what one cannot know, but everybody has only to decide on what he himself knows. With it, an aspect of feeling is touched that is not without significance in our occult science. One says, occult science leads to spiritual arrogance because the spiritual scientists claim that they can go beyond the usual knowledge. However, just the reverse is the case. There is no bigger arrogance than that which wants to decide on its own accord on not only what he is allowed to know, but also wants to decide on what the human beings are allowed to know or not to know. This arrogance places itself as a norm for all human beings. Against it, it is spiritual humility if anybody who stands on the ground of occult science wants to decide on nothing else than what he can know. We do not talk about that which lies beyond our limits of knowledge. This is the attitude that leads to true humility. Hence, occult science must always have a personal character. This is no disadvantage. This also does not speak against the validity of the spiritual-scientific truths. We must get clear about the fact that the human being has to find what he wants to find and should find of the highest and supersensible things in his innermost soul by the power that he develops in the spiritual life always on his own accord. However, if this is true, everybody who wants to see the facts of occult science has to turn to his own inside. Many opponents derive their objections from this, while they say that something that is fathomed only in the human inside can be left only to the faith, and is not allowed to claim general validity. This conclusion appears narrow-minded to the impartial observer. There is something that, admittedly, the least ones can use as comparison that offers, however, a very good example to someone who can do it. It is something that we must experience just as the spiritual-scientific truths in our inside; any external can be nothing but an example, a suggestion to us: the mathematical profundities. These are the most common truths at the same time. Who can use them by way of comparison will find this comparison completely suitable. The mathematical truth is something that the human being can never find by the external senses. You can measure the three angles of a triangle as often as you want, you can never find the steadfast truth that these three angles are together 180 degrees. You must recognise this inside. Thus, it is with all geometrical and all mathematical truths. One has to consider two things compared with such truths that one recognises inside. The first is something unpopular in the strictest sense today. One says, how is one able to count with something that lives only inside of the human being on the approval of the fellow man? How can we believe that something is true that we recognise only in ourselves? — However, just the reverse is right. The majority decides nothing at all on truth. If you have convinced yourselves of any mathematical theorem, then two things are valid for you. First, if a million human beings contradict you and are not of your opinion, this does not shake you at all. Secondly, you are clear in your mind that everybody who produces the same conditions in himself as you do must have the same opinion as you have, even though you have found the truths inside. As true it is that majority decides nothing on mathematical truths, as true it is that — if the conditions are produced properly, and this can be taught to everybody — majority can decide nothing on the results of occult science. We can find them in our inside, and nothing external can dissuade us from them if we have recognised them once in our inside. In ancient times, the followers of occult science, the Gnostics, called this occult science mathesis, not because they understood it as mathematics, but because this occult science has the character of mathematical truth. However, it is long ago that one looked at the character of occult science in this purity. It is unfortunate that many things accumulated there which cloud the look, so that those who stand on the viewpoint of science get a horror if they meet something like occult science. Thus, we come to questions that point us to two concepts, which the human beings cannot apply often enough in the present: knowledge and faith. One says that one can know something of the matters on which science works, of the other things one can only believe something, this is a personal matter. Only because those can say this who do not see how one produces the conditions, so that any faith can become knowledge. Someone who cannot prove mathematically that the three angles of the triangle amount to 180 degrees must believe it. Who is not able to prove the life of the human being between death and new birth has to believe these matters. However, he will also find the possibility to prove for himself as we still see it in the course of the talks. Many people object that it is sinful to investigate the objects of the supersensible world, they are something that can never come from the human nature, the human being must trust in a higher revelation, and it is presumptuous to fathom this. Then one has to reply that it is a sin to let lie fallow what exists in the world in a seminal state. For the divine primordial ground has sown the seeds in the world, so that they sprout, so that they yield blossoms and fruit. To someone who wants to limit the human power of cognition saying the human being should not be so presumptuous one can answer that it is just a sin to obliterate the power of cognition. We shall not obliterate it, but develop it; that is why we have it. Somebody who can bring to his mind what a sin it is against the human nature to let the forces lie fallow, to cordon off the supersensible world soon recognises this objection as quite impossible. Thus, occult science with its attitude positions itself in the currents of the time. Today, I do not want to prove but to tell how occult science presents itself in our time. Its object and basis are rather unknown in wide sections of the population. It is unknown that there have always been single persons in the human development who devoted themselves to this occult science most seriously who from own experience knew the experiences which one can have in the supersensible world, to whom personal experience was what I want to show in these talks. It is also unknown that there are persons still today who are able to behold in the spiritual world this way. You can ask now, why was such a thing hidden from the masses, why is there anything that was not announced in general? We shall see if we speak of the dangers of occult science why the true occultists had the principle to make occult science known only to those who had made themselves ripe by certain qualities of their life. Today, however, one has views about the spreading of knowledge that are quite different from the views, which were always usual in occult science. If anybody knows anything today, he can hardly expect to let it flow out in printed form into the world. However, the occultists had their reasons to hand over their knowledge only to those who had prepared themselves. Why do single human beings appear today and report about the results of occult science? This has its good reasons. It is connected with the entire spiritual progress of humanity. What everybody can know by popular writings that are based on our quite usual sensory knowledge is, properly applied, a good preparation for occult science. On the other side, one completely misunderstands the facts if one believes that our natural sciences must lead to the denial of the supersensible. Rather these natural sciences, properly understood, lead to the full recognition of the supersensible! He who takes up the scientific facts properly^, which are accessible to everybody, and pursues them comes directly to the sphere of the supersensible and invisible. However, someone who continues this scientific truth wrongly comes to the materialistic world that does not yet unnerve today's humanity maybe so much but the future humanity most certainly. Therefore, it is necessary today to show how to use the scientific truths, as far as they are accessible. During former centuries, it was not in such a way. Everybody had to go through a long preparation in which he trains his reasoning power, his logic, and his character. Today, the scientific thinking, properly applied, is already a training to understand the publications of occult science. This scientific thinking can become a boon for humanity. We shall get to know three ways to the supersensible world gradually. If I speak of these three ways, I expose myself to the risk that people regard me as a dreamer and as a fool in particular if I describe the third way, although those who judge in such a way know nothing at all about that matter. Three ways are shown: Imagination or clairvoyance, Inspiration and Intuition ( the spiritual-scientific concepts are capitalised to distinguish them from the usual ones ). These three ways exist since millennia in the human development and were always pursued. There have always been human beings who could walk on the way to the supersensible world using the methods, which are taught. Who are such initiates? Imagine that there are human beings who live in a distant area where no railways and no machines exist. Now one comes along on the way to Europe and sees that there are railways and machines. He goes home and tells his experiences, what he himself has seen. Then he is someone who is initiated in these matters. There are also such initiates with regard to supersensible things. They are led in the secret schools to an insight into the supersensible, invisible world and can tell about what they have found out there. One divides these initiates into two classes: in real initiates and in clairvoyants. What is now an initiate in the narrower sense? There we have to familiarise ourselves with a quality of occult science which will not be recognised in general which still exists. For it is not necessary to be a clairvoyant to understand the spiritual-scientific truths after they have been announced to the human beings. For clairvoyance is necessary for discovering, but not for understanding the occult truths. Everything that will be said in this winter course as a result of the research in the higher world could not be found without clairvoyance, not without developing the spiritual eyes and ears slumbering in every human being. I give further details here in connection with the initiation. However, if these results have been pronounced once and have been dressed in such forms that they correspond to the today's thinking, then everybody can understand them. The objection can never count that one has to be clairvoyant to understand the things which occult science informs. They are incomprehensible not to the non-clairvoyant one, but to someone who does not want to apply his logical mind completely. One can see everything if it is pronounced once, up to the highest areas. Somebody who realises everything that occult science says without being clairvoyant is an initiate. However, someone who can enter these invisible worlds is a clairvoyant. In olden times that are not so long ago, a strict separation existed of clairvoyants and initiates in the secret schools. One was able as an initiate to ascend to the knowledge of the higher worlds without being a clairvoyant if one applied the mind only in right way. On the other side, one could be a clairvoyant without being an initiate to an especially high degree. It will become already clear to you how I mean this. Imagine two persons, a much-learnt man who knows everything that physics and physiology have to say about the light and its phenomena, but is so shortsighted that he can hardly see ten centimetres away. He does not see a lot, however, is initiated into the principles of the light. Thus, somebody can be initiated into the supersensible world and sees badly in it. Another can see excellently in the external sensuous world, but knows practically nothing about that what the learnt man knows. Thus, there can also be clairvoyants who behold in the spiritual worlds but have no science, no knowledge of them. Hence, one differentiated clairvoyants and initiates for a long time. In order to comprise the fullness of life, one often needed not one but many human beings. Some were not made clairvoyant to advance further. The others got the spiritual eyes and ears. What existed in occult science has come about by communication and exchange of ideas between initiates and clairvoyants. In our time, this strict separation of clairvoyants and initiates can no longer be maintained. Today, it is necessary that everybody who has attained a certain degree of initiation at least has the possibility to attain a certain degree of clairvoyance. For the complete trust from human being to human being cannot be brought about in our time. Today, everybody himself wants to know and see. That deep faith full of devotion, as it has prevailed once from human being to human being, made it possible that one heard from a special kind of clairvoyants what they perceived in the higher worlds. Then others ordered systematically what these had perceived. Today, a kind of harmony is created in the development of the initiatory and clairvoyant abilities. Hence, a third kind, the adepts can withdraw very strongly. Our time is hostile to these adepts to the highest degree. You can get an idea of the difference between an adept and an initiate if you imagine the following: imagine a region where are railways and you have seen them. Now I ask you, are you able to construct a railway after you have been convinced by own looking that such a thing exists. Practise and still some other things are necessary in order to construct it. Someone is an adept in contrast to a clairvoyant who has acquired not only clairvoyant knowledge but also practical handling of spiritual forces by exercises of which the modern human being hardly has any idea. A much longer preparation belongs to it than even to the clairvoyant. In addition, our present cultural development is still much more hostile to the use of spiritual forces than to the aspiration to penetrate by knowledge into the spiritual world. It is the mission of occult science to generate awareness of the possibility to penetrate on these three ways into the higher worlds, to attain a deeper knowledge than the usual one is and to extend it. If we ask ourselves, is it curiosity, is it mere desire of knowledge which lead us to occult science, then we must answer: no, it completely concerns something else! It concerns something that deeply slumbers in the sensuous science of our time that can never come out, however, about which we can speak in the talk on natural sciences. Many human beings coming to occult science do not know it clearly but they have a dark idea of it. It concerns not recognising but life, the continuation, and the increase of life. Many people are afraid that occult science turns them away from the immediate life. However, just the opposite is right. It makes the human beings competent and puts them in life. They must only have the ability and strength to enter occult science. Already for many years, I have held talks on manifold objects here. Discussions joined these talks. I do not amplify these discussions. However, if we speak of the mission of occult science in our time, I should mention a phenomenon because it is especially typical. It faced us especially lively when we spoke about Bible and Wisdom . There it was not only one person, but numerous ones who objected something to these matters out of the depth of their hearts. These objections came from deep sensations. Among them, one was just like the following. Occult science tells a lot of the seven-membered human nature, of reincarnation and karma, of the stay of the human beings in the supersensible world between death and new birth, of the development of the human being through the different planetary states et cetera; demands are put on our mind, on our thinking. However, we search not so much satisfaction of the mind but deepening of the soul, of inner life. We want to find the divine in the feeling, in the sensation. This objection is done out of the depth of sensations, and just the human beings who stand firmly in the occult science can appreciate the significance of such an objection completely which says there: give us soul! We know that the divine that lives in us leads us into our own hearts, but does not bring mental pictures of the human being and the world, of birth and death; we do not search the spiritual. Those human beings who say this have no idea that they are even the biggest obstacles for the solution of the question that is very dear to their hearts. They have no idea that by that which spiritual science gives their minds just their souls receive what they demand. They have no idea that talking in such a way they reject just what their souls need. Nothing instills the divine in the souls more than the knowledge of the world evolution. If we know that in such a way, as the rainbow has seven colours, the human being has seven members and do not harden us against these ideas, then just these ideas enliven our souls to overcome what opposes the contemplation of the spiritual. You meet objections of this kind, above all, with such people who mean it just as deeply as they want to find the deepening of the soul conveniently and who avoid penetrating into the real depth of their souls. The occultist cannot get out the sensation from the souls of the human beings, but he has to lead them into the spiritual world by knowledge, has to show them how they can attain the highest deepening by knowledge, which one can aim at. A longing for satisfaction of the soul is the biggest enemy for the striving human being. However, just that discouraged many people from theosophy and spiritual science; they do not want to be immersed in the vigorous mental work that is a refreshment of the soul at the same time. Nothing raises the soul to the divine more than this knowledge, than the deepening in the spiritual world. With it, we are on the point where knowledge intervenes immediately in life where the spiritual-scientific aspects of soul and heart come to the fore. How many people are tormented by doubts, by all possible tortures in relation to questions of existence and world riddles. Then you can read in materialistic writings that a brain cannot come without morbid changes to such views as the spiritual science presents them. From the viewpoint of the psychiatrist, one can exactly indicate the mental illness that leads to such explanations as I give them here. If we wanted to give ourselves the pleasure to work as the psychiatrists do, we could range ourselves also in such a way that the scholar who does this otherwise would be very delighted with us. You can buy a booklet cheap, which reports something that is true. It concerns the following: in a number of newspaper articles arteriosclerosis was treated and the symptoms were given with which you can notice this illness with yourselves. The author of the writing, a doctor, had to experience that many persons came to him who pretended to have the symptoms of arteriosclerosis. What is derived from that now? The fact that many people are in a condition — because of the chaotic conditions of our civilisation even if they imagine to have nerves like ropes — that they catch fear straight away if they hear about such an illness. They fall ill, even if in a psychic form. — One also says that many people hearing only talks by professor So-and-so or by the naturopath So-and-so get the illness about which one speaks. However, what one does not regard is that already a certain form of mental illness belongs to it to think generally that way! This is a pathological trait that appears as relatively harmless even today which, however, becomes more and more detrimental. We still speak about such questions and facts in the talks on the obsessions with illness and health. The reasons of certainty on which the human being can be based must always come from the inside. However, the spirit must be stronger there. It must have the ability to find certainty in the inside. Mental weakness is not to believe in oneself, not to believe that one can find the reasons in oneself. Mental weakness is to believe only what eyes see and hands seize and to be able to take truth only with the hand. Materialism is a sign of spiritual decadence, a hollow of the inside. If it were only a theoretical hollow, it would be still relatively harmless. However, this theoretical hollow subverts the mental health first and then the physical one. The truth of this example is that ill, wrong thoughts generate illnesses really. However, we shall hear in the talks on the obsession with illness and health how health and physical welfare depend on our true or wrong thoughts. We shall hear how theosophy should spread healthy thoughts how theosophy should distribute healthy life and provide useful human beings for the world. Already if we remain within the soul life, we realise that someone is unable to work who is perpetually tormented by doubts who cannot attain knowledge of the questions that concern his deepest soul needs. Finally, such a soul is incapable to keep the body healthy. Occult science transforms that only into action, into reality, which natural sciences have also anticipated. For example, a scientist like Karl Ernst von Baer (1792–1876, German-Baltic naturalist) says: it is a thought that penetrates the whole world that orders the planets that caused the living beings from matter which appears in its letters and in the manifold forms of life and is life itself. Then one is allowed to add: if this thought that can be only found in the supersensible world is nourished and cherished, if it finds entrance consciously in the human nature, it makes the human beings healthy, strong, and competent. Does it not dissipate the doubts first, calm minds, raise hearts and make the human nature healthy? This is a deeper mission of occult science in our time. — One has to attribute to a science that remains on the surface of the sensuous that the human being is hollowed out internally, and that the age of materialism is the age of nervousness and lacking concentration. These states would still worsen if those kept the upper hands who cling tight on to the outer existence only. Occult science creates certainty of the biggest riddles of existence. That is why one calls it occult science, not because it hides anything, but because its teachings must be found in the core. It is an occult science just as mathematics is an occult science. I could only explain the attitude and mission of occult science in this preliminary talk. Occult science does not harbour illusions neither about its followers nor about its opponents. It has to brush all illusions aside. Thereby it gives the human being the big harmonious health in all directions. This attitude forms the basis of the single truths. This attitude matters. What does this attitude attain joining real occult science? The winter talks will show this, the today's talk should be only a kind of announcement, a kind of program. Many things will now be argued against what I have said today maybe just from those who regard themselves as very clever. Perhaps one says, look at your followers! Nevertheless, they are not abreast with modern science! Not before you have people who are abreast with modern science, we believe in a future, believe in a mission of occult science. — Who speaks in such a way does not know the secret and intimate ways, which the spirit of humanity goes. He who stands firmly on the ground that we have characterised as the ground of occult science, who is aware that truth must be found in the soul and that approval does not matter confesses to a sentence that a great friend and researcher of truth pronounced. Such a truth researcher was Leonardo da Vinci who was a great researcher and a great painter and artist and knew the mysterious currents and principles flowing through the world. No thinking head believes that in his heart the real occult-scientific attitude did not prevail. At a passage, he confesses the lonely found truth that has found its mission in the world. It contains the confession: “The lie is so despicable that if it tells great things about God it robs His grace of its divinity, and truth is so sublime that it makes quite low things precious if it praises them.” — Let us make such a principle the innermost motive of our soul life, and then we understand how someone who stands in the occult science thinks about the mission of occult science in our age. The occultist faces two pictures. Someone who surveys the great cultural creation of Christianity today who wants to appreciate what Christianity has done in the world puts two pictures before his soul: First, the ancient imperial Rome in the first Christian centuries. He looks there at the ruins of the ancient Rome that tell of the events in the former educated world. He can summon up consolation and certainty from this picture if one says that the scholars and educated people want to know nothing about theosophy or spiritual science. What did those want who lived in these once magnificent, now decayed buildings? They wanted to look at — the performances of the Colosseum! What did they think of Christianity? They made the Christians links and burnt them! Let us recall that thoroughly. We turn our look to the other picture. However, we have to search it at another place. We have to search it underground in the widespread catacombs of Rome where laborious and laden people lived who were apart from education and the predominant world. There they erected their altars, there they buried their dead and offered their holy sacrifices, and there we turn our look. After we have evoked these pictures in our soul, we ask ourselves, how did the picture change in the course of the centuries? — Those, who were below, carried in the soul what conquered the world and what happened on top perished. It had to withdraw from that which rose from below, from the concealed sites. The course of the things was that way, and this is consolation and hope for us. We know for sure that we can get nothing but scorn and derision only because of the peculiar conditions of time. We realise that we have to work quiet and simply in similar way just with those whom the so-called enlightened ones maybe despise. However, we also know that the picture will be a similar one as at that time. We know that that which one despised in former times will seize the others or go along with them, or that it passes over them. A right viewpoint concerning occult science transforms our attitude, our feelings, and sensations. Thus, this first consideration gives us something of spiritual health already, which arises from the intention to work in the world, in the sense of the upward trend of humanity. It is the mission of occult science to perform this work in the sense of our present.

The Mission of Occult Science in Our Time

https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA056/English/eLib2015/19071010p01.html

Berlin

10 Oct 1907

GA056-1

In the preliminary talk, I already drew your attention to the both basic conditions of spiritual science or theosophy. I said that spiritual science rests on two pillars: first, on the fact that the human being realises that behind our sensuous world which you can see with eyes and touch with hands a spiritual, supersensible world of the facts, events and beings exists; secondly, that the human being can become able to intervene in this spiritual world recognising and on a higher stage even acting. Briefly, spiritual science expresses its conviction that there is a spiritual world and that it is accessible to the human being. From the most different sides, spiritual science should be illumined in the course of these winter talks. Today, we look at its relation to natural sciences. Indeed, some among you may see in this talk a kind of aberration from the regular course. They come to these talks especially in order to get to know the results of spiritual science and the experiences in the higher worlds. In the main, real theosophists take the view that they have found their relation to the scientific results. Therefore, they regard the explanation of such matters as the relation of spiritual science to results of the natural sciences as somewhat boring sometimes. However, we come to so specifically spiritual-scientific subjects in the next talks that the today's intermezzo may probably be bearable, in particular with regard to the fact that the sharpest attacks and the strongest misunderstandings concerning spiritual science come just from those who pretend to stand firmly on the ground of natural sciences. Above all, be clear in your mind that in the today's talk I do not speak opposing natural sciences. With the big impact that the scientific prepositions exert on our contemporaries it would be really an awkward undertaking to get into opposition to the natural sciences. For you can hear repeatedly: the natural sciences stand on the ground of facts, of experience, and everything that does not comply with these facts and experiences must be expelled to the field of speculative fiction. You get this information from many sides concerning such things, as I want to explain just in these winter talks on spiritual science. It is most adequate — in view of the general educational conditions in our time — if the today's talk explains the relation of the natural sciences to spiritual science as objectively as possible without pros and cons. However, from the start I want to note that spiritual science does not dispute with the natural sciences especially where it concerns only scientific facts. This could not be at all its task. Who would attack the building of strict facts anyhow? Who would argue anything against that which is certain by experiment and experience in the scientific field? Spiritual science is completely based on experiences. Admittedly, on experiences, as they have been characterised last time, on experiences in the higher, in the spiritual worlds. However, with regard to the methodical principles it completely complies with scientific demands. It agrees with the natural sciences that experience forms the basis of any knowledge at last. Thus, I do not give my view on certain scientific results of the present in the introduction of a series of spiritual-scientific talks because this is not necessary. Rather I want to show how one must look at the scientist in his scientific thinking. This is important: pursuing the scientific thought process, as it is offered to us. It may be very good if we look back at the German cultural life for a short time. It offers a picture of the whole spiritual life of the last decades. Above all, the following comes into consideration: the natural sciences have become for many people something that they never were once. Slowly and gradually, for four centuries it has prepared itself. However, in the 19th century, it has come only to the climax of that what prepared there slowly. The natural sciences have become something that one could call a kind of religion, a kind of creed, or better said, single persons have believed to be able to form a kind of creed, a kind of religion from the scientific results of our time. It is much more important for spiritual science than discussions about scientific facts to a look at the way in which a kind of new religion, a kind of new creed has come about based on putative scientific facts. Someone who looks impartially at our cultural life cannot misjudge that people oppose the assumption of the spiritual world, oppose the religious feeling, while they refer to the fact that new scientific results would disprove any reference to a spiritual world. In certain circles, one almost believes to have removed every reference to a spiritual world with the results of the natural sciences. Hundred years ago, nobody was inclined to draw such a conclusion from the scientific facts. Indeed, there have also been earlier quite materialistic confessions of the most radical kind; but they have never put up the assertion, one could explain the world only materialistically according to the “true science.” The term “true science” exerts an ineffable magic power on our contemporaries! One speaks much of former dark times of the religious fury, religious disputes, and religious persecutions. I do not varnish or defend these things. However, if you compare these processes of former centuries which humiliated the feeling and thinking of humanity, nevertheless, you realise something peculiar with an impartial look at the development of the human soul. Someone who thinks impartially finds that confirmed everywhere that I only assert now. Indeed, many times were dark and intolerant, but intolerance with an immense arrogance of infallibility has remained to our time! This inner intolerance commits no riots and persecutions, although one can already experience that one calls the police and the prosecutor against anybody who reports about the spiritual world. However, these are exceptions; our time is tolerant outwardly. Only in relation to thinking, One considers everybody a fool, a daydreamer, or at least an ignorant man who cannot share the creed of those who say there: from the scientific facts follows that one cannot state anything about the spiritual side of the world. This attitude has prepared itself slowly. In the 19th century, one came with it on the climax. It is well reasoned that this has come that way. If we look for the reason, we must say, the reason is connected with the big progress of humanity. We realise that in the newer time the human beings have investigated the external physical world with all imaginable instruments and skilfully developed methods, which are more than amazing. We see how it has begun with astronomy and with the view of the astronomical world edifice how then the physical world has been conquered gradually by that what can be investigated with the armed eye and understood with the intellect. In the 19th century, it has appeared that this kind of research not only is able to see into in the lifeless nature, but it has also deeply illumined the living nature. He who is able to pursue the spiritual life objectively knows that it signified an immense progress when during the thirties of the 19th century Schleiden (Matthias Jacob Sch., 1804–1881, German botanist) discovered the smallest part of plants and animals, the cell ( together with Theodor Schwann, 1810–1882 ). It became obvious that many former conjectures had to disappear because of the facts, which one now discovered by means of the microscope and the new research method. One has thought a lot about what this organism is actually inside which composes our living beings. One had now discovered what corresponded to the thinking and feeling of the 19th century so much: one saw obviously how the organism builds itself up from countless and extremely small living beings. One saw now how they co-operated and yielded the human organism. Now that was accessible to the actual research, which one had assumed and bothered so much. One had done a look at the world of life that way. Then it was a big progress when Kirchhoff (Gustav Robert K., 1824–1887, German physicist) and Bunsen (Robert Wilhelm B., 1811–1899, German chemist) announced the spectral analysis. The spectroscope, this miraculous instrument, proved that the same materials, which compose our earthly world, also exist in the universe. One recognised this by the facts, which the spectroscope delivered. Then Darwin came with the overabundant wealth of facts that show how the living beings change under the influence of external conditions, dependent on the place where they live. He succeeded in investigating the rests of primeval living beings that are in the layers of our earth. When the paleontological research came along forming a bridge between history and natural sciences, then the significant basics were given for the feeling and thinking of the 19th century. They got their solid, sure support. In particular in Germany, one felt the blessing of such solid, sure support. Just in Germany, one had a great, idealistic-philosophical spiritual worldview that was connected with names like Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel. One had a range of daring, superior mental attempts behind himself. Now one was of the opinion that these attempts would have something subjective-arbitrary, something that everybody can experience or not. What Hegel, what Fichte has thought, they have thought it for themselves; another may find different things. With it, we come — one meant — in a tangle of worldviews. However, this happens only if we leave the firm ground of facts if we omit, for example, to realise how the smallest organism is composed of smallest living beings. For we would ascertain that the thousands who look into the microscope see and describe the same things. Everybody who knows the layers of the earth must describe them in the same way. This is the sure, firm ground of facts. One has not remained to it saying, he who stands on this ground of facts is on the safe side, and we leave all remaining untouched. If one had stopped on the ground of facts, never would have originated creeds, religious problems from it. The true natural sciences that are based on observation with exclusion of the supersensible world will always be on the safe side, even if they confine themselves to the sensory phenomena. They will come to sure facts. However, these facts have worked suggestively, were mesmerising! On these scientific facts, one founded a kind of scientific atheistic or materialistic religion, a kind of creed. Now one could say, with every creed it is possible that the human being is steady and strong in life, the right thing will be found in the course of human evolution, and it does not depend on how the human being stands to the questions of the supersensible world. However, just this idea will appear in the course of these talks that it is not right to think that it is irrelevant how the human being feels and thinks. We shall just prove that feeling and imagining are a real world, and that not only the future of the earth, but of the entire human race depends on the human thinking. We shall see in the course of the winter talks how deep and true this sentence is. Spiritual science does not deal with theoretical bickering but has to work for the human being usefully and in suitable way. Whether the single material body consists of atoms or not, whether the single material organism is composed of single cells or not, whether in the remaining heavenly bodies the same materials are as on earth or not, all that are wholly factual questions. But by the decision of these factual questions one never states something about the destiny of the human soul or mind. If one keeps to establish and describe the facts, and does not cross this border to the soul area, then there can be no conflict between natural sciences and spiritual science. However, one has not just remained to this. One built up theories; one constructed mental pictures with which generally no soul being, no spiritual existence can be combined. We only need to have a look back at some decades of development. Today it is already almost forgotten when in the 19th century the so-called theory of energy and matter appeared. However, it would be good just for someone who stands beyond spiritual science to consider the real reason of the theory of energy and matter. Imagine the picture of the dry theory of energy and matter as it was at that time. It went philosophically out from that which the scientific facts had brought. One had found that the human being consisted of single cells. One had discovered chemical and physical processes and had said, all our bodies would consist of molecules and atoms, and the phenomena would originate from the play and the movement of the atoms round us. Those who are now forty, fifty years old and have the academic education behind themselves remember the time lively when the so-called theory of heat controlled everything. The big discoveries in the field of thermodynamics had assumed such a shape that one imagined any gas consisting of millions smallest parts, molecules and atoms which are in an endless complex movement, knock at each other and rebound and thereby produce the phenomena of heat. What was there heat? Nothing but a result of that which exists outdoors in space as a manifold play of moving and colliding atoms. One said it soberly at that time: what you feel as warmth is nothing but a movement that the smallest parts of the bodies accomplish, and the degree of heat depends on the power of the impacts, on the vehemence of the movements. Thus, nothing was in the outside world for the theory of heat available as the whirling atoms, and what one meant with the word “warmth” was a subjective sensation, an effect on the human organism or on the brain which one also imagined materially. Not only the warmth or heat, everything was imagined as such a movement of the atoms! One must retain this. For: if you come once to the materialistic mental picture, it is like a juggernaut: it devours the spiritual, as well as the molecules and atoms have devoured it. If you take books of that time about the phenomena of light, you can find soberly said: what you call red or blue is only an effect on your nerves, is only in you. Outdoors in the world is no light and no colour, there is only the ether penetrating the whole world, and the peculiar movement of this ether works on you and causes the sensation of colour. Thus, the light is objectively outdoors in the world as a movement of the cosmic ether, and what you feel is nothing, actually. — Briefly, the empty space became the true reality, filled with moving atoms. One assumed that all phenomena arose from this. Somebody who would have expressed himself radically could have said the following: imagine all human brains as not existing, what remains then? Nothing but the empty space, filled with atoms, if you like, with moving atoms of the ether and of the matter having weight. However, any perception, any sensation in you like the sensations of smell, taste, warmth etc. do no longer exist; this is subjective and not objective. People like Büchner (Ludwig B., 1824–1899) and Vogt (Carl V,, 1817–1895) only drew the consequence from this premise in the middle of the 19th century. You find the merits of these men emphasised in my writing World Views and Approaches to Life in the 19th Century because they have had the iron consequence to draw the conclusions of such a view. If nothing else existed outdoors for the phenomena of colour and sound than the moving atoms and molecules, it was quite natural that the thinker said, then nothing else exists in the human being than matter, consisting of moving atoms and molecules. — Vogt had only to draw the unequivocal consequence: thoughts are produced by the movements of the cerebral molecules like other things by liver and kidneys et cetera. — This opinion bred much bad blood and was only a consequence of premises, which others had who only did not go so far. With it, it was connected inevitably that one divided this world of atoms and molecules that one regarded as the absolute in materials, which one could discover. One was of the opinion that the whole matter is only movement and can be divided in atoms and molecules. One considered life also only as a complex movement of atoms in the living bodies. One recognised that single bodies could be taken to pieces, water, for example, to hydrogen and oxygen, sulfuric acid to hydrogen, sulfur and oxygen. — However, there comes a border, where the chemical research cannot accomplish any further decomposition. Where from does this come? This is why simple elements form the basis of our materials. There are about seventy elements; all our materials are composed of them. How does water originate? By the fact that its elements oxygen and hydrogen that, otherwise, are apart side by side, penetrate themselves. The materialists of the 19th century primarily relied on this fact that one assumed a particular number of elements. In every chemical book, you can find them: hydrogen, oxygen, carbon, sulfur, phosphorus, fluorine, chlorine, bromine, iodine and so on. Everything living and lifeless originates from a more or less complex composition of molecules, and one considered the complex of the human soul — all the human feelings, sensations, mental pictures, ideals et cetera in himself — also as nothing else than the result of the cooperation of his compound molecules and atoms. Indeed, single persons like Haeckel said that it is absurd to explain the soul as a mere result of the cooperation of lifeless small atoms. Hence, Haeckel formed the view that the atom already has a soul for itself. He is of the opinion that all these atoms that build up such an organism have a small soul and that many small souls yield the human soul. It is probably the most daring, the most adventurous superstition to speak of such an atomic soul! Here begins a chapter of scientific superstition that flows then into such concepts as cell soul, soul cell and the like. It would lead us too far to pursue this further. We are concerned to characterise the sense and the spirit of natural sciences as they have presented themselves. Nevertheless, we look back at the time when a kind of materialistic creed joined to the physical-scientific suggestion. This has immense spiritual results. He who does not take the matters seriously can easily pass over them. However, it is true that this scientific creed excludes any independence of soul and mind from that, it excludes to speak of mind and soul. For this view, that what the human soul experiences begins with the first activity of the organism and disappears with the decay of it. The human being is nothing else than a built up machine which, during the sixty to eighty years of its existence, produces phenomena like thoughts, sensations and feelings, and if it disintegrates, it is over, because all these phenomena are nothing but the assemblage of molecules. Thus, Vogt and all those thought who have drawn the daring, radical conclusion from the scientific premises. Then another party came in natural sciences. One of it is the famous Du Bois-Reymond (Emil Heinrich D., 1818–1896, German physiologist). He held an important talk in a Leipzig meeting of scientists and physicians in which he brought up something that forms the object of many discussions still today. He said: we are in the natural sciences so far that in us the scientific ideal has developed that, for example, all light phenomena, all colour phenomena and sound phenomena can be led back to the work of atoms and molecules. The rest is appearance; however, these are the realities. Everything that originates comes into being and persists because these atoms combine, collide, and oscillate. If it were possible — Du Bois-Reymond meant — to give the suitable movement and position of the atoms for every phenomenon, then the world would be explained scientifically. However, with this scientific explanation something would not and could not be explained. Du Bois-Reymond also pointed to the teachings of the great German philosopher Leibniz (Gottfried Wilhelm L., 1646–1716) in those days. — Imagine once — Du Bois-Reymond said approximately: you could analyse and describe a human brain in all its movements clearly, and now imagine it enlarged, so that you can go for a walk in it like in the machinery of a factory. Look at the whole: you see enormously complex movements in it, you find complexities in it with which one can compare nothing in the world; but you see movements only. Natural sciences will never be able to explain the transition, which causes that one can say: I smell rose scent. Here is an uncrossable limit of knowledge. One cannot explain how the human nature becomes conscious. Hence, he speaks his “ignorabimus:” we shall never know. — He says, one is never able to cross these limits; the human being will never know how consciousness originates from motion. Du Bois-Reymond did not only put this riddle before the world, but six other. In The Seven World Riddles (1880), you find that he admits not to understand how life originated and how the first distribution of matter came about. He admits that matter must have been distributed from the outset. On the question, where from motion comes, he says: one can never know this! — Du Bois-Reymond counts all that to the seven world riddles, and in Haeckel's book The World Riddles (1895–1899) you can read that this has been written as a kind of reply to DuBois-Reymond's Seven World Riddles . Then he says also, it is true that there are seventy elements that consist of materials, which are quite different in relation to the single elements; but everything originates from the combination of atoms and molecules. — One assumed one thing just as fixed: the immutability of the atoms. What is an atom remains an atom. Büchner emphasised the sentence repeatedly: the motion of the atoms changes, but what is an atom sulfur, an atom oxygen etc. remains an atom sulfur, an atom oxygen. This was announced now as the immutability of the materials in the elements, the eternity of the atoms. In his World Riddles ( The Riddles of the Universe ), Haeckel emphasises nothing stronger than the eternity of the matter. This was one thing that one fixed. The other what Du Bois-Reymond fixed was that limits are put to the natural sciences: one can never know how consciousness comes into being. Based on these premises, different groups formed. One said: howsoever the things may be, we remain at our old religious creed. We let the researchers think what they want to believe, we do believe; but in relation to science we keep to the determined facts. — The other, more courageous ones said: Indeed, if the real is the atoms in motion, the seventy elements and in between the ether atoms, everything else is appearance, which exists only as long as a motion exists. — This is no longer science, this is a creed! This is something that spreads to everything that concerns the spiritual world, which is for such a creed nothing else than a manifestation of the wholly material facts. It was already a courageous venture when on the Lübeck meeting of scientists and physicians, in the end of the eighties, the chemist Wilhelm Ostwald (1853–1932) held a talk The Overcoming of the Scientific Materialism . Ostwald showed that for the logical thinking the concept of matter generally disintegrates into nothing. One can unfold this logical thinking very easily: what do you see in the world? You see bodies! What are these bodies? They are something that is a certain colour, a certain shine, a certain temperature, something that you can smell and taste. Attempt to retain everything that you perceive in such bodies. If you take away what you perceive as smell, as taste, as touch, what remains to you? Nothing at all! A body is before the logical thinking nothing but a conglomerate, the sum of its qualities. What has one taken as a basis of light, of colour? Nothing but movements of the ether! One fulfilled the entire space with ether. He who is known with theoretical physics knows how one calculates ether waves etc. and that everything that one finds there is a result of calculations. The ether can never be an object of immediate observation. If it produces the discernible things, how can one perceive it itself? The ether was the most fantastic idea that one could assume. Thus, the natural sciences are based on something fictional. One had nothing but results of calculations. The absolute and most certain that should be there for the scientific thinking was nothing but something calculated. In my The Philosophy of Freedom , you can read up how this thought cancels out, so that one can compare it to Münchhausen who draws himself out of a swamp with his own shock of hair. This is made clear there. However, on the human beings, and if they believe to be ever so logical, never reasons, never real facts, but suggestions work. There work all possible concepts, which move through thousands and thousands canals into the souls. Thus, the elements and atoms became a natural premise also with those who had no possibility to survey the matters and did not know at all, why one assumes such matters. It was a general suggestion. At this time, one of the biggest progress of the human investigation of nature occurred, namely the investigation of the living as Darwin made it so popular. The infinite wealth of facts that have become known to the world was in such a way that one had to say: if it had occurred at a spiritual time when one knew that spirit forms the basis of all material phenomena, then one would have found countless reasons just in these facts for the work and being of the spirit. One would have found the spirit working on the change and transformation of the organisms. Darwinism never generated materialism. Materialism, which comes from those mental pictures, as I have just characterised them, made Darwinism materialistic. It made such a high-minded thinker and researcher as Ernst Haeckel also materialistic. While Haeckel could have performed great things for spiritual science with his researches, he was tied up with materialism by the suggestive influence of his time. If the matter were in such a way even today, one would not be inclined to talk of spiritual science, and it is still temporarily impossible to convince those who are on the ground of the scientific explanations. One has to let them go their own ways, and the spiritual researcher must also go his ways. If it were in such a way even today as it was at that time, one would have to say: the spiritual science can be content in itself. — However, things have changed. Just those who have participated in everything that is regarded as natural sciences have also witnessed — even if only slowly — the biggest reversal taking place just in the field of scientific thinking. Times will come when one will not be able to understand that one could ever think such a thing as it is popular still today. Probably it may seem as if the natural sciences advance in our present triumphantly with this materialistic worldview, as if one succeeded by well-prepared investigations in generating living from the proteins in the laboratory. Then they would say, we could generate living material of which whole living beings consist, and there are for the naturalist virtually delightful facts, which show that one can treat lifeless substance with certain toxic substances by which effects arise like symptoms of an intoxication. The substances resulting from it look like living crystals: by their forms, they create the impression to be alive, although they are not yet. Thus, one can assume that one comes to the point where from molecules and atoms life and, on the other side, spirit comes into being. On one side, this seems to be the case. On the other side, what is there? Something that works stronger than everything that Ostwald said from the point of view of a scientific logic against materialism. There we see another scientific attitude slowly preparing and becoming necessary. In the middle of the nineties, Becquerel (Henri Antoine B., 1852–1908), the great physicist, discovered certain radiations in certain substances containing uranium. These have particular effects that express themselves making the air electrically conducting or causing a certain change of the photographic plate, as for example the X-rays. You know that one also got around in the last time to finding such rays in connection with the element radium. But as interesting it is that there is something that one has not known once, the entire kind and effect of these rays was so strange, so different from the ideas that one had up to now that many people already became uncertain in their view that the atoms are something everlasting and only combine and separate. We have substances there, which behave quite oddly in the world coherence just like radium and uranium. They emit, in particular radium, but their radiations are almost inexhaustible. All that would harmonise with the old view; but the most important is that one can let emit such a material like radium that one can separate certain parts and can keep back a part. There are, for example, such radiations which make the air electric, and which one can separate then in such a way that one has their effect on the photographic plate. It is in such a way that one can separate the different qualities, so that one has substances that do no longer have the first qualities. A quality is taken away from one substance and the other gets it. In every bookstore, you can buy treatises about that today. However, this is not yet the significant. It is significant that permanently rays separate and go out into the space. Indeed, certain reasons compel us to suppose that these rays run out once. Today, one can already prove that certain substances are diminished in short time, in a time hardly to be expressed, however, that the substances that can go adrift transform themselves strangely enough into quite different substances, so that for a big number of researchers the fact is that radiations of radium transform themselves into helium. We see that radium sends its radiations into the space. According to the old theory what would have to happen there? Nevertheless, at most the atoms go adrift, separate if they are something invariable. However, there we see that they send out radiations perpetually, and now we can assume nothing else than that the atoms disintegrate and split to the smallest particles. Others show clearly that for a big number of substances this atomic decay is possible. Thus, we realise that that which one regarded as the most lasting once, as the absolute — whereas everything else counted only as a result of it — today also disintegrates. This scatters today. Reasonable hope exists that that applies to all atoms. What is the atom in future? It is something that originates and forms. Every atom forms, has a certain lifetime, and dissolves after a certain time again. There you have transformed what is the steadiest for materialism into a being that originates and passes. If one sees that radium goes over into the helium element, one sees that there material changes into material. There one gets the idea that the dream of the old alchemists that materials can be transformed into other materials has reality. In some books, we already find indications that the modern scientific research suggests what the alchemists have dreamt. There are already scientists who have done interesting considerations about certain processes. Once one said, there are copper salts that are joined, for example, of copper and chlorine. If one separates them, one has copper and chlorine again. One sees in it that the atoms lie together, and if one separates them again, it is chlorine and copper. Indeed, something essential occurred to some persons who have started thinking and what the spiritual scientist stresses repeatedly: if you combine the materials that you have separated as copper and chlorine again, then heat must originate. If these two substances combine, heat is spread. The fact that heat appears there is something real and it is as real as copper and chlorine are combined. If one wants to separate both again, one must add heat again. We perceive the warmth. Nobody has ever perceived atoms and molecules. However, do we not recognise what is in the phenomenon? If you bring together copper and chlorine, this is, as if you squeezed out the heat, as it were, like flour from the flour bags. If one wants to have the flour bags full again, one must just put flour again into them. Thus, the heat would be the filling. — With it, we have attributed reality to the heat and have made clear that one has to count not only on molecular effects, but that these materials themselves are possible only because of this heat. If now we consider that the atoms disintegrate under our hands, we must ask ourselves, do these natural sciences lead on their crossroads — where the atoms scatter, the most certain up to now — to the recognition of that which they once regarded as external expression, as an appearance? The natural sciences lead to this view today! Today, the entire atomic theory falters that has been the base of the natural sciences long time. Today, the facts are in such a way that the theories that are not based on facts must fall. Atoms and molecules are nothing factual, but something fictional. If this falls because it itself is an effect, we must ask, of what is it an effect? At first, people will attempt to come again to something else that forms the basis. Today, they are just speaking of liquid electricity. Very nice is what Balfour (Arthur James B., 1848–1930, British Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary) said: if we imagine atoms, we can only say, something like a fluid flows through the world, and the atoms are in it like ice lumps in the water. — This is a nice picture. However, whereto does it lead? Try once to continue it. It leads to that point where the natural sciences get around to recognising as the actually real what they have denied once what was only an appearance for them. This was a weird belief that colours exists only in my head that outdoors only small particles exist that knock and press each other and thereby produce the sensations of light, colour and sound. These mental pictures will soon have to disappear due to the power of the facts. It will become obvious that what we see and hear is real, and that it was a great speculative fiction to think a material world behind this world. This material world will scatter and disintegrate. On will appreciate what is behind it. Then that will have to move up which one experiences and can experience. Then one will recognise that the atom can be nothing else than frozen electricity, frozen heat, frozen light. Then one has still to advance so that one has to realise that everything consists of compressed spirit. There is no matter! What is matter relates to the spirit as ice relates to the water. If you dissolve the ice, there is water. If you dissolve matter, it disappears as matter and becomes spirit. Everything that is matter is spirit, matter is the external manifestation of the spirit. It will still last long, until one has to draw the last consequence that not the eye has formed the light, but the light the eye, and the tones that we hear the ear. Then one will realise that any matter is born out of the spirit, and one will lead the true scientific facts, without logical interruption, back to spiritual science. The scientific facts will be the best basis of spiritual science. He who stands on the spiritual-scientific point of view looks admiring at the natural sciences on the crossroads. The suggestions have them tempted to believe that matter is the only one. They have not been content to examine the material world, but they have added a second world. This was the tragedy, the impossible. The spiritual researcher recognises the existent natural world completely. The spiritual scientist can never adopt a fictional and dreamt up world of invariable atoms and oscillations of the fictional ether, this fantastic world of materialism. He rejects them as superstition. Superstition was the belief in material atoms behind our perception. One said, every atom could be perceived if one has the instruments. — Nothing is behind that what we perceive but only the spirit and the spiritual world into which we penetrate! We search this behind the phenomena. We search no world of atoms surging up and down, but the world of the spirit in the world of the sensuous phenomena. On the wrong track is somebody who believes to find another material world behind the external phenomena. Those who build even today on it like on facts have to be corrected. The time will come when this fantastic superstition is recognised as such and when a lot of that which one regards from this side as superstition turns out to be right. The right basic principle of natural sciences, stopping on the ground of the facts, leads them even to the crossroads where it becomes obvious whether the facts agree with the theories. The facts do not agree with them, the theories scatter like nothing! The element and the atoms disintegrate that one had regarded as the steadiest basis from which one wanted to explain the spirit and the consciousness. What we want is certainty, and we can get it only by the fact that we perceive the spirit in ourselves. Thus, the natural sciences will discharge into the spiritual science. Today, they stand in the crossroads. Some people do not yet recognise it, others can realise it. The time will come when a wonderful harmony exists between the knowledge of scientific facts and the assertions of spiritual science. It will never assert something that contradicts the scientific facts. Spiritual science also admires the works of the spirit in materialism; but it establishes no cloud-cuckoo-land. Spiritual science wants to understand the world to work in it. About hundred years ago, one had natural sciences in Germany, which sailed under full canvas into the materialism of the 19th century, natural sciences that started recognising nothing else than what one can see with eyes and touch with hands. The result was that also that which was thought out became something material, something concrete. The great philosophies that moved in expressions and concepts, which were not everybody's taste, were pushed aside. However, the people who condemn Hegel and Schelling understand as a rule nothing at all of these spirits who looked so deeply into the world, as none of those suggest who believe to be way beyond them. However, they moved in strongly sublimated concepts. Goethe stood between these two parties right in the middle of them. Hence, he could anticipate how the natural sciences would sail into materialism and, on the other side, he found opportunity to penetrate to the problems and to build the connecting bridge between religion and natural sciences. Therefore, he could say so nicely that once the time would come when philosophy and natural sciences unite. However, he added, for a while they must still go separate ways. — They have gone separate ways, without understanding each other. Today, we also have two currents, materialism that has outlived itself that sees its steadiest, most absolute basis disintegrating by its own methods, that destroys itself, and a philosophy that discharges into theosophy or spiritual science. It is not the abstract-spiritual, but the concrete-spiritual that tries to bring forward facts of the higher world to humanity that will no longer be there as abstract, but as concrete spiritual science. We shall experience in not too distant time that a nice alliance between the scientific view and the spiritual-scientific one. We shall realise how the scientific facts are useful for the spiritual view and the spiritual view is useful to the natural sciences. Therefore, the bridge is built. The human mind can prosper only if its ways of activity harmonise with each other. The mind would have to become crippled if the natural sciences remained without spiritual science and spiritual science would have to be content with the thought: nevertheless, you cannot take over the natural sciences to the spiritual. — However, the course of the world development will bring peace. It will build the bridge between faith and knowledge. It will bring an infinite progress and harmony between faith and knowledge. How many people long for external peace, for outer harmony and outer happiness of the human beings! Nevertheless, everything outer is appearance of the inside and the outer human life can be only a result of the inner one. A happy outer human life originates if there are hopeful souls. They will know how to found the right social peace, and from the inner peace, the outer peace will come. Therefore, it seems to be not without meaning to look at these natural sciences in the crossroads and to show how the one reaches a dead end, the other, however, leads quite clearly to the areas, which are also those of spiritual science. Thus, they will co-operate from now on and the world edifice will be enriched from two sides. It will be a great, perfect harmony, and this will be in the human being the inner harmony of the soul that is the last purpose of spiritual science.

Natural Science Facing a Crucial Decision

https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA056/English/eLib2015/19071017p01.html

Berlin

17 Oct 1907

GA056-2

The whole cycle of these talks is dedicated to the knowledge of spirit, and if one wants to speak about the knowledge of spirit and soul, this happens, because we can come to an understanding with each other about the concept of the spirit relating it to the concept of the soul. Since for those who deal with spiritual science it is especially annoying that one mixes up the concepts “soul” and “spirit” considering the human being. You all probably know that we have a so-called psychology or soul science that is today conducted to a relatively high degree just like in school. In the schedules of lectures at the universities, you find lectures on psychology that is literally the doctrine of the soul. One has to note that with all people who talk of psychology or soul science in such a way no distinct consciousness exists of the fact that one has to speak of soul and mind with the human being. One summarises the human inner life — thinking, feeling, and willing — under the concept of the soul. Soul is almost considered as the contrast to the bodily and physical, and one says — if one deigns generally to such a thing, if one is not completely addicted to the materialistic way of thinking — the human being consists of body and soul. At first, we want to regard those opinions only that have the point of view that the soul is a real being. If one says that the human being consists of body and soul, one is mostly not aware of the fact that one falls a victim to dogmatics that relatively late, in the course of the Christian development originated. Even the older Christianity that has still gone out from the teachings of wisdom distinguished, as all teachings of wisdom of the different times and people did, body, soul and mind of the human being. Only later decisions of Councils have abolished, so to speak, the mind, and only since the (fourth) Council of Constantinople (869/870), one speaks of body and soul. The modern scholarship which deals with such a thing which thinks not materialistically believes to stand on the ground of absolutely free research and has no idea that it has taken up this later Christian concept of the soul, which refrains from the mind, as a prejudice, as a preconceived opinion. This applies to many concepts generally which play a role in our scholarship and are accepted as if they were results of research, while they signify only an ancient prejudice. We will now have a look at the general psychology in the most different directions. However, I do not criticise here, but only characterise. Psychology has suffered — we are allowed to state this — mostly and most thoroughly from the materialistic attitude and way of thinking. Not only the outer science of the sensory phenomena has lost the concept of mind gradually, but also psychology has even lost the concept of soul, that is its own object. The cultural life went through an interesting development there. A daring researcher and thinker who performed many quite extraordinary things in some fields had the courage to pronounce what is, so to speak, only a basic attitude and basic sensation within the modern psychology with others. This daring thinker was Friedrich Albert Lange (1828–1875, German philosopher). You can buy cheap his History of Materialism (1866) from Reclam's Universal Library. It is an excellent book because just someone who studies it thoroughly must come to the conviction — I have explained it in the last talk — that materialism as a worldview is to be compared to a man who draws himself upwards with his own shock of hair. This Friedrich Albert Lange has pronounced in relation to psychology something that can be summarised in three words: “psychology without soul.” This is from Friedrich Albert Lange. Other researchers did not dare to pronounce this consequence; but they act and do psychological research in such a way, as if a concept of the soul did not concern them. Also today, you find all kinds of concepts about the soul in the most famous works of the academic psychology. However, if you want to get to know something about the soul, you ask for advice in vain, because this psychology has lost — this should be no criticism, but only a characteristic — the concept of the soul completely even if this is not always pronounced. Whether you ask advice from Wundt (Wilhelm W., 1832–1920, German physiologist, psychologist, philosopher) or another about those questions in which the human beings are interested concerning the soul life, you nowhere get information. You find all kinds of questions answered about the way in which the human being perceives objects in his surroundings. You also find all kinds of speculations about the relation of perception to consciousness. For example, one asks, how long does it last, until the human being becomes aware of it, after he has received a stimulus? You find questions about attention, questions in which way the human being judges in which way he compares the things with each other, how he remembers and so on. However, who could deny that the impartially feeling soul — in the usual sense — if it asks for its own being has in mind above all: what is the nature of my soul? Does it share the fate of the physical to disintegrate and to end if death occurs? Does it only take share in the life of the sensuous surroundings or does it take share in a far higher one, in an extrasensory life that does not wear out itself in the physical world? You will search these questions in vain, which are vital matters for the human being in the modern psychology even as questions. Everything in the human life points to them; but if the real nature of the soul is considered, one says, this goes beyond the limits of human knowledge. If you have a little bit patience and have a look at such psychology, you become aware of the fact that it applies quite the same methods of research as the natural sciences. If one applies these methods, just nothing else can result than what faces us in this psychological literature. More than in any other field it concerns in the soul research who does these researches. Where one thinks materialistically, one has come more and more to the conviction that the research results can be only of the kind that they face everybody from the outside. Who does understand the sense of the nice Goethean saying completely and thoroughly still today? Unless the eye were like the sun, How could we see the light? Unless God's own strength were in us, How could delight us the divine? Nothing faces us in the outside world if we are not related to the concerning thing or being or to the concerning force in the outside world if we do not carry something related in ourselves. Thus, only someone can investigate the soul who searches something beyond his self that he has experienced in himself. Not everybody — this must be stressed in particular in relation to psychology — can be a psychologist; for the human being notices only so much of the secrets of the other souls as he has experienced in himself. Spiritual science deals with the spirit as such, as we said at the beginning. All the talks are dedicated to the consideration of the spirit. Howsoever the titles are called in detail, the spirit has to be searched everywhere. As it arises already from the talk, which I have held two weeks ago here, spiritual science has to show that behind everything that faces us the spirit lives and works. What is matter to spiritual science? It is only another form of the spirit. If spiritual science speaks of matter, material, and body, it speaks of it in such a way as it speaks of ice and water. Ice is water in another form. Now, however, somebody could come and say, then spiritual science denies the matter and corporeality if it asserts that everything is spirit — and then there is no matter for spiritual science. Spiritual science stands on this weird point of view by no means. We remain with our comparison of ice and water. What come into consideration for life are not empty words, not empty definitions, but effects that you meet in life. Even if one says, ice is water in another form — and one is right with it completely-, are, nevertheless, the effects of the water different from those of ice as everybody can perceive if he puts a piece of ice on his hand instead of pouring water on it. Someone who wanted to deny that ice is water in another form would make a fool of himself. Thus, spiritual science does not dream of denying the matter. It exists; it is only spirit in another form. In which form? In the form, that one can observe it from the outside by the senses. These are the essentials of matter. This talk links to the talk eight days ago where we could show how any materialistic view disintegrates into nothing before the progress of the natural sciences as the fantastic concept of the matter dissolves in smoke and fog due to the new researches. Concepts like ether, matter scatter today in light of the other researches. What remains to us of that which approaches us in the outside world? What we see and hear, tone, colour, warmth et cetera: what we perceive. We should soar the view that behind the warmth, behind the tone, behind the light nothing is of this terribly crude whirl of atoms that was the only real during the long time of materialism. Real is in this sense what we see what we hear what we feel as warmth. If we look behind the colour, behind the tone, behind the warmth, as we feel it, what do we find behind them? We find behind them if we take the tone, as long as it remains in the sensuous world, moved air. However, we are not allowed to go behind the sensuous world with our speculations. We have to stop in the sensory world. Someone pronounced something most important whom the scholars did not take seriously, who was not only a poet but also a great thinker: “Never search anything behind the phenomena; they themselves are the teachings.” If we go behind the tone, behind the light, we do not find material atoms that dive into our retina, which impregnate it and create the mental picture of the colour and the light. If we really look behind, what do we find there? — Spirit! Colour relates to the spirit like ice to water. Tone relates to the spirit like ice to water. Instead of that fantastic world of whirling atoms the true thinker and spiritual researcher finds spirit, spiritual reality behind that what he sees and hears, so that the question of the nature of matter loses all sense. For how does the question of the nature of matter answer itself for the spiritual researcher? What surrounds us outdoors in the world and appears to us as matter? It is spirit! We know the spirit! We must visit its nature in ourselves. What we are in our innermost being, these are all things outdoors in the world, only in other forms. They are it in such form that one can look at them from the outside if the spirit gives itself a surface. Let me pronounce something that every scientist regards as madness: if the spirit goes outwardly, he appears as colour, tone. Nothing else is colour and tone than spirit; it is completely the same what we find in ourselves if we properly understand each other. Thus, every mineral is spirit to us in spiritual science. The true being of the lowest member of the human being, the physical body, is spirit for us in the form in which it exists just also in the apparently lifeless nature. In what way does the human spirit differ from the spirit that faces us outdoors as mineral and plant, as mountain, as thunder and flash, as trees and bodies of water et cetera? By the fact that this spirit in the narrower sense appears as mind in its very own figure, in the figure that is due to itself as mind. What one normally calls nature, indeed, is spirit, but spirit, which turns its outside to the senses, and what one calls spirit or mind in the narrower sense, is exactly the same. According to its form, nature is what turns to the core of our being. If we search the spirit outdoors in nature, we find it lifeless in the minerals, animated in the plants and feeling in the animals. The human being combines this triple figure of the spirit in himself in three members of his being, as we know them from the point of view of spiritual science. Thereby only, you come to a real knowledge of the human being that you look at his complex nature and are not content with the abstract differentiation between body and soul, but ask yourselves, how is the human being built up? At first spiritual science distinguishes the physical body of the human being that he has in common as materials and forces with the entire so-called lifeless nature. In the physical body of the human being are the same materials and forces that we find outdoors in the mineral world. However, he has a second member, which we call etheric body or life body. If we speak of ether, it has nothing to do with the fantastic ether that has played a role in science so long and that one will dethrone in the next time. In relation to the etheric body, we cannot get involved in the methods of the higher beholding. However, we understand the etheric body best of all saying: if we take a plant, an animal, the human being, the physical body has the same materials and forces, but in an endlessly complex mixture and variety, so that these materials cannot form the physical body by themselves. No plant body can be what it is by the physical forces, no animal body, and no human body. There is the complication, the variety of the mixture that would make the body destroy if it were left to its own physical and chemical forces. At every moment of life, its so-called etheric body or life body works against the decay of the physical body. A permanent struggle takes place in it. At the moment of death when the etheric body or life body separates from the physical body, the materials and forces of the physical body follow their own principles. Hence, spiritual science says, the physical body is physically and chemically an impossible mixture, it cannot survive. The etheric body is that which struggles against the decay of the physical body permanently. The third member of the human being is that which we have often called the bearer of desire and pain, of joy and grief, of instincts and passions. If the life starts becoming internal, then we start in spiritual science speaking of an astral body. This is the third member of the human being and of the animal. Today one has such an unclear concept of that what constitutes the single being that certain researchers cannot make a distinction between an animal and a plant. Of course, there are transitions; but they do not interest us here. You can read in the popular works that are otherwise very meritorious that the plant shows the same manifestations as an animal or a human being, and one talks there about a “plant soul” in the usual sense. One confuses the animal soul and the human soul with simple manifestations of life in the plant. When do we speak of an animal or human soul or of an astral body? If to the outer appearance inner life, inner experience is added. It depends on the inside. If you see a plant, if you touch it, and it contracts its leaves, a stimulus is exercised on the plant, and this shows a certain response to this stimulus. Calling this answer a soul manifestation is the most unbelievable dilettantism. One is not allowed to speak already of soul or astral body if any counter-effect takes place; otherwise, you must also attribute a soul to the litmus paper if it turns red in the acid. It does not depend on any outer reaction, but on the fact, whether anything happens inside of such a being. If you push a being and it shows a change of form or, otherwise, any outer reaction, you may call that a manifestation of life. However, talking of sensation or soul in this case means to turn all concepts upside down. One can speak of soul or astral body only if to that what goes forward outside a new event, a new fact is added inside if because of a push or pressure pain or because of another stimulus joy is experienced. The outer manifestations do not make a being a soul being, but the processes which it experiences in its inside. Only where sensation starts where life itself is transformed internally into joy and sorrow where any object outdoors not only exercises an attraction on any being, but where inside of the being an experience appears in relation to the outer object, only there we can speak of soul or astral body. If a plant twines spirally round a rod, an effect responds to the stimulus, it is a manifestation of life. Even if it seems with some plants that — if you bring a finger in their nearness — it follows the finger and not the rod, you are not concerned with an inner process. It can be talk of such a thing only if a desire inside of the being exists and it follows the stimulus because of this influence. He who does not distinguish these matters strictly is incapable to rise to the concept of the soul, the astral body. The human being has this in common with the animals, however, not with the plants. Then we have, as often mentioned, the fourth member by which the human being experiences something in himself that makes him the crown of the earth creation, that what we call “I” or ego. It is an exceptionally important matter for any knowledge to recognise this ego in its nature. In former talks, I have drawn your attention to the fact that there is in our entire language only one word, one name that differs from all other names. You can call any other object with its name, the clock, the table, the notebook. You cannot call that in such a way that is the “I” with its name. Try to say “I” to another being! You can say I only to yourselves. Any being is “you” for the other, and for any being is the other “you.” Should the name I be pronounced, this name must sound from the core of the being. The religions that were based on spiritual science felt this too, and, therefore, said correctly: here the divinity speaks the first tone, the first word in the human soul in its very own figure, and thus the expression for the ego was something holy for them. They called it the ineffable name of God. What the Hebrew religious doctrine called with the expression Yahveh is nothing else than for the ego which calls itself. This is the fourth member of the human being. Considering this four-membered being — physical body, etheric body, astral body and ego — we have to say: with these four members, which no other being has on earth than the human being, everybody faces us, the uneducated savage and the high developed human being. In what way do the individual human beings differ on earth, if they all have four members? This is because the one has worked more, the other less on his three members from his ego. If we compare the savage who follows any desire, any passion with a high-minded moralist who has pure holy moral concepts and follows these who only accepts that of his desires and passions to which the mind is able to say “yes.” In which way do both differ? By the fact that the high-minded man worked on his astral body from his ego. The uneducated savage has worked less on his astral body; he has it still in such a form as he has received it from nature, from the divine powers. The high-minded moralist and idealist has transformed and purified it. An astral body consists of two parts; of one part that the human being has got without his co-operation, and the other part that is the work of his ego. Human beings who stand on such a height as for example Francis of Assisi have brought the whole astral body under the control of the ego, so that nothing happens in their astral body that the ego does not control. How does such a human being differ from the savage? In the savage, everything happens without the ego; in the high-minded human being, everything happens by what he has done from his astral body. As much as the ego has transformed the astral body, as much spirit self or manas exists in the human being. We have five members of the human being now: physical body, etheric body, astral body, ego and spirit self. Then we have the possibility to transform, to purify and to improve not only our astral body, not only the sum of our desires and instincts but we have also the bigger ability to transform our etheric body. In the usual life, the human beings work in the spiritual development on improving their astral bodies gradually, already with the usual impulses of life, the moral concepts, the intellectual mental pictures. Everything that we learn transforms the astral body. If we want to imagine the contrast of the transformation of the astral body and the transformation of the etheric body by the ego, we must remember how we were as eight-year-old children. Then we did not know many a thing that we know today. We have learnt a lot. With the sensations which we have taken up in such a way the astral body has transformed itself, it has incorporated the spirit self or manas. However, everything that constituted our temperament, our inclinations etc. when we were eight years old have not transformed themselves in the same way. If you were a hot-tempered contrary child at the age of eight years, you are probably hot-tempered or contrary sometimes even today. The change of the temperament and the inclinations advances much slower. One can compare the progress of the astral body to the advance of the minute hand and the progress of the etheric body to the advance of the hour hand. However, the inclinations change only if the etheric body changes, and stronger impulses are necessary than for the change of the astral body. The human being who stands in spiritual science has such strong impulses and can already have them if he exposes himself to the impression of a piece of art, behind which he realises the infinite sense, we say of Wagner's Parsifal or of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony . These impulses not only have effects on the astral body, but they are so strong that the etheric body is purified and transformed. The same applies standing before a picture of Raphael or Michelangelo, and an impulse of the everlasting penetrates us due to the colours. However, the strongest impulses are the religious ones. They have transformed the human being so strongly that they have seized their etheric bodies, so that the human beings bear two parts of their etheric bodies in themselves, the untransformed one, received from nature, and the transformed one. One calls the transformed part life spirit or buddhi. If that approaches the human being which we get to know in the talk on the initiation, it becomes more prominent what transforms the etheric body. The initiation consists in giving the means to the human being to transform the etheric body more and more. Hence, it also applies to the student of occultism that any intellectual learning, everything that he can take up just like in school is only a preparation. More important than any intellectual taking up is for that who submits himself to a spiritual-scientific training to transform only one single inclination consciously into another, and if it is only a movement of the hand. Transforming such a thing has more value than any acquired theoretical knowledge. The initiation consists in the impulses that purify the human etheric body. Then these impulses go on purifying the physical body, and this is the highest that the human being can attain in this life. One could say that the physical body is the lowest; if the human being works on the physical body, is this something particular. — Just because the physical body is the lowest member, one has to apply the strongest forces to transform it into its original form, into the form of the pure spirit. The purification of this physical body begins with certain methods to adjust the respiratory process. Therefore, one calls the part that is converted atman or the spirit man; atman means breathing ( German atmen). When the body is transformed — which keeps being as before — the spiritual-scientific training takes place on the highest level. Then the human being attains not only the ability to live consciously in his physical body, to know any blood corpuscle, any nerve he also attains the ability to work on the big nature, to become a human being having an effect on the forces of the universe from a human being that was enclosed in his skin before. Thus, the human being changes into that stage by which he becomes one with the universe. Any other talk of becoming one with the universe that does not happen on the way of proper training and development is gossip and phrase. The human being thereby becomes one with the universe transforming his astral body first, then the etheric body and, finally, the physical body. He becomes one with the entire universe, as the small finger is one with the physical body. This is a quite regular course of the human development which many human beings have gone through, which we all experience already to a certain degree, and which all human beings experience in the future. What happens there, actually? Let us visualise it: what is the astral body? It is nothing else than the sum of desires, drives and passions, of joy, sorrow, and pain. Everything that co-operates there in the human being is a phenomenon of the spirit, spirit in any form, because everything is spirit. In what way is it possible that the ego works on the astral body? It is possible because the spirit discloses itself to the ego in its very own figure. In the passions, drives and desires the spirit is hidden, there it appears in its phenomena. It flows into the ego in its very own figure, and the ego lets flow it again into the astral body, so that the ego mediates between the very own figure of the spirit and its manifestations. The same applies to the etheric body and, finally, also to the physical body, and thus a perpetual spiritualisation takes place during the transformation of the three human bodies or members. As true it is that any mineral is spirit — but spirit in its outer effect-, as true it is that the human being is on the way to spiritualisation by that which his ego pours into the lower being. Only because the ego is between these manifestations of the spirit, his physical, etheric and astral bodies, and the members of the spirit, which illumine the three bodies, this transition of the spirit into the three bodies is possible. The ego has to be in between. Then the upper can work on the lower. In what way did we get to know the nature of the ego? We got to know it already in its name. The name of the ego can never sound from the outside to our ear if it means us. With it, one says more than with all phrases that you read in the books of the usual psychology. If one understood substantially what the ego is because this name can never come from the outside to us, then one would have performed more than any academic psychology. The philosopher Fichte already said: the human being as an ego is the nicest. However, most people would prefer to regard themselves as a piece of lava in the moon than as an ego because they need own energy to look at it. We shall see in the talk on the animal soul that the animal also has an ego, but not in the physical world. The human being thereby differs from the animal that he has his ego in the physical world. The ego is something that lets the spirit flow from the inside into another form of spirit, into the different matters, even into the soul, into the astral body. Hence, we can call the being of the ego almost an internalisation. This internalisation is only prepared with the animal. Because we will still speak of the animal soul, I only suggest this today. One must not forget that also the animal has an ego, but not the single animal, but the animal species. All lions together, all tigers together have an ego, and this ego is in the supersensible world. It is in such a way, as if from an animal, which belongs to a species, invisible ropes or threads run to the common group soul in the supersensible world. Such a group soul has become the individual human soul. Any individual human being has what an entire animal group has. Hence, the internalisation only prepares itself with the animal. We realise it if we study the so-called animal soul, the astral body. The real internalisation of this soul, the first irradiating of the spirit is possible in our world where the ego exists as an individual soul. The soul that has the ego in itself is thereby able to let the spirit flow into the matter. Thus, we see how mind and body or also spirit and matter are two beings; however, one being is the same as the other, only in another form. Matter and body are spirit in other form. They are different from each other in the world generally as ice and water. They are different, even though they are the same. In the middle, the soul exists. It connects mind and body. Hence, we understand the human being only if we understand him in this tripartite composition, consisting of the physical, etheric and astral bodies and consisting of nascent spirit: manas, buddhi, and atman or spirit self, life spirit and spirit man. The soul is the being that transforms one into the other that participates in the body and in the mind. We can understand the soul in the right light only if we see it working from the mind on the body. If we study it from this viewpoint, spiritual science answers just those questions that the human being must put to the real soul being. We realise that the human soul is positioned between body and mind at every moment. With the savage, the soul is only able to take up a droplet of the spirit in his body. Hunger and thirst, the manifestations of the etheric body, almost animal instincts, and desires still completely influence him. The soul of the sophisticated idealist, as for example of Schiller or Francis of Assisi, tends to the spirit, attains a higher consciousness, and frees himself from the material existence. Spiritual science shows that there is transformation of forms what we call matter. That often will meet us in the winter talks but nobody can expect that he can absorb all concepts of spiritual science in one talk. If we look at the world round ourselves from this spiritual-scientific viewpoint, it appears in a continual transformation as also nature appears in a continual transformation. We see the flower arising from the seminal grain in the spring. In autumn, we see it wilting, but the being is preserved in the seminal grain to arise again. Thus, spiritual science also shows how the spirit builds up the body, and how the being of this spirit is preserved as a spiritual seed when the body disintegrates. It appears again and again. We can transform ice into water and water into ice. Similarly, spirit also changes into body. The body disintegrates, but the spirit remains and appears in always-new forms. There we are led to the principle of transformation in the human life. The human being lives here in the physical, etheric and astral bodies. However, he still has a second life that existed before this life and will be after this life. There he lives, as well as he lives here in these three bodies, in the spiritual world. From there he brings the forces that build up his bodies, which give him that form which he has, even if the life in spirit is different. We get to know this if we understand spiritual science in the right way. It becomes apparent that the human being leads a life by turns: a life in the body between birth and death and a life in the spiritual between death and a new birth, until he prepares himself for a new incarnation. What lives here in the body and there in spirit and changes between the life in the body and the life in spirit is the soul. However, every time when it has gone through an incarnation, the human being has worked on his body and comes back to the spirit land as a soul enriched with the fruits of the earth-life. The soul keeps on developing higher and higher. Hence, it is also the mediator between spirit and body. Thus, we are led to the border which shows us — considering mind, soul and body correctly — how the relation of the three human parts is to each other. We get to know everything that disintegrates that scatters as a transformation of that which constitutes the innermost being of the soul as we recognise everything temporal as a form of the everlasting. Spiritual science leads to a science, which really the questions of the temporal and of the everlasting answers and of the human destiny after death. The human heart has these questions generally if it wants to know something about such a science. A science that sets limits to itself cannot see the most important. Hence, our academic psychology is limited. In a certain sense, it is important to learn what it offers. Spiritual science does not disdain it, but it finds it insufficient, as long as one does not go into the being of the spirit and the soul. This is the right way to the knowledge of the spirit and the soul: the soul is connected with its bodies in the temporal life, it is involved in these bodies, and that which attracts it to these bodies is that part which is an obstacle for the pure, purified life in spirit between death and a new birth. There we learn to understand gradually where the obstacles of the soul are for the new birth. We also learn to understand that the soul must free itself completely not only from the body — by death — but from the longing for the body. By the right concepts of mind, soul, and body, we also come to the destiny of the soul during its bodily and spiritual pilgrimage. I have today tried to show how one gets correct concepts of the soul and spirit using the ordinary human mind. I did it without taking into account what one can attain by the methods of clairvoyance and initiation. I speak about them in the next talks. We must hold on this: what faced us in the course of this winter will be results of the spiritual research. One can only discover them with the methods as I gave them in the talks on initiation et cetera. However, one can understand them by the ordinary logic and thorough thinking. Someone who says, what does the spiritual science concern me, because I am no clairvoyant? He turns away from the spiritual science not because of lack of clairvoyance, but, because he does not apply his thinking thoroughly and extensively enough to it. Just psychology has suffered a lot in our time of materialism — which some people regard as finished and is also dismissed in philosophy, but flourishes just in the way of thinking of psychology. Today the concepts of soul and spirit have suffered mostly from this materialism. Spiritual science has the mission to bring pure, purified concepts of the soul and the spirit again to humanity. Thereby it will be the best servant of the high religious traditions that distinguish between the human mind and the world enclosing spirit that the religious traditions call the Holy Spirit. We understand these scriptures as means of understanding only if we comprehend them deeply enough and consider everything in great enclosing pictures which are the expression of facts. We spiritual scientists still know many things that humanity knows in future and only anticipated due to its most significant spirits in former times. Many strange feelings go through the human soul, if it immerses itself in the spiritual activities. Some people say to the spiritual scientist: you give us something for the mind, but nothing for the soul; we search soul and you give us spiritual achievements. They do not know that they reject just that which gives the soul what they require. They covet the will impulses of the soul. However, the soul can be only happy if it lets the spirit flow in itself and develops the bodies from the spirit. What faces us from the outside is formed spirit, and what shapes the matter flows from the spiritual world down. What the eye sees in the figure as colour is, so to speak, compressed spirit, and the force that causes the figure in the matter comes from the everlasting. Thus, someone who does not have the clearness of spiritual-scientific concepts but feels and anticipates the surrounding world says. everything appears to me as shaped by the spiritual world. The figure appears to me as the holy that flashes in the mere matter, and if I see the figure, it seems to immerse itself in the matter and to withdraw again from the matter. The poet anticipated this of spiritual science when he put up the contrast between the body, the human soul, and the spirit that both work creatively in the body. Schiller (Friedrich Sch., 1759–1805, German poet) anticipated how the soul lets the spirit flow in the matter in reality whereby the matter disappears to the view. Considering this, he let the sensation flow out in the nice words: Only the body appertains to those powers that braid the dark destiny. However, far from any temporal power, the playmate of blessed spirits walks aloft in the acres of light, divine among divinities: the shape.

The Knowledge of Soul and Spirit

https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA056/English/eLib2015/19071024p01.html

Berlin

24 Oct 1907

GA056-3

In this Lecture, Rudolf Steiner reminds us to look beyond immediately sense-perceptible definitions of man and woman to the levels of polarity which are at work within these outer “garments,” to look behind our male and female physical bodies for the interacting of masculine and feminine elements within the whole human being. Lecture 11 of 15 from the lecture series: Perception of the Soul and of the Spirit . Published in German as: Die Erkenntnis der Seele und des Geistes . Published in The Anthroposophical Review, Vol. 2 No. 1 (1980). GA# 56. Translated by Bernard Jarman Anthroposophical science does not exist in order that human beings be estranged from life through some kind of mysticism. It should in no way divert people from their tasks in daily life or the present. On the contrary, spiritual science should bring strength, energy and open mindedness to humanity so that people can meet what daily life and our times demand. Hence it follows that spiritual science must not concern itself solely with the great riddles of existence, of the nature of human existence and the meaning of the world, but must also seek to cast light on those questions which confront us directly. Therefore in these lectures we shall deal throughout with what are commonly called questions of our time. But whoever would speak out of spiritual science on such contemporary issues finds himself in a special position, for he raises the expectation that he will directly enter these current debates. And this expectation arises very easily with the questions of man and woman, or man, woman and child. Yet precisely because the spiritual researcher must consider these questions from a higher vantage point, his observations seem to lead away from the outlook and opinions arising in conventional discussions. Although spiritual science must indeed look at these questions from a higher perspective, it is precisely spiritual science which is able to work most practically on these issues. For while it is of the nature of spiritual scientific observation that such questions are raised into their eternal context, at the same time such observation makes visible practical solutions to concrete problems (unlike party programmes, slogans and the like which prove to be unworkable in practice). This must always be remembered when considering the relationship of man and woman from a higher vantage point. Many of the things to be said will sound quite strange. But if you penetrate deeper into them you will discover that spiritual science can offer a far more thorough answer to questions of practical life than can be found in other quarters. Spiritual science takes its start from the knowledge that behind all that is sense perceptible stands a soul-spiritual nature. Only when we turn our gaze towards the spiritual lying behind the sense world, will the questions with which we wish to concern ourselves appear in their right light. And so we must ask ourselves: What is the spiritual nature of the two sexes? We shall then see that the truths revealed by spiritual science are already sensed by many today, even by those of a materialistic world outlook. But as these inklings are only based on a materialistic conception they often appear as illusory. What then does materialism have to say about the nature of the sexes? We may best orientate ourselves towards this question by considering that women have for some time sought to approach the time in human evolution when both sexes shall attain full equality. In so far as women have stepped into the struggle for their rights, it is important for us to learn what materialism has to say about female nature. Then we will find a point of reference on how the modern world thinks about this question. One could quote the most varying ideas on female nature such as they appear in the book A Survey of the Woman Problem ( Zur Kritik der Weiblichkeit ) by Rosa Mayreder. It is indeed very good to seek the opinions of leading personalities of the day on issues of this kind. A very noteworthy scientist of the nineteenth century described the basic quality of woman to be humility. Another whose comment is equally valid declared it to be an angry disposition. Another scientist who sparked off much controversy came to the conclusion that female nature is basically submissive, while yet another felt it consisted of the desire to dominate. One described women as conservative, still another felt women to be the true revolutionary element in the world. And yet another said that the ability to analyse was well developed in women, as opposed to others who believed that women lack this quality entirely and have only developed the capacity for synthesis. This quaint collection could be extended indefinitely, though in the end one would only learn that through looking at things on a purely external level, intelligent people are led to opposite conclusions. Those who wish to enter into the thing more deeply must ask whether perhaps these observers are starting from false premises. One cannot merely look at externalities, rather one must consider the whole being of the human being. An inkling of the truth dawned in many researchers through the facts themselves. However this was submerged by materialistic thought. For example a young man, Otto Weininger, wrote a book entitled Sex and Character . Otto Weininger was a man with great potential which, however, he was unable to develop because the full weight of materialism rested heavily on his soul. He was of the opinion that the individual human being can be seen neither as entirely masculine nor feminine but rather that the masculine is mixed together with the feminine and vice versa. This embryo of an idea dawned in the soul of Weininger but was stultified by the prevailing materialism. Thus Weininger imagined there to be a mixing and material interaction of the masculine and feminine principles such that in every man a hidden woman and in every woman a hidden man is to be found. But out of this, some strange conclusions came to him. Weininger said for example that the woman possesses no ego, individuality, character, or personality, no freedom and so on. As his theory was concerned only with a purely material, quantitative mixing of male and female properties, it followed that the man possesses all of these things. These, however came to nothing in him because of his other male qualities. Thus if we enter into this logically we soon discover a theory which destroys itself. Yet as we shall see, there is some truth in it. I have emphasised again and again that it is not as easy to understand the human being out of spiritual science as it is out of a materialistically orientated science. For that which we perceive as the sense-perceptible human being, is for spiritual science only one member of the whole being, namely the physical body. Beyond that, however, spiritual science distinguishes the etheric body which the human has in common with animals and plants. As a third member of the human being it characterises the astral or soul body as that which lives in our feelings and sensations and is the bearer of our joys and sorrows. This member we have in common with the animal world. And as the fourth member spiritual science recognises that which makes human beings human and conscious of themselves — the ego. Spiritual science thus describes the human being as possessing four members. At present we will concern ourselves with the physical and etheric bodies. For herein lies the solution to the riddle of the sexes. The etheric body is only to a certain extent a picture of the physical body. In regard to the sexes things are different. In the man the etheric body is female and in the woman it is male. However strange it may seem, a deeper observation will disclose the following: Something of the opposite sex lies hidden in each person. It is no good however to look for all kinds of abnormal phenomena, rather one needs to pay attention to normal experiences. By confronting this fact, it is no longer possible in the strict sense to speak of man and woman, but rather of masculine and feminine qualities. Certain qualities in the woman work more outwardly while others are more inward. The woman has masculine qualities within herself and the man feminine qualities. For example a man becomes a warrior through the outer courage of his bodily nature, a woman possesses an inner courage, the courage of sacrifice and devotion. The man brings his creative activity to bear on external life. The woman works with devoted receptivity into the world. Countless phenomena of life will become clear to us if we think of human nature as the working together of two polar opposites. In the man the masculine pole works outwards and the feminine lives more inwardly, while in the woman the opposite holds true. Spiritual science however also shows us a deeper reason why a masculine quality is to be found in the woman and a feminine in the man. Spiritual science speaks of how human beings strive after ever greater perfection, through many lives. Our present life is always the result of a previous one. Thus as we proceed through many lives, we experience both male and female incarnations. What arises in this way may be expressed as the effect of those experiences gathered on both sides in earthly life. Whoever is able in this way to look more deeply into the male and female natures knows that the more intimate experiences of the two sexes are very different, and must be very different. Our entire earth existence is a collection of the most varied experiences. However, these experiences can only become comprehensive through their being acquired from the viewpoint of both sexes. Hence we can see that even if we only consider the human being with regard to the two lower members, we see in reality a being with two sides. So long as one merely looks at the physical body little can be understood. The spiritual lying behind must also be recognised. Through his masculine nature the inner femininity of the man appears, and through the woman's feminine nature her inner masculinity appears. Now one can grasp why it is that so many misjudgments have been made about this question; it depends on whether one looks at the inner, or the outer aspects. In considering only one side of the human being, one is subjected entirely to chance. If, for example, one researcher finds that the main quality of the woman is humility and another that it is an angry disposition, it simply means that both have observed only one side of the same being. Error must occur with this kind of approach. In order to recognise the full truth we must look at the whole human being. Something else must also be taken into account in order to gain knowledge of the whole truth. We must observe the human being in alternating sleeping and waking states. During sleep the astral body and the ego are raised out of the physical-etheric organism of the human being. On falling asleep one loses one's day consciousness; one enters into a different state of consciousness — a sleep consciousness. The perceptions and experiences which are made by the ego and astral body during sleep in the spiritual world remain hidden to our usual consciousness. In the present evolutionary state the human being is organised in such a way that the ego and astral bodies must make use of the physical sense organs in order to become aware of the physical world. That we see, hear, taste, and so on with our physical organs of sense is an idea widely held today. A thinker like Fichte however, would say: The ear does not hear — I hear. The ego, the human being's true inner being, is therefore the starting point for all our sense perceptions. And each morning when we awaken, the ego and astral body experience new knowledge of the physical world through the sense organs. It is different during sleep, for the ego and astral body spend their time in the spiritual world. The human being has sense organs in the astral body which enable perception in the astral world, but these have normally not been developed. Those who are unable to accept this as a possibility must be more consequent and say that in reality human beings die every evening. But human beings do find themselves in the spiritual world at night. Further than this, the spiritual and physical worlds have a unique relationship to one another, for everything physical is only a very dense form of the spiritual. In the same way as ice is densified water, so are the physical and etheric bodies a densification of the astral body. Present day materialism will find it very hard to admit that the spirit creates everything material. It is, however, the tragedy of materialism that it understands the nature of matter least of all. One arrives at some very strange conclusions if one denies that matter is a condensed form of the spiritual. Naturally if one stays with popular concepts, most people will not immediately recognise anything less than pure reason in such a sentence as the following: The body is the foundation for our true soul nature; all so called spiritual things can be guided through that which is bodily. It becomes much clearer, however, if one takes it to its logical conclusion, as is done for instance in that pragmatism which comes from America. One single sentence will easily show how this theory speaks pure nonsense to the human mind. Thus it declares that man does not cry because he is sad, but rather is sad because he cries. That a soul mood might have an effect on the physical is not deemed possible, instead one believes that some outside event causes the tears to run which then makes the person sad. This is the consequence of materialism carried to its logical absurdity. Spiritual science knows that the two higher members of the human being, the ego and the astral body leave during the night while the physical and etheric bodies remain behind. Thus it follows that during sleep the human being leaves behind male and female aspects and lives as a sexually undifferentiated being in the spiritual world. Everyone's life is thus divided between a sexual and an asexual experience. Do the sexes then have no meaning in the spiritual world? Does the polarity of physical and etheric body which makes the two sexes manifest here on earth, find no echo in the higher worlds? Certainly we do not take our sexual nature with us into higher worlds; however, the origin of the two sexes is to be found in the astral sphere. In the same way as ice is formed from water, that which meets us in the physical world as masculine and feminine is formed out of the polarity of higher principles. We can approach this best if we consider it as the polarity of life and form. This polarity is also expressed in nature. We can see budding life in the tree and at the same time that which builds up hard forms, slows down growth and transforms it into the solid trunk. Life and form must work together in everything that lives. And if we look at the nature of the sexes from this standpoint we can say: That which corresponds to the life principle is the masculine, while that which brings life into a certain form expresses itself in the feminine. That which an artist creates in the way of form in marble, for example, is not to be found in outer nature. Only the artist's inner being, which is rooted in the spiritual world and finds its nourishment there, can be artistically creative. Indeed the reality is that the forces and beings of the spiritual world are continually streaming into the astral body and ego of the human being. And that which the artist creates as an imprint on matter is a memory of something with which he has been stimulated in the spiritual world. Were the human being unable to return to a spiritual homeland during sleep, it would not be possible to carry into physical existence the seeds needed to initiate great and noble deeds. Therefore nothing could be worse for the human being than prolonged loss of sleep. That which the artist has drawn from the spiritual world and has built unconsciously into his work then appears as life and form. One might ask why it is that the “Juno Ludovisi” appears so wonderful to us. There is the large face, the wide forehead, the unusual nose. If we try and feel our way into this picture we would come to experience how impossible it is to think away the spiritual; soul and spirit are to be found in the very form of this face. This form could stay like this forever. The inner life has become entirely form, is fixed in form; soul and spirit have become form. But then we look up at the head of Zeus. Soul and spirit are present in this rather narrow forehead too, but one has the feeling that this form could change at any moment. Out of a deep inspiration the artist has been able to hold on to life and form in all reality. But just as the artist is able to mould life and form into his great works, so is our whole being in reality life and form. This in itself shows that human nature is of spiritual origin and is created out of life, out of the continuous process of life and that which gives it permanence. The human being experiences life and death as the expression of this higher polarity of existence. It is in this sense that Goethe could say: “Death is the means by which nature can create more life.” Thus life finds a form not for one-sided life, nor one-sided death, but for a higher harmonious whole which can be created through life and death together. On this basis spiritual and physical can work together through the medium of masculine and feminine; the eternally developing life in the masculine, and life held in form in the feminine principle. When investigating the nature of the sexes we have not begun with a one-sided observation of physical existence but rather have sought an answer on the spiritual level of existence. The harmony above the sexes can only be found in so far as the two sexes raise themselves to that level. If, therefore, by making use of the knowledge to be gained from spiritual science we could enable the reality beyond the sexes to take effect in practical life, the problem of the sexes would be solved. This does not lead away from life however. For that which meets us in the two phenomena of human nature can best be clarified by consciously striving for this higher harmony. In this way the question of the sexes will be deepened and the polarities will be harmonised. Everything in the nature of the sexes attains a very different form and meaning. We cannot solve this question through dogma, rather we must seek a common ground, and find perceptions and feelings which lead beyond the sexes. These observations have shown, as is found again and again, that we must distinguish between the reality of the senses and the nature of being itself. If we want to solve the riddles of life, we must observe the whole human being from the world of the senses and from the world of the spirit. It can be seen that beyond the sense-perceptible polarity, man and woman are only garments, sheaths which hide the true nature of the human being. We must search behind the garments, for there is the spirit. We must not merely consider the outer side of the spirit, we must enter into the spirit itself. We could also express it in this way: Love saturated with wisdom or wisdom penetrated with love is the highest goal. “The eternal feminine draws us forward.” 1 The closing lines of Goethe's Faust . The feminine is that element in the world which strives outward in order to be fructified by the eternal elements of life.

Man and Woman in Light of Spiritual Science

https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA056/English/Singles/19080318p01.html

Munich

18 Mar 1908

GA056-4

In the course of our winter talks on spiritual science, we have already dealt with some unpopular and only tolerated issues. However, one can say that no issue is less popular and tolerated than the object of our today's consideration: the initiation. If one speaks of the spiritual, higher worlds, the thought will also appear of course: how does the human being come to the knowledge of these higher worlds? The today's consideration on initiation can only give a preliminary answer — only all talks of this winter can give a complete answer. We must assume two principles of any spiritual science that we have already touched in the first talk. The first principle is the knowledge that there is another or even a number of other supersensible worlds behind the sense-perceptible one. The second knowledge is that to the human being these supersensible worlds can become accessible gradually, so that he can recognise them by his own development. Of course, with it, spiritual science causes the opposition of all those people who speak about such matters and say, “we” or “one” cannot recognise. With it from the start, the speaker concerned who wants to make himself the standard measure of any human knowledge postulates a kind of knowledge monopoly, of infallibility. Spiritual science stands exactly on the opposite point of view. It has the point of view that the human being has abilities and cognitive forces that are embryonic in him and can be developed higher and higher. One has to admit that it is quite right if anybody says, he cannot recognise certain higher worlds. However, at the same time, one has to say that these higher worlds are not to be penetrated just only with those cognitive forces that he means, and that logically nobody has a right to say: my cognitive forces are the absolute only ones; what I recognise signifies the limit of any possible knowledge. — For one rejects the human ability of development with it, denies from the start that the human being can ascend to higher and higher stages. However, it is the basic conviction of any human being who looks impartially at the world, and especially within our German education, it is easy to acknowledge this principle. Goethe repeatedly pronounced and emphasised in the most various, wonderful sentences what founds a way of thinking leading to initiation. I would like to place some words of Goethe's deep-thought fragment The Secrets ( The Mysteries ) at the head of our considerations today. He points there to the inner human force that strives on and on and higher and higher, indeed, that is hindered by that what surrounds us at every moment what is forced upon us from the outside, from the sensuous as the inhibiting force. However, the inner force has still a means to come to the inner, to the world knowledge. Goethe says in this poem The Secrets ( The Mysteries ) in which he speaks of a special initiation of the Rosicrucians and indicates the principle of initiation with the profound words: For any force rushes forward into the vastness To live and to work here and there; However, the stream of the world hinders And constrains us from any side and tears us off; In this inner storm and outer quarrel The mind hears a hardly understood word: From the force that binds all creatures That man is delivered who masters himself. It completely complies with Goethe's way of thinking to search this force of the human being that can be developed to higher cognitive forces, to look for means and ways to an objective knowledge and wisdom beholding into the inside, into the spiritual of the things. It complies with his way of thinking if we eavesdrop on him where he expresses his level of knowledge most intimately. There we find many tips, which pronounce this clearly. At the beginning of his Theory of Colours , Goethe says that the eye is created “by the light for the light.” The time has not yet come to understand this work of Goethe; perhaps, in some time if the perspectives prevail which I have mentioned in my talk The Natural Sciences Facing a Crucial Decision . He says, it was an indifferent, not photosensitive organ. The light caused the organ to see the light, to perceive the illumined objects. One has to think in the sense of Goethe what I have said in the sense of spiritual science: the human being had no eyes in primeval times, which could perceive light; the eyes arose from quite different organs. Which force accomplished this change? The light! It conjured up the eye that had become photosensitive. At the same time, Goethe indicates that there are other, unknown and misjudged abilities in the human being which — if they are developed — just open a new world as the eye opens the world of light and colours if it is elicited. In no other sense, we speak in spiritual science of the higher, extrasensory worlds. Exactly in the sense of the dictum of Johann Gottlieb Fichte, the great thinker, we speak of such extrasensory perception. Fichte says, if a sighted man goes among blind people and tells them about light and colours, they regard him probably as a daydreamer. Also is that what he, Fichte, had to say to his listeners in those days only for an organ which has to originate only, and this — only on a higher stage — can be compared to the organ of the blind-born who has recognised the world only touching before the operation and sees it lighting up in colours and light afterward. Thus, it is also possible to elicit abilities by the development of forces slumbering in the human being to perceive new forces and objects in the surroundings that one can only perceive with spiritual abilities. In this logical sense, one speaks in spiritual science of higher worlds. He who doubts the higher worlds is on the same level of the power of judgement as someone who is born blind and says, there is no world of light and colours because I do not see them. Nobody can really assess the possibility. However, someone can decide on the reality who knows it. Not anybody has to decide on a matter who knows nothing about it, but only someone who knows something of it. Indeed, only the principle of experience has to decide on initiation. However, is it unnecessary to talk about these matters? No, it is necessary; for in which sense does anybody talk who informs about such higher worlds? He talks about them because he knows that merely by these communications, merely by this report the abilities and forces slumbering in all human beings can be woken up to penetrate to these worlds. Someone who is reluctant to receive information about these worlds resembles someone who was once reluctant to take part in the development of the eyes with which the human being can see the sun. He could also have said, why shall I develop anything, so that I can recognise the sun and the light? He did not know the sun and the light before. Only by a foreign power approaching us, the inner disposition can develop in the human being. Only if we can open the soul freely to the communications about the higher worlds, we get the first impulse to develop the higher forces which make us sighted, initiated finally. One spoke of the principle of initiation at all times of the human development. Only the relation to the public working was different from that in our age. If we go back to the ancient Indian, Chaldean, Babylonian, Egyptian, or Greek-Roman culture-epochs, if we go up then to the Middle Ages, to the 16th, 17th centuries and our time, initiates and disciples of the initiates always existed. However, one did not speak about that publicly. What meant to be initiated? One differentiates an initiate, a clairvoyant, and somebody who applies the higher forces in the service of the physical world. However, we do not want to get involved in these finer differences. Somebody is a clairvoyant who is able to behold into the extrasensory worlds to whom the worlds that are concealed to the usual human being are obvious, discernible worlds. Why was the introduction to such higher worlds pursued, so to speak, secretly? Why did one not speak of it publicly in former times? We speak of the dangers of initiation next time. I would like today to draw your attention only to the fact that on the border between the sensuous-visible world and the invisible-extrasensory world, indeed, a certain danger lies in wait for the human being, and that someone who wants to become an initiate has to overcome this danger at first. It consists in the fact that it is exceptionally difficult to distinguish illusion from reality, dreams from reality, vision from the real view at the border of the physical and the supraphysical worlds. In this area, it is very easy to confuse own fantastic things of the soul with the objective reality. One needs different qualities that are explained in the following: keeping cool, retaining certainty of the soul, courage, perseverance and energy at the border. If the human being lost the clearness about that which is appearance and what is reality at this border, he would have lost his mind, then he would be a fool instead of an initiate. Nowadays an immense greed, a true fury exists with most people indeed, if they hear of such matters to behold something of the higher worlds. However, with most human beings the perseverance and the will and above all the strength to overcome everything that must remove the indicated dangers do not exist. Hence, at all times it was necessary that one examined the people whom one admitted to initiation concerning their intellect, their spiritual and moral abilities and their feelings. Only those who could stand the test before the pervasive view of the initiate could be admitted to initiation. There were such persons who were able because of their living conditions to submit to that, which enabled them to distinguish appearance and truth, vision and reality on the border between the physical and the spiritual worlds. The question may now arise: why are those not quiet also today who know something about these matters after one could be quiet so long? Why does one not carry out the principle of the strict seclusion also today concerning the introduction to the higher worlds? Why is it broken? This has good reasons. Humanity advances. It is different in the different epochs of its development. History is also much more different in its organisation and developmental stages than the nonprofessional believes it. Someone who does not know the matters imagines that the human beings are the same today as they were centuries ago. Those who studied history and anthropology also have the same idea tacitly. The human beings of different centuries differ really very much who are apparently the same to the external anatomy and physiology. The differences are not obvious at first sight, and the external anatomy and physiology know nothing at all about them. Humanity progresses, and the human mind and the human soul have advanced so far that one needs the knowledge of the world secrets, the views, concepts, and ideas that lead us into the depth of the things, which were always preserved in the so-called secret schools to the general welfare and progress of humanity. I present the further details in the following talks. We need only to point to the immense difference that took place in humanity in the course of a few centuries. We need only to mention one thing that deeply intervened in the human development: the art of printing. Imagine once how the human beings lived concerning their soul, their spiritual education before the invention of the art of printing, how the communication was between those who knew something, and those who wanted to learn something, before there were books. Compare how today the communications of science and scholarship penetrate to any soul by thousands and thousands means, by popular writings and newspaper articles. If you go on imagining, you can get the idea that today it looks different in the souls, and you do not think that the sensations, thoughts, and impulses in the souls have no influence on life as a whole. Someone who believes that everything obvious is an imprint of the spiritual says to himself that the human beings have other physical and social needs today than in past times. Once it was possible that single persons knew something of certain events, of truth and wisdom. Today, however, the principle of initiation must be made accessible to everybody. Because of a duty towards humanity the strict secrecy and seclusion of former times was broken through. That is why today not only about that is spoken which is to be said about the higher worlds from the viewpoint of the spiritual research, but one also speaks in a certain way at least in the elements how the human being ascends even to these worlds, how he can accomplish the first steps of initiation. However, from the start one has to call attention to the fact that nobody should believe that the principle of initiation is to be taken easily and less seriously because the first steps of initiation are accessible to everybody today. Everybody can accomplish these first steps in every situation, as you will hear. Then higher and higher stages begin up to that of an initiate in the true sense of the word. I have to characterise this concept first. What is an initiate? If I assume that there are higher and higher worlds behind our sensuous world, an initiate would be someone who has an insight into these higher worlds. The training for the initiation gives the human being the means and instructions how he can develop his spiritual eyes and ears to be able to behold into this spiritual world as he looks with his physical organs at the physical world. Strictly speaking, all that is only a preparation for the real initiation. He who becomes a pupil of initiation receives certain instructions from his teacher how he can develop the abilities slumbering in him. All that aims to a point that leads him into a preliminary depth of the world to the highest degree, to a centre from which the rays of world creation and world principles go out. Such a thing does exist. This secret would be pronounceable even in words and, nevertheless, it is not pronounced. Allow me this indication from the start, because even if it sounds apparently mysterious, someone who thinks a little bit about it will find that even the kind in which such a thing is pronounced is very significant for the sensation that one should appropriate to understand the principle of initiation. One prepares the pupil for the acceptance of the world secret that would be pronounceable if one is allowed to pronounce it. The initiate is somebody who knows a certain secret that is significant to the highest degree, for the life of the human beings. A secret, because if it were pronounced in the everyday life it would appear mad, brainless, paradoxical. Now, this would still be the less. However, there are other reasons why, nevertheless, someone who could pronounce the secret is not allowed to pronounce it. The reason is so deep that the secret that finishes certain stages of initiation cannot be wrested from anybody who knows it even not if one tormented and tortured him. He can never wrest this secret from himself. For this secret is not informed in words from human being to human being. The essentials consist of the fact that one brings the pupil to the point where he gets around by the imparted development of his own abilities and forces to solving the riddle by himself which is behind the matter, so that, so to speak, the pupil faces the teacher with that luminous eye which announces: I have found it! Training means leading to finding oneself. A big part of that what the human being has to gain for the penetration into the higher worlds lies just in that big and immense sensation of the soul when it awakes and feels as newborn, after it was led to the higher capabilities and stages of development. One can compare that feeling on a lower level with that of a blind-born who could only touch the things up to now, and to whom after the operation light, colours, and forms appear from the darkness. Only if this relationship exists between teacher and pupil, the relationship is a healthy one. It is built on the highest that there can be between human being and human being: on freedom. That relationship must be there in which nothing at all of an unjustified influence from the teacher is there, because everything that should be developed is got out from the pupil himself. After we have characterised the mood that should control the principle of initiation, we want to go somewhat more precisely into the development of the abilities slumbering in the human being. We start from the obvious matters and advance to the more distant ones. Three abilities are already there for the usual observation: thinking, feeling and willing, thought, feeling and will. This is the level of the average human being. All three abilities are developable. At first the thinking: it cannot lead the human being beyond the physical world, even if it is developed ever so subtle, ever so intimate. However, the thinking is still the first stage of development if it is a matter of getting beyond the physical world. We shall solve this ostensible contradiction, however, straight away. I have to speak immediately of those principles of initiation which were usual in the course of the last centuries in the secret schools and which are informed initially today to the public by those who know something of them. First, the pupil has to develop the thinking free from sensuousness. What does one call thinking free from sensuousness? If the human being looks at the world around himself by his senses, he creates mental pictures and ideas of the world. These mental pictures and ideas make the world comprehensible to him. However, all that is no thinking free from sensuousness. The modern science, because of a certain inner weakness, often does not want to accept another thinking. Nevertheless, another thinking has its origin solely in the human inside, in the human soul. The modern human being only knows very little of the big extent of this thinking that is free from sensuousness and if anybody hears anything of it, he rejects it, and does not want to accept it. The human being cannot only have thoughts referring to the sense-perceptible world; he can also have thoughts that arise from an inner power that the senses can never stimulate. Even philosophers do not see that today. I can produce evidence. Mathematics, geometry, can deliver it. Nobody can outdoors see a real cycle; nobody can outdoors see the principle that two times two are four. However, one can get out by inner meditation without counting beans that two times two are four, or one can construct the circle by inner view, so that the circle line is always equidistant to the centre. What did the great Plato write above his school? He wrote that nobody could be accepted without knowledge of geometry. That does not mean that he had to know the entire geometry, but that he had a suitable sense for it. If we reproduced the external circle in concepts only, we would never be able to form a true circle. However, we can form a circle and its principles in our mind that way. Thus, we must work out the circle from own mind. This is thinking free from sensuousness. Mathematics is not popular, and, nevertheless, it is the only thinking free from sensuousness that is done in our schools. However, most people laugh at someone if he says that there are still other concepts that one can find wholly spiritually, as those of space and number and figures. One ignores and despises the philosophers and thinkers who asserted that the human being is able to put up a building of ideas that harmonises with the world. Someone who has put up such ideas free from sensuousness within our German education and culture for other fields than geometry is Goethe again. It is a wonderful great achievement of the spiritual life of humanity what Goethe performed with the type of the plants, with the archetypical plant, and the type of the animal, the archetypical animal. What sort of thoughts are these? Goethe himself tries to make clear them his way. Many people wrote about that. However, the most is nonsense because most people are not able to understand how a spiritually constructed circle whose principles we can see relates to the circle drawn on the board which is nothing but a number of little chalk particles. However, Goethe's archetypical plant relates to the external sense-perceptible plant. Outdoors are the different plants — Goethe thought —, the one looks this way, the other that way. However, an inner spiritual strength lives in us with which we are able to find the concept of the archetypical plant out of inner production. The botanists thought that Goethe meant an imperfect plant. This is nonsense! He meant the spiritually beheld plant! I tried in one of my books to reconstruct this archetypical plant, as one also constructs the circle in mind. Goethe's archetypical plant contains possible plants if one is able to conjure up all possibilities out of it. His archetypical animal contains all possible animals. Goethe created a spiritual biology there. It enables us to create in spirit what cannot appear to our senses. However, there we start from a profound, significant spiritual fact. Goethe started from this fact, from which he got what he found as archetypical plant. This was no mere idea to him, but it was the creating force in all plants. The archetypical animal was the creative in any animal to him. I have often cited a famous conversation about the plants that immediately at the beginning of their acquaintance Goethe and Schiller had with each other. They came from a talk of the society of naturalists in Jena. Schiller said that it is unsatisfactory to look at the creatures in such a way that one cannot see their coherence. Goethe answered that there could be also another method where one can see the common, the spiritual tie, which holds everything together. Goethe describes the conversation to us, and that he took his pencil then and drew the picture of the archetypical plant with some characteristic lines. There Schiller, the speculative poet, said, this is no fact; this is an idea, no reality. Goethe answered, if this is an idea I see the ideas outdoors with my eyes. In the plant is the force creating life. Because of the deep view that the Goethean mind had of such a being it was possible that in his mind that was awoken which creates in all animals and plants. A mysterious tie exists between the human inside and that which is spread out in the animal and plant realms. If the human being conjures up the archetypical plant in himself, he conjures up that form after which the plants have been created. We regard ourselves in this way as spiritual participants in the productions of nature. Goethe as it were immerses in the things and conjures up in his mind the spirit living in the things. Goethe presents this to the human being. One can try the same in higher fields. A German philosopher did it, not sufficiently but fundamentally and profoundly, but one did not understand him. If an anecdote were true, it would prove this fact in its depth. For Hegel (Georg Friedrich Wilhelm H., 1770–1831) should have said: “Only one understood me, and also he misunderstood me.” Hegel tried to create concepts free from sensuousness of the surroundings and history of the human beings. His Philosophy of History has now appeared in Reclam's Universal Library in which he gives a great survey of the whole world history. Many things in it are not right, unfortunately. Many things are as one-sided as just only Hegel could be one-sided, so that the book can serve only as suggestion. However, it may serve to find the principle. Hegel cared about thinking free from sensuousness, so that he lets everything appear in its own spirit, which is the same spirit that led humanity. He, who wants to do this, needs a more intimate knowledge of the human spirit and that of the peoples than Hegel could possess. Hence, everything seems abstract, grey, and logical in the bad sense; however, the things are ingenious and stimulating. One has to say, what is wrong there can be even more useful to humanity than many right but trivial things. Just as one can think in mathematics free from sensuousness and create as one can do it also in history, my The Philosophy of Freedom should give a picture of the inner development of the human being with his entire cognitive faculties as one can grasp this from the thinking free from sensuousness. This is a book like an organism where a sentence follows the other, a book of a thinking that moves in itself and is self-contained. I wanted to show in it how the human being who wants to go from sensuousness to the extrasensory has to cultivate his thinking. However, there are easier means, namely those about which spiritual science informs. What we can read in the spiritual-scientific books about the different human members, about reincarnation and karma, the life after death, the development of the human races and cultures and about what we shall still speak you cannot see with senses, but it is something that you can understand if you generally get involved with human understanding. Spiritual science gives the human beings a thinking free from sensuousness as it was given in the secret schools once, and as the human being must have it, before he is able to behold into the spiritual worlds. Clairvoyance and initiation are necessary for that. However, he who has got the possibility to inform in a certain way can form a bridge. Then everybody can convince himself by enclosing logical thinking and a healthy power of judgement that the things are right. Clairvoyance is necessary to find the higher profundities, only a healthy mind and logic to understand them. Indeed, today many people are possessed by a more or less materialistic thinking or by that arrogance of infallibility that is due to the positivistic science. This is a real pipe dream. If the people only know that they live, strictly speaking, under suggestions, that they do not know what is real and what is not real! Indeed, they do not want to acknowledge the infallibility of the pope; however, they regard themselves as infallible. That who stands on the viewpoint of science is the most intolerable one. He regards the spiritual scientist as a fool and himself as an infallible man! One can inform about the world that is not accessible to the senses only with a thinking free from sensuousness. Hence, the first training is the training of thinking which only makes it possible to develop the thinking and to lead to a real beholding into the spiritual worlds. The second is the development of feeling. Nobody should train the feeling, before he has not brought the thinking free from sensuousness to a certain level. That who knows how it looks in these higher worlds tells you: if you ascend to the higher worlds, you come to the astral world and then to the spiritual or devachanic one. The impressions are completely different there than the human being can imagine who knows the physical world only. Even if all experiences are different, one thing remains: the logic, the healthy thinking. The human being who appropriates the healthy thinking who is a reasonable person firmly standing on his legs cannot go astray if he ascends to the worlds that offer many surprises. That who develops this self-assured thinking working from the origin of the soul has a sure leader also beyond that border where one can hard distinguish between the physical and the supraphysical. With healthy thinking one gets over the abyss which opens there. If anyone lives without healthy thinking and says, you give me thoughts only; however, a divine power lives in me, why should I not be able to ascend to the higher worlds? — Then I can only answer: those who speak in such a way have no idea of the conditions of the higher worlds where the outer world does not correct us where we must have the leader in ourselves if we should not go astray. The development of the feeling happens with the help of Imagination at the school of those to be initiated. The pupil creates a figurative notion of the world at first; then he has to carry out his world consideration rather quietly under the Goethean saying: “All that is transitory is only a symbol.” I would like to give you an example that I have given several times how one leads someone who aims at a spiritual development into the depths of the things, how one teaches the development of the feeling by Imagination ( anthroposophic concepts of initiation are capitalised ). If you want to understand the development of the beings and stop at the thinking, you never can go fairly beyond this sensory world. You can appropriate the most different concepts how subordinated beings develop higher and higher up to the human being, you can take even the spiritual-scientific evolutionary theory how the logos poured forth and formed more and more complex forms and worlds: plants, animals, human beings, how all differentiations formed, evolutions and involutions and so on. These are teachings that you find in theosophical books, nice and interesting concepts. However, you cannot come into the higher worlds this way. You can thereby form ideas, which are analogies of higher worlds, but you never can come with them into these worlds. You need Imagination. This is not anything that one imagines. It is something that is produced with a productive power and amounts to nothing more than concepts only, so that these concepts, like Goethe's archetypical plant and archetypical animal, correspond to the outer realities; but pictures are formed corresponding to the spirit that creates behind these things. I would like to explain in the form of a dialog what one said always in such secret schools to the pupils. I say this to you to make clear the principle, the method of initiation. What I speak in a few words takes a long period of training. The dialog that I describe never did take place, but that what it shows has always taken place in any spiritual school. One says to the pupil, look at the plant, which points with its root to the earth, which lets grow its stalk, its leaves, and blossoms upwards, and compare it to the human being. You would compare wrongly if you wanted to compare the head to the blossom and the foot to the root. — I would like to remark that also that who founded the newer natural sciences so greatly gets to this view. He compares the root to the head of the human being and regards the plant as the reverse human being and the human being as the reverse plant. — The root is the head that the plant sticks toward the centre of the earth, just as the human being sticks his head that he holds in the opposite direction toward the sun or the heavenly forces. The plant turns its reproductive organ, the blossom, virginally to the sunbeam that one called the “holy lance of love” in the medieval secret schools. The human being is the exact opposite. He sticks his organs of conceptions toward the centre of the earth, the head toward the space. In between, one says to the pupil, is the animal who does half a turn, so that the spine is horizontal. Look at plant, animal, and human being and you understand the dictum of Plato that the world soul is crucified on the cross of the world. Plato understands plant, animal, and human being by the world. The plant stands vertically, the human being reversely to it so that he looks with the head at the free world ether, and the crossbar is the animal. This is the prototype of the cross, as one knew it in ancient times and in all secret schools. Then one says the following to the pupil: imagine the plant and its pure, chaste substance. The human being is on a higher level than the plant. The plant resembles the sleeping human being. It has physical body and etheric body as the sleeping human being has physical body and etheric body. The human being is, actually, beyond the physical and etheric body. That what thinks in him and feels desire and pain has been cut off in the sleeping state. The plant has a consciousness that we know as sleep consciousness. What does the development from the horizontal line up to the entire turn mean? It means that be the human being has attained his present bright day consciousness. With the transition from the animals, the human being has become a being with bright day consciousness. He had to lose something else for it. Look at the plant: a body of desires, an astral body does penetrate it. The plant has physical body and etheric body. The human being must go through the animal and integrate instincts, desires, and passions. He has higher risen integrating the astral body into the plant body. Now spiritual science puts a great Imagination before him. This spiritual science shows how he can gradually develop the strength that leads him back again to the purification of his desire nature that leads him up to that point where he lives again in the pure, chaste body on higher developmental stages while retaining his current state of consciousness. There he has overcome what he had necessarily to absorb in himself with the transition to the higher stages. What the teacher put before the pupil was a future ideal: you will have the plant nature again! One gave him the means to attain it. One said to him, the entire humanity comes again to this stage once when the human beings have developed the purely spiritual strength. Then he is no longer tied to the desire nature, he no longer sticks his organs of conception toward the spiritual sunbeam. In the initiatory training, one calls this organ the Holy Grail, which then the human being has attained, and which is a spiritual organ. Imagine the difference between the dry abstractions that one puts in mathematics or in idealistic writings before you and this idea where we go up through the animal state to the human being and again up to other future stages of humanity. If we visualise that, we accompany this Imagination with our sensations and feelings if we are generally able not only to think the spirit but also to feel it. We shall see this development not only in spirit, but we shall feel it. The evolution in the universe appears immense and big to us if we visualise it that way, not in abstractions. The whole universe with all world riddles was presented to the pupils. They claim not only his thinking, but also his feeling and sensing. It was to him, as if his whole soul went out and lived in everything that was round him. As with the Goethean archetype something is created in us that lives in all plants and animals, it is also, if the developed feeling rises from us, as if we felt the world soul which flows as power through all beings. Thus, everything came to life that was around the pupil, it became Imagination. Where he went through woods and meadows, everywhere the pictures worked in his soul. This loosened the inner power in him and he looked behind the beings and behind the things gradually. If one tells this in such a way, it seems almost unbelievable. If the pupil was introduced under the guidance of the teacher in the Imaginative of the world, he was guided not only to the thinking, but also to the feeling and the impulses that have gushed out from the soul of the world creator. He was introduced in an essential world. Then the development continues from the feeling to the willing. As well as the feeling develops by pictures, the will develops by the occult letters. This will is the deepest of the concealed power. This will becomes something like a skeleton that the human being squeezes out by the will into the outer world. If you remember the pictures of the Munich congress, of the columns and seals, they are there to train the will. In the portfolio, which we edited as Pictures of Occult Seals and Columns , they are reproduced. I want to discuss the principle of these occult seals and columns once and give their meaning for the initiation. Any seal explains what you can find in the Apocalypse or The Revelation of John . In this portfolio, you find signs. Any sign has an immense, stimulating effect on the human being. You find a human figure on the first seal. The feet are like from liquid brass, a fiery sword goes out from the mouth. I do not want to describe the remainder. He who becomes engrossed in this seal sees that just this seal gives him something marvellous in particular by this contrast. We shall hear in the last talk of this winter on Sun, Moon and Stars that we are led back by spiritual science also to states of the earth where the earth was in a fiery-liquid state and that — in contrast to the materialistic science — the human being already existed. Spiritual science can make the objection to itself that the human being could not live in a fiery-liquid state. At that time, the human being was formed from fiery liquid mass. This beginning of the earth is shown in the fiery-liquid metal feet. A later future state is shown with the fiery sword that comes out of the mouth, and appears in all myths again. I can only indicate what it concerns here. You will see how spiritual science is connected deeply with the innermost essence of the world. How does the mediation happen, if I speak to you? What I speak are my thoughts at first. These accept tones that make the air vibrate. The air is thereby set in motion in this hall. The oscillations of the air come to your ear, come to your soul, and impart themselves to your soul. My words live here in the room in certain forms of oscillation. If you could see them, you would see particular oscillations if I pronounce the word “soul.” As well as the human being is able today to form the air and make arise that what lives in his soul in the oscillating air, he will also be able to form organs. There are organs in the human being, which are at the beginning, and other organs are at the end of their development. The larynx and the heart are at the beginning of development. I know that I assert something scandalous for the positive science, because one regards these two organs as mechanical apparatuses, the heart like a pump. However, just the theories of the heart and the blood circulation will experience reorganisations in the not too distant future. One will find that the circulation of the blood is due to something quite different from the heart, and that the heart moves only by the blood circulation. If the human being feels abashed, he blushes. This is an influence of the blood. The heart will be in future a voluntary muscle, and it prepares itself to become one. Here something is given that will almost coin the future of the human being externally-physically. The heart is a crux to the usual anatomy and physics. It has the configuration of a voluntary muscle, while it is no voluntary muscle today. A voluntary muscle has striated muscle fibers. The heart has such striated fibers, although it is not voluntary even today. However, it is on the way of becoming a voluntary muscle. The larynx will also have another function. It will be the reproductive organ of the human being. The larynx that produces words of the soul will undertake the reproduction. The fire principle is the speech, and the fire principle of the speech will be a creative principle; hence, the sword in the mouth. This fiery sword is intimately related to the world forces. If the human being becomes engrossed in its picture, this strengthens his willpower. One can say that only that way. He who does it experiences it. Then he anticipates, thinks, and feels not only, but he penetrates with his willpower into the things. This is the way through the occult writing. One can state quite concretely, in which way one should develop thinking, feeling, and willing. If one has woken the forces slumbering in the human being, thinking, feeling, and willing become particular organs, which one calls spiritual eyes. From them the spiritual eyes originate which show the world of the flooding spiritual light and its colours and the spiritual forces behind our physical world. The trained willpower becomes the spiritual ears of which also Goethe speaks who was deeply initiated into these matters: In ancient rivalry with fellow spheres the sun still sings its glorious song, and it completes with tread of thunder the journey it has been assigned. Goethe remains in the right picture. If one is introduced in the higher spiritual world, one is introduced by the ear. If one comes in the spiritual realm, it is immediately said: “In these sounds the new day is already born for spiritual ears.” Those who believe to understand Goethe but say, this is nonsense, and need an explanation of it, which one cannot expect the poet to accept, one has to answer: no, one cannot expect that Goethe wrote nonsense: “the sun still sings ...” is nonsense only if one applies it to the physical world. Thus, we have seen that the principle of initiation is based on the fact that one gets out particular forces slumbering in the human being, so that these forces guide the human beings into the spiritual world surrounding him. What gets out these forces of the human being? We have to explain the matter completely in the sense of Goethe. Once there was a sense organ, an indifferent organ in his sensuous body, which was flooded from light. The light made it the eye, so that the human being could see the colours and forms round himself with the eyes. The eye originated that way. Unknown and unrecognised organs which one does not want to recognise slumber in the human being. In addition, other worlds are round us, except the world of light and colours. As well as with the blind human being the eye was woken for seeing, the spiritual ears and eyes are trained with the clairvoyance and clairaudience, so that the human being can behold into the surrounding spiritual world. The human being has gained self-consciousness. He has become in such a way that he can relate everything to himself. However, because he develops the spiritual eyes and ears following the principle of initiation he immerses again in the outer world. He finds his higher self in this world. We are not allowed to say that we find the divine and spiritual in ourselves. This is a wrong expression. Recognise yourself! Is an old saying. However, one has to understand it in such a way as Adam recognised his woman. He fertilised her. Thus, that applies also to the organs. Fertilise yourself, be fertilised by the world. — Thus, the human being should develop the forces slumbering in him. It is true what Goethe says: Unless the eye were like the sun, How could we see the light? Unless God's own strength were in us, How could delight us the divine? Indeed, the sun force is in us, and the eye does not create the divine being, does not create the sun, but it sees it, after it has been created. We can develop higher forces and penetrate deeper and deeper into the world this way. Then the outer world does no longer appear to us as something that restrains and restricts us, but as that which brings true and spiritual reality. Harmony is created between the human being and the world. Thereby we overcome the lower self that looks out into the sensuous world. We attain the higher ego of the human being that is spread out in the whole universe. Goethe means this indicating the principle of initiation in his poem The Secrets ( The Mysteries ) with the words with which we want to close. They show how the human being flows out by self-conquest and into the feeling permeating the world, into the spiritual of the world, into the will of the cosmic spirits pulsating through the world: For any force rushes forward into the vastness To live and to work here and there; However, the stream of the world hinders And constrains us from any side and tears us off; In this inner storm and outer quarrel The mind hears a hardly understood word: From the force that binds all creatures That man is delivered who masters himself.

Initiation

https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA056/English/eLib2015/19071128p01.html

Berlin

28 Nov 1907

GA056-5

It is not the only reproach against occult science that it is dreamy and fantastic, but also many people believe that dangers are connected with it. Downright bizarre views exist in certain circles about these so-called dangers of spiritual science. At first one points in general to such dangers even without trying to qualify the supposed dangers or to say in what they consist. For where one speaks so much of these dangers sometimes, a profound unawareness prevails what the occult science entails. One has only the uncertain idea that it entails something dangerous. One also does not dwell on this on which one should absolutely dwell: whether occult science itself is the dangerous or only the deeper penetration in it while one familiarises with the methods, the exercises that lead the human being into the invisible and indiscernible spiritual world surrounding him. However, he who generally wants to speak of dangers in this field must differentiate this. Often it does not at all concern a tip to certain dangers only, but one says: oh, this occult science or this theosophy makes the human beings unworldly, it removes them from that what they would have to deal with, actually, in life in which they should be interested. — Some circles regard it as tremendously deplorable that this or that member is apparently wrested from it because he/she starts being interested in theosophy or in occult science underlying it. For that reason the often enough pronounced judgement probably originated that theosophy makes the human being impractical, allures him from the immediate duties of life, betrays him into asceticism and unworldliness. Although it has already been mentioned here from the one or the other side, I would like to draw your attention again to the fact that it is the most unfair and at the same time the most impossible reproach against occult science and its working that it makes the human being anyhow unworldly or entices him into asceticism. I have emphasised repeatedly that a spiritual world underlies our world of the senses, our world of the physical life. Therefore, someone must be called unworldly who does not mind the true and real forces of existence and confines himself to the outer world only, on that what the senses say and what they can enjoy. There can be no talk that theosophy urges its supporters to an ascetic life, to privations or to unworldliness. However, it is true that someone who becomes interested in occult science has other sympathies and antipathies than many people have. Nevertheless, in many cases it is not in such a way that those who approach occult science attain this interest only within a spiritual-scientific or theosophical circle. People bring these emotions with them as a rule; the interests carry them into the theosophical circles, and theosophy wants to offer nothing but what they demand. Not because they are expelled from the circles which say: they become strange to us, because theosophy takes them away, but these circles themselves alienate them more and more because they are lifeward and have selfish interests. If such a circle complains that this or that member is taken away from it, it should ask itself: has theosophy taken this member from us or have we expelled it by boredom? If one compares the life, as it should be in the theosophical circle with the life of a worldly circle, which says one must not dedicate himself to asceticism, then I answer that the theosophist does not withdraw because he wants to escape from life, but because he wants to get to the true, real life. Those who are interested in spiritual science experience no bigger asceticism, no bigger privation than dedicating themselves to the activities that one calls “life” in many circles. If one calls this “life:” getting up in the morning, reading his newspaper, doing this or that which has a practical use, taking part in this or that banal activity in the evening — if one calls this “life,” indeed, it is “asceticism” for the theosophist, an awful privation, namely if one makes him participate this life. If then in spite of all resisting forces, the interest in theosophy becomes bigger and bigger, it is only an evidence that more and more people want to escape from the “ascetic” life of the usual pleasures and give themselves up to the real life. The human beings would have to realise this if they communed with their hearts once, since the life in spiritual science does not mean wailing and whimpering because of sufferings and privations. Life praxis is a chapter that we have also already discussed in the various talks. Those who are so often vain of their life praxis say, theosophy with its quixotic ideas puts a bug into the ears of the people, and the people who dedicate themselves to such a thing never accomplish a real work in life. However, if they looked only at the world and at the practice on the one hand, at impractical idealism on the other hand, perhaps they would speak different. The German philosopher Johann Gottlieb Fichte said: the idealists know as well as the so-called practical people, maybe better, that ideals are not to be applied immediately in life. However, the fact that certain people cannot realise that all life flows out of the life ideal, from that which is not yet there what should become first shows only that one does not count on them in the plan of the improvement of humanity. Hence, God may give them rain and sunshine, food, and clever thoughts at the right time! — The theosophist may console himself out of an objective consideration of life if one points to the danger of the so-called impractical. There one can cite an example of a clever board of practitioners in a southern German country. When one wanted to build the first railway in Germany, one requested whether it is good if this railway were built. The board said — everybody can convince himself that the document exists —, one should build no railway, because the human beings would suffer serious damage of their nervous systems. However, if people wanted to drive with a railway, and it were built, one would have to erect high wooden walls on both sides, so that those whom it goes past do not get concussions. — This is not long ago! It is not still long ago that a man who was no practical person, but an “impractical teacher” advised to introduce the cheaper postcards (?) instead of the expensive postage. The impractical person was Rowland Hill (1795–1879). There was a postmaster who said, I cannot realise that one has an advantage introducing this way of paying postage ( pre-payment by the sender with stamps instead of direct payment by the receiver ). If the traffic developed in such a way, the post-office buildings would no longer be sufficient to take up and convey all letters and postal items. — Judgements of this sort appear from circles of those people who are hostile to theosophy. The dangers that are described there resemble those, which the people experience from the railway, after they drive with it now since decades. The future will produce the evidence. As little as the Bavarian Medical Board could prevent the construction of the railway, the postmaster in London could prevent the increase of the post traffic, just as little the necessary expansion of theosophy can be stopped by similar objections in our time. However, many concerns do not oppose the general; one senses something particular. Hence, one may also speak of that once publicly which gives cause, perhaps, for such concerns and such talking of dangers. At first, we must not forget: something that should work that should have significance and power in the world works different on the different human beings. It works in the way as it can influence and impress human beings. Now theosophy is something like a sort of a purifying thunderstorm in our spiritual atmosphere and will be it more and more. What fulfills this spiritual atmosphere? It is fulfilled with all possible confident and sure of victory judgements, which appear the surer of victory, the less deeply they introduce in the being of the things. In particular, it is the materialistic thinking and feeling, the materialistic disposition that regards itself as infallible with immense arrogance as the only true doctrine and douses everything with scorn that wants to point to the spiritual world, as if it only concerns fantasies. True, someone who trains his thinking in that logic necessary to control the areas that are beyond the sensuous world is always in danger that the logic of the materialists could sicken him. However, the superficial judgements that are quite usual ones today and appear with an unequalled certainty and an arrogance of infallibility are sometimes very short-winded. Their flimsiness becomes obvious very soon if that logic faces them which goes with inner thinker's patience from concept to concept as it is necessary if one cannot advance on the bridge of the outer sensuous experiences but wants to have a sure support in himself and inner certainty. Already in this respect, the thinking flowing from occult science for the present must often appear to us as a purifying thunderstorm. It appears for the human masses in such a way and for the single human being. There we cannot help stressing that this is, nevertheless, no risk. There is the risk for the great majority at most that it brings uncertainty into the judgements that are worth to be presented that way. With the single human being, the matter is worse. Something comes into question that works in the innermost soul, a disharmony between feeling and judging. This disharmony is the biggest with those persons who believe to be most certain in any materialistic creed. A materialistic creed namely has the peculiarity that it can satisfy, after all, the reason only, the abstract judgement only. The deeper interests of the soul, all wishes, all feelings, and all sensations are much truer and deeper with all human being than their judgements often are. While everybody sticks with his judgment, with his materialistic concepts and his materialistic disposition to the surface, in the depth of his soul — often quite unconsciously to him — the urging and the longing for something spiritual lives. To someone who observes this more precisely it appears rather clear sometimes if one sees how many disharmonies are in the speeches and remarks of the human beings. There one can realise that they, actually, do not at all feel corresponding to that what they say. To a minor degree that applies to a big percentage of the human beings what a poet expressed absurdly with the words, which he lets one of his figures say: as true a God is in heaven, I am an atheist. — This is the emotional adherence — only radically, absurdly pronounced — to something traditional-conventional and the adherence of the superficial judgement to a radical denial. That appears with few persons in this radical form. However, for someone who can observe more precisely almost every conversation offers examples that the human beings live in their souls in such a way. In which condition can one live this way? One can live in the condition that one remains superficial in his soul life. For nobody who descends into the depth of his soul can tolerate such a disharmony as it often exists today. That becomes apparent to someone who is used to logic in the entire materialistic or — as one calls it more sophisticatedly — monistic literature. Imagine a person who is embedded in the atmosphere of our time and wants to get out it not with inner freedom, not with inner strong urge: he remains embedded; he lives on dully but contently in general. However, it does no longer depend on the things with which many people want to stop, whether the human being can live so dully. Numerous people can no longer live this way. What the popular literature — magazines, books, even newspapers — offers is not at all something for sophisticated heads and deeper minds that answers the big questions of existence, but it only causes new questions. Yes, also the modern science itself, as it appears with it adherence to the facts gives answers only to the superficial mind. For the deep-minded human being, for the sophisticated one this science is something quite different. It is a sum of question marks. Where many people believe that they can be ready if they frame a worldview from the scientific facts, the questions only just start for many people. However, people who believe to be ready notice nothing of it. Thus, you see numerous human beings reaching for a book like Haeckel's World Riddles to get the world riddles solved. When they have read this book, they only start putting the big questions. Because no solutions are in it but questions, which are put there. Then such minds and such heads can be once brought to theosophy, on this or that way. They face theosophy with its strict, in itself logical thinking which has the origin of certainty, like mathematics, in itself, and an immense disharmony between that which they were used up to now from the outside world, and the requirements which are suddenly put to them. They stuck to the surface of the things up to now; they look into abysses now. They have often lost half a life and more. They are anxious whether the rest of life would be still sufficient to pour everything that faces them in the holes of their souls, which the world has cut. On the other hand, however, they come from these or those circles and cannot break away from them; then the most dreadful obstacles originate. The most practical and most certain way would be if they got involved in the spiritual-scientific research, however, thousand threads pull back them. There the disharmonies face them that must appear if the soul longs for deepness compared to the superficial, the exterior. There a peculiar phenomenon appears with some persons that we make clear to ourselves best of all by a comparison. Imagine, in any corner of a room one would not have cleaned for weeks, a lot of dirt is there — you forgive for the comparison. If now in this room no proper lighting exists, those who look into it can believe that everything is clean. However, if one once illuminates it properly, the mess strikes. It depends only on the fact that one illuminates properly. Something similar applies to the soul. It is used to casualness. It is maybe forced to be superficial among superficial ones. Now, however, it comes to the light which lights up this superficiality that allows this superficiality to appear in its entire inferiority. If this soul is feeling, what happens then? If it is accustomed to superficial judgements, the light that shines on it has to distract it above all. Hence, we see that numerous souls are maybe somewhat distracted by the contact with the spiritual-scientific truth. Does occult science bear the blame for it? Indeed, he who thinks here logically does not put the blame on occult science that is the light, but on the fact that the soul has so much addicted itself to the superficiality of judgement. The matter still goes further. We see human beings who are not up to our complex civilisation suffering from our complex civilisation. Why? They do no longer find their way with their judgement! Theosophy or occult science is the means to find the way in our civilisation, and it can work recovering for someone whom our civilisation has sickened. However, cannot anything else still happen? We can also realise this using a comparison. A dish can be externally healthy; however, it can bring an upset stomach. Even if the dish is rather healthy for the healthy, the upset stomach cannot stand just this healthy dish. This applies to many cases if the human beings with ill souls come out of our civilisation into the cheerful and beatific air of occult science. Then it may happen that they cannot stand the healthy dish with their ill souls. Nevertheless, these are exceptional cases. However, about them is mostly written in the world. One says, theosophy is something that makes the people crazy. — I do not deny that it can also annoy this or that soul, as the healthy dish the upset stomach. However, has the healthy dish caused the upset stomach? Many so-called ditched souls approach theosophy; it is virtually remarkable how many ditched souls approach it. Someone who is obliged to work in this movement could tell some sad chapter, could tell that the cry for help comes from here and there: I do no longer find my way rightly in the world; I do no longer know how to satisfy the longing of my heart. — The most wailful cries for help come in numbers every day. Our materialistic civilisation has caused this passing stones instead of bread to the human beings — you forgive the trivial turn of expression. The superficiality of judgment could be sometimes satisfied. The wishes and interests resting in the soul could not be satisfied. For a while, they can be forced back and deadened, then, however, they forge ahead, and the human being come with their cries for help. One cannot deny that some people come then too late. However, spiritual science cannot be pursued in such a way that it turns to choice ones. One has to bring the things to the public. The elementary basic concepts cannot be denied to anybody, and today the ABC of initiation, as it was indicated in the last talk, cannot be refused to anybody. If today single human beings, ruined by the contemporary civilisation, approach theosophy and when these ditched souls are even more disarranged by the purifying thunderstorm at first, should the remedy be kept, therefore, from all souls, only because single ones were ruined mentally by their wrong way of thinking? Any fanaticism does not talk this way, the experience in the field of the spiritual life of our time talks this way. Admittedly, on the other side, there is a serious danger for the relationship between our contemporaries and the spiritual-scientific worldview. This danger is caused by the fact that our contemporaries approach the spiritual scientific worldview with their worldview and such characters, which our time has bred. Which prejudices, which superficial judgements they introduce in this spiritual-scientific worldview! How much danger exists that the theosophical worldview is spoilt by the trend of our time here and there! Here a danger does exist. One has there to point to some matters, so that we are able to look deeper and deeper into the so-called and into the real dangers of the spiritual-scientific striving. Spiritual worlds are round the human being — we have shown this in the preceding talks, and we penetrate deeper and deeper into these profundities. These worlds relate to the usual sensory world like the world of colours and light to the world of touching with the blind human being; and there is a world that is much higher than what the blind person experiences if one operates him and light and colours shine to him from the darkness. These worlds are round us. However, these worlds are not only worlds of paradise and bliss, although paradise and bliss are in them, but they are also worlds that can be dreadful for the human being, dangerous because of their facts and beings. If the human being wants to get knowledge of the great and beatific of these worlds, he cannot help making acquaintance of the dangerous, of the dreadful that they contain. The one is not possible without the other. Now we must realise once to what extent a danger exists. Imagine a human being who is near a powder magazine without knowing it. He knows nothing about it. However, suddenly he comes to know it and he gets immense fear thinking that he could be busted in the air if the powder magazine explodes. Outdoors nothing has changed; nevertheless, his life has changed. The only thing that is different from before is that he knows about the danger now. This knowledge distinguishes him from that who knows nothing. That applies also to the higher worlds. The danger, the dreadful that is included in them is always round the human being. Yes, immense dangers lie in wait for the human soul in the worlds of which the human beings have no idea. The only difference concerning these dangers and dreadful things and beings is for that who has never moved up to spiritual science, and that who has moved up to it that the latter does know about this danger and the former not. Nevertheless, it is not completely in such a way, namely for the following reasons: we enter the spiritual world in which the spiritual is effective. The powder magazine does not become dangerous because you have fear that the powder explodes; but your fear signifies something in the spiritual world! It is a difference whether you have it or not. Your thoughts are inserted as something real in the spiritual world. A feeling of hatred that you have for a person is more real in the spiritual world and much more efficient than a blow that you give the person concerned, with a stick. Even if the dreadful does not happen immediately before your eyes, it is this way. Indeed, fear and anxiety, such negative feelings are something that puts the human being in a fateful relation to the spiritual world. For in the spiritual world there are beings to whom fear and anxiety emitted by the human beings, are welcome nourishment. If the human being is not afraid and does not fear, these beings are starving! They who have not yet penetrated deeper into the soiritual world, may take this as comparison. However, those who know this matter, know that it concerns something real. If the human being emits fear, anxiety, and panic, these beings indeed find welcome nourishment, and they become mightier and mightier. These beings are hostile to the human beings. Everything that feeds itself from negative feelings, from fear, anxiety and superstition, from hopelessness, from doubt, are powers in the spiritual world that are hostile to the human being, and that make cruel attacks on him if and when they are fed by him. Hence, it is necessary, above all, that the human being who enters the spiritual world, makes himself strong against fear, anxiety, hopelessness, and doubting. However, these are just rather modern cultural feelings, and materialism is suitable because it cuts off the human beings from the spiritual world to call these hostile powers against him by hopelessness and fear of the unknown. To express myself quite clearly, I have to say, when the human being sees that gate of death, he also sees numerous pernicious forces hampering him. Most human beings attract forces by fear of death. The bigger the fear of death, the stronger is their power. The fear of death is generally a part of the feelings of fear. These powers appear like dried up bags if the human being makes himself strong and knows that he cannot change the event of death by the fear of death. The human being is only able to overcome the fear of death and to face death courageously if he knows that an immortal everlasting core is in his inside for which death is only a change of the way of life. As soon as the human being finds the immortal core in himself with the help of occult science, he educates himself more and more for overcoming all such feelings, last also the fear of death. However, the more materialistic the human being becomes, the more he is frightened at death. No occult science can protect the human being to see the truthful behind the scenery. It has to show how the everlasting life, how karma entails the big balance in the spiritual life. This spiritual science has to show various things. It cannot show the beatitudes behind the scenery of life without showing the dreadful powers at the same time, the enemies who lie in wait for him. This is true. However, it also shows how he can overcome any fear of these enemies. It shows how he can face all that with free, courageous eye. It teaches him to become objective and impartial if he leaves himself patiently to its education. However, many human beings come to theosophy with the usual feelings of our time. What they hear here works on them sometimes deeply depressing, as something that attacks their souls frightfully because they have fear of life because of their materialistic thinking. Many people bring this immaturity into theosophy and they overcome it only gradually. Again, theosophy or occult science does not bear the blame for it. It does its bit not to shock the human being too strongly. If it revealed the complete truth of something obvious to the human being, it would say how the cowards separate from the intrepid ones, and some of you would be shocked how big the number is on the one and the other side. However, the immature human beings bring some immature matters into the theosophical movement, while they translate certain concepts that theosophy and occult science give simply into the usual trivial language. As strange as it sounds, here a big danger exists sometimes in the relations between theosophy and our contemporaries. Thus, immature theosophists and such people who approach theosophy externally say repeatedly that the first demand is to become unselfish, to overcome any egoism. Some people can never assert often enough if they want to say anything rather theosophical to anybody: all that I do and want is quite unselfish. I want to work only for the other human beings. — They mostly do not sense how selfish this belief is. It is true that by the acquaintance with the truth of occult science the human being comes gradually to that which is indicated so nicely in Goethe's words: From the force that binds all creatures That man is delivered who masters himself. It is true, but almost everything is necessary that occult science can offer, its highest and its deepest, to reach this ideal. One reaches it best of all if one speaks of it as little as possible and strives for it very directly. Those are unselfish least of all who boast mostly of their unselfishness, as those are normally the most false who use the word “truly” after every third sentence. A deep law underlies that in occultism. First, it concerns penetrating deeper and deeper into the truth and knowledge of occult science, and not taking such ideals as, for example: you shall overcome your ego. — With such a phrase nothing at all is done. Nothing is done if, for example, a stove stands here and I say to it: you should be a good stove; you must make the room warm. — You can stroke it and treat it affectionately, but with it, nothing is done. Not before you give wood to the stove, it heats. Thus, it is also useless at all to preach virtue, unselfishness, and freedom to the world. The right thing is to heat, to give the human being heating material; and the heating material is the spiritual-scientific truth. As the wood and the coal make the stove warm, the real spiritual-scientific truth makes the human being unselfish gradually. Why? Because it detracts the interest in many respects from the small point, which one calls the ego. The theosophical or spiritual-scientific truth is so great, so mighty, and significant, and claims us so strongly that we feel very uninteresting as a single personality. One learns only how uninteresting the single personality is. This learning, how uninteresting the single human personality is, if it is caused by the heating material of the spiritual-scientific truth, only frees the human being from egoism. If you look at the things basically, then egoism is not at all anything that is not included in the divine world order from a higher viewpoint. It is something very healthy from a higher viewpoint. Imagine once if many human beings of our time did not refrain from this or from that if they did not do that or this out of selfishness because they know for selfish reasons what may result. Imagine which pests they would be in the human development! Really, the world wisdom planted egoism into the human being to lead him to a developmental stage to seize his self, so that he makes it as important and valuable as he can only do it. It is a high truth on the one side and a shocking phrase on the other side if one says to the human being, you have to sacrifice your personality. — At an example I want to make clear to you how it can be that something is elated once and rhetorical another time. Imagine, you ask a person who has a ten-pfennig coin in his pocket to sacrifice it for anything. He makes this sacrifice easily. However, if you ask a person, who has 20,000 mark by chance with him — perhaps his whole property — to sacrifice them, this is another thing. The imposition to somebody who has not yet worked on himself who has not yet raised his personality to renounce his personality is something different from that who has worked on it for a long time to make it as competent as only possible. The one sacrifices a genius on the altar of human development, the other a fool. It does not depend on the fact that one sacrifices, but what one sacrifices. To be able to present a personality for humanity, one has to develop this personality at first. Thus, it is once a phrase to speak of the sacrifice of personality; on the other side, it is a great significant truth. Hence, it is useless at all; if in theosophical books, the demand of the sacrifice of personality is pronounced and is not demanded at the same time: make your personality as strong as only possible. We learn this by a real thinking that has its roots in the spiritual world. True theosophy is that logic which does not put one-sided principles but knows that every sentence as every coin has two sides, maybe even more sides, that teaches to look from the appearance at the inside. It does often not at all teach what one calls theosophy superficially today. One calls danger only that which is not a superficial, but a real danger. I was still very young, when I sat with somebody together who had celebrated his fiftieth birthday recently in another country, who had interests in common with me concerning my studies of Goethe. The man said in those days, he did not want to go among the authors. He was in those days, although still relatively young, already older than many who write today. He bethought, I will not write reviews. I want to write something else, because only someone should write reviews who has big experience of life; actually, only old people should write reviews. — This was, in any case, a very good idea of the man. Most people do not believe that maturity is necessary to work in the cultural field. The further we grow into the times, the younger become in particular the people who write under the line, and because the reader usually does not think and has, actually, no means to investigate how young the writer is, he has no notion by whom he is taken in. Everybody knows that today it is not difficult to write wittily. Indeed, still some people are surprised that the one or the other writes wittily. A person who has maybe dealt since his fifteenth, sixteenth year with nothing else than reading such stuff who has learnt the craft substantially needs to publish only something, and he can impress by his radical or blurred judgments enormously. It is possible there that a person seriously suffers from dementia. As strange as it sounds: somebody can be crazy today and he can write wittily for the world, so that he is admired as a witty author. This case is possible. Decades ago, it was already a correct judgement if anybody said, it is not difficult in our time to make a good poem; culture and language versify. — Today, this applies even more, so that some pupils can write newspaper articles. Quite different powers judge there, which use the human beings for their purposes. More and more humanity must demand maturity from that who should have true judgements. Real maturity just also belongs to the work in spiritual-scientific field. Hence, it is also necessary, that those who are leaders of secret schools work only in their circles and do not appear before an age of 35 years to the world and proclaim spiritual-scientific truth. Before, they can bring judgements about philosophy in the world. However, one only becomes mature to scoop from the spirit when one does no longer have to use the spiritual power to the construction of the body. As long as the body is growing, the forces from which a logical judgement builds itself up must go into the body. Hence, it can be possible that a poet got real poems before the middle years. However, the human being misjudges so easily that the biggest maturity of life is necessary to penetrate really into the depth, so that one understands not only anything for his satisfaction and for his advance, but gets around to stepping before humanity and representing spiritual-scientific work with full responsibility. This biggest maturity can only be reached at an advanced age. However, you do not need any maturity to talk in theosophical platitudes. This is something peculiar that maturity belongs to the highest matters if one shall work on them thoroughly. However, they can be treated also as phrases because many people are unable to realise the deepness but they adhere to the phrase. Everything that can be spread in theosophy can be serious and deep to the highest degree, can be a force of life. If one reverses it into its opposite, it can be the most terrible phrase. Therefore, we experience just on this field so often that phrase by phrase blossoms, and that just immaturity works permanently. Besides, that who represents the immature damages himself more than the world. The world rejects what comes from this side. If you are involved in this direction, you do not make progress. For someone who works outward in the spiritual-scientific field has to make sacrifices. There is a great difference if spiritual science is protected like a secret in the chaste soul or if it is cast out in the world. The word applies there that one says about the treasure seeker: he must be taciturn. If he speaks a word, the treasure cannot be attained. Thus, the depths of the higher world are also attained the better, the more one can be quiet. For that who has understood these matters there is no talking generally if he is not forced to it if the world does not demand it from him. Nobody shall talk without being asked. The demand does not need to come from here or there, this demand can come from invisible, from supersensible powers. With it, one can say, because our time is so little able to think properly about maturity and immaturity, it forms a sort of theosophy. It can be the highest; but in its reversal, it is a caricature and a risk. It does not bear the blame. It will gradually replace the absurd judgement with the correct one concerning maturity and immaturity. Nobody may be surprised that it is that way. If he were surprised, he should also be surprised about the fact that where strong light is also black shades are. Where less strong light is, even weaker shades are. Theosophy possibly throws black shades; this is only an evidence of the fact that it should be a strong light. Where one speaks of the so-called dangers, one must take stock of the fact that against the big danger simply a bulwark is there that no real teacher in this field exposes the human beings to this serious, big danger, and that everything that looks like a danger does not come from theosophy but from that which opposes it. If one knows this, one will be quiet, even if apparently bad effects appear. These can also appear. One can experience that persons, as long as they have no connection to theosophy, are reasonably decent persons. If they come to theosophy, they become vain, ambitious, and haughty. Why? For very simple reasons. As long as a person towers only a little above the judgements of his surroundings, he cannot be particularly bad, but also not particularly good. However, if he comes to something original, the possibility of the good increases but also the possibility of the bad. What appears here already with the usual theosophist can appear with the pupil all the more. With him, the mistakes that exist on the bottom of his being if he must gain his free judgment appear with big clearness. However, this is necessary. If anybody wants to develop quicker, a sum of bad qualities may come out with him overnight. These qualities would maybe have spread over sixty years. If one dissolves a drop of colour in a big quantity of water, one sees nothing of the colour. That also applies to the pupil. What should come out in some days becomes noticeable. However, if one acts out anything for sixty years, one notices nothing of it. Yes, in secret science there appear some devils of arrogance. Relatively soon, one had to experience that persons who are not haughty in themselves approach one with wishes. Then they come and say, I want to start being a pupil and becoming an adept as quickly as possible. — One does often hear that. It is experience that the devil of arrogance seizes somebody. Towards the great, they often become the haughtiest, and then they hard understand that this feeling is the biggest obstacle for their further development, and that it is the best for the further development to renounce arrogance. — However, this is connected also with the fact that we are great laughers and great blabbers. With it, I have spoken about the dangers of occult science. I made no secret that there are such cases, I have also tried in the course of these talks to point where, actually, the more dangerous cases are. Today, I wanted to point only in general to what one finds everywhere in theosophy and occult science. He who searches occult science is not deterred by the dangers of it, but he finds the welfare, the recovery of the soul just in occult science. He knows that it does not cause damage that it does not bring dangers, but that it uncovers damages and points to dangers where they also exist, otherwise, and where they would keep on working if they were not led to recovery. Hence, this so-called danger shall deter nobody from penetrating into the spiritual fields. As we are led by all the other considerations and viewpoints, we are also led here to realise that the human being shall not refrain from developing the forces and abilities slumbering in him to penetrate into nature. For what is material is revelation of the spirit. As around us are dreadful beings if we look into them, they are in nature. Only because the human being closes his eyes he avoids this fact. Those who knew something of occult science also knew this. Already in his youth, Goethe heard some objections against the penetration into the inside of the things. He heard the words of the Swiss naturalist Haller (Albrecht von H., 1708–1777) who said: No created mind penetrates into the being of nature. Blissful is that to whom she shows her appearance only. Goethe who dared to look into her knew that the human being can penetrate into nature everywhere. Hence, he felt repeatedly urged to say: Considering nature you have to regard Everything always as the same. Nothing is inside, nothing is outdoors, Because what is inside is outdoors ... In his peculiar kind, Goethe still opposed the quotation that limits the human cognitive faculties. He protested against it with the words, which just are suitable to point a soul to the practical-active of the theosophical worldview, while he reminded of Haller's words in old age: Indeed To the Physicist “No created mind penetrates into the being of nature.” O you Philistine! Do not remind me And my brothers and sisters Of such a word. We think: everywhere we are inside. “Blissful is that to whom she shows Her appearance only!” I hear that repeatedly for sixty years, I grumble about it, but covertly, I say to myself thousand and thousand times: She gives everything plenty and with pleasure; Nature has neither kernel nor shell, She is everything at the same time. Examine yourself above all, Whether you are kernel or shell.

The So-Called Dangers of Initiation

https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA056/English/eLib2015/19071212p01.html

Berlin

12 Dec 1907

GA056-6

Spiritual science shall not only satisfy scientific curiosity. It shall give the human being an impulse for life or acting, for certainty and satisfaction in life. What spiritual science offers shall enable us to act and manage our tasks efficiently. The child faces us like a living riddle. Prejudices in many fields of life can still be corrected, however, prejudices of child education have often detrimental effects and can no longer be corrected. In the triality of man, woman and child the entire humanity appears. In the child many things are inheridited from man and woman. Hence, the question of heredity has impact here which also comprises the riddle of destiny to a certain degree. What has the child got from its ancestors? Concerning this consider Ibsen's dramas (Henrik I., 1829–1906, Norwegian dramatist). Everywhere in art the question of heredity arises, because one feels its significance and practical importance. However, we are not deceived by the prejudices which are suggested by the facts that one gains from the observation of lower animals. One of the biggest mistakes in this field is that we apply to the present human being automatically what observation and experiments with lower animals show or what we know about the history of our ancestors. Spiritual science acknowledges what science understands by heredity, but it ascends to higher facts that become obvious, actually, only from the aspects of the spiritual world. It exists an increase of lawfulness. Lawfulness prevails in the entire nature, in the bodily and in the spiritual. However, we have to ascend with our insights from lower principles to principles that apply to the higher regions. We have to accomplish this increase without fail. Into what does heredity transform in higher regions? The solution of this question instills healthy respect of the becoming human being. It is a huge difference between the lower animals and the human being. The basic difference between the human being and other creatures is as follows: all that interests us in the animal is connected with the concept of species or genus. We do not notice the same respect of the individual with the animals as with the human being. The portrayal of a lion is the portrayal of the lion species. The species prevails. In contrast, the individuality prevails with the human being. That is why a biography of any human being is possible, even of the simplest. In this fact many things are concealed, above all, that the human being is a species, a genus in himself. In the human being, something lives that corresponds to an entire animal species. The principle of soul re-embodiment or reincarnation results from this. We cannot understand the human individual from the ancestors. Perhaps, outer qualities can be led back, admittedly, to ancestors, but not that what belongs to the own being of a human individuality. Just as little, we can derive the individuality of any animal species from the qualities of its ancestors. The cause of the origin of a living being must always arise from the living. Few centuries ago, one still believed in procreation, for example, that animals come into being from river mud. The human soul is not composed of all kinds of qualities, as little as a worm of certain inorganic substances, as one meant at that time. A soul always goes back to a soul; and the soul that lives in a human being today goes back to a former soul existence. It is a re-embodiment, but it is not a conglomerate of qualities of the fatherly or motherly side. Thus, the principle of reincarnation results inevitably. From this viewpoint, we want to look at man, at woman and child. What as the deeper basis as the individuality of the child appears is that what as a soul fits into the physical nature, after it had lived on in another existence in the meantime. Man and woman have to give the child a cover only. Motherly love and fatherly love is degraded thereby by no means. The individuality of a human being exists for a long time before the copulation of the parents. A kind of unaware love leads the child to these certain parents and causes them to begetting. Then as a gift in return, both parents meet the child with their parental love. Death and love are tied together with certain creatures. Some animals die after the copulation. Such beings point to the coherence of the living beings in the universe and to the fact of love. Love is for the human being something by which he dedicates his individual existence to the entire being. It is not that rhetorical thing of poetry, but a force pervading the entire nature. Love is the counter-image of egoism. In it, the individual goes beyond itself as it were. It is a real increase of life with more perfect beings. The individual being is the human being. One can only understand the significance of individual and love completely considering the nature of the human being in the sense of spiritual science. According to it, the physical body is only a dress of the entire human existence. He has the etheric body in common with animals and plants. The astral body that also the animals have encloses the mental, from the lowest desire up to the highest moral ideas. However, the human being owns the force of the ego only, hence, he may be regarded as a crown of creation. That personality felt the depth of the word “I” who spoke: the ego is, was and will be there. True knowledge of the ego is the highest form of knowledge. The ego-knowledge stands behind the “veiled picture at Sais.” “No mortal being has lifted my veils.” The true ego-knowledge is possible only to that human force which is immortal. Only the supersensible in the human being recognises the immortal. Hence, what is mortal in us does not lift the veil of the goddess. A German romantic said boldly, if no mortal lifts the veil of Isis, we must become just immortal. Up to the second dentition of the child the physical body develops. Then the human being grows, admittedly, even further, but the figure becomes only taller, the form extends which he has received up to the seventh year. With it, we have an important regulator for education. Up to this time, one should develop the physical form of the child. If one does not do this, one has omitted something for the whole life of the human being concerned. In the second period up to puberty, the etheric body develops. In the time before, it was by no means idle. The etheric body is enclosed only in a kind of motherly sheath up to the second dentition. Only thenceforward, it gets free and can develop. The sexual maturity is a final point of the development of the etheric body, and from now on, the development of the astral body becomes free. Even later, the real education of the ego begins. Another picture results from the hereditary process of the physical, another from that of the etheric body and again another from that of the astral body. What the human being brings as inheritance of the ancestors lies in the physical and in the etheric body. Up to the sexual maturity, these inherited qualities become completely visible. Then, however, the development of the special individuality of the human being begins, and this expresses itself in love. Certain animal species die with the act of love because here their being stops and their individual existence is over. The higher the individuality of a being is, the more it takes along beyond the sexual maturity as something imperishable. In reality, there are transitions. Thus, the human being saves his inner life beyond the species only. Perhaps, by a confrontation of a human being and a stone you get the understanding of it: in the crystal, the outer forces that have formed it conclude. They do no longer impress anything into the inside of the stone. With the plant, the essentials are not the increase of the form, but only a kind of recurrence of the form principle as Goethe explained it. What the human being himself acquired on former stages he shows as effect of his ego now. As the plant searches and receives its materials from the soil to build up its body, the young human being chooses his parents to build up his physical body. Here the ideas of spiritual science immediately intervene in the will, in the feelings, in life. We must respect the right of the child in the deepest sense. Towards the next generation, the human being feels different if he sees the matters in this light. Concerning that, the natural sciences say, from the male principle a number of qualities changes over to the germ, also from the female part, from the ovum. Both groups of qualities must blend in the embryo. The everlasting return of the same qualities is thereby avoided. This is the reason why the male and female gametes blend. This is the essential in nature. Concerning the soul our natural sciences are the most superstitious that can be there. Schopenhauer had a flash of genius when he said, what strives for existence brings the human individualities of both sexes together in love. In the end, spiritual science teaches this too. The human being are brought together to procreate the future generations. If one considers every child that way, we have no right to force our peculiarity upon it. The right educator can promote the development of the child only as far as he has learnt this with himself. The child is the greatest teacher of the educator. If the educator solves this riddle of the child thoroughly, he is the best educator. To him who penetrates such views with his soul they change into respect to the being of the child and arouse awe of what there grows and becomes. This attitude to duties extends to the entire growing generation. We adults are for the growing generation a sort of mother soil from which it develops. We have to give the child what it needs for life, but we are not allowed to form it in our own image under constraint, but we must leave it free in its development and respect it. It is a much more significant mission of the human beings to respect this nascent freedom than respecting that freedom of that which is there already. Spiritual science is a right educator of this respect. It shows the supersensible and the facts which spiritual beings create constructing the universe for ages and help the human beings with it. The knowledge of yesterday enables us to find adequate solutions also for the present. Our work in the present must respect the freedom of the developing supersensible. Freedom of the supersensible in the sensuous shall be our motto. Thus, we help humanity to advance to a future that is salutary for us and means a divine condition. If the look is opened to the supersensible in the present, the past becomes explicable to us, and we can learn from it what helps and is advisable for the future If Yesterday is clear and obvious to you, You work freely and powerfully Today You can also hope for a Tomorrow That is not less happy. From Goethe's Zahme Xenien (1820/1827)

Man, Woman and Child

https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA056/English/eLib2015/19080109p01.html

Berlin

9 Jan 1908

GA056-7

Even if the saying “recognise yourself” which was written above the entrance of a famous Greek temple remains an everlasting truth, even if this must also remain the guideline of all thinking, researching and feeling, nevertheless, the human being soon feels if he looks impartially at the world and at himself that self-knowledge is not only contemplating his own ego, but that he has to receive the true self-knowledge by the view of the big world and its beings. We get the right self-knowledge from our surroundings if we understand them correctly. Therefore, one also felt always how significant the knowledge of those creatures must be that are the next on the stage behind us: the knowledge of the real nature, the inner life of the animals. If the human being lets the eyes wander over the plenty of animal forms, every one presents a specific feature developed in detail. If he looks at himself, he finds, also with superficial look, everything with himself that he sees distributed again on the single animals, but harmonised in a certain way. If he looks at the animal realm outdoors, it may confuse him as it were, so that he only must separate it to put it in order. He can do this best of all if he looks at the animal life in its entirety. However, as many other things of human knowledge, the human views of the animals were also dependent on the human feelings in a certain epoch and under certain conditions. We already find in our immediate surroundings that the human beings are different from these creatures related to them. We realise how the one wants to see something in the animals that is mental-spiritual as near as possible to the human beings. On the other side, we experience others not becoming tired stressing the distance even of the highest animals to the human beings. We also realise in which way such a difference expresses itself in the moral behaviour. We see the one making this or that animal his dear friend behaving to it almost as a human being, giving it love, trust, and friendship. On the other side, we see certain human beings having a quite special reluctance against the one or the other animal. We realise how someone — like from an ethical urge — who feels mainly as a researcher points to the resemblance of the higher animals and their performances to the human being. Thus, we see apes doing things that remind of the mental and spiritual qualities of the human being. However, some people regard the high-developed animals as caricatures of the human beings, because he sees desires and instincts arising in a raw, unimproved form, which are weakened in the human being more or less, so that a kind of shame comes over him. We realise that the materialistic thinking and feeling, in particular in the just expired epoch, did not get tired stressing again and again that everything that the human soul can express, for example, speech, laughter, feelings and moral sensations already exist as rudiments with the animals. Yes, some people also believe to notice religious feeling in certain way. Thus, one asserts, any perfect human quality has gradually developed from qualities of the animal. Other ages, which thought less materialistically, could not make the distance great enough between the human being and the animal. We find, for example, a strange view about the animals with Descartes, the founder of the newer philosophy, whose lifetime from 1596 to 1650 does not lie so far behind us. He denies the animals everything that makes the human being a human being: reason, mind, everything that one summarises under the concept of a reasonable soul. He regards the animal as a kind of an automaton. Outer stimuli set it in motion, and everything that appears with the animal is a result of a stimulus. It is almost in such a way that he regards the animal hardly as something else than a kind of a higher, very complex machine. Indeed, he who has an impartial look at the animal realm round us can easily feel the difficulties judging the animal and looking, so to speak, into the inside of a being that is, indeed, related to us but also distant in certain respect. We realise very soon if no prejudice blurs our vision that such a view as that of Descartes cannot maintained. We realise that, indeed, also to the superficial look those expressions that we call reasonable, prudent, and mental with the human being also exist in the animal in a certain way. Many people say, this is the typical of the animal that its intelligence, its soul is stationary in a certain way, whereas the human soul is changeable insofar as we can educate it. Although single persons assert this, one does not admit this without further ado, even if one looks at this matter only superficially. We realise looking at the animals round us how far certain animals closely related to the human being develop their intelligence. We see what an exact memory dogs seem to have now and again. We do not need to go into the subtleties of these matters characterising the animal soul, but only to sound what most of you have come to know, either directly or indirectly. Who does not know how long dogs remember where they have hidden anything anywhere or such. Who does not know that cats, if they are enclosed in this or that room, opened the door handle themselves to come out. Yes, it is not wrong at all if one asserts that the horses who were led once to the farrier know the way, so that if they lack a horseshoe they go to the farrier on their own accord. Someone who observes such things can hardly fail to admit that concerning certain manifestations of intelligence, certain mental activities only differences of quality exist between animal and human being, that there is only a gradual increase of the abilities of the human soul. Admittedly, many people become reckless with such things according to a Goethean saying that one needs only to change a little for this case: where serious concepts of the animal realm are lacking, the word instinct appears at the right time. Instinct is such a collective name, a real smorgasbord, in which everything is put that one does not understand. Admittedly, least people are out to receive a clear mental picture of these “mystic” instincts. However, this obliges us to go deeper into these matters. If we look carefully at the animal, we find certain mental qualities of the human being, like envy, jealousy, love, aggressiveness and so on, also in the animal realm, sometimes to a lower, sometimes to a higher degree than with the human being. If one considers this, it obliges us to look at the matter somewhat more exactly. However, very numerous observations of the animal life were done in manifold ways. What was not yet known at the time of Descartes is easily accessible today because the animal realm has been scientifically investigated in all directions in order to get to know the human nature. The following may seem absurd, but to someone who knows the animals it is not at all miraculous. One made dogs by careful training to point to the right playing card. I do not want to speak of that man who asserts to have made his dogs to play at dominoes; if a domino did not match, they whined. All that are matters that are only an increase of what each of you knows. Then we must point to the fact that particular qualities can be so deeply imprinted on the animal that they are imprinted not only on the single animal, but also on its descendants. Certain things, which one taught any dog, were found again with the descendants but their parents did not train them anyhow. It is in such a way that, even if one separated the descendants immediately after birth from the mother animals, the qualities which one had taught the parents appeared with the descendants. The outer quality was imprinted so deeply that it became hereditary and was simply transferred from the ancestors to the descendants. However, certain factors are confronted with all things that may be undeniable, which must puzzle the human being who wants not to prejudge but to judge thoroughly. Let us take another example. Two dogs were used to hunt rats with each other. One wanted to prevent that. Hence, one closed them in two different rooms. Both rooms were separated with a closed door. It became apparent that the smaller dog made itself felt by barking at first. Thereupon the bigger one succeeded in opening the door handle. Now they were together and could hunt again collectively. Then one did something else. One separated them again in two rooms; however, the door handle was now tied with a string. Again, they were able to communicate to each other. Now the smaller one was even cheekier; he found out that one could bite through the string. Thus, they met and hunted again. This is an example that can tempt us to speak of a very extensive intelligence activity of both animals. However, it has its limits. One closed both dogs in different rooms once again. However, this time one made the door handle invisible, while one stretched a cloth over it, and now they were no longer able to meet each other. We see the limits sharply drawn. In the latter case it would have been necessary that one of the dogs would have concluded that there a door handle must be found. It could not see it; once he could see everything. Because he could not see it, he did not find it. We see the sharp limit. Here we can take the starting point and do research where such a limit is found. We can admire lower animals concerning their mental qualities. He who has sense for the lawfulness of nature admires the anthill and the activity of the ants, the hive and the strange activity of the bees or, if we go up to higher animals, the dens of the beavers. — Who does not admire with the lower animals that which looks similar to memory, to intelligence if we see ants coming back if they have found a place where they can get something for their hill and carrying to it repeatedly, also taking others along to help them taking what is still lacking. There we see the intelligent activity of animals finding the way back to the place where they have once picked up something. We realise an intelligent activity if an ant takes the other along for helping. One has argued, all that needs to be based on nothing but a kind of subtle percipience of that which is at the concerning place. After the ant has perceived the things once that are at the concerning place, it can move far away, and due to its subtle sense it is driven again to it, because it just perceives it. Certain researchers have tried to disprove such objections. They brought the ants in the headwind direction and made smell and perception impossible that way, so that they would not find these matters, if it depended only on sense-perception. Nevertheless, the animals found the objects again, so that the researchers seemed entitled to assume that really a kind of memory exists which the animal drives repeatedly to the place, which it has kept in mind. However, there are also things that must puzzle us in certain respect. We realise that animals really have a subtle, distinctive gift to perform this or that. Who gets involved with such subtleties as they appear, for example, if an insect pupates how there the single threads are spun after single lines and directions, one can see something like a kind of geometry in this activity that the human being attains only after a long, long apprenticeship. The things are often built so subtly that the human being with his geometry is even today not so far to be able to copy these things. There we see, for example, the bee cell showing the figure of a regular hexagon. Yes, also if such insects have to modify their dens generally or their activity because these or those conditions changed, we realise that they do not keep on building according to an accepted pattern, but that they adapt themselves often wonderfully to the new conditions. We realise something like intelligence if such an insect, a caterpillar, cocoons itself as a chrysalis and is treated then in a certain way. Thus, a researcher tried to find the underlying cause of this matter and observed the following: he let the concerning caterpillar spin three threads in its cocoon, and then he took out it and put it into another weave, which he had taken from an insect that had also spun single threads. However, he had taken out those threads. There the animal started again from beginning and span three threads again. If the animal, after it had spun up to three threads, was put in a weave from which six threads were taken out and only the seventh, eighth and ninth threads were there and also the first, second and third, then the animal started spinning the fifth, the sixth and seventh ones; then it stopped again. However, it is strange that the animal, after it had spun six threads, was placed in a weave in which the first three ones existed started spinning again the second one and then third, fourth, fifth and so on. — It behaves as a boy who has learnt a poem, has recited the three first stanzas, and should say the seventh now. That applies also to this animal. It saw that three threads were there; however, it could not be determined by that. Thus, we see a kind of mechanics prevailing in the activity of the animal. We can see this still at another significant example. The sand digger wasp has a weird peculiarity: it leaves its cave, searches any insect for itself; however, it does not bring it directly to the cave, but leaves it at the entrance of the cave. Then it goes in and examines the cave whether everything is in order; then it gets the insect and puts it into it. One can consider this as a very reasonable process. — However, the matter can also go on in the following way. Imagine, you commit something naughty towards the sand wasp, and you take away the prey and lay it down far from the cave. The animal comes back; it looks and finds again the prey. Now it goes to the entrance of the cave, goes into it again, examines the cave once again, and brings in the insect. — If you do this forty times, the insect does the same procedure forty times. You realise that the insect cannot conclude that the cave is in order, that it is not necessary to look into it. We could increase this example still a thousand times. Indeed, our natural sciences have a time behind themselves when they believed that it is sufficient if they answered to anybody who questioned them about these matters to talk about the struggle for existence, adaptation and the like. As strange it may sound to an impartial thinker, one said to himself: an animal acquired these instincts for certain reasons, the animal did not have these instincts before. However, once such an animal maybe performed an action that was suitable for its life. Because the animal performed this suitable action, it could get living conditions, which were favourable to him. The others that behaved less suitably became extinct gradually. With those, which performed favourable actions, such impulses of action were transmitted; they became habits, desires, and instincts. You will admit that if we apply this principle that in the course of the evolution, in the struggle for existence the animals appropriated suitable instincts, to the animal realm with impartial look, nevertheless, something becomes obvious. It is rather plausible for some people to say, the ancestors appropriated something once; then this was transmitted to the descendants. Those, which did something suitable, survived the struggle for existence, the others perished. Hence, only those remained which were equipped with suitable instincts. However, if we apply this to the whole nature, something cannot withstand to such a view, because one must ask which form of usefulness is the basis of the instincts of certain insects which seeing a flame plunge into it and perish. On the other hand, which favourable adaptation forms the basis of the struggle for existence that certain domestic animals, for example, horses and bovine animals behave in the same way? If we herd them out of a fire, we see them plunging into it repeatedly. One can also do this observation. This is the one. Then, however, one also does not come very far with this instinct principle if one considers that the animals have acquired qualities and pass on them to their descendants. If one wants to apply this principle, for example, to the bees, we must get clear about the following. You know, one distinguishes the queen, the drones, and the workers. They all have certain qualities that enable them to their task in the beehive and in the bee life. During generations these workers appear with the certain qualities repeatedly which the drones and the queen do not have. The question is now: can these attributes be inherited? This is impossible, because these workers are just those, which are infertile. Those, which do not have the attributes of the workers, provide the reproduction. The queen bears workers with the qualities repeatedly which the queen does not have. Thus, we realise that the mere materialistic theory of evolution and that of the struggle for existence are contradictory in many respects. We could increase these examples thousand fold. Nevertheless, they all speak for the same. You find those qualities which we know as qualities of the human soul anyhow in the animal realm — if weaker or stronger, that is another question —, but we find them. We also find certain manifestations of intelligence, of a certain activity of reason. Is it now — this is the big question — inevitable to come to the materialistic explanation that everything that the human being has as contents of his soul is nothing else as a transformation, a higher development of that which we find in the animal realm? Are these related traits in the animal soul and in the human soul evidence of the fact that the human being is nothing else as a higher animal? Spiritual science only can answer to this question and is able to solve it. Spiritual science looks impartially at all related traits of the human being and the animal realm, however, because it does not stop at the outer sensuous world and goes up to spiritual basis of existence, it can show the immense gap which opens between human being and animal. What distinguishes the human being from the animal I have already emphasised in certain respect in previous talks, in particular in the last one. Spiritual science would close the eyes, if it denied the animal the soul. The animal has, in the sense of spiritual science, a soul as the human being has one. However, it has this soul in another kind. Already in the last talk when we considered the view of repeated incarnations concerning man, woman and child, we could point to the big difference between the single human being and the single animal. I repeat briefly: the entire animal species arouses the same interest in us as the single human individuality does. The human being is a species for himself as an individuality. The father, son, grandson, great-grandchild of a lion has so much with each other in common that we only are interested in the lion as a species to the same degree as we are interested in the single human being. Hence, only the single human being has his biography in the true sense of the word, and this biography is for the single human being the same as the description of the species is for the animal. Already last time, I have mentioned that certain persons — “dog fathers” or “cat mothers” — have to argue something. They say, they could write a biography of their cat or dog just as one of a human being. However, I have already mentioned that a schoolmaster demanded from his pupils to write the biography of their quill. Comparatively one can do everything, but it does not depend on it. One must look impartially at the matter. If you really go into the matter, you find that certain details, certain specific features are always there. A quill also has specific features by which one can distinguish it from other quills. However, it does not depend on it. It depends on the inside value of the concerning being, it depends on the fact that, indeed, the single being if it has a healthy nature engages our interest in the same way as the entire animal species does. This is only a logical tip at first to that which spiritual science indicates as a peculiarity of the animal soul. In spiritual science, we regard the human being as an individual soul, whereas the animals have group-souls. A group-soul is the same as the individual soul of the single human being with the exception that spiritual science searches the human soul in the human being and the animal soul without the animal, as absurd as it may seem. Just because we go exactly into the phenomena, we are led even more to the consideration of higher levels than the physical level is. I called your attention to the fact that just as round a blind person light, colour and shine exist, around the human being who has only physical perception a spiritual world exists in which spiritual beings are. When the spiritual organs of perception or knowledge are opened, he sees a new world of facts and beings, like someone who was born blind and could be operated is able to see, so that light, colour and shine appear to him as a new world which he could not perceive before. The individual human soul has descended from a higher world to the physical body. It is not physical, but it has descended to the physical world. It inspires and spiritualises the body. One cannot find the animal soul that is a group-soul, a type soul as an individual soul in the physical world. However, when the spiritual eyes of the human being are opened, we meet the animal soul. Then you meet this as a self-contained creature as you find the human soul in the human being. We call that world which presents itself immediately if the first cognitive organs are opened astral world, namely for reasons we talk about in the following talks. As well as we find self-contained human individualities in the physical world, we find self-contained beings of mental kind within the astral world, only entire groups of animals — groups of homogenous animals — belong to these group-souls. If I should make that clear by a comparison, imagine that I stand before you, before me a wall is, so that you cannot see me, a wall with holes so large that I could push my ten fingers through them. Then you see ten fingers, you do not see me. From your experience, however, you know that somewhere a human being must be to whom these fingers belong. If you broke through the wall, you would discover the human being. The relation of the spiritual researcher to the higher world is similar to that. He sees in the physical world various, but homogenous animals, as for example lions, tigers, monkeys etc. These single animals do not belong to a common physical body but to a common soul being. The wall that hides this soul being is simply the boundary wall between the physical and the astral worlds. Wherever the single lions are whether in Africa or in European zoos, it does not depend on it. Just as the connecting lines of my ten fingers lead to the human being, also the connecting lines of the single animals lead to the group-soul. Wherever spiritual science existed, one distinguished human being and animal in such a way that one got clear about the fact that that has entered the body which is for the animal still in a spiritual world and which manifests like stretching an arm down to the physical world. The human being takes possession of it in his individuality in his higher development, so that one does not need to be surprised if the single animals show expressions of intelligence. As well as you see intelligent expressions also in my hands if you see them seizing this or that, you can also see the single bees, single animals generally, doing this or that. However, the real culprit has not descended at all to the physical world. The culprit uses the animal like an organ, like a limb that he stretches out to the physical world. If we take this as basis, many things become understandable to us in this world. You can recognise just in such a thing again: the spiritual eyes, the organs of higher knowledge of the most human beings are not open. They cannot convince themselves of the fact that in the spiritual world self-contained animal souls exist that send much subtler organs down into the single animals. However, you can still say something else to yourselves. You can assume that the quite crazy ideas of the seers are true, and if we take them hypothetically, the world here becomes somewhat explicable, comprehensible to us. Now, let us look at one of the examples concerning this requirement. We take that sand wasp which as an executive organ gets the prey, lays it before the nest, goes in, and gets it again. Intelligence forms the basis of that, even if not the same intelligence as that of the forefinger. If now in a single case the animal could also stray in the action, could the order be maintained as it were by the “central authority,” by the group-soul? No! Only because the intelligence is with the central authority, with the group-soul and is not left to the single animal in the particular case, only thereby it is possible that wisdom rules in the entire animal realm. Up there where the group-soul is wisdom rules. Hence, we also see where this group-soul comes into question where modifications must take place concerning the outer conditions that it also happens there. However, if it depends on the fact that the spiritual of the animal corresponds to the intentions of the species, there the animal is like in a whole mass. If you leave to every single soldier what he wants to do or to let, how could anything uniform, a uniform enterprise come about there? Is it not necessary that just because of the unity the single one must do the wrong? Reflect about these thoughts, and then you find that the ostensible contradiction clears itself even where the fly rushes in the flame and finds its death. In the single case, this leads to death, however, on a large scale it is useful to the species. Thus, we see abilities and qualities, wisdom and intelligence, spread out upon the animals. We also see the human being based on wisdom. The animal has it, too. Ask for memory, the human being has it. Ask with the animal, there you must reverse the matter and say, memory “has” the animal, imagination “has” the animal. The animal is possessed by imagination, is possessed by memory. The animal is a limb of a higher being that has memory and imagination. The wise group-soul standing behind it that is not within the single animal pushes the animal. What about the taming of animals and the like? You can explain this to yourselves under these premises very well. We practise a hand as a single hand. While we practise it, we must perform certain activities of our central organ. However, the hand must be practised, and when it is practised, the practice sticks as a habit to the hand. Thus, we can know if we maintain and educate the single animal that this single animal advances like the single limb in certain way. However, it reacts on the central authority. It seems to go so deeply into the group-soul that the qualities, which have become habits, appear in the descendant again without further ado. This does not apply to the human being in such a way. With the human being such single things are not passed on just like that because with the human being the individual overshadows the type, or better said, outshines it. We can well survey the human and the animal evolutions from such requirements. Today the descent theory is rather near to bankruptcy. Serious researchers deny what one has still claimed before short time that the single human being is close to the most advanced mammals today. One says that it is impossible that the human being is a descendant of the monkeys. The opposite can also be asserted, because we have certain abilities with many lower monkeys in common, so that certain researchers stand on the point of view that the ancestor from whom the human being descended does no longer live. The natural sciences cannot yet bring themselves to accept the point of view that the monkey itself has descended, but that the human being has ascended. Spiritual science not only imagines this descent, but it knows how to investigate it relating to the animal type-souls or group-souls and the human individual souls. However, if we go back from the higher mammals and from the human being, we come to a common ancestor. However, this was no animal in the today's sense. This ancestor was much closer to the human being than he was similar to a today's animal. Those real ancestors whom we have to search are in certain way group-souls of the human being and of the animals. Who would deny this who surveys the human life impartially? Go back further and further in the human development, or look at the today's savages who have stopped on a low stage of development: do we not see something even more typical with them than with the developed civilised human beings? The further we go back in time, the less the human being is an individual being. Certainly, the individual has only developed in the human being, and we await future times when the human being has still much more individual traits. The human being is on the way from a type being to a more and more individual being. Today he stands in the middle. If we go back to the origin of the human race, we find entire groups of human beings whose single limbs have no distinctive consciousness of their self with whom the tribal feeling, the family feeling was far bigger than the feeling of the single individual. The single individual was sacrificed in favour of the interests of the tribe or the group. Briefly, we must award a group-soul to him if we go back further, so that we recognise the human soul as a group-soul in ancient times like the today's animal soul. However, the human soul had found the other possibility. In what way did it find this other possibility that the animal soul does not have? The animal soul retained, so to speak, earlier than the human soul, its single traits and hardened them. Because it had hardened them, the animals were no longer able of development; they stopped on the old stage. If we go back to the monkey, we must say, a group-soul that poured its qualities in the firm form too early is the basis of the single simian species. Hence, it could no longer develop the qualities poured in physical forms. The human being was still a subtler and more malleable being in relation to the physical body that could still be transformed. The group-soul of the human being retained something of its changeability. It did not bring down itself with its longing for forming a physical body as early as the group souls of the today's animals. The human soul waited up to the time when a more comprising life on earth was possible for it. Thus, the animal group-souls could not use the bodies of the animals to enter them as the human soul entered the physical body of the human being. The human body retained the ability to become more perfect, it can be a dwelling place, a temple for the higher individuality in which then also supersensible intelligence can live. Hence, we do not find abilities like supersensible memory, supersensible imagination, and intelligence in the animals, but above the animals. However, we find the spiritual put in the human being; it has entered the human being. Hence, we need not be surprised that we find a point in time tracing back the evolution of the world when animals walked about on our earth for a long time, while we can trace back the human being only until the Tertiary or the Diluvium ( now : Pleistocene). In geology, one cannot trace back the human being farther. The human soul waited with its embodiment, after the animals had become physical. The human body crystallised from the spiritual. The animal bodies hardened sooner than the human bodies did. In the ancient times, when already the animal group-souls hardened, these souls were still imperfect. Hence, they could form imperfect stages only. Later on, the human group-soul was individualised, and then these individuals were born on our earth. Thus, we also understand why the animal realm appears to us like a disassembled human being. In ancient times, the group-soul that was destined to develop formed certain group-souls; it built animal forms. Then it was not able to advance. Others have developed its qualities. We must not be surprised that the being that waited longest, descended latest, shows the biggest complexity, but also the biggest harmony in the confluence of that which is spread out in the animal realm. Therefore, Goethe could say so nicely, if the human being looks out at nature and perceives what is disassembled in nature outdoors, and summarises and processes it to that which is measure and order in him, it is as if nature is at the summit of her becoming and admires herself. The animal realm became individual in the human being that way, in the human being the qualities of the animal realm are combined in a unity. We see the divine spirit in the succession of the animal forms. Any animal creation is a one-sided representation of the divine spirit. However, a harmonious, general expression of it is the human being. Therefore, Paracelsus could say out of this consciousness what is still hard understood: if we look out at the animal realm, any animal is to us like a letter, and the human being is the word which is composed of the single letters. — This is a wonderful comparison of the relationship of the animals to the human being. Goethe got to know the single animal forms much more thoroughly. He said to himself, if we look at the animal and study its form, we can realise how in the biggest variety the divine creating is active; then we can see the original thought that is distributed in most different forms among the most different animals. One needs not be as absurd as Oken (Lorenz O., originally Okenfuß, 1779–1851, German naturalist) was who said, every human organ is as an animal species, and he really pointed to single human organs. He says of the cuttlefish that it became the tongue. He had brought a dark notion — because he was no spiritual scientist — in this absurd form. Against it, Goethe found that in such a way, as a thought of the human being is distributed among the different types, the original type forms the basis of any animal, only the single organ that intervenes in harmonious kind with the human being appears one-sided with the animal. Goethe says, let us take a lion, and compare it to a horned or antlered animal. The same original thought forms the basis there. However, the lion has a certain power, which forms teeth. The same power forming teeth with the lion forms the antlers with the antlered animal. Hence, an antlered animal cannot have a complete range of teeth in the upper jaw. Hence, Goethe searches the lack on the other side in the animal. In the womb of nature, the animal itself is made perfect. All limbs form according to everlasting principles, and the suitable form retains the prototype secretly. The prototype that was already created in the most imperfect being, which the soul represents in the most imperfect animal, attains the most perfect figure in the bearer of the individual soul, in the human being. Therefore, the form was bestowed not only on the human being like on the animals, but the human being makes this prototype alive in himself in creative thoughts. In him, the thought is reflected not only according to its form and figure but also to its manifestation. While we see this thought represented, Goethe says, pursuing this gradual evolution to its height, be glad, highest creature of nature that you can grasp the great idea in your inside that the order of the creatures has developed up to you.

The Souls of Animals in the Light of Spiritual Science

https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA056/English/eLib2015/19080123p01.html

Berlin

23 Jan 1908

GA056-8

In the course of his life man finds himself set between two powers. There is the current of events, the steady flow of facts, around him that make the most varied impression on him. Opposed to this stands man's own power within his inner being. One need consider life but superficially to have it dawn upon one that man must find a necessary balance between the forces and facts that storm in from all sides, and what unfolds in his inner life. When in his everyday life the human being has taken in impression upon impression, then he yearns to be alone, to collect and compose his soul. He feels that only in the right balancing of outer and inner will he find salvation in life. A penetrating aphorism of Goethe expresses this for the depths and breadth of life, indeed, as the very riddle of being: For every force sweeps outward into space To live and work; here, there and everywhere; While on the other hand the teeming world From every side confines and takes away! Between the inner strife and outer conflict The spirit hears a word slow comprehended: From powers that fetter every living being That man is free who overcomes himself. — The Secrets In these last two lines of Goethe lies life-wisdom. To the inner being of man that moves forward stormily, to this potentiality in him that is continually developing and unfolding, there stands opposed what approaches us from the outside. When we overcome ourselves, we find a balance. These we can take as themes for the considerations that will occupy us here. Both themes belong together. First, we will devote ourselves to the subject of illusory illness, and, as a necessary complement, then consider the feverish pursuit of health. Only in the course of our considerations can these words be justified. They lead us into the spiritual streams of the present and into that with which spiritual science confronts them, with which spiritual science has to set itself as a task against them. In connection with the words, “illusory illness,” men think at first of the fact that someone really feels pain and discomfort based on a more or less self-induced illness. Right, here we have an area into which spiritual science, with its cultural calling, must step. Important things depend on this activity. Before we go into detail about what spiritual science has to say by way of comment on this, let us observe some pictures out of the life of the present. All the illustrative material I shall present is taken from life. On one of my journeys (it was on the way from Rostock to Berlin) there were two other persons in my compartment, a lady and a gentlemen,, who soon began conversing. The gentleman behaved in a remarkable way. After but a few words he laid himself out on the seat and said that only so positioned could he bear living. The lady recounted how she came from east of where they were and had been to a Baltic spa. The day before she had been struck with home-sickness and had decided to go home. Then she burst into tears. Because of the lady's crying the gentleman hit upon the idea of recounting the story of his health. “I suffer from many illnesses and journey from sanitarium to sanitarium without finding health.” Whereupon the lady replied, “I, too, understand much about illness. Many people in my homeland thank me for their health and life.” The gentleman told of one of his numerous illnesses, whereupon the lady, from her heart's wide knowledge, gave him a prescription that the man wrote down. After a few minutes the second illness was recounted, etc., until, beaming, be had written down thirteen prescriptions. The gentleman had but one sorrow. “We'll be arriving in Berlin at nine. Will it still be possible to have the prescriptions filled?” The lady comforted him saying that it Would still be possible. Strangely enough, it never occurred to the gentleman that the lady herself was ill. The lady remarked further that yes, she had much sympathy, and she counted up her own illnesses and told of all the places to which she had gone to be healed. The gentleman recommended a book by Lahmann to her. Thereupon she told of her second illness and the second brochure was recommended, until she had noted the titles of five or six brochures she would buy the next day. Finally, she wrote down Lahmann's address. Meanwhile they had arrived in Berlin. Each had written down the other's recommendations and gone off satisfied. Whoever observed these people with an eye for the situation under consideration soon saw that there was something not quite right about the lady. As for the man, he only lacked the will to be healthy. Had he summoned the will to be healthy, he would have been in good health. Here we have something symptomatic of what meets us frequently at present, and the scrutinizing glance will be able to pass from this picture to another. Were we to travel in mountainous country, we would see old fortresses, decaying castles, etc., that remind us of old times when striving for spirit strength existed or where outer power ruled. These fortresses have fallen into ruins, but everywhere in the vicinity of these monuments to power one can see sanitaria, one near the other. This picture presented itself to me recently in an area especially rich in these institutions, when I found it necessary to stop at such a sanitarium for a short time. The “inmates” were just taking their midday meal. The conviction I gained was that of the hundreds there, no one really needed the sanitarium life. Let us now move on to the more intimate pictures that we find in the accounts of thoughtful present-day physicians. Fortunately, there are some doctors who concern themselves also with the soul in the body. I choose an example by a doctor who would surely look upon everything theosophical as madness. His kind are most surely those who are without doubt not to be influenced by what spiritual science may have to say. Such a prominent physician has recorded many different cases of people such as those in the train I mentioned only as a specially grotesque example. This physician was called to attend a girl who showed all the symptoms of meningitis. But the physician had a good clinical sense. When he was alone with her he questioned her with such questions as were suitable under these circumstances, but all his questions elicited no pertinent answers. Finally, it came out that the young lady was to leave school. In the following year, however, there were to be especially interesting lectures that she wanted to hear. Since all the family opposed her wish to remain in school, she fell ill. The physician said, “I shall intervene that you may still remain in school, but you must get up out of bed immediately and come to the table.” This she did. After a few minutes the young lady appeared at the table and was no longer ill. Let's take another example. Another physician, a skillful one and well-known, for whom I have always had a certain regard, had to perform a knee operation. The patient's brother was present. During the operation the knee cracked, whereupon the brother suffered excruciating pain. The operation went off well, but the brother became ill. A whole year went by before he was again well. Thus one can see what power fantasy and perverted imagination can have on the soul, and how, from out of the soul, imitations of disease resembling a truly genuine disease picture can arise. But the physician may not go too far in this. The one just mentioned was very skillful. He did not allow himself to be deceived by accepting that matters forever continue as they first appear. A lady came to him one time who, since her husband's death, was suffering unbearable pain in her knee. She had been treated by many doctors who always came to the conclusion that her sickness was associated with soul aspects, had to do with the impact of her husband's death upon her. Not that the physician of healthy outlook sought for some soul aberration. He found that in this case, a large corn on the heel was the provocation. After the operation he sent the lady to convalesce at Gastein in order not to appear to expose his colleagues too much. So now we see the situation illumined by a variety of pictures. You see how strongly the illusion, the soul picture, can react on the bodily organism. One could well say that in this instance it is not a question of actual illness, but of illusory illness. Whoever has come to the realization, however, that everything corporeal is the expression of spirit, that everything that meets our senses is an expression of the spirit, will not take the matter so lightly. Even in seemingly quite remote matters we find that it is often a question of soul influences on the body. The illusion, which at the beginning appears trivial and ridiculous, when it then turns into pains, often leads to the beginning of an actual illness, and often to further stages. Such illusions are more than something to be disposed of with a mere shrug of the shoulders. If we are to penetrate more deeply into these occurrences, we must call up before the soul the oft-presented picture of the nature and being of man. To spiritual science, what the human being presents at first glance is only an outer aspect. The physical body is a member among other members of the human being that he has in common with all other beings around him. Beyond the physical body he has the body of etheric forces that penetrates the physical body, as is true for every living being. This ether body battles against the destruction of the physical body. The third member is the astral body, the bearer of desire and apathy, joy and sorrow, passion and sensual appetites, of the lowest drives as well as of the highest ideals. This body man has in common with the animal world. That whereby man is the crown of creation, whereby he differentiates himself from all other beings, is his “I,” his ego. We must consider these four members as constituting the whole man. We must, however, be clear that all that makes itself visible to our eyes derives from the spirit. There is no material thing that does not have a spiritual basis. Now for a more frequently-used analogy. A child shows us some ice. We say, “This is water in another form.” The child will then say, “You say that it is water but yet it is ice.” Whereupon we will say, “You do not know how water becomes ice.” So it is for him who does not know that matter is condensed spirit. For the student of spiritual science, however, everything visible is derived from the same realm as the astral body we carry in us. Etheric and physical body are successive condensation products of the astral body. Here is another picture: We have a mass of water and convert part of it into ice. Thus we have ice in water. So it is that the etheric and physical bodies are condensed out of the astral. The astral body is the part that has retained its original form. Now, when something or other comes upon us, be it health or illness, we may then say that it is the expression of certain forces that we see in the astral body. Of course, we are speaking now only of illnesses that originate within, not of those that arise through outer influences, such as a fractured bone, an upset stomach, or a cut finger. We are speaking of those diseased conditions that spring from the human being's own nature, and we ask ourselves if there is not only an enduring connection between the astral and physical bodies, but also a more immediate connection between the inner soul events, desire and pain, and the physical condition of our bodies. May we say that in a measure, the outer health of the human being depends upon these or those feelings that he suffers through, these or those thoughts he experiences? We will be able herein to cast light upon important occurrences that should be valuable to people today. The human being of our time has lost the capacity to rouse himself to the knowledge that the physical body is not his only body. It is not a question of what the human being believes theoretically, but it is a question of what the attitude in his innermost soul is to the higher members of his being. In order to penetrate into what is really involved, let us bring to mind the quarrel between Wagner and Carl Vogt, that is, the Vogt who wrote Blind Faith and Science . Wagner represented the spiritual viewpoint, while Vogt saw in man only a conglomeration of physical things, of atoms. For him, thoughts were but a precipitation of the brain, a blue vapor that arose from brain movements. At death, the substances ceased to develop this blue vapor of thoughts. To this Wagner replied in approximately such a way that one had to believe that if some parents or other had eight children, it followed that the parents' spirit divided itself into eight parts, one part going to each of the children. Thus Wagner pictured the spirit to himself in quite a material way, perhaps as many people do, as a mist formation. But it is a question of swinging oneself up with one's attitudes, impressions and feelings, in order really to grasp the spirit. There may be many today who want none of this materialism, yet they grasp the spirit in a material way. Even many theosophists think of spirit as finely-divided matter. Even in theosophy much timid materialism is hidden. When it is impossible for someone to lift himself to spirit heights, after awhile there appears for such a person an inner desolation, an emptiness, a disbelief in anything that goes beyond matter. When this takes hold of the feelings, when this eats its way into all beliefs, into all feeling of the soul, when the human being looks out into the world and no longer has the capacity to be impressed by what is back of what he sees, there comes to light what gradually leads him to the crassest physical egoism in which his own body becomes evermore important to him, thus placing him ever further from Goethe's response: “From powers that fetter every living being That man is free who overcomes himself!” At this juncture we come to an important aspect of spiritual science that will not be fully disclosed for some time unless spiritual science succeeds in enabling man to conquer himself. For if the human being continues to grasp with his intellect only what his senses perceive, then, as a result, there would follow for the human being's health something quite different from what would result were the human being to perceive in phenomena nothing but the spirit's sense expression. Materialistic thinking and spiritual scientific thinking have a great effect on the human being's inner life. Thus, the question of the significance of materialistic thinking and of spiritual scientific thinking have more than a theoretical meaning. As for the results of materialistic and spiritual scientific thinking, the one works to desolate, the other to imbue inwardly. Now, for the meaning of these effects on the human being let's take a simple example pertaining to sight. One becomes nearsighted if, during the period of early development, one lends oneself passively to impressions. If, however, one gives oneself actively to the impressions of things, then the eyes remain well. A man must develop productive power from within. Whatever provides him with the possibility of becoming the center of creativity and production is healthy. Unless he becomes creative from within outwards, his capacity for health will dry up and his whole being will be compressed by the outer impressions. To all impressions from the outside man must call up from his inner being a counter-force. This must also be supplemented by the reverse in that the human being must unfold an activity that shuts itself off from the outside, becomes invisible from the outside. There are two soul experiences in which you need to steep yourselves. They will show you that the human being seeks an inner abundance that streams out, and also a center for his activity in the outer world. One should study these two feeling directions, for they lead us deep into man's illnesses. The one feeling is negative, anxiety; the other, positive, shame, but which also means something negative. Let us assume that you are confronting some event that stirs up anxiety and fear in you. If you consider this not only from the materialistic standpoint, but also include that of the astral body, then becoming pale will appear as an expression of energy-streams in the human being. Why does the soul affect the blood circulation in this way? Because the soul strives to create a will-center within itself in order to be able to function outwardly from it. It is actually a gathering of the blood to the center in order for it to be able to function outwardly from it. This is meant more or less as a picture. In the case of shame, things are reversed. We blush. The blood streams from within to the periphery. The feeling of shame points to circumstances that we would extinguish from visibility, because of which we would extinguish our ego. The human being wants to make his ego weaker and weaker so that it is no longer perceptible from the outside. At this point he needs something in order to lose himself, to dissolve into the All, into the World Soul, or, if you will, into the environment. Thus, what we call shame is loath to, indeed, does not want to, become visible from the outside. In the expressions of shame and anxiety you have a polarity that indicates significant conditions of the etheric and astral bodies. These are two instances in which forces of the astral body become outwardly visible. Anxiety and shame express themselves in bodily conditions. If you reflect on this, you will realize that all soul happenings can have an effect on the happenings of the organism. This is true as taught by spiritual science. There is a connection, even if the human being is at first not conscious of it. Let us consider the phenomenon that the abstract thoughts of today have the least imaginable effect on the organism. What we learn in our abstract sciences has the least imaginable effect on our body. Its principle is to perceive what we see, to transform the perception into the intellectual concepts. This science will not admit that the human being has inner creative wisdom, that the soul can produce from out of itself something about the world. While perceiving outwardly, the soul does not confront outer impressions with an inner creative energy. The scientist is not for discovering things out of himself. When we reflect on how deeply rooted is the belief of the human being in his own incapacity to learn out of himself, then we may realize that this is the point of departure for the desolating effect of a knowing that attaches itself only to the outer. What remedy is there in this situation for humanity if inner investigation for wisdom and truth, the inner creativity of the spirit, is to companion outer science? The remedy is to be found in true spiritual science. Herewith are the springs opened through which the human being, out of himself, has the capacity to develop his perception of what lies behind things. Some people are oppressed by things. But whoever sees what no outer perception can receive, whoever receives this, creates the counterpart to outer perceptions that is necessary for the complete healing of soul and body. This healing of the soul cannot be brought about by abstract theories and thoughts. These are too dull and inadequate. The effect is powerful, however, when concept is transmitted into picture. How is this to be understood? This can best be learned from thinking about what is called evolution. You will hear it said that there were at first the simplest of living beings that became ever more complicated until man came to be. These are again only abstract, dull, inadequate concepts. This thinking is to be found in many theosophical teachings about evolution. They begin with the logos and continue in purely abstract concepts such as evolution, involution, etc. This is too weak in its effect upon the organism. What lies in the soul will become strong if one considers what has developed since the fourteenth century. Here you have a picture, an imagination that is set before the soul. Let me outline this again. In the past the pupil was told, “Look well at the plant and then place the human being beside it and compare them. The head may not be compared with the blossom, and the feet with the root. (Even Darwin, the reformer of natural science, did not do this.) The root corresponds to the head of the human being; he is an upside-down plant. (Spiritual science has always said this.) What the plant in its innocence allows to be kissed by the sunbeams so that the new plant can be born therefrom, this takes a reversed direction in man in his chastity directed towards the central point of the earth. The animal stands in the middle, between the two. The animal is turned halfway to the plant.” Plato, in his summing up, says about what lives in plant, animal and human being, “The world soul is crucified on the cross of the world body.” The world soul, which streams through plant, animal and human being, is crucified on the world body. Thus has the cross always been explained by spiritual science. Now the pupil who was led forward to this significant image was told, “You see how the human being has developed himself from the dull consciousness of the plant, beyond the consciousness of the animal and has found his self-consciousness. In the sleeping human being we have a state of being that has the same existence value as the plant. Because the human being has permeated the pure, innocent plant matter with his body of desires, he has risen higher, but, in a certain sense, has descended lower. Otherwise, he would not have been able to acquire his high ego consciousness. Now he must again transform his astral nature. In the future the human being will have an organ free of passion, like the flower's chalice.” It was then pointed out to the pupil that a time would come when the human being would bring forth his life free of passion. This was presented in the Grail Schools in the image of the Holy Grail. Here you have evolution presented not in thoughts, but in a picture, in an imagination. So it would be possible to transmute into pictures what has been given us only in abstract concepts. Thereby we would be accomplishing much. When one allows this pregnant ideal of evolution to rise before one, up into the development of the imagination of the Holy Grail, then one has food and nourishment for more than just one's power of judgment. Then, not only does the rational understanding cling to it, but also the full being of feeling twines around it. You tremble before the great world-secret when you see the development of the world in truth, and receive it in such imaginations. Then these imaginations work lawfully upon the organism, harmonizing it. Abstract thoughts are without effect. These imaginations, however, work as health-bringing, inner impulses. Imaginations bring about effects, and if these be true world-pictures, imaginations, they work in a health-bringing way. When the human being transforms what he sees outwardly into pictures, then he frees himself from his inner being. Then does the storm resolve itself into a harmony, and he is able to overcome the power that binds all beings. Then will he be able to relate himself to everything that comes his way. He streams out. Through his feelings he grows into union with the world. His inner self is widened to a spiritual universe. In the moment when the human being has no possibility of forming these inner imaginations, then all his forces stream inwards and he clings fast to his ego. This is the mysterious reason for what meets us in many of our contemporaries. Human beings have forsaken religion's old form and now they are turned back on themselves. They live ever more in themselves, ever more only with themselves. The less possibility the human being has of dissolving into the universal world being, the more he perceives what happens in his organism. This is the cause of false feelings of anxiety and of illusions of illness. The image reacts out of the soul upon the organism; healthy trends in the body are affected by true images. False images, however, also leave their imprint, giving rise to what meets us as soul disturbances, which later become bodily disturbances. Here we have the true basis that finally leads to illusory illness. Whoever closes himself off from the great world relationships will not be able to dismiss what comes toward him. On the other hand, it is impossible for the one who has been impressed by the all-embracing imaginations to let himself be deceived by false images. He would not, for example, as is often the case, think he detected an induction apparatus current pass through his body when no current was present. Every image that does not find a place in the overall general nexus, that functions as a one-sided, everyday image, is at the same time an illness-inducing image. It is only if the human being always looks up from the single, the lone, to the great secrets of the universe, that he thereby corrects what must be corrected. For what really works upon the soul is a strong force. What emerges in the course of cultural development is a fact not to be overlooked. Today we limit ourselves to our instincts about health. Let us consider tragedy from this point of view. The ancient Greeks knew that what I am about to say is true, that the human being watches tragedy, lives with its suffering, is seized by its impressions, gripped by them, but by the time it is over, he knows that the hero has won out over the suffering and that the human being can overcome the suffering of the world. It is through his living with suffering and overcoming it that he becomes healthy. Turning one's gaze inward makes for sickness. To express what lives within one in an image outside makes for health. Thus it is that Aristotle would have tragedy presented to show how the protagonist goes through suffering and fear so that the human being is healed of pain and fear. This has far-reaching effects. The spiritual scientist can tell you wherefore the ancient peoples brought fairy tale and legend pictures before the soul of the human being. Pictures were presented to him, pictures from which he should turn away his inward gazing. The blood flowing in fairy tales is a healthy educational means. Whoever can so look at myths will be able to see much. When, for example, the human being outwardly sees revenge in a picture, when he sees in outer picture what he should give up, the result is that he overcomes it. Deep, deep wisdom lies in the most bloodthirsty fairy tales. Our inner harmony is disturbed if we forever stand gaping into our souls. We become healthy in soul when we look into the All, into the Cosmos. But one must know which images are needed. Consider a melancholic person, an hypochondriac, who simply cannot free himself from certain happenings. One would like to bring some gaiety into his soul with gay music, etc., but one brings forth the opposite, gloom, even if it does not appear so at the moment. The deeper ground of his soul finds it flat and dreary, even if he does not admit to this. Serious pictures are necessary, even if they unnerve one at first. Thus you see that a quite definite way of dealing with the soul can arise. It is not possible to get at illusory illness through a single means. It rests on the materialism of our time, on the lack of creativity. Spurious, baseless anxiety, all the feelings that express the distorted soul-balance in melancholy, etc., are explained by a deeper observation of the connection of things. Through this the means of healing are also found. It would just never be possible for one who continually fathomed the connection of things not to be released from his ego. In cases where the ego is not released there is some kind of provocation, and this is exaggerated. For example, someone bumped his knee on the edge of the table. He lacked the large, asserting ideas and thus he could not rid himself of the pain. The pain grew worse. The doctor was called and he said to do this and that. Then suddenly the person felt the pain in the other knee. Then his elbow became painful, etc., until finally he could no longer move his legs or hands — all because he bumped his knee. There may be reasons that the attention is directed to a particular point, but there are also possibilities present that could bring about a balance. The human being finds the balance in his ever more difficult life only if he allows spiritual science to work upon him. Then he will find himself armed against the cultural influences. We can, however, also find outer causes for lack of creativity. The facts speak loudly. Observe the animals that in our culture are transplanted into captivity. They become sick, they who in the outside world would never become sick. This arises because of the strong influences upon man and animal that flow from the outer environment. The animal cannot develop a counter-force because his development is terminated. Through civilization the human being also comes to decadence if he is unable to counter outer influences with creative force. He must reshape and transform the influences by inner activity. Then it is even possible that these influences can be used by the human being for higher development. The person who elaborates and creates a radical theory of materialism is healthy because he creates from within outwards. But the followers of the theory waste away because they bring forth no creative force of their own. If you read books of spiritual science, there is nothing that you gain unless you inwardly recreate them for yourselves. Then your activity becomes an inner cooperative creativity. If this be not the case, then it is not studying of spiritual scientific books as it is meant to be. It depends upon developing the feeling for the forces that surge forward, the forces that would receive the outer world. It depends upon finding the balance between outer impressions and inner creativity. Men must free themselves from the outer strife in the world so that it does not make itself ever more noticeable and oppressive. We must carry out the counter-thrust. The outer impression must inwardly experience the counter-thrust. Then we become free of it; otherwise, it will continue to turn us back upon ourselves over and over again. If we be always watchful only of our inner life, then there arises before our souls a picture of suffering. If we achieve an expression of balance between outer forces and inner forces that indefatigably would go forward, then we amalgamate with the outer world. So do we acquaint ourselves in a deeper sense with illusory illness as a phenomenon today. Our point of departure was that spiritual science should be a means of healing so that the human being is freed from himself and thus from every binding power. For every binding power makes for illness. Only in this way do we become clear about the deep core of Goethe's verse: For every force sweeps outward into space To live and work; here, there and everywhere; While on the other hand the teeming world From every side confines and takes away! Between the inner strife and outer conflict The spirit hears a word slow comprehended: From powers that fetter every living being That man is free who overcomes himself.

Illusory Illness and the Feverish Pursuit of Health

Illusory Illness

https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA056/English/AP1969/19071203p01.html

Munich

3 Dec 1907

GA056-9

Health is something for which every man naturally longs. We may say this longing for health derives indeed not only from egotistic feelings and wishes, but also from the justified longing for work. We owe thanks for our capacity to work, for the possibility of becoming effective in the world, to our health. Hence, it is that we treasure health as a quite special beneficence. Indeed, there lies in this way of thinking about health something of the highest significance for its pursuit. In a certain way there is contained therein the secret of the particular circumstances under which health becomes at all worth pursuing. That the pursuit of health should only under certain circumstances be worthwhile might appear unusual. Our considerations today, however, should disclose that health belongs to those virtues that most readily become a reality in us if we pursue them not for their own sake, but for another's. That this does not always happen today can be taught us if we but look out into our present surrounding world. However remarkable it may be when speaking of the feverish pursuit of health, the feverish insistence upon health, yet it is possible today for many people to make their own observations about it. With what means, in what countless ways, do most people today press towards health! Everywhere we find a hurried pursuit of health. We may travel through regions in which old castles and ruins tell us of monks and knights who once could call strength of spirit and of body their own. Today they have fallen into decay and replacing them in these same regions we find sanitaria. Was there ever in any time of world evolution such a variety of special efforts to achieve health, to struggle through to health by natural ways of living, by water- or aero-healing methods? People are sent for air and sun baths. Once an acquaintance of mine who was on his way to a sanitarium came to me during the first half of summer. It had been with much difficulty that he managed to get four weeks' vacation, which he planned to spend there. Of course, it seemed to be the best that could happen to a person, to stay for a time, more or less satisfying, in a sanitarium. Hence I had no wish to explain the futility of his plan and thus deprive him of all hope. On his return journey he came again to me. He brought a little book along in which was written all he was supposed to have accomplished during those four weeks contemplating his organism. Again one could not deprive him of his joy, but, on the tip of one's tongue lay the question, “Do tell me, when have you been more driven? During the whole year at work or during those four weeks during which you were shoved from warmth to cold, from dryness to dampness, and were scrubbed with all those brushes?” The worst part of it was that after some weeks he said to me, “This cure has helped me as little as all the others in the last thirty years.” He had tried something different each summer. Whoever cared for this person could well look upon his feverish search for health in a somewhat sympathetic way. How many people today run to mesmerizers and spiritual healers? How many writings there are on “Harmony With the Infinite” and the like! In short, the feverish pursuit of health is something that lives in our time. Now, one might raise another question. “Are these people actually sick?” Well, of course, something is probably wrong with them, but is there a chance that they will attain health through all these things? Especially among ancient people an age-old saying remains even today. One says so frequently that what the simple person gets from such sayings often may contain something good, but just as often it is something false. So it is with the saying, “There are many illnesses, but only one state of health.” This is foolish. There are as many states of health as there are human beings. For each human being his individual health. What this says is that all general standard prescriptions holding that this or that is healthy for the human being are nonsense. The very part of humanity that is overcome by the feverish pursuit of health suffers most from the general prescriptions for health. Among them are those who believe that there could be something generally tagged as health, that if one does thus and so, that it would be healthy. It is most incredible that there is no realization that a sun bath can be healthy for a person, but that this may not be applied in general. It could be quite harmful for another. Generally, this is admitted but there is no following through in particular instances. We must make it clear to ourselves that health is a quite relative concept, something that is liable to a continuing process of change, especially for the human being, who is the most complicated being on the earth. We need but look into spiritual science. Then shall we penetrate deeply into human nature and recognize how changeable what we call health is. In reality, one forgets almost entirely today that upon which so much value is laid in material aspects. One forgets that the human being is in the throes of development. What is meant by, “The human being is undergoing development?” Again it is necessary to refer to the being of man. The physical body is only a part of the human entity. This he has in common with all lifeless nature. But he has as second member the etheric or life body, which he has in common only with what is life-imbued. This member wages a continuing battle against everything that would destroy the physical body. Were the etheric body to withdraw from the physical body, in that moment the physical body would become a corpse. The third member is the astral body, which he has in common with animals, the bearer of desires and sorrow, of every feeling and representation, of joy and pain, the so-called consciousness body. The fourth part is his ego, the central point of his being, that makes of him the crown of creation. The ego transforms the three bodies through development out of the central point of the human being. Let us consider an uneducated savage, an average man, or a highly educated idealist. The savage is still slave to his passions. The average man refines his urges. He denies himself the satisfaction of certain urges and sets in their place legal concepts or high religious ideals, that is, he remodels his astral body from out his ego. As a result the astral body now has two members. The one still has the form that exists in the savage, but the other part has been transformed into spirit self or manas. Through impressions from art or great impressions from founders of religion man works on his ether body and creates buddhi or life spirit. The physical body also can be transformed into Atma, Spirit Self, [In other lectures, Rudolf Steiner refers to "Atma" as "Spirit-man." – e.Ed.] if a person devotes himself to the practice of certain spiritual-scientific exercises. Thus, the human being works unconsciously or consciously on his three bodies. Were we able to look far, far back into the early development of man, we would find everywhere primitive cultural conditions, simple modes of life. Everything that those early people had in the way of appliances to satisfy their spiritual and bodily needs, their way of life, was simple. Everything, everything evolves, and within evolution the human being develops himself. This is most important. Imagine as vividly as you can a primitive man who grinds his grain to flour between stones, and picture to yourself the other things surrounding this individual. Compare him with a man of more recent cultural times. What surrounds this modern person, what does he see from morning until evening? He takes in the frightful impressions of the noisy big city, of street cars, buses and the like. We must then understand how evolution proceeds. We must carry over the insight we gain concerning simple things into the cultural process. Goethe made the following statement, “The eye was fashioned by the light, for the light.” If we had no eyes, we could not see colors or light. Whence have we eyes? Goethe also said that out of undifferentiated organs the light drew forth eyes. So also is the ear formed by tone, the sense of warmth by warmth. The human being is formed by that which in the whole world spreads itself around him. Just as the eyes owe their existence to the light, so do other delicate structures owe their existence to what surrounds man. The simple primitive world is the dark chamber that still holds back many organs. What light is for the undifferentiated organs out of which the eye developed itself, the environment is for primitive humanity. Things work quite differently upon man in his present mode of living; he cannot turn back to the primitive conditions of culture. Rather is it so that an ever more intense, stronger spiritual light has been effective around him that has called forth the new. We are able to realize the meaning of this transforming cultural process if we picture to ourselves how the being fares who is also subject to this influence but cannot go along with the transformation. Here we have the condition of the animals. They are differently structured from men. When we look at the animal as it appears in the physical world, we find that it has its physical body, its etheric body and its astral body in the physical world, but it has no ego in the physical world. Hence, the animals are powerless on the physical plane to undergo transformation of the three bodies, and cannot adapt themselves to a new environment. Two days ago we considered wild animals in captivity, how, out in the wilderness certain animals never have tuberculosis, tooth decay, -etc., but do in captivity. A whole series of decadent appearances show up in captivity or under other circumstances. During the cultural process, men are continually subject to other conditions. This is the nature of culture. Otherwise, there would be no development, no history of human beings. What we observed as experiments with animals as to the effect on the physical body appears as the opposite in men. Man, because he has an ego, has the capacity of inwardly digesting the impressions that storm in upon him from our culture. He is inwardly active, first adapts his astral body to the changed conditions and then reorganizes it. Thus, as he keeps evolving, he comes to higher cultures and always receives new impressions. At first these express themselves in feelings and perceptions. Were he now to remain passive, inactive, were there no activity stirred up in him, no creativity, then he would become stunted and sick as does the animal. This it is that distinguishes the human being, that he can adapt himself and, from out the astral body, gradually change the etheric and physical bodies. He must be inwardly up to this transformation, however, otherwise there is no adjustment of the balance between what comes to him from the outside and what counters it from within. A man would be crushed by the impressions from outside as the animal in a cage is crushed by them because it has no inner creativity. But man has his inner activity. Against the spiritual lights around him, he must be able to set something, in a sense, to counter with eyes, with seeing. Whatever turns out as a disharmony between impressions from the outside and the inner life is unhealthy. It is in the big cities that we can see what happens when impressions from the outside grow ever more powerful. When we tear along faster and faster, when we must let rumbling sounds and hurrying people go by us without taking a stance, without countering them — this is unhealthy. As regards this position towards the outside, the intellect is the least important, but what is important depends upon whether our feelings, our soul, indeed, our living bodies, can take a position towards it. This we will understand rightly through the consideration of a definite illness that appears especially in our time, and that did not occur earlier. A person not accustomed to absorb much, one poor in soul, is brought up against all kinds of impressions so that he finds himself standing before a quite incomprehensible outer world. This is the case with many feminine natures. Their inner being is too weak, too little organized to digest it all. But we find this condition also in many masculine persons. The consequences result in the illnesses of hysteria. Everything connected with hysteria is derived from this imbalance. Another form of illness takes hold when our lives bring us to the position of wanting to understand too much of what is set before us in the outer world. It is mostly the case with men who suffer with causality illness. One accustoms oneself always to ask, “Why? why? why? why?” It is even said that the human being must be the never-resting causality animal. Today, because we are too polite, we may no longer give the idle questioner the answer that a founder of religion gave. When he was asked, “What did God do before the creation of the world” he answered, “He cut rods for those who ask useless questions.” This is exactly the opposite condition of the hysterical one. Here the restless longing for the solving of enigmas is too great. This is only a symptom of an inner attitude. The one who never wearies of always asking, “Why?” has a different constitution from other people. He gives signs of a different inner working of spiritual and bodily functions from the person who asks “Why” only on outer provocation. This leads to all hypochondriacal conditions, from the lightest case to the deepest illusory illness. So it is that the cultural process affects human beings. Man must above all have an open mind in order always to be able to digest what comes towards him. Now we can also make it clear to ourselves why so many people have the urge to shed this culture, to have done with this life. They are no longer up to what presses in upon them. They strive to get out. These are always weak natures who do not know how to counter the outer impressions with a mighty inner response. Thus it is that we cannot speak today in clichés as regards health just because life itself is so manifold. The one person stands here, the other there. Because what has developed in the human being has developed in a certain sense through the outer world, each has his own health. This is why we must make the human being capable of understanding his environment, even to the very functions of the body. For the man who is born into circumstances in which light muscles and nerves are necessary, it would indeed be foolish to develop heavy muscles. Where does the gauge for the successful developing of the human being lie? It lies within the human being. As with money, so it is with health. When we go after money in order to have it for benevolent purposes, then it is something wholesome, something good. Going after money may not be condemned, for it is something that enables us to forward the cultural process. If we go after money for money's sake, then it is absurd, laughable. It is the same with health. If we go after health for health's sake, then the striving has no significance. If we put ourselves out for health for what we can achieve through our health, then the effort for the sake of health is justified. Whoever would acquire money should first make it clear to himself how much of it he needs. Then he should press forward for it. Whoever yearns for health must look into the easily misunderstood words like comfort, love of life, enjoyment of life, and what could be meant with them. Joy of life, satisfaction in life, love of life are present in savages. In the human being in whom outer and inner life are in harmony, in the harmoniously developed man, conditions must be such that if there is discomfort, if there is this or that hurt of body or of soul, this feeling of discomfort must be seen as some sort of illness, as a disharmony. Hence it is important in all education, in all public work, not to carry on routinely, but rather out of the expanse of a cultural view, so that joy and satisfaction in life are possible. It is curious that what has just been said has been said by a representative of spiritual science. Yes, so says spiritual science whom people reproach for striving for asceticism. Someone comes along who takes great pleasure in nightly visits to the girlie shows or in downing his eight glasses of beer. Then he encounters people who take joy in something on a higher level. So he remarks that they punish themselves. No, they would punish themselves were they to sit with him in the music hall. Whoever enjoys the girlie shows and such belongs there, and it would be absurd to deprive him of the enjoyment. It is healthy only to take away his taste for it. One should work to ennoble one's pleasures, one's gratifications in life. It is not so that anthroposophists come together because they suffer when talking about higher worlds, but rather because it is their heart's deepest enjoyment. It would be the most terrible deprivation for them to sit down and play poker. They are completely full of the joy of life in every fiber of their beings. There is no point in saying, even concerning health, that one should do thus and so. The point is to provide joy and satisfaction in life. Indeed, the spiritual scientist in this case is quite the epicure of life. How is this to be conferred upon health? We must be clear about this, that when we give someone a rule about health, we must aim at what gives joy, bliss and pleasure to his astral body. For by the astral body the other members are affected. This is more easily said than done. There are, for example, even those among the theosophists who mortify their flesh by no longer eating any meat. Should these be people who still hanker for meat, then must this mortification be seen at best as a preparation for a later condition. There comes, however, a point at which a person may have such a relation with his environment that it becomes impossible for him to eat meat. A physician who was also of those who ate no meat, not because he was a theosophist, but because he considered this way of life healthy, was asked by a friend why he partook of no meat. He countered with the question, “Why don't you eat horse or cat meat?” Of course, the friend had to say that they disgusted him, although he ate meat of pig or cow, etc. To the physician all meat was disgusting. Only then, when the inner subjective conditions correspond to the objective fact, has the moment come when the outer fact has a healthy effect. We must be inwardly up to the outer facts. This is expressed by the words, “comfortable feeling,” which we may not use lightly, but rather in its dignified meaning of harmonious concordance of our inner forces. Happiness and joy and delight and satisfaction, which are the foundation for a healthy life, always spring from the same foundation, from the feelings of an inner life that attend creativity, inner activity. Happy is the human being when he can be active. Of course, this activity is not to be understood as coarse activity. Why does love make the human being happy? It is an activity we often do not see as such because it moves from within out, embracing the other one. With it we let our inner being flow out. Hence love's healing and blessing of life. Creativity may be of the most intimate nature; it does not have to become tumultuously visible. When someone is hunched over a book and the impressions from it depress him, overwhelm him, he will gradually become depressed. When, however, the reading of a book brings pictures to mind, then there is a creative activity that makes for happiness. It is something quite similar to becoming pale when one is anxious about coming events. Then the blood flows inwards in order to strengthen us so that what comes at us from the outside can find a counter-balance within. With the feeling of anxiety inner activity is alerted to outer activity. Becoming aware of an inner activity is healing. Had the human being been able to feel the activity of the inner formation in the arising of the eyes out of the undifferentiated basic organ, then he would have perceived a feeling of well-being. He was not conscious, however, of that happening. Instead of bringing a worn-out human being to a sanitarium, it were far better to bring him into an environment where he would be happy, at first soul-happy, but also physically happy. When you put a human being into an environment of joy, in which with each step he takes an inner feeling of joy awakes, that it is which will make him healthy, when, for example, he sees sunbeams streaming through the trees and perceives the colors and scents of flowers. This, however, a person must himself be able to feel, so that he himself can take the problem of his health in hand. Every step should stir him to inner activity. Paracelsus gave us the beautiful saying, “It is best that everyone should be himself, by himself, and no one else.” It is already a limitation of what makes us healthy if we must first go to another person. Here we are confronted with outer impressions that for a short while appear to help, but finally lead to hysteria. When one considers the problem so, one comes upon other healthy thoughts. There are people and doctors today, especially “lay doctors,” who battle against doctors. Medicine does, indeed, need to be reformed, but this cannot come about through these battles. Rather must facts of spiritual science themselves reach into science. Spiritual science exists, but not to further dilettantism. There are people today who have the itch to cure others. It is, of course, easy to find this or that illness in a person. So somebody finds this or that organ in a person different from the way it appears in another. Or a person does not breathe as the one possessed with the curing fever thinks all people should breathe. So for this a cure gets invented. Shocking, most shocking! For it is not at all a matter of directing one's efforts at a routine concept of health. It is easy to say that this and that do not make for health. Consider someone who has lost one of his legs. He is sick, certainly sicker than one who breathes irregularly, whose lungs are affected. It is not a question of healing this person. It would be foolish to say, “One must see to it that this person gets a leg again!” Just try to get him to grow another leg! What really matters is that life for his person be made as bearable as possible. This is so in gross, but also in more subtle conditions. It is a fact that one can find a small flaw in each human being. Also, what often matters here is not to clear up the flaw, but rather, despite the human being's flaw, to make his life as bearable as possible. Think of a plant, the stem of which is wounded. The tissues and the bark grow around the wound. So is it also with human beings. The forces of nature maintain life as they grow around the flaw. Especially lay doctors fall victim to the error of wanting to cure everything. They would like to cultivate one kind of health for all human beings. There is as little of the one kind of health as there is one kind of normal human being. Not only are illnesses individual, but also healths. The best we can give to the human being, be we physician or counselor, is, to give him the firm frame of mind that he feels himself comfortable when he is healthy, uncomfortable when he is sick. Today this is not at all so easy in our circumstances. He who understands the matter of health will mostly fear such sicknesses as do not come to expression through fatigue and pain. It is, therefore, detrimental to sedate oneself with morphium. It is healthy when health brings zest. Illness brings apathy. This healthy way of living we can acquire only when we make ourselves inwardly strong. This we do when we oppose our complicated conditions with strong, inner activity. The feverish search for health will cease only then when human beings no longer strive for health as such. The human being must learn to feel and perceive whether he is healthy and to know that he can easily put up with a flaw in health. This is only possible through a strong world conception that is effective right down into the physical body. This world outlook makes for harmony. This, however, is only possible through a world concept that is not dependent upon outer impressions. The spiritual scientific world concept leads man into regions that he can only reach if he is inwardly active. One cannot read a spiritual scientific book as one reads other books. It must be so written that it evokes one's own activity. The more one must struggle, the more there is between the lines, the healthier it is. This is so only in the theoretical matters, but spiritual science can be effective in all areas. What we call spiritual science exists in order to become effective as a strong spiritual movement. It calls forth concepts that are provided with the most powerful energies so that human beings can take a stance against what faces one. Spiritual science would like to give an inner life that extends right into the limbs, into the blood circulation. Then will every individual perceive his health in his feeling of joy, in his feeling of zest and satisfaction. Almost every dietary regime is worthless. That the other fellow tells me that this and that are good for me is of no consequence. What matters is that I find satisfaction when taking my food. The human being must have understanding for his relation to this or that food. We should know what the spiritual process is that goes on between nature and us. To spiritualize everything — that's what becoming healthy means. Perhaps it is currently thought that for the spiritual scientist eating is something to which he is indifferent, that he gorges himself, devoid of understanding for it. To become aware of what it means to partake of a part of the cosmos, a part that has been drenched with sunlight; to know of the complete spiritual relationship in which our environment stands, to savor it not only physically, but also spiritually, frees us from all sickening disgust, from all sickening encumbrances. Thus we see that to direct this striving for health onto the right tracks sets humanity a great challenge. But spiritual science will be strong. It will transform every human being who dedicates himself to it, bringing him to the attainment of what, for himself, is the normal pattern. This is at the same time a noble striving toward freedom that comes out of spiritual science and makes man his own master. Every man is an individual being from the standpoint of his characteristics as well as of his states of health and illness. We are placed in lawful relation to the world and must learn to know our situation therein. No outer power can help us. When we find this strong inner stance, then only are we complete human beings from whom nothing can be taken. But it also holds that nobody can give us anything. Nevertheless, we shall find our way in health and in illness because we have a strong, inner stance within ourselves. This secret, too, of all healthy striving has been expressed by a spirit, an eminently healthy thinking and healthy feeling spirit. He tells us how the harmonized human being unerringly goes his way. It was Goethe who, in his poem, Orphic Primal Words , says: As on the day that to the world bestowed thee The sun stood high to greet the planet's sphere, Thou didst thenceforth thrive ever on and on, According to the law that brought thee here. So must thou be, canst not from thee escape The Sibyls and the Prophets spoke thy fate; Not time nor power can destroy the mould When form once cast doth livingly unfold.

Illusory Illness and the Feverish Pursuit of Health

The Feverish Pursuit of Health

https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA056/English/AP1969/19071205p01.html

Munich

5 Dec 1907

GA056-10

Many people who have heard something superficial about spiritual science or theosophy find it fairly surprising that — after one has spoken already from this viewpoint about the manifold practical topics — one even attempts to speak about occupation and earnings. For many of our contemporaries have received the idea more or less superficially that spiritual science is something that lies far away from all practical life and cannot at all intervene anyhow in this practical life of the daily routine. You do not find the idea as seldom as it expresses itself in the words: oh, this spiritual science, it is something for single people who are tired of life who do not deal with anything practical and have time enough to deal with all sorts of muddled, fantastic speculations as the spiritual-scientific ideas are. I do not deny from the outset that strictly speaking such a reproach is even justified with many theosophical phenomena that it is often true that those who deal with theosophical matters and ideas really face the everyday life as strangely as possible. However, even among those who have hard to fight and to work in the everyday life and bring themselves through only with pain and misery, those are found who are driven from inner sympathy, from the yearning of their hearts to spiritual science. Among them many a man will be for whom this duality — the everyday occupation, the everyday work from morning to night and then the merging in the great ideas has something marvellous. For others both things stand rather abruptly side by side, the one is very far away, so to speak, from the other. However, someone who does not regard theosophy or spiritual science only as an idle employment for some daydreamers but as something that is suitable to intervene deeply in our entire cultural movement will also hold the conviction strictly that this spiritual science just leads to the true knowledge of reality. It has also something essential to say to him, where the big questions of the everyday life appear which the human beings concern who work hard from morning to night. Someone who gets himself not cursorily, but deeper into spiritual science, who not only attains some abstract ideas from it, but also the deepest impulses of life, comes very soon to the insight that one can attain a true and healthy judgment in the broadest sense. However, a few abstract sentences are not sufficient, in least the basic sentence of any abstract brotherhood of humanity. This abstract general brotherhood of humanity is a matter of course for any good and striving human being. However, the task of theosophy or spiritual science is not only to preach this general brotherly love comprising humanity, but also to create the method, the conditions which make a real human brotherhood possible and can also be realised. Admittedly, many people also say this way; but they lack the overview. If we look at the whole human existence and compare the everyday life of our present to that which was there at all times, we realise — according to the opinion of many people — that certain forms of life have not changed: there were always rich and poor people. There was always hardship and misery on the one, a good life, and contentment on the other side, and no human spiritual movement did change these conditions. Hence, one can also not believe that — as so many people say — an “idealistic” spiritual movement like the theosophical one can state anything considerable just about that which must stir our time concerning occupation and earnings. However, we consider this topic best of all envisaging both ideas of occupation and earnings spiritual-scientifically. Then it becomes apparent that it is necessary above all to maintain a deepened thinking in order to penetrate this field of our manifold and variform life. There has always been the phrase of “rich and poor” of course. This is not sufficient if one wants to understand life. However, if we look at our environment and compare it to the environment centuries ago or also before shorter intervals, then it is obvious that the way of life has substantially changed that the causes of distress and misery, of poverty were produced by a new way of life. It is obviously very necessary that people think more about these questions of the changed relation to occupation and earnings. He who surveys this life as it has gradually developed for centuries with mature thinking has to say to himself that a certain human class is concerned above all if we want to say anything considerable about this question. This class has come into being in the newest time, and just in this human class, something gains significance more and more that reveals its power and intensity concerning the question of occupation and earnings in our time. If we go even deeper, we realise what it means that humanity advances on one side and cannot pursue its own progress, on the other side, with the necessary knowledge and interest. The modern worker, the industrial worker is in this form, as he exists today, actually, only the result of the development of humanity during the last centuries. This is connected with the wondrous, the most marvellous progress within the human development. Today we see the earth littered with the productions of human thoughts, human inventions, discoveries, and arts. Where the human beings build up factories and enterprises, where one digs into the earth, where one looks for natural resources and metals, everywhere we face results of the human thinking. We see the progress of the knowledge of nature, the control of the physical principles; everything that the human thinking, human mental work created in the course of the centuries crystallised in our industry, in the threads of all kind which encompass the earth with our modern means of transportation. All that has given our life the imprint. All that has generated the modern worker, the proletarian worker. With him, only the modern form of our calamity has originated concerning occupation and earnings. There is hardly any class of population that is not touched anyhow by that which has been created for humanity this way. If we ask ourselves now: was the human thinking, the human interest also capable to create such a social structure which is in any harmony with that which the human mental power has created in the fields of technology and industry? Imagine once hypothetically what would have happened if the human beings had been able to use their mental power which has crystallised in machines, in the international banking and in the traffic system to put those who are placed in this development also into a suitable social structure. We do not mean what a much-cited naturalist means who says that any big, immense progress of human mind, of human science, industry and traffic has contributed nothing at all to the progress of the moral human development. However, if we looked at that what the human beings have produced concerning morality and civilised behaviour, we would stand even today on the oldest viewpoint of barbarity. — I do not join any deeper consideration to this opinion; nevertheless, it is true that all the technical and scientific achievements that we admire today face nothing in the area of the social life, the social structure. We realise that the human thinking is not appropriate to eliminate the disharmony between human longing, human need, and human ideals, even the simple-natural human life-style and what life offers in reality to all human beings concerning the industrial activity. It would be an obligation of all classes of the population just to think about this question because in these questions something world-shaking is contained today. However, the broadest circles, in particular of certain classes, feel this by no means. Just the theosophical movement must be such a one which believes to be able to do something here not with a few abstract dogmas, with a few prescriptions from a think tank, but it must attempt to unfold healthy, profound thinking also in this field, in unselfish devotion, with knowledge of the true human being. The essentials are in this field that the human beings educate themselves internally in order to see the things in this field in the right light. Those who look down at such an impractical spiritual movement, as the theosophical one is, from a supposedly practical viewpoint with a shrug, nevertheless, shall look once at life and learn with typical symptoms in which way they shall position themselves to such questions. Today the human thinking has become short in certain respect because the human beings have got used to seeing everything in materialistic thought forms. Somebody deceives himself who stands on spiritual-scientific ground and believes that he can recognise the riddles of existence with a few single concepts, which were sufficient to construct the whole world edifice up to the human being. Yes, for a superficial understanding a few concepts are sufficient; but not for the intimate, precise judgement of life. Spiritual science is uncomfortable. Indeed, it is uncomfortable not for those who keep only to that which is spread in words and confine themselves to an abstract approach to life but for those who penetrate deeper in it. It has nothing to do with a few mechanical mental pictures, but it urges us to attain appropriate special concepts for the most different stages of existence. However, these special concepts are good guides in life. People open a spiritual-scientific book where the physical world, the astral world and even higher spiritual worlds are brought forward, which are hidden in our world. There they read that the human being consists not only of that what one sees with eyes and can touch with hands, but that one can still live in higher regions Then they say, this is too complicated, there is everything boxed in certain way. The world is simple, and somebody who does not show the world simply causes mistrust with them already from the start. The world is simple, is comfortable! — One can probably say this, but it is not true! These concepts are not suitable to penetrate in the real life. Many people reach with their concepts not farther than the few steps they go daily. It is obvious that such human beings get quite weird ideas of life. Of course, such human beings can only be recognised when they talk or write. I could state manifold examples. I want to pick out two examples of the large quantity that may show how quickly those persons judge about life who should be destined, actually, or feel to be destined to manage life. There is a person that wrote a book. Today this is nothing special; it is sometimes difficult to find out those in a society who have not yet written a book. Now this person wrote a book about life. He says in it that he has thought a lot about the functions of the money and its significance for our outer life. Now, however, he only had to learn in a special experience that money is only one kind of means within a certain section of the community, and that it has, actually, no real significance. He would have learnt this once by a journey in South America. He had hundred dollars with himself, but he would have had to starve frightfully, because he could get nothing for his money. When he came to a hut and got something to eat, one said to him, he should retain his dollars; one would have no use for them. This person has such “clear” concepts that he had to travel to the Brazilian jungle to ascertain them! Further, you know that a councillor Kolb has written a book. All the credit is due to this book. It should be recognised that a councillor brings himself to work as a usual worker in America, for instance, in a bicycle factory, and to live together with the workers in laboriousness. He has also written a book in which he says, I learn now to judge life different from I was used once. If I saw a person begging in the street, I said, why does this fellow not work? Now I knew it! — And he adds meaningfully, yes, one can economise very well and comfortably with the most significant problems of the economists on a theoretical basis; but in life, they appear different. — All the credit is due to somebody if he undertakes such a thing out of his social circles, and all the credit is due to the action to confess this openly and freely! But now the reverse. If we ignore the man, we look at the fact as such. What does one say if anybody who lives in Europe and has a responsible post on whose measures a lot depends, grief, joy, happiness and misfortune of various human beings if he walks like blindfolded through the world? Has one not to ask, how was he walking, actually, through the world? How did he study it? How did he train himself? If one sees only what he would have to see, then one must ask, have these people walked blindfold through the world, and had they to go only to America to find out that one cannot pay with money in the jungle, and to get to know, why does the begging “fellow” not work? Must one not say that a time in which these symptoms are possible in which the thoughts are so short that such a time also needs clear and certain thoughts of the social structure as one could produce them in admirable way for centuries up to our time concerning machines and industry? If one does not understand theosophy or spiritual science as an abstraction, as a sermon of nice phrases, but as an announcement of that what forms the basis of our whole world in reality, then it gives this real knowledge of human nature. We want to talk about that in detail. If we look somewhat deeper into the changes that have taken place since centuries and still project with their last extensions into our present, we have to say, occupation and earnings have changed in their relation to the human being very much, very much. Admittedly, various persons know the nice word even today that Goethe pronounced: “Desire and love are the wings of great actions.” Really, desire and love are the wings of great actions! They must also be the wings in the human life if human progress and human bliss shall prosper. Would the artist if he pronounced his most intimate not say any time, I can only work really and produce something fruitful if joy inspires me at work. — That is true, very true! However, how far is our life away from this truth! We come to a sad chapter concerning occupation and earnings putting this question. Let us compare a hard working miner with an artist who creates his works to the delight of his fellow men. In the mines, for example, in Sicily, you find not only adult workers, but also many children of seven, eight, or nine years working who are ruined most dreadfully and spend their lives below — with few exceptions. If you recognise the impulses by which these human beings are driven to work, then you understand something that is usually understood very hard. There is a dreadful mood of hostility and opposition to life if one experiences those things that are otherwise intended to cause joy of life. The human being who works in such a way — I tell no fairy tales and emphasise expressly that I begrudge describing these realities —, may express his mood, as it is expressed, otherwise, with other human being in a nice, glad song, in a song like this: A curse upon the mother who born me, A curse upon the priest who baptised me ... ( Gap in the transcript ) Compare this with the words: “desire and love are the wings of great actions,” and try to realise the necessity of striving for a worldview that can deepen the hearts in such a way that one has to add it to our human material development. For it is something that belongs to the structure of life and has to belong to industry, traffic and technology. However, we can imagine the emergence of the machines during the last centuries concerning occupation and earnings still in another way. One does not need to go far back; there one finds the proverb “a trade in hand finds gold in every land.” Why? Many people had a deep personal relationship to their work and the product they created. Try to imagine the medieval cities. Try to watch any door lock and any key exactly, and then try to look in the workshops where these things were created. Imagine how people worked there with joy and love, how the worker gave, so to speak, a piece of his soul to the products he created. On the other side, try to imagine the industrial worker, the worker in the factories who works on a small part only whose coherence with the whole he does not survey. He lacks the intimacy of the coherence between that product and his work. This personal relation is something exceptionally important. It is something that brings these both concepts — occupation and earnings — home to us clearer and clearer. It is something different concerning the acquisition if the human being can take a personal interest in the products, in their form, their appearance etc., than if the only interest in the product is the acquisition, the wage. The one gives the occupation; it expresses itself in the work that becomes the product. The acquisition expresses itself in that what the human egoism receives in recompense for the product. We have to put both concepts side by side this way comparing the craftsman of former times and the modern worker. Today everything is different right down to the last detail that you carry with yourselves and have round yourselves. The whole tragedy of the industrial era concerning occupation and earnings in the human life expresses itself in a nice small poem that an almost unknown poet of our newer time wrote (Heinrich von Reder, 1824–1909, Bavarian officer, poet, and painter): Gone to rack on a mule track a smithy stands in woodland solitude; no longer does the hammer blow accompanied by merry songs. Not far away the buildings rise where sooted blacksmiths are working so hard. With the steam mill's nails the coffin is closed, it carries the nail smith impoverished to grave. In these lines, you have the turnaround during the last centuries concerning occupation and earnings. We need to take only the lines: “No longer does the hammer blow accompanied by merry songs.” They express this turnaround. We realise everything that concerns occupation and acquisition. Imagine a human being who accompanies the hammer blow with merry songs and then imagine the mood of a human being who stands as sooted worker in the factory. It is not the task of spiritual science to preach the reaction, to restore the old conditions or to prevent things that have developed in the human progress and had necessarily to come. We do not criticise what had to happen inevitably. However, we have to realise that it depends on the human beings to work from their spiritual work for the welfare of the human being and for the human progress. Many people will now say, nevertheless, we see enough human beings in our surroundings who have prepared themselves well to think about the social question, about what should happen. There is a certain difference, which is very immense, between that, what spiritual science has to say and the general mood of time. One could characterise this mood with general expressions. Those who have studied say: you theosophists preach that the human beings should become better that they should develop love et cetera. We do not deal with such childish trifles, we do not want to improve the human beings for better life and for their welfare, but we know that it does not depend on the human beings, but that it depends on the conditions. — Many people say this, not only professors, but also people at the “green tables” of socialism. What is announced there is as haughty as what is spread by the other green tables. Everywhere one preaches: improve the conditions, and then it already comes that the human beings are getting better. — One can hear them declaiming this, the quite clever people who appear repeatedly. I could enumerate many examples of the immediate life. From here, I needed to do only three steps, and I could point to a place where once someone stood who said [about theosophy]: these are brainless ideas! It depends on improving the conditions. If one gives them better conditions of life, the human beings are getting completely better by themselves. — We hear this song singing concerning occupation and earnings in all variations repeatedly. If anything is wrong, one does not think that it depends on the human beings, but one says, one must make a new law, so that the conditions change. If anything is wrong in a field, they say that one has to protect the immature mass that has no right judgement against those who want to slave-drive in this or that area. If one says this, for example, towards some methods of treatment, nevertheless, one would like to ask, is it not more obvious and more natural to say that everybody who understands these matters has the duty to enlighten the human beings, so that they turn out of own judgment to those to whom they should turn? It does not depend on the conditions but only on the development of the human soul. This kind of materialism, which comes from the atomistic way of thinking and which was transferred to the social conditions, lies deeply in our thinking. Many people discuss such things, however, arguing leads only to endless debates. Someone who knows the secret of dialectic knows that one can talk about the significance of the human being with endless pros and cons. It concerns not only that one can state endless reasons for pros and cons, but that one also feels the weight of the reasons. A human being who was destined to pass sentence in this field because he was an ingenious human being is the Englishman Robert Owen (1771–1858). He was ingenious because he wanted to make the human being happy, but also because he had a warm heart for the social misery. He succeeded in founding an almost prototypical colony. He attained something great with it. He made the matter so clever that he put those people who were addicted to drink or had other vices among the diligent human beings who could work by their example on them. Thereby he got some good results. This encouraged him to found another colony. Again, he did it in such a way that he wanted to realise certain ideals that fulfilled him. However, after some time the development in the colony was so that he had to realise that those who did not have diligence and industriousness became parasites of the colony. There he said to himself, no, and — it was like a confession — with general institutions, one must wait, until the human beings have been brought to a certain height in theoretical respect. Only by the transformation of the human soul welfare and progress can come, never by mere institutions. A man said this who was allowed to say it because he had gone out from a compassionate view and was taught by experience. From such facts, one should learn, not from abstract theories. However, what gives an inner and viable thinking in this field? A precise and viable thinking in this field shows us that human beings have made all institutions that press and become awful for the human beings. Human institutions originate there which become the cause of hardship and misery, only because they are made first by human beings. Someone who wants to figure the things out really shall try to study the historical course, to study how the human beings live together today, how the one is placed in life this way, the other that way. Who has placed them there? Not uncertain social powers, but human thoughts, human sensations and human will-impulses. We must put the sentence: the human being can suffer only by the human being. Any other suffering is not real, considered socially. One cannot demand that the spiritual scientist should criticise the historical necessities. It is necessary to understand that human beings have created the conditions and then brought misery in these conditions solely by wrong thoughts. It is not difficult to realise that a short thinking, a thinking that has no idea of the big, immense world connections can create no institutions that can bring happiness and welfare of humanity. With the dictum that one should be unselfish that one should love the human beings it is in such a way, as if you say to a stove: you are a stove, be a friend and warm; it is your moral duty to warm the room. — It does not become warm! However, if you heat, it becomes warm! Preaching general charity is something that one can put with self-evidence in the world. However, the practical handling, that what enables us to intervene in the outside world so that welfare and blessing develop for humanity depends on the relation from human being to human being. A materialistic epoch sees that of the human being only which one can touch with the hands and perceive with the eyes. However, the human being is more than this. It is a spiritual, mental, and physical being. Everything that can bring welfare and blessing to the human beings can arise only from the fact that one considers the whole human being, in particular in the more and more complex conditions of the present and future. Spiritual science shows this true nature of the human being, shows his basis, and leads us thereby in quite different way to an understanding of the human being and the world. Only in a life eager to work, we can produce by our occupation in the world. Imagine what it makes up if the workers can accomplish their work like in the poem with a merry song. The single blacksmith was able to do this. He knew the work from its beginning to the ready product. The work cannot arise from the earnings; absolutely no work has arisen from the earnings. Try to look back at the simple work: it took place rhythmically, the hammer blow was rhythmic, and the song accompanied the rhythm. The impulses, which one can compare to joy and love, drove him to the work. The further you go back, the more you find that earnings and occupation are two completely different things. What the human being performs as a work he works from an impulse towards the thing. Something different is to get earnings. However, this is the reason of our modern misery that earnings and occupation that wage and work have become one, have coincided. Our consideration must culminate in this. A human being who works on a small part in the factory will never have the abandon for the product that the former craftsman had; this is past retrieval. It is never possible in future with our complex conditions that a merry song penetrates the field of work. The song has faded away, the song that joins the product! We ask, is there another impulse, which can replace it? Let us look at the time when more and more factories were built and more and more human beings were herded together in the sites of modern misery. If we let all that pass by, we realise — even if many things have changed — that one means to attach the future development simply to the past, when joy and love were still the impulses of work. However, humanity could create no substitute that attaches the human being again to the product. This can also not brought back. However, something else can be done. What can replace it? How can joy and love become impulses of the daily work again? How can one create them? Of course, some people will argue, create impulses for a work that is dirty, bad, and hideous! — There are such impulses. Remember only what mothers do if they do the work because of love for the child. Remember what the human being is able to do if he does anything because of love for other human beings. There is no love for the product of the work necessary; there it needs a tie between human being and human being. You cannot bring back the love for the product within humanity, because it was bound to primitive, simple relations. However, what the future must bring back is the big, all-embracing understanding and love from human being to human being. Not before any human being finds the impulse for his activity from the deepest impulses which only a spiritual world movement can give, not before he is able to do the work because of love for his fellow men, it is not possible to create real impulses for a future development in the sense of the human welfare. Thus, we have put as an impulse what any occult science knows since immemorial times. There is a spiritual principle; this is, in the social life only that is fruitful for the welfare of the human beings what the human beings do not for themselves, but for all human beings. All work is detrimental which the human beings do only for themselves. This is apparently a hard principle, but this hard basic sentence is the result of true knowledge. Theosophy or spiritual science has to bring this to the today's humanity: to learn to understand such a sentence again. Something that should enclose all human beings or groups of human beings has become a complete abstraction in the materialistic view. This can no longer provide any moral impulse. Reflect once how one speaks about folk souls or group souls. This is nothing real! The human beings must get clearness again about the fact that there are beings who live in spiritual worlds, and that such group souls live and are reality. We have advanced in our development so far that we have arrived just in our time at views that are exactly the opposite of spiritual science that regards as formalities only, for example, all that what encloses a group, a togetherness in the world. Spiritual science, however, shows that the entire existence is not included in the physical, in the visible, but that the supraphysical, the supersensible underlies all the visible, so that such things like common spirits and group spirits are no abstractions for us. Thus, it becomes to us a precise concept if we say, it does not depend on the work, and if it is valued ever so much. It depends on the work only in the human coherence if this work is fruitful, productive for the fellow men. Realise that by a simple example: two human beings live on an island. The one produces things that satisfy the hunger of both, make their existence possible. The other also works a lot; he occupies himself with throwing stones from one place to another. He is very industrious and diligent. However, his work has no significance, is quite unsubstantial. Not that is the point that we work, but that we perform work which is fruitful for the other. The work of throwing stones is fruitful only if it gives pleasure to the person concerned. However, if he is forced by any institution to be paid for the work, then the work is insignificant for the coherence. It must be in a coherence that wisdom and structure regulate. He who looks into the coherence knows that the most important works are performed independently from earnings. Earnings must stand for themselves. It is a separate question how the human beings keep themselves mutually. The impulse of working is not allowed to be grounded in egoism, but it must originate from the regard to the entirety. Other human beings require what one human being does. If the human beings ask for that which I produce by my work, then my work may correspond to my ability, it may be lower if I have low abilities, it may be significant if I have high abilities. However, if the human beings need this work, it is an impulse for the work that can induce me to a merry song. However, we must have the impulses and the abilities at first to look into the hearts of the human beings and to see that the hearts can become something for us. If we understand to immerse ourselves in the hearts of the fellow men, we know the nature of the human beings; then we also work in community and obtain social thinking. You will say, no one throws stones from one place to the other. — This happens in our relations perpetually, only people do not see it! They see too short. Someone who learns to think socially soon becomes aware of that. Imagine, you sit somewhere and find a nice picture postcard and then you write twenty postcards without having to inform of something particular. Somebody who looks deeper sees not only the postcards with the pictures, he sees many mailmen going upstairs and downstairs. How much work one would save if the postcards were not written! However, a quite clever one says: because one writes so many postcards, one brings about that one mailman is no longer sufficient. Another is hired, and this other earns his keep. — No one considers that in this way no productive work is performed. This is the work by which nothing is produced. Because you force a human being to a work and pay a remuneration for it, you create no welfare for humanity. However, one must look into the structure of existence as spiritual-scientific education can only give us. One has to realise that not only a few economists should look into these matters. One has to make any single human being unfold this social thinking. That flows from the spiritual-scientific wisdom as a spiritual-scientific disposition that the human soul becomes open and free that it then sees things, which he thinks and studies to an end, so that one does no longer say, one must create work for the unemployed people. It does not depend on giving this or that person work, but which work is performed, just work which the community needs. If we look at the matter in such a way, we realise that that what must become the impulse of our work must be a feeling of solidarity penetrated by real wisdom, the living social feeling that shall take place in any human soul. Not the abstract love, not that love which talks only about love and cannot see beyond its nose, but only that love which is illumined by knowledge can cause an improvement of the human conditions. Hence, spiritual science cannot be an accumulation of dogmas, of ideas. The ideas are there for the soul. The point is the living human being. The more this wisdom grasps human beings and inspires them, the more exists true, real love, the more it serves the progress, the welfare of the human beings. Thus, we find that, because the occupation is based on the commitment to humanity, and the earnings are based on the care for the maintenance of the human being, welfare is bestowed on humanity thinking completely in this direction. The spiritual scientist does not assume that one can change this with dogmas overnight. Someone who stands firmly on the ground of spiritual science is clear in his mind that the soul can settle down into the active love, and that — because human beings are there who found the insights — one can work for the welfare of humanity. Then a person like Kolb has not to go to America to find out that one can easily judge about social questions on a theoretical basis, but a current in the public life will open his eyes, so that he will not have to walk blindfold through the world. This will be the best and nicest fruit of the spiritual-scientific worldview if it does not entice the human beings into sentimental preaching of charity and fraternity but induces them to look at the true and spiritual reality with open and free sense. Humanity will thereby fulfil the Goethean sentence more and more: “from the force that binds all creatures that man is delivered who masters himself.” This sentence applies in the enclosing sense to the national, professional, and commercial fields. It applies in such a way that only if our social structure is completely controlled by this principle that our work is not subject to wage and earnings but is made independent from acquisition, something fruitful can be created. Of course, there are people who say, one takes care everywhere to take away all kinds of things from the subjective acquisitiveness and to transfer them on the community. Someone who says this could regard the official as the ideal of the human being, with whom earnings and occupation are separated. However, it depends on the fact that any single human being has the impulses from which the characterised welfare can arise. Community must not hover over the whole as an abstract spectre, as a cloud, but it must live in any single soul which points always to the spiritual height of the universe as it reflects itself in any human soul. Only such a worldview can succeed in realising what is salutary in the human living together. The great human beings have felt this, a great spirit felt it about whom one talks today again more, some people even more, and the less they understand him. This spirit said that by merging in the real, true unity bliss comes about the human being, and that any misery originates from the variety and the differences. Misery comes above all if the human beings are driven in these differences that nobody does anything else than for his egoism only. Not before the single one feels that he must lay down what he can do on the altar of humanity, if this feeling and this thinking flow through the human being, it can also flow through humanity most intensely. It is true what Fichte (Johann Gottlieb F., 1762–1814) said: all bliss is contained in merging in the true one and any distress and misery in life is based on separateness and differentiation. For the true love can be attained only if the soul is not hardened in separateness and in variety, but if it finds rest and peace in the true community and in the whole spirit.

Occupation and Earnings

https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA056/English/eLib2015/19080312p01.html

Berlin

12 Mar 1908

GA056-11

Tips to the close coherence of the human being with the physical life appear repeatedly. If we find such hints in scientific writings about variations of the grain prices within certain periods and one points in this regard to the changes of the glaciers or of the water gauge of the Caspian Sea, it seems at first sight that one could not relate these things seriously. However, always-new relations as well as also their confirmations are found. One will still be able to ascertain many facts and some mistakes will have to be eliminated, but science has furnished evidence for the mysterious interaction. Many such events relate to the activity of the sun, among other things also to the increasing and decreasing number and size of the solar spots. Their maxima and minima appear with a certain regularity. After about 11 1/9 years, such a maximum can be determined in each case. Furthermore a comparison of the observations which have been done up to now shows that, perhaps, one could also calculate on a period of twenty-two and a half years. One cannot deny changes of the climatic conditions, caused by the activity of the solar spots. It seems that a maximum of the solar spots causes a decreased heat emission of the sun, which causes big changes then in nature. Thus, for example, the good wine years followed themselves in indeed varying distances of eleven years. How the 35-year period of Brückner's (Eduard B., 1862–1927, geographer, meteorologist, glaciologist and climate scientist) climate variations relate to it, is not yet determined scientifically. Science also relates the ice ages — it assumes four of these immense changes of the face of the earth — to the solar activity and the position of the earth's axis. Thus, the wholly mechanical thinking relates the events on the sun to the earth evolution. In other times, one regarded these matters in another way which science discounts with its feeling of superior wisdom. However, what we must feel if we see how one of the greatest scholars and such a careful thinker like Aristotle speaks of the fact that according to ancient doctrines the stars are gods. All remaining that folk lore tells about the gods is worthless and added by the people. Aristotle expressed himself with care concerning this doctrine, but he treats it as something that one must face with esteem and reverence. Such an echo of ancient wisdom on which the modern naturalist looks down with a shrug has also survived in astrology in mutilated, brainless way, however, it leads still back to the old wisdom of humanity. It is not easy to make clear what such old wisdom contains. Today the human being regards the stars and the earth as wholly physical bodies wandering through the space. He says that it was a childish idea to think that the other world bodies could signify anything for the human destinies. At that time, one felt just different if one compared the human being with the remaining world. One did not think of bones, muscles and senses, but of the feelings and sensations that lived in him. The stars were to him the bodies of spiritual-divine beings, and he felt penetrated by their spirit. Whereas today the human being recognises that mechanical forces are effective in the solar system, at that time he saw mental-spiritual forces working from star to star. The great initiates taught not wholly mathematical forces, but effects based on wholly spiritual forces from star to star. It is quite comprehensible that this world feeling has changed in our materialistically coloured worldview, but only someone who believes that the view of the last fifty years is valid for good, can close his heart against the idea of that which lived in the not materialistic but spiritual experience of the world. This also applies to the view, which puts the earth in the centre of creation. In the context with the existence of Christ on earth one explains that this earth is only a grain of sand among the other stars and, hence, nobody can assume who is not prejudiced in terrible hubris that just to this unimportant earth a divine being descended. Not from nothing, this change took place. At that time, the human beings raised their eyes to absorb the spiritual content of the space, and were not yet far advanced concerning the control of the physical space. With the emergence of the materialistic worldview, the physical world has been conquered most extensively. We do not want to criticise, but to understand how this change took place. It was initiated for a long time, but just in the 19th century, it made miraculous advances. The modern worldview faces us crystal clear in Kant and his followers. The picture that they made of the origin of the solar system is known in general: in order to illustrate the formation of a heavenly body, one pours a drop of oil in some water in a vessel. One brings it in a rotary movement. Smaller and bigger spherical parts thereby separate. As well as here these oil particles, the worlds went adrift from the primeval nebula. I only need to mention that in the 19th century the admirable advances of the natural sciences and astronomy corrected the worldview of Kant and Laplace and continued it in changed form, however, the main features remained the same. The great discovery by Kirchhoff (Gustav Robert K., 1824–1887, German physicist) and Bunsen (Robert B., 1811–1899, German chemist), the spectral analysis, also seems to confirm this, while they could detect a big number of those mineral materials that compose our earth on the other heavenly bodies. On the sun itself, one has detected more than two thirds of all known elements. It is very typical and more significant that one of the best experts of this worldview (Simon Newcomb, 1835–1912, Canadian astronomer) pronounced the sentence: if one pursues the figure of the world edifice, it turns out that the primeval nebula formed with a necessity similar to that of a functioning clock, which shows that one has winded up it once. You can visualise the emergence of the world body by that experiment. However, the logical thinking demands to think all things to an end. Then it turns out that one has forgotten something, namely just the most important by which the globules separate. By the movement that the experimentalist carries out! However, one forgets him applying the results of this experiment to the hypothesis of the emergence of the heavenly body. One completely ignores this “trifle” with the worldview proven this way. One wants to know nothing about the experimentalist. Without being opponent of modern natural sciences, you can put this question to yourselves. One can completely stand on the ground of scientific thinking without forgetting the uncomfortable experimentalist. He is the spirit who stands behind everything, the sum of the spiritual beings who reveal their nature in the phenomena of the sense-perceptible world, as the results of exact research of spiritual science can show them. Spiritual science does not need to deny anything that modern science has investigated. It admits its results completely, as far as these are obtained by strict and objective observation, experimentation and thinking. It recognises the necessity of such, only to the sense-perceptible world directed research. However, it also knows that the time has come where humanity must be pointed to the fact that the spirit is the reason of all matter and that the matter is the external expression of the spiritual beings. Spiritual science looks not only at the mechanical processes of attraction and repulsion; it examines which spiritual forces correspond to them. In order to gain a living picture of the plant according to its method at first, one has to proceed as follows: The plant turns its root downward, its stalk upwards. We see two forces active, one of which assigns itself to the centre of the earth whereas the second tries to wrest the plant from the earth's tentacles. Someone who does not look at the plant only with the outer eye realises how root and blossom show the expression of both forces. Supersensible forces of attraction and repulsion are active here. The former ones come from the earth, while the other forces shine down from the sun. If the plant only faced the solar forces, its development would happen very fast, it would develop leaf by leaf and atrophy, if the other force were absent, the restraining force working from the earth. Thus, the plant becomes the result, the expression of the forces of sun and earth. We do no longer regard it as a separated thing. It appears as a being that is a member of the entire earth organism, as the hair is a part of the human organism. The earth becomes a living entity, a manifestation of the living, of the spiritual, as the human being is the expression of soul and spirit. The animal is more independent, not as plant and hair only a part of an organism. It owes its partial independence that the animal soul ensouls it. This is, in contrast to the human soul that is an individual soul, a group soul. The animal is its revelation and relates to it like the finger to the entire organism. The animal is thereby less tied to the earth organism. In order to understand this, one must think that the spiritual research recognises the forces of attraction and repulsion as the earthly images of that which corresponds in the spiritual to these forces causing the planetary motions, which the Kant-Laplace worldview knows, with all its later modifications and additions, like gravity. These as well as its consequences arise as facts of the sensuous observation of the things. Their spiritual prototype that causes and carries the physically discernible appearance is also a fact, which arises as a result to the exact spiritual research. The animal group souls orbit their planets, and thereby the animal realm is independent from the planet. Any planet has its plant realm in common with the solar system with which it is connected. However, any planet has its own orbital forces and thereby its own animal realm, as far as it is able to have the animal realm. If one looks at the human being now, one must draw the attention to a fact that is deeply significant. As an embryo, the human being is subject to the lunar influence. The human embryo needs ten lunar months for its development. Lunar forces control it, as long as the human being does not yet appear as an independent being. The creative plant forces that press forward to the blossom and fruit are solar forces. The human body depends on the moon as far as it concerns its form. These formative forces relate to the solar forces in a certain way. Sun and moon form the contrast of life and form necessary for the human development. If only the persisting lunar forces were effective, any other development would be excluded and a kind of lignification would take place, while the solar forces solely would lead to combustion. The light that shines from the moon is not only reflected sunlight, but it contains formative forces. The sunlight is not only light, but forces of light, of too intense light, so that the human being would be immediately very old after his birth [if he were exposed to it only]. The human form is the result of the moon, his life that of the sun. The spectral analysis can recognise the mineral-chemical compounds of the sun, not the spiritual forces of vitality, which flow down to the earth. With the help of the telescope, one sees the moon only as stiffened heavenly body, not the formative spiritual force. In the sun, the physical researcher recognises glowing gas masses, flooding movement, metals surging up and down, solar spots and protuberances, but not the body of a spiritual being, the regent of the processes of life. This is a chapter of a new research that only starts developing and has to conquer field by field only. Nevertheless, these things are of the highest significance. Goethe is one of the first modern naturalists who saw more than only mechanical-physical processes in the light without receiving acknowledgement. Already years ago, on the occasion of a birthday celebration of Goethe I pointed to the fact that Schopenhauer deplored bitterly that those who celebrated Goethe did very wrong by him concerning his theory of colours. The scholars speak only reluctantly about that. For the physicist it is more a nice, poetic but impossible thought compared to the wholly physical theory of colours. However, spiritual science stands completely different towards that. If once the time is ripe to understand Goethe's theory of colours properly, one will also realise that the light consists not only of seven basic colours, of material oscillations, but that behind the earthly light life is flowing down from the sun. Then one also understands what Goethe meant if he says of the rainbow colours that they are deeds of the light. From the stars, from the sun and moon flow not only light beams, but spiritual life streams down to us. As long as one only sees the physical light, one cannot understand this, because one can guess the spiritual only with artistic imagination, can experience it in the sensuous-extrasensory beholding as a picture by spiritual research. The human being is a multi-membered being. If he sleeps, only his physical and etheric bodies rest in the bed. The astral body with the ego separates from the lower members and lifts out itself in the spiritual world. It receives forces, more elated ones than the human being gets from the sun and moon during the day. Because the astral body is integrated in the much lighter substantiality of the astral world, the stars can influence it stronger. As in the wake state the physical forces work on the physical body, the stars work on the astral body now, because the human being is born out of the universe, by the same universal spirit as the starry sky. If we raise the eyes to the sun, moon and stars that way, we can understand which forces work there, get to know the spiritual in the universe. We cannot guess a manlike universal God, however, we can guess the spiritual forces behind the universal nebula and realise only in which way the worlds originate. We start experiencing the forces of leading beings behind the working forces. Schiller thought also that way calling to the astronomers who investigate the physical stars only: “Do not chat so much to me about nebulae and suns! Is nature only great, because she gives you to count them? True, your object is the most elated one in space; but — friends — the elated does not live in space.” If we look only at the outer forces, we do not find the elated. However, if we search the spiritual, and return from the immense universe to ourselves, we are able to see a drop of the spiritual life in ourselves that flows through the space. If we face the heavenly bodies with such attitude, we understand Goethe's word better: oh, what they would be, the countless millions of suns, if they did not reflect themselves in the human eye and did not delight a human heart at last? It could sound presumptuous, and, nevertheless, it is modest if we understand it properly. If we look up at the sun from which life streams go out it works so powerfully that we could not stand them if the lunar forces did not paralyse them. Thus, we see the spirit in the universe; however, we know that we have organs with which we can perceive the spirit in the universe. Then we let it reflect in the organs as the sun is reflected to which we can also not see directly, but its shine is reflected in the waterfall, as well as it is expressed in Goethe's words where he lets Faust say, after he has led back him again to the life on earth: I am content to have the sun behind me. The cataract there storming through the cliff — the more I watch it, the more is my delight. From fall to fall it swirls, gushing forth in streams that soon are many, many more, into the air all loudly tossing spray and foam. But see how, rising from this turbulence, the rainbow forms its changing-unchanged arch, now clearly drawn, now evanescent, and casts cool, fragrant showers all about it. Of human striving it's a perfect symbol — ponder this well to understand more clearly that what we have as life is many-hued reflection. ( Faust II, Verses 4715–4727 )

Sun, Moon and Stars

https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA056/English/eLib2015/19080326p01.html

Berlin

26 Mar 1908

GA056-12

The human being is distinguished from the other beings on earth because he does not arrange his life only according to vague, instinctive impulses, but to clear ideas and thoughts to get strength, power and certainty for his work if he is able to look not only at the present, but to determine his future out of ideas or ideals independently. The human being attains that only if he is able to survey life in its entirety. We learn from the past; we work for the future best of all if we anticipate in our ideas and ideals what we want to do in the future. It could seem now that the today's topic Outset and End of the Earth extends too far to the past and to the future, as if we wanted to deal with ideas that hover high over our everyday existence. However, the philosopher Johann Gottlieb Fichte already said a right word against those people who turn against ideas and ideals out of their ostensible life praxis because they think that the practitioners of life have no use for ideals and ideas. Speaking about the great ideals and about the determination of the human being to his Jena students, he coined the nice words against those people: we, as idealists, know as well as the practitioners, maybe better, that the ideals are not directly applicable in the real life. However, if they want to state that life — if it should be practical — must not be arranged according to ideas and ideals, they show only that one does not count on them in the further evolution. Hence, a benevolent god may give them rain and sunshine at the right time, the necessary food and, as far as I am concerned, clever thoughts, too. If we look back at the becoming of our earth, then the present human being thinks of the miraculous, immense achievements of the scientific thinking at first, of course. As well as already at other opportunities I want to emphasise also here that it can never be the task of spiritual science — if it understands itself correctly — to argue anything against the justified findings and results of the modern natural sciences. Therefore, allow me to say first something, before we tackle this enclosing issue from the spiritual-scientific point of view, also here again as with other considerations. What has the modern science to say about our today's issue? I want to answer to the question only briefly and sketchily. — The natural sciences reveal the earthly past with great, enclosing astuteness. They conclude from that what the earth is now, from that what we have as remains of extinct worlds and beings how it has looked once on our earth maybe millions of years ago, and which beings walked on it. You know, history, the historical documents lead us only a short time back in the evolution, some millennia only. Then it becomes dark, so to speak, if one wants to count only on the historical documents. A second time leads us back to that what could not be committed to the written documents, also not to other documents, what our ancestors gave their dead to their graves as burial objects of their culture that they manufactured and that stayed behind as remains. Then, however, the natural sciences go back even further. They show which beings lived successively on our earth based on the skeletons and other remains of primeval plants and animals that are included in the layers of our earth. One can easily realise that that what lies in the upper layers of our earth has found its grave at last, that that what lies in the deeper layers which were covered by later ones must contain the documentary remains of older, former times. Admittedly, it is not so easy to do research scientifically in this way. Geology has some difficulties. For that, what has been stacked within the earth surface has not so remained, as it has been stacked originally. Overburdens, faults, any possible mixture of the whole have taken place, so that sometimes that what lay originally at the bottom have come with the faults at the top. A great astuteness is necessary to get an idea of the earthly evolution from that what the layers of our earth enclose. We do not want to go more into details than the spiritual researcher can justify in this respect; we also do not want to explain in detail what we would have to say from the spiritual-scientific point of view. There is still something to be corrected. However, we do not want to get ourselves into it. On the contrary, we prefer to accept thankfully as a great achievement for humanity what the industrious natural sciences have observed and the scientific astuteness has performed in this field. We would like to think ourselves back to a former state of the earth with the physical research where our earth looked very different for the most part from today, where the simplest living beings must have lived no remains of which were preserved. We pursue the development of our earth of the layers and remains that lie at the bottom and at the top. We find there simple animals, which are subordinate to the vertebrates, to those which have a skeleton. We go on and see how the various animal classes and plant classes develop gradually, as well as they seem to appear on the changing earth gradually. We go back with the naturalist to the time when in our earth evolution fish appear. Many of them have quite different forms than the today's ones. If we go back further, we come to a strange developmental phase of our earth when those monstrous, miraculous animals that belong partly to the amphibians and reptiles inhabited it. These animals were gigantic, whose eyes were maybe as big as a child head, they were provided with huge teeth, animals that one calls ichthyosaurs and plesiosaurs etc. and whose remains are excavated in the most different regions of the earth from the Cretaceous layer, the Jurassic layer. There we come to the time when more perfect plants have originated, in a relatively young time, although it comprises millennia. We arrive at that time when in scientific view the human being appeared, when he appears for the first time on our earth, so to speak, according to the documents that the concerning layers contain, after the higher mammals, related to him, had preceded him. Briefly, we use that picture again which we already used recently when I talked about sun, moon, and earth, and imagine anyone could observe the evolution from a seat in space for millions of years. He would see the surface of the earth forming, the distribution of water and earth, conditions of cold and heat changing, the various classes and forms of plants and animals appearing, and the physical picture would be the same for such a hypothetical observer as natural sciences describe it. But again I emphasise that one cannot go on from spiritual science farther than, so to speak, up to the point where the natural sciences themselves will be obliged to correct the things in the future. Where does a conflict exist between the natural sciences and spiritual science now? One says repeatedly from the natural sciences, spiritual science does not stand on scientific ground. Can one stand more on scientific ground than to admit that everything that the natural sciences knows and can recognise also finds recognition with us? However, there are people who say, they firmly stand on the ground of the scientific facts. They demand from the spiritual scientist that he should know nothing else than what they themselves know. They do not demand only that one concedes to them what they themselves say, but they also demand that one subjects to the dogma that one cannot say more than they say. These people do not notice at all that such inner intolerance was never there in the entire human development, also not in the times when the outer intolerance went far. Indeed, as we said already last time considering the sun, moon and stars: the outer sensuous picture gives no cause for quarrel between spiritual science and the natural sciences. — However, does result from this outer sensuous sight that behind the sensuous, behind the physical no extrasensory, supraphysical forces are effective? We could bring in the Plateau experiment already last time where one shows how a world system originates in microcosm in a liquid from an oil drop by rotation with a crank. However, the good man did completely forget that he himself turned the crank! He did not consider at all that this is quite impossible without the thoughts of that who turns the crank. What one sees with the physical eyes is the outer expression, the outer process of that which happens internal-spiritually and what the human being can never get to know looking at the world only with his eyes and their ancillary tools, only with the outer physical tools. However, if we want to look back, to the physical beginning of the world and do not look at the physical only, then we have to imagine the true nature of the human being first. Someone who looks from the spiritual-scientific viewpoint at this true nature of the human being to whom the human being disintegrates, as I have often stressed, in a number of members. Above all the spiritual science shows us that the true reason of those varying states, which the human being experiences every day within 24 hours between wakening and sleeping, that a part of the human members separates from the other part in sleep. We see every night when the human being falls asleep sinking down in dreamless sleep, in an uncertain darkness what surged up and down as most manifold pictures and impressions in the soul during the day. We see everything sinking down that lives in the human being as instincts, desires, and passions, as joy, sorrow and pain. For somebody who stands on the ground of spiritual science, of course, also for everybody with common sense it would be a big folly if one wanted to assert that with falling asleep the bearer of joy and sorrow, of desires and passions would disappear and would rise again in the morning. Spiritual science shows that — when the human being lies in the dreamless sleep in his bed — only the physical body lies there connected with the etheric body. He has the physical body in common with the lifeless beings around him and the etheric body in common with the plants. Two other members are lifted out from the human being in the dreamless sleep. Joy and sorrow, desires and passions, all sensations surging up and down, all that is quiet at night. The astral body is their bearer, and this is lifted out in the dreamless sleep from the physical and etheric bodies that stay behind in the bed. The astral body and the ego are lifted out. By which does the existence of the astral body differ at night from its existence during the day? We can understand this remembering that the astral body has its reality outdoors in another world that is round it. I have explained that in other series of these talks. What does it depend on that one perceives anything? There can be countless worlds round you, the world of the tones, the world of the light, the world of the smells, the world of the tastes etc., if you had no senses for them, these worlds would not be there for you. It is the most illogical what one can do — however, the majority of the present human beings does it — to assert that a world which one does not perceive is not there. Spiritual science shows that the human astral body is lifted out at night in the dreamless sleep from the physical and etheric bodies and lives in another world; not in a transcendent, somewhere concealed world, but in a world that penetrates us, as light and air penetrate the space. For the spiritual-scientific observation that world differs from the physical-sensuous one only by the fact that it requires other organs with which one can perceive it. This astral body is in a spiritual world that is in our environment as the air is round us. Who still has no idea of the fact that air is round him, says, it is nothing round him. Someone says this who has no idea of the fact that he lives perpetually in spirit, and means that there is no spirit in our surroundings, that no spiritual facts, no spiritual beings are there. The astral body, the bearer of desire and pain, is in this spiritual world at night. It does not perceive it because it does not yet have organs in the present evolution, no cognitive ability for this world in which it is. It could appear like a hypothesis if one says that there is an astral body and the human being is in the dreamless sleep in a spiritual world except his physical and etheric bodies. But apart from the fact that somebody whose spiritual eyes are opened by initiation knows the astral body separated from the physical body by own observation and own experience, one can show, so to speak, experimentally that such an astral body exists, even if not with usual instruments. For the only instrument, which makes clear the secrets of the higher, supersensible world to the human being, which really leads him in the spiritual world, is the human being himself. This instrument, the human being, is capable of an infinite perfection, an infinitely subtle development, and just the initiation perfects the human being. It delivers to that who wants to apply it to himself, so to speak, the experimental evidence of an astral body that can become independent of the physical body. Let us recall some of the viewpoints that we have discussed in the talk on the initiation. We have said there that the human being can do certain exercises of meditation, of contemplation according to particular methodical instructions by which he makes his worlds of thought, feeling and will-impulses stronger and stronger than feelings and will-impulses can be strengthened by any outer sensory observation. There are just such instructions as we have heard in the talk on initiation by which the human being can gain more than he gains by the mere outer observation of the reality. Something particular appears in a human soul which applies the instructions to itself. It appears that really the astral body receives spiritual eyes and ears by the subtle inner work of the human being. We can show that meditation of thoughts, feelings, and will-impulses make the feelings and the will-impulses more powerful. We can show how they work on this astral body: the astral body shows after some time, if the human being has patience and perseverance, that it has acquired the spiritual eyes and ears returning in the early morning in the physical and etheric bodies and it can experience now what one calls enlightenment. The human being is able to work on his astral body — working here in the awake consciousness by meditation of certain feelings and will-impulses according to certain methodical regulations — in such a way that it is able to react on us. Thereby one shows the reality of the astral body. We work on it and it works on us. It shows its existence by the fact of the initiation. Just as the astral body is separated from the physical body at night, the bearer of the ego, of the human self-consciousness is also separated from him. This also disappears at the present developmental state of the human being still in an uncertain darkness. With the sleeping human being, we have the physical body in the bed that he has in common with all minerals, as well as the etheric body that he has in common with all plants. From the physical body and the etheric body the astral body is lifted out which he has in common only with the animals, and the ego that the human being, as a crown of the creation on earth, does not have in common with any other realm of nature. In the present developmental stage where no higher senses, no “spirit eyes” and no “spirit ears”, to speak with Goethe, are developed the impressions of the day disappear falling asleep, and other do not appear in the world for which he has no senses. Hence, darkness, lightlessness, and muteness surround him at night. In the morning while waking, the human being dives in the physical and etheric bodies. These are equipped with the physical eyes and ears. The spiritual human being dives in the physical-sensuous human being, uses the instruments for the physical-sensuous world, and has this world around himself. One should understand what Fichte said: one shall not believe that the eye sees, but that the human being sees by the eye; one shall not believe that the ear hears, but the human being hears by the ear. The same applies to the sense of smell and the sense of taste. They are tools for the inner human being. Spiritual science recognises and must recognise this spiritual, inner human as the original, the first of the human being. The physical and the etheric bodies do not exist as the first, but the astral body and the ego existed before them. Indeed, some people who are influenced deeper suggestively by the very effective present ideas sticking to the material will argue: do you imagine in your fantastic spiritual science that this spiritual, this bearer of joy and sorrow, of desires, passions, and self-consciousness hovered once freely somewhere without being tied to a physical body? — Spiritual science answers: certainly, this is the case! Before anything physical, even before anything etheric existed, this astral body existed. The inner life was before the appearance. With it, we are placed immediately at the earth's beginning. — Can you imagine that anybody can deny completely, even under the strong materialistic suggestions that something underlies like a spiritual state that condenses only afterward and comes into being? I have often emphasised here that spiritual science regards the matter as compressed spirit. We use a comparison that we have often applied to show how the spiritual researcher thinks about spirit and matter. Imagine once, somebody has transparent air before himself, and clouds form in this transparent air, as the effect of cooling. What was transparent before is clouded; what was vapour and was not visible once becomes water. Maybe it goes on: the water freezes to ice. The ice falls down in pieces. Let us assume that anybody comes and says, it is nonsense, stupidity that the water was distributed before in the air. I have seen nothing of it! The first I saw were the clouds. Then someone comes who can also not yet see the clouds, he sees something only if the water freezes if ice originates. If one says to him: what is there as ice today was there already sooner than water, then he answers: I have seen nothing, ice is there and nothing else. From such thoughts, the answer must be taken if anybody wants to accuse a spiritual researcher of speculative fiction who says that the human being did not exist materially at first, also not as an etheric body, but his astral body and ego existed first. In the beginning of our earth existence, the astral body and the ego existed. Yes, there was even, as we see soon, the human being as a spiritual being on the earth, before animals, before plants, before minerals existed. At first, the earth existed as an agglomeration of nothing but such spiritual human beings who consisted of the ego and the astral body. This is the outset of the earth. The spiritual researcher goes on describing: as the water was distributed invisibly in the air, is condensed to clouds, the astral was condensed once to the etheric condition. Then human beings existed who had an ego, an astral body, and an etheric body. At last, the physical body originated, as the ice from the water, the water from the water vapour forms, as the densest part of the human being. Thus, we have the course of the earthly development: the human being is there as a spiritual being at first, then as an etheric being, and last the spiritual crystallises the human physical body. We capture the picture of the condensing water vapour on camera. Assume that you have a lump of water. You would treat this lump of water artificially so that a part freezes in the middle. Imagine, you have many such lumps with which a part freezes in the middle; there originate many ice granules. Something very peculiar happens now: from some of these lumps of water the ice lumps fall out and remain only with little water coated for themselves, while the mother substance, the water withdraws, from which the ice has formed. With the other lumps of water, the ice granules remain in the water lumps and keep on freezing. More water changes into ice, bigger ice cores originate there. With a number of the resulting formations such bigger ice cores precipitate and keep some water, while the mother substance withdraws. This goes on that way. Such ice lumps rise to a higher stage, they develop more ice from the water. Always ice stages form back on earth, while other lumps transform more and more of the water into ice, until they have such ice lumps at last which have transformed all water into ice and whose mother substance is included, so to speak, only between the pores of the ice. Let this picture of the earth's evolution arise in you from the outset until our time. Imagine the human being as a spiritual being at the beginning of our earth's existence and only existing as a spiritual being. He begins first to densify a small, unimportant part, which becomes denser. There are certain beings that stop like the ice granules on an early stage, while they separate from their spiritual mother substance. These are the most imperfect animals that originated once from the human mother substance; from the astral human being only a part became material and densified. These are the lowest animals. The other human beings developed to higher stages. Higher animals precipitated again from the spiritual mother substance. Thus, in the course of the earth development more and more differentiated and perfect creatures developed, up to the today's human being who is in his external physical expression an image of the spiritual arrangements and possibilities that were included originally at the earth's beginning in spirit, in the astral body of the human being. As the ice lumps, which precipitated, represent the stages of the becoming of the big ice lump, all beings that are more imperfect than the human being is constitute the entire animal realm and plant realm, the backward stages of the human evolution on earth. The human being is the first-born of the earth as a spiritual being, and he has densified as a spiritual being if I may use the expression the material gradually from himself. On every stage subordinated beings stopped, so that we have to see in the whole range of the more imperfect earthly beings not ancestors of the human being, but on the contrary descendants of the spiritual human being who did not come along. These are the backward brothers, backward beings on the preliminary stages, which continued their life until our time and that is why they became decadent. Thus, considering the evolution we see members falling out. If anybody could put a chair in the space and watch the Hyperborean human being, he would see if the premises of spiritual science were right the external-physical picture that the spiritual researcher shows: how the human being first left behind the imperfect animals and then the more and more perfect ones. Really the human being originated externally latest in his today's figure, as the latest one of the creatures; spiritually he is the first-born; spiritually he leads the way of all beings. From the human being all the other beings have developed who fall out on an imperfect stage of the human being as it were, which represent the repelled ones of the human evolution. Thus, in the earth's evolution everything imperfect goes back to the higher. The higher, the original is not in our physical figure, but in the spirit. The modern natural sciences suffer almost from the question, which they put repeatedly and which is so intimately connected with our topic of the outset of our earth: how can anything living develop from the lifeless? If on our earth only lifeless material is, how could life develop from it? The only answer is that one puts the question wrongly. Life has never developed from the lifeless; however, everything lifeless has originated from life. You can easily realise how the lifeless arises from the living if you look at the hard coal, which is dug out like a rock even today. Once the coal was plants, ferns and horsetails which have stood on certain regions of the earth, and sank in the ground and which you can dig out now after millions of years, after they have become stone. For the spiritual researcher not only the coal originated from plants, but everything mineral leads back to an original plant, even if the materialistic researcher cannot imagine a plant realm without mineral basis. Such a researcher cannot imagine that the denser, coarser processes arise from the subtler processes. There is an example how such a materialistic view strikes in the face of any common sense how materialism haunts in some European scholars. There is, for example, the materialistic theory of soul phenomena by William James (1842–1910, American philosopher and psychologist) which even wants to be idealistic with which the materialistic ideas mingle in the entire thinking. I have already quoted the symptom that is contained in the sentence: “The human being does not cry because he is sad, but he is sad because he cries.” There the person concerned supposes that the existence works materially on the human being: it works on the lachrymal glands, and then the human being feels the process and becomes sad. This is in our present this way: the inventor of this theory is consequent in his materialism, also if it strikes in the face of common sense. In truth, the processes are in the mental-spiritual world, and the material processes are the results of them. The mental-spiritual processes are the original ones. Everything solid, everything material-mineral around us has originated from the spiritual. The question is not how life has originated from lifeless but how the lifeless has originated from the living. However, as something lifeless originates from the living the living was there before the lifeless, the spiritual was there before the living. Thus, we come back to the outset of our earth and see that our earth was a spiritual being even at its starting point. It was a spiritual being, the material developed successively from itself that from the spiritual the living, and from the living the dead has originated. The dead is the latest product. Thus, we look back to the outset of our earth and feel as human beings as the first-born of the earth, spiritual at the starting point of the earth evolution. Now we let the spirit look from here at the future. We can understand the easiest how the spiritual researcher achieves a picture of the future perspective if we realise what has also already arisen briefly from other indications in this series of talks that in the today's human being the single organs are of quite different value. It is not in such a way as it appears to the materialistic anatomy with the investigation of the human being. For the materialistic anatomist everything is there only in such a way as it presents itself after its physical peculiarity. However, for that who pursues the human organs with spiritual sight there are those which are in decadence, in withering, as the tree forms the bark, as well as others, which are at the beginning of their development as they look today. Certain lower organs that today serve the reproduction of humanity are dying away. However, we have an organ which is in the beginning of its development, and which attains a much higher stage in the future. This organ is the human heart. Not only the spiritual part, but also the physical organ, the heart, is a wonderful perspective for our future. The heart is a crux for the anatomist because, otherwise, every voluntary organ has fasciated muscles. The heart is an organ, which is a voluntary muscle according to its structure, although it is used as an involuntary organ. Where from does this come? No physical anatomy can explain this! The reason is that the heart is intended to be a much higher organ in the future. It is fasciated because it is a voluntary muscle in the future. We correspond voluntarily with a movement of the heart in the future to that what the soul feels as an impulse. The human being will perform his work not only by the tools of the hand, but the heart will be the tool of the soul in a way, as the human being does not at all anticipate it even today. Take another organ, the human vocal organ. What is it capable of today? If I speak to you what happens there? My words that I speak to you live in my soul at first. If I did not pronounce them, they would not penetrate into your soul. I pronounce them, set the tools of my larynx in motion. The air here in this room is set in vibration, and there are the oscillations of each of my words in this hall that penetrate you. What is language? It is an aerial embodiment of the thoughts. If I have pronounced anything, the thought sounds there, it is embodied in the air, and someone who could see the aerial waves in this room would see the physical creation of my thoughts bustling about in the room. Spiritual science shows that the future human being gets around to producing not only aerial-shaped figures by his words, but also denser matter as image of that what lives in his soul. He will learn to shape denser and denser this way, and he will produce his equals by his transformed vocal organ, by his word. If the human being keeps on developing, important changes of his corporeality take place. Certain organs decline, other organs keep on developing. The heart becomes an important tool of the soul. The vocal organ becomes the reproductive organ of the future human being who will produce his equals from his thoughts. As he embodies his thoughts in the air today, he will embody himself by the organ that is becoming the future reproductive organ. Like a shade of that what our head will be is that what he is today. The coherence between the human vocal organ and the reproductive organ is indicated by the fact that with the male individual the voice changes with the sexual maturity. May the human beings better consider such changes which spiritual science imparts! What the spiritual research says points to that what humanity will have later to the creation of its equals: it is the word. A human being speaks the word, and the word will be a human being. This happens when the human being has spiritualised himself more and more. For he spiritualises himself and returns to the spirit at the end of the earth because he puts his physical tools at the disposal of the spirit, as we have seen it with the heart and with the larynx. With the predecessors of the human being, the creators who started their earth's existence at that time who stood at the earth's beginning where the human being will stand at the earth's end one recognises that it was with them the same way. The human being will originate by the word at the end, he will speak the word at the primeval end, and the word will be a human being. Of those beings, the divine-spiritual beings which already stood at the earth's beginning at the height to which the human beings will develop once it is said to us in one of the deepest religious documents, in the John's Gospel, properly and appropriately: in the primeval beginning the word was, and the word was a God. — As the word was in the primeval beginning, and the word was a God, the word will be a human being at the primeval end, and the human being will be the word. If we look at the beginning that way and see how the human being has originated from the spirit and has become the today's human being in the sense of the earth's evolution, and look at the changes of our earthly human being, the perspective of the spiritualisation of the earth presents itself to us. There we have spirit at the beginning and spirit at the end. Spirit was the origin and spirit is the goal. This is the secret of the earth's evolution. If we see the more and more condensing matter in the middle, we know that this matter is a converted and transformed spirit if we regard it not as an outer vision, but go into its being. It is nothing else than that what has developed from the spirit and what becomes spirit again. If we look forward, everywhere we look at spirit. According to Jacob Boehme, we originate in the spirit, and we strive for the spirit. The activity of the spirit is that knowledge of the spirit that raises the human being really which makes him a useful being because he will be a hopeful, spiritually and physically healthy being. It is the knowledge that everything is rooted in spirit and that that what we perceive and see in the world evolution is the actions of the divine spirit.

Outset and End of the Earth

https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA056/English/eLib2015/19080409p01.html

Berlin

9 Apr 1908

GA056-13

We have to go far back in the human striving for a solution of the world riddles if we want to envisage the origin of both ideas that soon force themselves on the human being if he approaches the world riddles in a deeper sense, above all in a spiritual sense: the ideas of bad and good. The human thinking will always try to rise to the mysterious forces that cause our development from the spiritual world. All the time we notice the attempt in the most different forms to relate the beneficial and progressive forces of life to the destroying forces, the reluctant ones, the impedient ones. However, the human being repeatedly faces the intimate relationship between both forces which exists for the precise observant in spite of the apparently strong contrast. We need to think only of Schiller's words about the fire already mentioned at another opportunity: Benevolent is the fire's might If man tames and watches it, For what he builds, what he creates, He owes to this heavenly power, But terrible this heavenly power is, If she, casting off her shackles, Strides along on tracks her own This free daughter of nature. One could say, in such words lies the question that has to occupy us today and in the next talk. The question has dressed itself in the words hell and heaven at different times. One must not imagine at all that these words appear where they have that superstitious meaning which many followers of these ideas add to them, but also not less many of those who would like to fight against them today without knowing their deeper meaning. If we look around only briefly, we see our question already arising in the ancient Persian culture where the realms of the good forces, of Ormuzd, and of the bad forces, of Ahriman, are sharply contrasted to each other. If we see how in a strange mental image the hating, the impedient forces mingle into the concealed forces which penetrate the world in the good sense and finally the light power is victorious, we have one of the great pictures before ourselves in which human imagination dresses our problem. From the Greek Tartaros up to the Nordic mythology a realm of the hell faces us; we hear names with which the concept “hell” is connected. It is that region in which all are condemned who did not die an honourable death in the physical world. A peculiarity can strike us if we remember this legend of the hell. Let us follow it exactly, because one has to say from the start, in the dress of mythology a deeper wisdom is sometimes found than that is which is fathomed with abstractions in our time. It is strange how the old Nordic mythology derives the present condition of the world from a cold nebulous “Niflheim,” the northern land that was foreign to the sun according to the Germanic idea in ancient time, and from another realm, “Muspelheim,” the warm realm. By the cooperation of both realms, the present condition of the earth originated. From the cold, nebulous Niflheim and not from the warm Muspelheim the most important forces serving now humanity were derived. There have first developed the higher forces underlying the today's culture. However, at the same time, — and this is the strange that touches our question in a miraculous way — it is said to us that Hel who receives the unworthy dead people is exiled by the gods to this nebulous home where those arrive who died of no honourable death. It is strange that the realm and the forces of the rise are brought together with the place and the personality who represents the force of death, of decay. Approaching our times, we find those taking the mental picture of a world in which the evil is concentrated who want to explain our existence from the depths of the world existence. How magnificently and greatly Dante describes this world immediately at the beginning of his overpowering poem that shows the purification and development of the human being to the higher spiritual worlds! Again, a poet was urged to take these mental pictures to show the forces living in the human soul when Goethe wrote his Faust . Hence, he contrasted that what should lead Faust to the bright powers with the representative of the infernal powers, with Mephistopheles. You can find many important remarks in Goethe's Faust that describe the peculiar relationship of Faust to Mephisto and of both to the world existence. I would like to mention two of them in this context in which Goethe puts both concepts strangely side by side and in a certain way reminiscent to the Nordic legend. The one quotation is that where Mephistopheles is called “a part of that force which, always willing evil, always produces good.” In a very intimate coherence with the whole world existence, the concepts of good and evil are put there. And another quotation of Goethe should not go unmentioned which on the one side leads us deeply into Goethe's soul, on the other side, however, also rather deeply into our problem; for it deals with the whole relation of the good powers in Faust to that what Mephisto, the evil, wants to attain with him. Very typically, Goethe lets Faust say the words when he should make the pact with Mephisto that determines under which conditions he belongs to Mephisto: If I should ever say to any moment: Tarry remain — you are so fair! Then you may lay your fetters on me, then I will gladly be destroyed! Then they can toll the passing bell, your obligations then be ended — the clock may stop, its hand may fall, and time at last for me be over! ( Verses 1699–1706 ) “If I should ever say to any moment: Tarry remain — you are so fair!” is an expression by which Goethe makes comprehensible to us that Mephistopheles has not understood it in its entirety. However, Faust knows that he can only fall for the infernal powers if he is placed in the position to say to the moment: “Tarry remain — you are so fair!” I want to put this at the beginning of our today's consideration because it can show in which direction that is turned what occupies us today, on one side, from the world of legends, on the other side, from a deep human thinking, dressed in a poetic garment. Indeed, those who believe today to be able to build up a whole worldview from some pieced together concepts of the material world, very easily are ready with the concepts hell and heaven. They do not care about what we have put at the head of our consideration now. One simply says, we need only to go back the developmental way of the different religions and childish worldviews. Then we realise that either the peoples or some human beings invented something in their misery that one calls heaven and hell, partly to comfort the peoples for the grief which they suffer on earth, partly to encourage them by the fear of the hell to transform their selfish desires into the good. Who talks in such a way knows nothing about the real motives by which one introduced such ideas like heaven and hell in the souls and hearts of the human beings. Today we search an answer to this question not in any accidental observations, in any pictures, judgements and conclusions, but we want to gain mental pictures of what is to be said about this question. We remember the talk about the topic Man, Woman and Child . We could speak there of the big development of the human being on earth and impart knowledge of various forces which are active in the human evolution. If we survey this human development in the sense of spiritual science, then we take the way up to attain a relationship to it as the spiritual-scientific viewer looks at the growing child approaching us from the first moments of its life and working out its forces and abilities more and more. Someone who looks with the sight sharpened by spiritual science at this growing human being sees the abilities of the child developing from the rudiments in a lovely way. A materialistically minded science would like to make us believe that that what gradually works its way out so attractively is to be led back to the merely inherited attributes of the parents, grandparents or other ancestors. The word “inheritance” plays a big role concerning this question in this day and time. Often enough I drew your attention to the fact that spiritual science has to play a role which before not too long time — 300 years have not yet passed — a great scientist played, the Italian naturalist Francesco Redi (1626–1697). He first pronounced something that is common property of any unprofessional and academic knowledge today. At his time, it was not only an unprofessional faith, but also the faith of all naturalists that from something unliving, from river mud, not only lower animal beings but also earthworms, fish can originate. One believes today that these are only religious prejudices, which prevented the human being to lead back all things to a wholly mechanical world order. However, not only the few worldly scholars who lived at that time supposed that from something unliving life could originate, but also St. Augustine represented this view. You learn from this fact that it did not contradict the piety of St. Augustine at all to represent such a conception. However, what contradicts such an assumption? A real, in the depths of the world existence going outer and inner observing, physical and not supersensible experience of the things. Physical and not supersensible experiences forced the quotation upon the human beings gradually which then Redi did: life can originate only from life. In the same position in which in those days the naturalist Redi was — he escaped the destiny of Giordano Bruno (1544–1600, Italian monk and philosopher, burnt at the stake) only by the skin of the teeth —, is the modern spiritual science today. The sentence, which one denies today, is applied to the spiritual realm: the spiritual can originate only from spiritual. — We cannot lead back to physical processes what we see developing first from the dispositions of the embryo. We lead it back to the spiritual as we lead life back to life. Then the spiritual leads us back to a spiritual-mental. If we see this spiritual-mental dressed, as it were, in those attributes connected with the physical or the other covers of the human being, then we only lead this physical back to the entire line of inheritance that colours and shades the spiritual-mental abilities and peculiarities. If one wants to draw our attention repeatedly to the way in which the qualities sum up in the inheritance line gradually which appear then last with a descendant, we are not at all surprised from the viewpoint of spiritual science. It is a matter of course for us that in the bodies in which the spiritual germ appears the attributes of the physical inheritance appear. For, how do we look at this physical inheritance? We choose the following example: We take a sprout of a plant and plant it in fertile soil with all possible substances that can well supply the plant. Then we plant the same sprout in another soil that contains small quantities of the substances, which the plant needs. The plants carry the qualities of the ground in themselves from which they have arisen. Thus, we see the plant unfolding what is its own deeper origin, we see its sprout, and on the other side that what this sprout developed and unfolded in which it is wrapped what appears as attached and filled from the ground from which the plant has arisen. Thus, the human being has arisen, like the plant from a former plant, from a spiritual-mental of prehistoric time. He has grown on a ground that was prepared in the line of inheritance, and this spiritual-mental germ contains qualities that it brings from the ground of the inheritance line. We are not surprised that the complete process is in such a way and presents itself for the external, physical world viewer in such a way that one can be addicted to the indicated mistakes. If it means, one should observe how in an especially gifted personality the qualities of the ancestors are added up and that a musician is descended from a family of musicians and a mathematician from a family of mathematicians, the spiritual scientist does not at all deny these things or show them in another light. For spiritual science, the matter is in such a way: there are large periods, within which our spiritual-mental arises repeatedly. We speak in the spiritual research of repeated earth-lives, while we say that our spiritual-mental existence points us back to former lives in which the spiritual germs of the current life were prepared. Everything that we now contain and that we now gain develops in future time and has its effect. This spiritual-mental germ has nothing to do with that what reproduces in the physical line. If the human being enters the existence, this spiritual-mental germ enters the physical body, and the forces that are handed down in the family build up the physical body, which he inhabits. Thus, a duality is really assembled in the human being one of which, the spiritual-mental, goes back to an only spiritual evolution line, while the other, the physical one goes back to the inherited line of evolution. Inheritance and reincarnation are both things, which intermingle here, as it arises from any reasonable consideration. Nevertheless, one says then, realise that in one ancestor these qualities exist and in another those qualities. At last, these qualities accumulate and become Goethe or Beethoven. The genii normally appear at the end of a long line. Let us consider this sentence once: the genius appears at the end of a line of generations. — It is weird that the genius is led back to inheritance because it has a body that is organised for the genius. If the Bernoullis ( famous Swiss family of mathematicians and scientists ) become mathematicians repeatedly, it is obvious that they need special bodies. It is not miraculous that if the spiritual-mental germ disappears in an inheritance line, in that what is the ground for the mathematical head, he also brings these qualities. On the other hand, does it surprise one that anybody who dives in the water comes out wet? Thus, it is also natural that if anybody is born out of a family he carries the qualities of the family in himself. It is something natural that the cited sentence can really mean something completely trivial. However, when would it have to appear that the genius itself is inheritable? If it stood at the beginning and not at the end of a line of generations! If it stands at the end, it is a proof of the fact that just the ingenious qualities are not transmitted! It is already a weird kind of arguing if one says that one realises that the qualities are transmitted, and if one asserts that the genius stands at the end of a line. A healthy logic can only say that the reincarnating genius cannot transmit the spiritual qualities; since, otherwise, it would have to stand at the beginning of the generation line. We come there to two developmental lines, a spiritual one, and a physical one. If one does not accept this, one also does not manage with the healthy logic. We see a child that went through another life centuries ago developing and using those qualities which present themselves to it now. We see the child entering life that way. How do we see the human being leaving life? We have already pointed to this. Now we want to look at the events that occur if that what has entered the physical existence by birth leaves it again, while it walks through the gate of death. There we must not only consider death, but something that we already mentioned in the last consideration, the alternating states of sleeping and waking, and the alternating states of life and death. We know from the last consideration that if the human being sinks in the dreamless sleep certain members of his being separate from the real human inside, the innermost being, his essence. We distinguish in such a sleeping human being in the sense of the spiritual science what lies, so to speak, in the bed, from this essence. In the bed lies the physical body that is handed over at death to the earthly elements. However, if the human being lies in the bed, the physical body is not in such a way as it is when it is handed over to the earth. The physical body is there still infiltrated by the etheric body or life body. The physical body lives, the vital functions are maintained, so that in the bed there lie the physical body and the etheric body or life body. However, the bearer of joy and sorrow is lifted out, it is the bearer of any sensory sensation surging up and down during the day like heat and cold, smell and taste, and it is the bearer of the whole life of thought and imaging, starting from the instincts and passions up to the moral ideals. All that sinks in an uncertain darkness with sleep. However, this also appears again in the morning like light streaming inside. It is the light of the consciousness. We must exactly distinguish something else within that what is lifted out at night from the human body, from the physical one and the etheric one: It is the human self-consciousness and its bearer, the human ego. We call the bearer of joy and sorrow, of instincts and passions, of sensuous sensations surging up and down the astral body, and the bearer of the self-consciousness, the fourth member of the human being, the ego. These both members, the ego-bearer and the bearer of desire and pain, are lifted out during the dreamless sleep from the physical and etheric bodies. Why can you not perceive in that world? We have found the answer of this question in our talks; because of the present developmental stage of the human being, the ego and the astral body have no organs. The human being perceives his physical environment because he has organs, eyes, and ears. In the morning when the ego and the astral body disappear in the physical body and use these organs the human being perceives the surroundings. We have a four-membered being: a physical body, an etheric body, an astral body, and an ego-body. — This is the nature of the alternating states of waking and sleeping. However, we want to imagine the moment of death now. We can do this, using what such a human being perceives who has applied the methods of initiation and has learnt to use the higher senses slumbering in the human being. In addition, a usual logic can realise this because these facts are portrayed in such a way that they can demonstrate the way of the human being through death. At death, something happens that only happens during the whole life between birth and death in special cases. During the whole life, the etheric body is united with the physical body. Only at death, it separates from it, and thereby the physical body becomes a corpse. Now it follows the merely physical-chemical forces from which it was wrested between birth and death because the etheric body worked in it. This etheric body is a faithful fighter against the decay of the physical body during the whole life; for the physical body has the chemical and physical forces in itself. This becomes obvious if it is left to its own resources after death: it disintegrates, it is an impossible mixture. The etheric body separates from the physical body and remains together with the astral body and the ego for a while. This coherence is of big importance. At the moment of death, a comprising painting of his life between birth and death faces the human being. It is, as if an immense panorama of this life which we have experienced stands before our souls. This view, a feeling of extension, of increasing accompanies this reminiscent picture. It is, as if the human being extended and on the inner side the pictures of the past life appeared like in a miraculous panorama. Where from does this come? It originates because the etheric body is the bearer of memory. As long as it is in the physical body, it is bound to the physical body, and it can only survey what it has experienced in the physical body between birth and death. The physical body is an obstacle. Because the etheric body is an unclouded, pure bearer of memory, the entire past appears in one single picture after death. Some people who were almost drowning or fell off a rock and were close to death remember that the whole life stood before their souls at this moment. I could tell a lot to you, however, I only want to mention what you can read in a book to which I have pointed once. However, the criminal anthropologist Moritz Benedikt (1835–1920, Austrian neurologist), a man who would regard everything that was said here as the biggest nonsense and fantasy — this does not matter —, tells that when he was close to drowning his whole life faced him like a big painting. What happens in such a case? A spontaneous relaxation of the physical body and the etheric body happens which is removed immediately again. The result of this fact is that the commemorative contents of the whole life stand before the human soul for a quite short interval. Thus, this reminiscent picture stands before the human soul first. Then the time comes in which the etheric body separates from the astral body and from the ego. However, there remains a rest of the etheric body that is connected with the human being, the essence of the last life. Imagine this extract, this life essence in such a way, as if you could summarise the contents of a thick book skilfully on one page, but in such a way that a human being could rebuild the contents of the book. A sort of such a life essence is attached to the human being for all future, after he has removed what he cannot use for his further development. We especially want to notice this. What is attached there to the human being for his future development is the fruit of the last life. Each life constitutes something like a page in the big book of life and all our earth-lives are put down in such a page. They are attached to our being. We take such a fruit from a life with us in all the coming ones. This fruit has a great significance for the further development of the human being. However, before we can go into the significance of this life essence, we must closer consider the further course of the human being after death. After this life painting was there for a quite short interval, the human being experiences another time after death that we can characterise in the following way. The human being has his ego, his astral body, and the above-mentioned extract. Let us take one of the usual experiences, the experience of a gourmet who enjoys a tasty dish. By which does the enjoyment come about? Somebody may attribute it only to the physical body. However, this would be absurd. Not the physical body, but the astral body is the bearer of desires, of joy and sorrow. The astral body has the enjoyment, and it develops the desire for the tasty dish. The physical body is an apparatus of physical materials, of physical and chemical forces. It delivers the tools that the astral body can satisfy these desires. This is the relation of the astral body to the physical body in life. The astral body cries for satisfying its desires, and the physical body delivers the tools, the palate, the tongue etc. by which it can satisfy its desires. What does now happen at death? The physical body is cast off and all instruments of satisfaction with it. The astral body, however, is there, and it is easy to realise that this astral body does not break of its hedonism, its desires automatically only because the physical tools are taken from it. The astral body keeps the desire, the addiction after death, although it lacks the physical tools by which it can satisfy it. The astral body develops the desire for tasty dishes etc., but there is no palate. On the other hand, it is, as if a human being suffers from burning thirst in surroundings where no water is far and wide. For no other reason it cannot satisfy the desire after death because it has no organs for it. Thus, it suffers pain because of the desire, until it has eradicated the desire root and branch by non-satisfaction. This time of purification can appear to any possible degree. We take two human beings, the one is completely merged in the sensuous enjoyments, his life is filled with any possible enjoyment from the morning to the evening which one can have only in the physical world where the tools exist to its satisfaction. He identifies his whole inside with his physical body. A human being who identifies himself in such way with the physical body will have a more difficult existence after death than someone who already sees through the sensuous things what is spiritual-mental, supersensible. On the other side, take someone who beholds a nice scenery or enjoys a musical work. This human being can realise a manifestation of the spirit in the smallest, most unimportant things. One likes to choose the pleasure of a nice scenery or of a good composition as examples because the matter can be illustrated easier with it. Somebody who hears the riddles of the everlasting in the world rushing in the harmonies and melodies of a composition who can open his soul in a nice scenery to the spiritual harmonies and relations breaks away as a mental-spiritual being already in this life between birth and death from that what is bound to the physical. What shines through the physical, what is felt sounding through the physical is a possession that remains to us and which we have not to purify; for that what drops from us is only the outer garment. Contemplate once in your deepest inside how something makes known itself in the musical work that is purely spiritual. It is concealed in the sensuous manifestations and penetrates it by the means of the sensuous manifestation. That belongs to the spirit, to the soul, from which the human being does not need to break away after death. Thus, you realise that there are degrees of that what one has to endure, and these degrees are determined by the fact how strongly the human being has identified himself with that what he only can experience and enjoy by his organs in the physical world. There is now, so to speak, a perspective that needs not to be an immediate reality for the present human being because there is no one with whom the conditions come true to this perspective completely. Nevertheless, it exists. We take a human being who gives his ego completely up to that what only the physical body and its organs in connection with the physical outside world can enjoy and who has no interest in anything that forms the basis as spiritual-mental contents of this sensuous outside world. Briefly, we take a human being who looks only at the earth and identifies himself only with that what forms his body. What will be the result? We can recognise this if we investigate the riddles of the human being even more exactly. We have to adhere if we want to do this to that what the human being takes as a life essence of his etheric body. What originates from this life essence? From this fruit of the preceding life, the human being builds up his next incarnation, the body of his next life. For that, what the human being develops gradually is a product of inheritance. However, this product of inheritance is elastic in certain way. The human being cannot be built up only by the attributes of the inheritance, but — as in an elastic corporeality — that works and weaves what he has brought from former lives. Thus, we see the incorporated fruits of the former life and of all former lives in a human being except the inherited attributes. If we ask ourselves, what does this entail if the human being lives from embodiment to embodiment in such a way? Then we can say, it is the way of perfection by the earth-lives. The human being entered his first life with forces that were primitive in relation to the forces that work with the most human beings today. When he entered his first incarnation, he had little mental power by which he could direct the mental to the physical and etheric bodies. Then he enjoyed the fruits of the first life, took the fruit of the first life and the result of it was that the next life could become a more perfect one. Because the human being can add the experiences of the following lives to those of the first life, he creates a more and more perfect, self-contained harmonious earth existence. Any new life appears to us on a higher level. However, you see two forces working into each other. You see, after the human being has passed the gate of death, the life essence, the forces of the former life that are preserved for the future, the forces which can make the human being more and more perfect. Thus, the power of the human being is increased from life to life. However, when the ego leaves the physical body, you see the forces that chain him repeatedly to the past physical existence. Indeed, after death the human existence consists of advancing and of retarding forces. Now look once again briefly at these retarding forces about which we have spoken, that from which the human being must break away after death root and branch. If nothing else were added, the human being would be only equipped with the fertile forces of his past life for the future existence. Indeed, the human being breaks away from all that what chains him, so to speak, to the former lives, he breaks away from all desires. However, he cannot break away from one thing. A rest remains. This rest is prepared between birth and death. It is not there when the human being enters life. After he has entered life, he grows into the physical world, and his adhering to the desire of the physical world is something that the human being causes only in the course of this life that he only draws in his being. Now we can form the mental picture that that what the human being draws gradually in his being is something that does not contribute to his further development that would make this further development even impossible if he were exposed solely to these forces. Because he brings that all in his life and because it can be taken up by life, it is the life between birth and death that brings the retarding forces in the human being. On one side, there is the experience of life that we take as a fruit, and on the other side, it chains us to the physical world that we carry then continuously in ourselves. On the one side, it is that what wants to lift out of the embodiment, on the other side, it brings us repeatedly to this world, until we are so far that we have completely overcome everything that brings us together with the physical world at the end of our existence. Thus, the human being has a power permanently in himself that furthers him, and another that is a retarding one. We see the human existence consisting of advancing and of retarding, hampering forces. You can see in detail how these advancing and hampering forces affect each other. Take the human eye; it is formed, as Goethe says, “in the light for the light.” If we had no eye, we would not see the light. However, if the light were not there, the eye would also not be. The light has developed the eye. Because the light creates the eye, it inhibits the development and the developmental stream, which has preceded. Because in the distant past the light worked on the human body, this eye was elicited from it. For that purpose, it had to retard the force only that would have been vitality in another direction. After long work of the other forces, the eye will be only ripe to become an organ that furthers the development again. Thus, you see at this example, that the retardations, the hampering forces, are substantially necessary. Now we see how wonderfully wisely it is established in this human life, while on one side the forward pressing forces of evolution are there, and on the other side the repelling forces. These repelling forces chain the human being to the physical world, which give him the organs in the physical world between birth and death by which he acquires the strength for the progress again. If the hampering forces were not there, the human being would not enter the life between birth and death and would not grow into the covers through which the spiritual-mental appears to him. Now he works by the life that the hampering forces created. Thus, the human being owes the fruits of progress to the hampering forces. There is a big riddle concealed that in life the progressive forces must co-operate with the hampering ones. Now it can happen that the human being balances the progressive forces and the hampering ones, or that he connects himself completely with the hampering forces that he grows together completely with the forces which are generated only in the physical body as means of progress, however, he regards them not as means, but as an end in itself. In this case, the spiritual-mental of the human being would break away from any progress. It would fall out and the time of kamaloka, the time of purification, which consists of the fact that the human being casts off what connects him in microcosm with the physical world, this time would become something absolute. This faces us as an extreme. However, because the human being grows never together completely with the sensuous world because he is able to avoid this extreme perspective in his mental, in his inside, he escapes from the extreme. However, if he were in such a way that his interest never stuck to that what shines through as a spiritual-mental — this faces us as a perspective, however, it is not reached in this life —, then it would squeeze in the active forces of life. Then it would become obvious there that the human being would tear out himself from all spiritual-mental because he has grown together with the physical-sensuous world. We assume this case. Now the human being should be placed into the spiritual-mental world after death. He brings nothing for the spiritual-mental world but the invincible tendency to the physical-sensuous world. This reminiscent picture sticks to him and presses like a weight of lead. The human being gets the hardened material, converted into the spiritual, into the spiritual world. He is connected inseparably with the forces that detain and hamper any development and evolution. This is the idea of the infernal existence. Hence, the time of purification extends in the last perspective to that state where without understanding of the spiritual-mental world the ego has stuck to the wholly physical-sensuous and brings nothing but the understanding of the physical-sensuous. This understanding of the physical-sensuous is the infernal torture in the spiritual even if it also is an infinitely satisfying enjoyment in the sensuous existence. We try to understand the above-mentioned words of Faust now. If the infernal messenger wants to have him, what must be achieved? It must be achieved that Faust does not suck out the germ of further development from the moments of the bodily existence, but that he has to get stuck into it at these moments of the physical existence in such a way that he wants to retain them in his sensuousness. “If I should ever say to any moment: tarry remain — you are so fair!” Then you have me! The human being can make this pact with the infernal powers that he combines with these forces hampering the progress. However, we see at the same time that it was necessary that these hampering forces came into being in the human evolution. We examine next time what the human being was at that time when he appeared in the physical body for the first time, and where from he brought it. Now we know that the human being consists of progressive and backward forces. If the human being had no hampering forces in those days when he entered the physical body for the first time, he would have remained in that spiritualised form in which he was before the incarnation. Because the hampering organs developed in him, the spirit penetrated the sensuous and could take the fruits of the sensuous, could get rich more and more. The progressive forces are those, which had to create the organs of progress only. They have to hamper a former development, so that a later development becomes possible. Nobody has the right to complain obstacles in life. The conservative element is a benefit, as long as it is in the service of humanity; it becomes an impediment if it is made an end in itself. The same applies after life. The impediment is, considered in the service of the spirit, the highest bearer of progress. If one regards it, however, as an end in itself or uses it egoistically, then it is the germ of the hell. Thus, that from which all human faculties originate on earth can become an end in itself, a germ of the hell if the human being unites with it at an inopportune moment. We now understand the Nordic legend. The spiritual germ of the current culture has arisen from Niflheim. It had to go through the old cultures, but it also had to go beyond them, while it took the fruits in the present incarnation. Those human beings who do not use the present incarnation in the spiritual-mental sense condemn themselves to be thrown back to a level which was beneficent in its kind at its time as means of progress but which now hampers. Thus, that which is a means of progress at its time becomes the infernal element if it survives in the human existence. The hell did not always control Niflheim. The good elements of the human being held on Niflheim up to the time when they have developed beyond this stage. Thus, we really see bad and evil, infernal and heavenly forces working in the human life and flowing out from him as Schiller says it in the cited poem. The beneficent element becomes a consuming, hampering element if it is not used in the right way, — as well as the fire is beneficent if the human being controls it, while it can become “terrible,” if “it, casting off its shackles, strides along on tracks its own.” The infernal powers also appear, if they enter the human life “on tracks their own.” We understand why the great spirits have thought or felt such deep connections, and thought and felt the same that spiritual science puts before our souls. We have recognised the infernal element as something that is necessary for our life; we will get to know that element even closer next time, which will give us light about the whole. We get to know the bright heaven in the light of true spiritual science. However, already from the today's talk we can see that it is right what Dante (D. Alighieri, ~1265–1321, Italian poet) pronounces in the last line of his song about the hell. Dante just also believed at first to have to look at the strong, hampering forces in life, before he formed a mental picture of those progressive forces in which all welfare and all human development is contained. We will also attain clues for the usual, everyday life if we can balance regression and progress properly. It will become obvious where the hampering forces threaten to become the infernal ones, and where they turn out to be beneficent, while they rise to the advancing powers. Dante describes it if he sees himself beguiled by the infernal powers under the guidance of Virgil (Publius Vergilius Maro, 70–19 B.C. , Roman poet), then he comes out as a victor over all hampering powers, and the luminous stars appear at the distant firmament to him whose soul “is swollen with pleasure.”

Hell

https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA056/English/eLib2015/19080416p01.html

Berlin

16 Apr 1908

GA056-14

In an equally difficult position like already last time, when I spoke about the concept of the “hell,” I am today where I want to summarise the different considerations and results of the winter talks in a consideration of the concept “heaven.” We face a concept there the true meaning of which the faith of the different confessions have already largely lost even if these adhere to the concept due to an absolutely right and suitable spiritual instinct. At the same time, however, we face a concept that those people mock and reject in the strictest way who not only want to be regarded as leading in the today's spiritual currents but also are regarded as such by many people. The goal and contents of the deepest longing is enclosed for many human beings in the concept “heaven” even today; the basis of this concept forms the contents of the devoted faith of many souls. It is something that gives them comfort in the most difficult problems of life, while many people understand this concept as something in which the deepest superstition expresses itself. We only need to call our attention, just in our days, to spiritual phenomena much discussed in certain circles and we see very soon which immense obstacles stand in the way of understanding if people want to come to a pure, unprejudiced view of that what shall occupy us today. Nobody needs to be surprised, and at least that who speaks about these matters in such a way as I want to speak today if a big part of that what I say is regarded as the model of empty speculative fiction and mystic daydreaming. In spite of that, just the today's consideration will show that it is very necessary just in our time to point again to the bases of such concepts as strongly as possible. Many of you know a man with whose name some people connect the concept of real enlightenment, a man whose works made a great stir within the German cultural life just in the last time. Of course, it is abstruse to disparage the great service even in the slightest that this man has rendered to his narrower field of natural sciences. You have also realised in the other talks that my concern was just to talk about the spiritual-scientific research in accordance with the scientific results of the present and in full harmony with them. At different places one could listen to August Forel's (Auguste-Henri F., 1848–1931, Swiss myrmecologist, psychiatrist, philosopher) talk about Life and Death (1908). To someone who wants to inform himself only a little about how one can misunderstand thoroughly what spiritual science puts forth about these matters, I can only recommend to study this talk by Forel thoroughly. The viewpoints of spiritual science concerning such phenomena are explained in my magazine Lucifer-Gnosis where you also find something about the relation between spiritual science and natural sciences. Forel's talk about Life and Death is fulfilled with refusal, namely of a thorough refusal of this concept which is the contents of our talk today. Immediately at the beginning of Forel's talk, our attention is called to the fact how someone who wants to establish a worldview from the wholly scientific facts gets to the following thoughts. There he says, the natural sciences have brought big progress to the human beings, they can illuminate the world edifice beyond the stars that are next to us in space. The natural sciences are able to look into the smallest parts of the cells of the living body, at least up to a certain degree. The natural sciences have succeeded in overcoming space and time in the field of technology to a certain degree. They achieve the most unbelievable things like wireless telegraphy and telephony over almost all continents. They have succeeded in demonstrating the components of the sun, of the moon, the stars etc. They have succeeded in liquefying the air. They have succeeded in showing how the single parts of the brain co-operate when the human being thinks, feels, and wills. Of course, everything up to a certain degree; but this degree is rightly called admirable. However, the author of this talk continues: nevertheless, the natural sciences, in spite of their admirable results, nowhere discovered anything that one calls “paradise,” a spiritual world. Everything that humanity has dreamt of a heaven or hell originates from its imagination. The natural sciences have discovered nothing of them, in spite of their admirable results. — Then he boldly concludes as many people echo today: because the natural sciences have not found them, we must abandon all these concepts. We have to stand on the ground that nothing at all can be true that once people dreamt of an immortal essence in the human being that outlives the decay, which the natural sciences experience in such a miraculous way. — And then the consideration is attached like an outpour of feelings that, nevertheless, it is much nicer, greater and more tremendous to know that the human being, before he has come to this personal, individual existence, has lived completely only in his physical ancestors, and that he will keep on living in his physical descendants only. The entire existence is condensed in the physical world. Then the author has a real outpour of emotions and says, is it not nicer that that which the human being has created is connected with his physical ancestors and keeps on working in the physical descendants, than that there is a world in which beings of all kinds outranking the human being are, a world in which angelic choirs are to be heard and the like? — He insinuates that it is unworthy of a scientifically thinking human being to adhere to a worldview that even in the least deals with such concepts. This talk can remind one of that which I heard one of the leaders of the modern progressive movement saying many years ago. This person said almost the following. The human being speaks of any supersensible heaven — and then he made clear that our earth is a ball which freely hovers in the space, and that it also applies to the other planets that the space is the heaven, and that the soul does not need to be in another heaven, because we are in heaven. Such persons do not understand much of the deep feelings out of which Schiller (Friedrich Schiller, 1759–1805, German poet) formed the all too justified dictum To the Astronomers : Do not chat so much of nebulae and suns to me! Is nature only great, because she gives you something to count? Indeed, your object is the most elated one in space, But, friends, the elated does not live in space. From all these remarks, someone can recognise who has taken up something that was discussed in the course of these winter talks here which deep misunderstanding forms the basis of such things. It is a deep misunderstanding, and we can express this deep misunderstanding best of all saying: if spiritual science once spoke of that what these persons declare as superstition, daydreaming, as speculative fiction, then all these persons would be right. However, the fact is that the modern spiritual science is young and that its message has not yet come to a big part of humanity, above all not to those who speak in such a way, as I have indicated. These persons form mental pictures of the supersensible worlds that are only the outflow of their fantasy and their own daydreams. They fight against these things of their own daydreaming, their own fantasy. However, they also know nothing at all of that, what the true spiritual science has to say about these things. Thus, a big part of the enlightened people fights a battle against their self-created windmills like Don Quixote. Someone who understands this thoroughly will find in that what is said nothing but words, which are quite appropriate to battle the phantasm that these people have in mind. However, this has to do nothing with that what spiritual science understands by it. We could prove a weird logic in the course of these talks, namely where one refuses theosophy, apparently on the ground of the natural sciences, although one knows nothing of its contents. I want to inform of something only. You know how deeply I appreciate Haeckel's (Ernst H., 1834–1919, German naturalist, philosopher) scientific works. However, what he brings forth as refusal of the ideas of heaven and hell that he himself has formed stands on weak logical feet. One can easily prove this weakness. It is rather nice for numerous persons who want to be enlightened if Haeckel says: “There is a faith of the old time that points to the heaven and asserts, there above lives God! Who speaks in such a way does not know that this “above” is somewhere else if the earth turns, and if it has completely turned round, one would have to point downward instead of upwards.” This seems to be rather appropriate. If you still want to become engrossed somewhat logically, his conclusions stand on no other feet, as if anybody wanted to state that one goes with the head down and not upwards if the earth has turned. The gentlemen start from the fallacy that it concerns spatial things, and not the relationship to the spiritual to the physical. I have to say all that repeatedly because just the object of our today's considerations is something very significant. We go back to what I have said in the last talk. If we imbue ourselves with the spiritual-scientific attitude and turn to that what develops gradually from the growing up child, then we have the sensation that increases more and more to bright and clear knowledge that something appears in the increase, in the transformation of the childish body that gets its existence in this world, coming from the supersensible worlds. We attain the mental picture which spiritual science can completely ascertain that the essence of the human being entering the physical existence by conception and birth already existed before conception and birth, and that the physical body is the dress of the supersensible spiritual essence. There we come to the question: where is that what enters the physical existence only by conception and birth? — We have also further explained the thought, and this has made us recognise that this physical existence of the human being is not the first, but that we have to speak of repeated earth-lives that the human being enters the physical existence repeatedly in the course of evolution. We have recognised the thought that that what the human being experiences in his life what he goes through in thinking, feeling and enjoyment, in love and desire, wish and action has not died down, but that the fruit remains and continues, and that the next earthly existence takes up this fruit of the former earth-life. If the child reveals its dispositions, abilities, and actions gradually, this represents the result of former earth-lives. The human being has struggled through many stages of existence, and what he has gone through in the former life has transformed itself into the germ and has become contents, so that his new life is more perfect, seems to be more complete than his preceding life. This is the ascent of the human being. We speak in spiritual science of the fact that that of the human being entering by conception and birth in the physical existence and leaving it at death again is in the interim, between death and new birth, in a spiritual, supersensible world. We have discussed a part of the spiritual, supersensible world in the last talk about the “hell.” We have to discuss a big part today under the concept of the “heaven.” Thus, the heaven is in spiritual science not anything that is far away and dreamt of, anything transcendent, but it is something that is there where we are also. We have to answer the question now, why can the heaven, the supersensible existence be where we are also if the human beings do not perceive it with their physical eyes if it is true that the physical science that has achieved such big and tremendous progress could discover this paradise, this heaven nowhere? However, I have also drawn your attention to the fact that every human being can really attain the full view of the supersensible world and the heaven. In the essays How Does One Attain Knowledge of the Higher Worlds ? , I have pointed to the methods, by which the human being penetrates into the supersensible world. Today it should be indicated only briefly, what it depends on. You have only to visualise repeatedly what it means to perceive this sensuous-physical world around you. You have read certainly that the completely developed human ear developed from an indifferent organ. Look at the primitive organs of the animals, consider that round these imperfect animals the world of the tones, the physical harmonies, the melodies and the world of the other sounds exist. Remember what was necessary for the fine arrangement of a human organ up to its today's height, so that the human being could become acquainted with the field of the tones surrounding him. You can also look at the other organs in the same way. Look at the eye how it developed gradually so far, that the wonderful world of the light and the colours can light up. As much of our surroundings exists as our organs are able to perceive these surroundings. Would the organs of the human being be on a less perfect stage — imagine the human auditory organ on an imperfect stage — what would be a world of the sounds, the harmonies and melodies for such beings with undeveloped hearing? A world that they could not perceive, a “transcendent” world! As this relates to the sensuous human being in the world, the spiritual world relates to that what one usually calls world. And as well as imperfect beings with imperfect senses have developed to bigger perfection and have attained new fields of their perception, the today's human being can also develop as the human being of the prehistoric time was able. In all details the methods are given by which the human forces and abilities can be raised to a higher level. It occurs to nobody, to call “heaven” what Forel refused. Spiritual science only says this: if the human being has the renunciation, the energy, and perseverance to develop the ability slumbering today in him, he perceives the spiritual worlds. — One understands by the spiritual world what lies inside of every human being. If he develops the organs, the transcendent world also becomes his surrounding world as the world of the tones becomes a perceptible world. This happens to such an extent more and more, the more the physical organ is perfected. However, no one is allowed to imagine that this development is something similar as the present methods of development of a physical sense. This would be a misunderstanding. One can be easily asked as a spiritual scientist, how does this sixth sense form? — The human beings possibly imagine that it must grow out like an eye from the organism. However, the higher, supersensible senses are not of that kind. They relate to our physical senses quite different. I characterise briefly how these higher senses — the word does not well meet their being, but never mind — relate to the physical senses. The way of development by which the human being raises himself to the supersensible worlds is not an exterior, tumultuous, but an inner, intimate one. What the human being has to experience, so that the spiritual world shines into his present existence, happens in all silence and subtlety. The three basic forces of the soul, thinking, feeling and willing, are capable of a higher development. If we briefly ask ourselves, what the human being has to do with thinking, feeling and willing if he wants to become a citizen of the supersensible world, the heavenly world, already within this existence, we get the answer that this is a fine, subtle work. You can read up in my magazine, starting from number thirteen, how the human being settles in a world cultivating his world of thinking, feeling, and willing in particular. Remember everything that penetrates our souls from the morning to the evening when our consciousness sinks in an uncertain darkness. Consider how different it would be in our soul if we lived not in our time and at this place of Central Europe but hundred years ago and at another place of our earth. Then we understand how much of that what flows through the human soul from the morning to the evening is the result of the outside world changing permanently. Subtract what flows through the soul, try to remove everything that is given by the age, by the place, and all thoughts from the soul, which anyhow go back to place and time, and ask how much then is left of such contents. All thoughts, feelings, and will actions that flow through the soul and are determined by place and time are inappropriate for a higher spiritual development, for the experience of a supersensible world. Do not understand these things in such a way, as if I want to say anything against the life of the human being at that place where he is positioned. However, he must find so much time to tower completely above that what faces his soul in the everyday life. He must dedicate himself, even if only for minutes, to such thoughts and feelings that are independent of place and time that are everlasting. Such thoughts and feelings are given. They are there; they are developed with that who has gone through the training of the higher spiritual life. If the human being lets such thoughts of eternity live in his soul repeatedly, then they are effective forces in his soul that awake the slumbering abilities. Then read up the immense transformation if the human being dedicates himself to the thought of eternity with strictly prescribed methods if he knows to live in subtle way with such eternity thoughts. I describe this for the thought life at first. Who may deny that there are such thoughts? The human thoughts, as they are today, which special nature do they have? They have the nature that the human being lives with them most intimately, since, what lives more intimately in our soul than our thoughts and mental pictures? However, these thoughts and mental pictures, as far as they refer to the external world, are the most ineffective, the most passive in relation to this “real” world of the trivial. But a deep wisdom is concealed in it if one says, for example, may anybody adhere to his figures ever so much which express the thought of a bridge, the thought of a bridge in all details may be quite correct — the thought may be right, however, the bridge is not there. The thought is the most intimate that lives in the soul. However, in this world in which we spend the physical existence the thought is the most ineffective. It has an inner existence. However, when the human being starts — he must start with patience — dedicating a quite low part of his time at least to the thoughts of eternity, he learns to come to know something he would not have dreamt of. He gets to know a world that is different concerning the thought from our physical world. If in our physical world the thought is the most intimate and, nevertheless, at the same time the most ineffective, the most passive, we are introduced by a training in thoughts of eternity which we experience in the physical life, in a world in which the thought itself is creative. That is the point. Then another world starts living around the human being. He learns to know from his experience: if we see in the physical world, we see the light; it flows from the sun; we see the plants withering and dying if we take away the light from them; we see the light working creatively on the plants. The thought becomes such strength, which flows through the space, which is reality, as only a sensuous thing can be reality, for that who penetrates by the training into the supersensible world. The thought that has an ineffective existence in the darkness of the inside is recognised due to the training as something that flows through the space creatively that is much more real than the sunlight. The human being notices now if this light of the thought about which he then speaks as a real world which spreads out around him, flows into his soul that is animated by creative forces as the physical plant is penetrated by the sunlight. Thereby we learn how the space that is round us is filled with a reality that the human being, as long as he does not have the necessary abilities, cannot perceive, as well as somebody who has no ears does not perceive tones. However, there are also certain feelings in the supersensible world that originate different from the feelings of the everyday, usual life. How do the feelings of the everyday life come into being? The human being turns his attention to an object. He likes it. The feeling of desire ascends in him. The feeling of desire appears by means of the external object. We feel elated because of the impression of a nice outside world, we feel full with revulsion if we face something ugly in the outside world. Thus, the feelings surge up and down in the human soul. Spiritual science has to lead the human being deeper into the true, real. If the human being wants to awake the inner abilities of the supersensible world, he must make himself able for the feelings that are not stimulated by the outside. By a method, he settles down into a feeling world where the feelings surge up and down in him, without needing the external sensation. The feelings that are stimulated by the outside can be woken in the human being by the perception of the outer things. If he learns to develop particular feelings in himself, the excitement of such feelings works as a force that awakes slumbering abilities again. He knows now from experience what the initiate can see: the world of the light is active in the spiritual world as in the physical world. It tiers itself also in the spiritual in manifold colours as the physical light; he knows that there is a world in which the spiritual colour lives. We call it the astral world. It puts itself in this physical world for the human being who wakes the abilities and forces slumbering in himself if he develops a feeling of a particular kind more and more only by spiritual experience, which is not stimulated within the sensuous world by any outer sensation. Who is able to wake this feeling of love, an innermost experience, has attained the connection with the spiritual world. Then still another world is added to the described element. To the colours, still another world is added. The love that the physical objects produce can never lead to the spiritual. That love which is satisfied, even if the object of this love only exists in the spiritual, that love which remains in the deep inner experience is a creative force for a higher kind of elements which penetrate the spiritual space. This love is the real love. The preliminary stage of it is that which the artist feels in his creating. He has it only if he produces spiritual works from his soul. That love transforms the before dumb and colour-filled spiritual space of light into a world of tones, a world speaks to us in spiritual tones. Thus, you see the human being developing gradually to another world. Here is nothing else than a real continuation of that what also exists in the natural existence of the human being, in the natural events. As the ears have arisen from indifferent vesicles and thereby the world of the physical tones originated from the toneless, that world arises from the uncertain which I have just described. Those do not speak of these worlds who fight against wind mills as I have mentioned at the beginning of the talk. He who says, the heavens were nowhere found, does not know that he has to search them not anywhere else; for the heaven is where we are. It only matters that one does not adhere to the assertion: what I cannot perceive does not exist, and if another states that there is something that I cannot perceive, he is a fool, a dreamer, or a swindler. — This sentence is the logically wrongest sentence that there is at all, because nobody is allowed to assert that the border of his percipience is also the border of existence. Otherwise, the dumb one could regard the entire world of tones, of harmonies and melodies as daydreaming and fantasy. If one speaks in spiritual science of the heaven, one speaks of it in this way as I have did. One has also not spoken different in the primary sources of the confessions when one still understood them. In this visible world, a non-sensuous world exists, as for the dumb human being the world of the tones. We ask ourselves now, why does the human being not perceive this supersensible world in his present developmental state? He does not perceive it, because just the sense-perception which was a necessity of the human development, spreads like a cover, a veil about the supersensible world. I did not mean it different when I described what someone has to experience who aims at the supersensible world. He must lift out himself from the sense-perceptible world; he has to quieten the sensuous world for a while. Then he comes to that what is behind this sensuous world, and then he perceives how the sensuous world spreads out like a cover about the supersensible one. He who towers above his body in the true sense can perceive what is behind this veil. We must know for what one uses the forces in the usual human life, which can become abilities to enter the supersensible world. One cannot understand this different than if one considers the fact of the matter: what is, actually, the physical world, what is the most imperfect physical body, and what is the perfect physical body which faces us as human body? All physical beings are creations of the spirit. The spiritual forms the basis of any physical thing. We have emphasised this in manifold way in the course of these talks repeatedly. As the ice hardens from the water, any physical hardens from the spiritual. It is as it were a compression of the spirit. Look at the physical ear of the present human being. What does form the basis of this physical thing? Spiritual creativity forms the basis of it! The tone that lives as a physical tone in our surroundings is something that belongs to the physical world and has the spiritual tone behind itself. In the same world that flows to our physical ear, we hear the physical tone, and in the same world, the supersensible spiritual tone lives. What is the spiritual tone? This spiritual tone is the creator of our ear just as the spiritual light, concealed in the physical light, is the creator of our eye. Therefore, Goethe says who pronounced so many deep spiritual truths: “The eye is formed in the light for the light.” The force that flows out from the sun to us, which enables our eye to see the objects in their borders in the light-filled space also contains those beings that have formed the wonderful construction of the eye. Thus, what the eye sees and the ear hears would mean the same as penetrating into what is behind them, rising to the spiritual forces. In a certain case, we do it already, looking at the young child developing its abilities gradually in the physical body. We see these abilities appearing from a world concealed behind the sensuous world, we see them dashing into matter and creating an existence in the matter for themselves. We go back to spiritual science and ask ourselves, where was this being before it has accepted a physical existence by conception and birth, where was it between its last death and its last birth? It was not in a dreamt spiritual world but in the same world in which we are too. The only difference between this being, before it enters the material existence by conception and birth consists of the following. Before birth, this being consists of such elements that one can only behold if the just described spiritual abilities are developed. It is invisible, as long as this supersensible ability is not developed. As for anybody the water is not visible, as long as it is liquid, but becomes visible, as soon as it freezes, the human being becomes invisible if he becomes like water — and visible if he “freezes,” that is he becomes physical. Thus, we speak of two conditions of the human being, of a state between death and new birth, only visible to the spiritual senses, and of a state in which he has woven a dress around himself, so that he is visible for the physical senses. Thus, we realise that the human being is connected in the interim between death and new birth with the creative forces flowing through the space. Someone who develops his supersensible abilities gets to know them as the heavenly forces already here. The human being is connected with these creative forces. Here in the physical world he lives with the physical forces, with the physical tones, with the physical light; in the spiritual world, he lives in the spiritual-creative behind the tone, behind the light. He lives in a world that is different from the physical world. Here in the physical world, the eye sees by the light. In the spiritual world, the human being perceives what has created his eye. He lives in the spiritual light, he lives in the spiritual world of tones, he lives in that what builds up his physical body with the help of birth and conception, he lives where our physical world is built up which spreads like a cover about the spiritual one. This cover flows into the spiritual world itself. The human consciousness flashes in another state. The only difference between the disembodied and the embodied human being is that the disembodied one lives in another state of consciousness, and that he perceives the creative forces. Now we understand what it means: the human being is taken up in a supersensible world at death. It is no dream world, no world of lower reality than our world; it is a world of denser and stronger intensity and reality, because in it the creative beings are for our physical world. Now we understand what works there between death and new birth. We saw last time when we discussed the retarding forces that when the human being passes the gate of death a memory tableau of the entire last life appears before him. We saw that this tableau is taken up like an essence and remains with the human being for all following times. We saw him going through the kamaloka time, the time of purification. After he has gone through this purification, he becomes something that he has taken from the last life, something particular, and something new. We know that the human being going through the gate of death comes into the spiritual supersensible world. Regard it as a field, as a fertile ground and regard what he brings from the last life as a fruit of his thinking, feeling and willing, the fruit of the last life as a sprouting seedling. Thus, the fruit of the last life sprouts in the spiritual ground, and the human consciousness notices and perceives this sprouting, this developing of the germ of the last life. Everything that the human beings have taken from the life of their time impregnates itself in this last fruit of life. Everything that approached the human being from the outside increases and grows like a germ. This becomes the world of perception and consciousness between death and new birth. One can make clear that to someone who cannot perceive the supersensible only by a comparison. With deeper contemplation, you understand the comparison. One rightly calls bliss what the human being feels unfolding the germ of the last life. It is the converse feeling of that what the human being can perceive if he feels the objects. Now he feels them unfolded, before they flow out; now, however, the being flows out and he is penetrated by a feeling which one can compare with that of a chicken hatching an egg. This bliss causes that the human being develops that in the spiritual what chains him to the physical birth what brings him in the physical existence. Because he has collected new experiences which he adds to the basic core, every life becomes — with the exception of the ways going up and down which must also be — more complete. Thus, we must get clear about the fact that the state of consciousness is different from that in the supersensible world. By a comparison, we can still bring to our mind how the state of consciousness is different between the physical world and the supersensible world. Imagine a human being who listens to a symphony. He lets the tones approach him from the outside. He enjoys them. Imagine now, it would be possible that a human being creates this symphony spiritually without touching a text without sounding an instrument, that he creatively composes tone by tone of his own accord in spirit. As the perception of the former relates to that in which the symphony budded, the physical world relates to the perception in the supersensible. Hence, we must say, in order to perceive the heaven, the human being has to refrain from something that faces him spiritually in the physical world. As long as he has not refrained from that, he cannot behold. However, the spiritual world does not appear to us as a world to which also the logical thinking could not rise. The human being normally argues only that he cannot perceive it. Thus, the concept of the “heaven” gets a significance for the future human being again. It is no concept of a dream world in which we shall be. The creative consciousness is much brighter and more intense than in the physical world. Hence, we have to imagine the life, the consciousness of the human being in the creative world also as more intense than in the physical world. How does the physical world relate to the supersensible world? It is a matter of course that the human being is interested in this relationship first. I would like to express this with the counter question: knows the human being anything in the supersensible world about those who are near and dear to him? Will that what happened here continue in any way? It will! You can understand this properly if you contemplate what I have just said making clear that an intimate coherence exists between the physical and the supersensible worlds. That which is laid here as a germ rises there and becomes fruit. Nothing in the world is without spiritual background. In the physical world, the human being already works for the supraphysical world. An example: we assume that a mother is attached to her child with love. This love develops; one would like to say, on the physical basis at first. Then, however, this love changes into spiritual love. To such an extent, in which the love is transformed into a spiritual motherly love, the human being grows into the spiritual love. This love becomes truer in the spiritual. As the earthly cover drops from the human being, the physical-earthly drops from the spiritual being. The whole net that is woven from human soul to human soul exists already in the supersensible world. The spiritual, the essence of the human being settles in the supersensible world, and everything that the human being has tied on here in this physical world, is continued as something spiritual in the spiritual world. Everything that is connected here spiritually is found in full consciousness, in an even brighter consciousness again in the spiritual world. Depending on how it is found, a tie forms again with a new life, so that those who meet in often strange sympathy have to explain this to themselves that they themselves have spun it in former lives. Thus, we realise that our entire sensuous world is embedded in this supersensible, invisible world. As the human being is a citizen of the sensuous world between birth and death, he is a citizen of the supersensible world after death; he does only not know it in our time between birth and death. We have shown the concept of the “hell” in the last consideration and the concept of the “heaven” today which contain all spiritual influence on the human being. Last time we have gone into the hardening forces, while that appears as the opposite what I have described today: the principle of development. Life advances from existence to existence, and the more is transformed by the last life into creative forces, the higher rises the next existence. While the human being wants to enjoy what he takes up in himself not only, but enjoying it he also wants to penetrate to that what transforms itself into spiritual forces, he is perpetually in the heavenly world. All that can help the human being is contents of the heavenly elements; all that restrains the progress is the contents of the infernal worlds. Someone who wants to harmonise such a concept of the heaven with that what the natural sciences have performed can easily do it. He can harmonise it completely. Our contemporaries only do not want to get involved in these higher worlds. Our age is tired of the consideration of the supersensible world, and, hence, this age is very gullible toward those who put up the sentence: what I cannot perceive is not true, and if anybody asserts, it is true, he is a poor devil or a fool. — Too many people become believers of such an opinion in this age. Even if we also realise which big and immense progress our age has performed concerning the physical science, nevertheless, we also see on the other side how little the predominating part of our contemporaries is inclined to penetrate into the supersensible world. One means that the penetration in the supersensible world makes the human being weak and foreign towards the sensuous world. This is a prejudice. If anybody has a piece of iron and says: this iron has magnetic force; touch it with another iron and you have a magnet — another may come and say, nonsense! The piece of iron is good for hammering down nails. — These are the true daydreamers who take the sensuous, the practical only in such a way as that man who hammers down nails only with the magnet. The realists, the monists, the utilitarians, and others are the true daydreamers. They know the forces of the physical world only and triumph if the immense progress is done by merely revealing the forces of the physical world. Spiritual science has to argue nothing at all against this physical world. However, it also knows that it is high time that the human beings learn again that in the physical the spiritual is concealed, and that just the human beings become dreamy when they close their spiritual eye to the spiritual world. Today true realists, apostles of reality are those who point to the spiritual forces! What do these truthful realists want? They want that the real forces slumbering behind the sensuous are introduced in this world that they settle down in our whole development that we do not only introduce the telegraph, the telephone and the railway, the usual forces but also the spiritual forces. If anybody goes into these matters, he is still twitted today; he does not care this twitting. He knows that even the great naturalists found few followers once; also, those who tell something of the spiritual worlds have to find the ways just in the big world. Even if only few people can create telegraphs, telephones and railroads, the other can use them, nevertheless. However, everybody must gain the spiritual world on his own accord. The great physicists Thomson (William T., first Baron Kelvin, 1824–1907, British physicist), Clausius (Robert C., 1822–1888, German physicist and mathematician) and others have their successors who can recognise the physical principles. One of the biggest physical principles is at the same time that what the human being pushes to the spiritual world. For those who have dealt a little with physics I say nothing unknown if I draw the attention to the fact that there is a principle of entropy, this is due to Carnot (Nicolas Léonard Sadi C., 1796–1832), the uncle of the French president (Marie François Sadi C., 1837–1894). What does it mean? It pronounces one of the most certain principles, which we have in the physical world, namely how the physical forces of the world change into each other. Hit with the hand on the table and measure the effect on the table with a sensitive thermometer. You will find that the place has become warm. You see the heat of the railroad engine being transformed into locomotion and this again into heat. A big principle forms the basis of all that, the principle of entropy. From the consideration of the world, it becomes clear that this conversion of energy shows, nevertheless, a certain guideline, a certain sense. The entropy principle shows that all energy must change into heat at last, and this heat scatters in the space. Today one has proved by the physical principle that the earth, our physical world, once experiences the heat death. This principle exists. That has to deny this principle who asserts that in our world only physical forces are; for this would have to say if he recognised the principle: then everything is over. Therefore, also Haeckel takes the view that this principle of entropy is nonsense because it contradicts his principle of matter. It is a physical principle that the things are transformed perpetually. A Russian physicist has proved in a writing how firmly founded just this principle is which shows the physical end of our present world. Just in this writing of Professor Chwolson (Orest Ch., 1852–1934, Russian physicist), the “twelfth commandment” was put up ( Hegel, Haeckel, Kossuth and the Twelfth Commandment , 1906). You can realise there how competent a physicist can be in the physical field, just as you can also realise how unknowing such scholars can be concerning the spiritual fields. The “twelfth commandment” is “you should never write about anything that you do not understand.” Chwolson obeys it in his field where he speaks about physics, but he does not obey it in the spiritual field. Everything that he says concerning the physical is excellent; however, what he says concerning the spiritual matters is of little value and a big sin against the principle: “you should never write about anything that you do not understand.” A passage follows that the stenographer did not write down apparently in which Rudolf Steiner probably explained that Chwolson did not understand Hegel. However, Rudolf Steiner admits that Chwolson is correct concerning his remarks about an article by Kossuth in a scientific magazine. Kossuth claims that the law of mass conservation is nothing else as the sentence: the whole is like the sum of its parts, and the principle of energy conservation is nothing else than the sentence: the cause is like the effect. — With reference to the discoveries of Lavoisier Rudolf Steiner continues: Someone who knows something of the spiritual research knows what it means that one has shown that if substances combine chemically with each other the weight is that of the sum of the parts. If one says then: this law contains nothing else than the old mathematical law: the whole is equal to the sum of its parts, one would already have to get clear about the fact that it concerns only the weight of the whole that is equal to the sum of the weight of its parts. Kossuth just forgets that if one proceeds to the spiritual the law does not apply at all there. So short is the thinking. Chwolson says, Mr. Kossuth may only take his pocket watch and crush it in the mortar; then he can see whether the whole is equal to the sum of its parts. Goethe also already pronounced the thought that is often repeated: To understand some living thing and to describe it, the student starts by ridding it of its spirit, he then holds all its parts within his hand, except, alas!, for the spirit that bound them together. ( Faust , Verses 1936–1939) The fewest people who believe to stand on the ground of certain facts know that the natural sciences are often nothing else than taking no account of the spiritual tie. On one side, we realise if we survey all the circumstances and connect them with that what I have stated about the supersensible world that in many human souls the longing lives to penetrate into the supersensible world. However, they suspect those details of which someone has to speak who really knows something of these matters. We see the longing for the supersensible world stirring; but we do not see the strength and the energy to penetrate into these supersensible worlds according to the instructions of spiritual science. On the other side, we have the facts in our time. We have a competent physical science in our time: Thomson, Clausius, and Carnot have found good successors. If the development advances in spiritual science in the same spirit, the researchers in the spiritual field will find also capable successors like Thomson, Clausius and Carnot have found. Then the result will be that from this humanity which has almost shut itself off today from the heavenly world, another arises which draws the strength of the supersensible world into the sensuous one. Spiritual science does not want to alienate the human being from the world but to make him strong, energetic, and vigorous for existence, while it enriches reality. We only need to join two things, and this will fit together: in the same strict way as now in the physical science, a big part of the human beings will have the possibility to satisfy the need of their hearts out of the spiritual world. It is the task of spiritual science as a cultural stream to bring together these two spiritual streams, the satisfaction of the sensuous needs by the natural sciences and the satisfaction of the longing for the spiritual. These talks are continued in the same sense in the next winter. We shall further pursue what has remained sketchy and penetrate deeper into it. The most enclosing, the most significant concept should be the object of the last talk. Indeed, a wisdom will once be there which can be a religion again, which can satisfy the deepest religious needs of the heart. There will come up a spiritual current that satisfies all needs of the logical thinking like the longing for the supersensible life. It is this longing to which spiritual science talks. If the way is found to that what exists in this anticipating, then wisdom flows out, it introduces in this supersensible world and flows into the human soul so that our culture experiences a spiritual rebirth that goes back to the fire, which lives in many people and wants to penetrate to the supersensible worlds. From this fire, the spiritual-scientific wisdom will penetrate into the supersensible world, because this is its true ideal. It should be owed to the great ideal that wants to spark the wisdom of this supersensible by the fire of the enthusiasm for the supersensible; since this will always be the course of the spiritual culture that the light of wisdom develops from the fire of love and enthusiasm.

Heaven

https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA056/English/eLib2015/19080514p01.html

Berlin

14 May 1908

GA056-15

We have spoken about the facts of the spiritual life through several years. Today a new series of talks begins. Who has already taken a program knows that the objects of this year's spiritual-scientific talks span a wide range. On one side, you find talks deeply intervening in our spiritual life; however, it should also be shown how just spiritual science is destined to intervene deeply in the objects of practical life. However — this should be expressly stressed in the introduction — the point of view should be fixed today; we want to orientate ourselves especially about the spirit as such today. This talk should be introductory, orienting, and programmatic. If the word “spirit” is pronounced, one points to something that, as long as there is human longing and human hope, is the aim of all human beings, of the primitive ones as well as of the high developed ones. Nevertheless, one cannot say that that which just the word spirit means attracts a deeper understanding in our days. Today the science of the spirit appears as the most popular and the most bewildering at the same time, because the human being cannot face the spiritual research indifferently and objectively. This question stirs up the deepest affects, the most intensive passions in our soul. The answers to these questions are relevant from the start to the human beings. If the human being looks only a little deeper into his soul, he notices that he has an opinion — even if he does not pronounce it — how the answer should turn out. All questions belonging here touch the human being in such a way that one can say, an answer can offend the one person in this way, the other person in that way. The one may feel sore just about a sober consideration; whereas the other thinks that the freedom of research or science is attacked if anybody exceeds the exact research only somewhat. The characteristic of the human development has brought with it — especially since the boom of natural sciences — that today the conceivably highest confusion prevails about the view of the spirit, and especially in the circles which should foster just such a thing like the science of the spirit. If one wants to recognise something of the spirit, such a sum of fine and intimate concepts is necessary that here a confusion of ideas is extremely significant and detrimental. The modern human being is right if he turns to the fundamental principles of science first if he wants to know anything about the spirit. Then he must turn to psychology at first. It should be “the science of the soul.” It becomes soon clear just to somebody who approaches unprejudiced what one calls the science of the spirit what one understands today by the science of the spirit. Today, there is hardly anybody who speaks about these matters and does not confuse soul and mind. I want to go back to real phenomena. There a book Outline of Psychology appeared before some time (1908) by a person (Hermann Ebbinghaus, 1850–1909, psychologist) who one regards as a significant expert of his discipline. It is an example how today the science of the soul is pursued. However, this is not my starting point to show which confusion of the concepts of soul and mind has happened. We read there on one of the first pages: if hypoxaemia occurs in the brain, the result is a faint, because then the mental ability stops or is reduced at least. However, a mental effort causes an influx of blood. Stimulants work on the brain via the nervous system, et cetera. — Now at first one has to point to the fact that someone who wants to bring, nevertheless, a “science of the soul” uses the expressions “soul” and “mind” or “spirit” as substantially synonymous, and is not aware of the fact that they are different things. Hence, there comes just the evil. The spiritual scientist would say, hypoxaemia and faint only paralyses the activity of the soul, however, the spiritual activity does not decrease. In addition, the activity of the soul causes influxes of the blood to the brain. Here the saying of Goethe applies that no matter is without spirit. — With faint, another spiritual activity exists, so that the soul withdraws from the brain and leaves the field to a spiritual activity different from that if the soul is present. Modern psychology does not differentiate soul and mind. Therefore, it is important to form a clear concept of the mind first. This is very difficult. Today, people — driven by a power as it were — believe that everything is contained in material processes and want to look at the spirit only as an effect, as a consequence of the material. The spiritual researcher looks for the spirit not only in the human being, but also everywhere around us. It appears like an internal physiognomy in everything. It is spread out everywhere in the universe. No human being, no animal, no plant, no stone can be without having the spirit as basis. I like to use a picture. We imagine a water container in which the water is cooled bit by bit. Thereby ice may originate, so that we see some lumps of ice swimming in it. We imagine now that any being cannot perceive water, but only ice. There the ice would appear just only from the water; however, the being would deny the water. Everywhere only ice exists, but no water, this being would say. Now the human beings behave similarly to mind and matter. As well as in our picture the ice originates from the water, there the matter originates from the original, from the spirit. Matter is nothing else than compressed spirit. It appears for the sighted human being from the spirit, to somebody who cannot see from nothing. Everything in the universe is compressed spirit. If now the materialist comes and says, what you call spirit does not exist, and then his logic is in a bad way, because he is only allowed to admit, actually, that he cannot perceive the spirit. Someone who has a healthy logic should talk with such a man only about something whose existence he has admitted, so about matter. If we speak of the soul, we are never allowed to separate the concept of inwardness from it which we see best of all in the soul of the human being. An example shows the difference of mind and soul best of all. We imagine that we see an event before ourselves, which makes us tremble, which frightens us, for example, shooting a gun to us. A third person who sees this feeling of fear in us is able to say only that the other had this face which is dependent, however, on the state of the person. A human being who has maybe forgotten fear would face the danger intrepidly. However, that person faces the event with fear and fright. We call that something mental that is stimulated in our inside by an external perception that way. However, for the spiritual there is no outside and no inside. What is outside is inside, too. If you check your inside, you notice that there is a transition from the mental to the spiritual that, however, a difference exists between that which we call mental and which we call spiritual. About the sensations, which rise in us, one cannot argue, because they are different with the single human beings. In the one, a world of feelings would arise at the sight of a picture by Raphael, while a primitive human being feels nothing. In between there are still all possible gradations. Here we are concerned with something mental. However, mathematics, for example, gives us something spiritual, for example, in mathematics. Nobody can understand by experience what a circle is. An inner view is necessary for it. This is so easy, but people do not understand it. We know about that which is something spiritual that everybody can experience it as we do if he creates the necessary preconditions of it only. To the same extent as we realise that we advance from an inner experience to one which is accessible to all people, to the same extent we should realise that we go over from something mental to something spiritual. If we assume that the human being rises to such a height that he is able to say something about a thing of the outside world about which the human beings can agree, he rises to the concept, to the idea of the thing. Then we should realise that that is the same, which was there before the thing, according to which the thing is created. Only someone can believe that he can obtain something spiritual from a world in which no spirit exists who supposes to obtain water from a glass in which no water is. If we look at any being of the outside world, so that we open ourselves not only to the uplifting, to the beautiful, but also to the sad, if we open ourselves to the real being of the things, we must understand that we let light up in ourselves what was there before the thing, from which it has originated. Thus, the physical appears to us like a compression of the spiritual. Many a prejudice has its origin in the habit to imagine the outside world as something spiritless and to show the spiritual as something that the human being adds. He can only have that in his consciousness that is the effect of the outside world on him. Remember that one often says on this occasion, we can only know that a table exists, just the table in itself that has the given effects on us. — The fact that one can judge in such a way is an example that in wide circles is no understanding of the nature of spirit. A simple picture can show us what the centuries-long research simply slides over if one asserts that the human being knows nothing about the thing in itself. If anybody says this, it seems obvious. Physics, science generally, point repeatedly to the fact that you do not at all perceive “yellow,” for example, but only movements of the ether. They cause the yellow colour in you, just as the movements of the air the tone. You do not come out of yourself; you see only what is in you. — A simple comparison extinguishes this whole conclusion. Imagine, you have a seal and sealing wax. The name Muller is imprinted. No trace of brass has gone over from the seal to the sealing wax. However, the point is the name that has been completely transferred into the sealing wax. Now the sealing wax could also say, I know nothing about the seal, because from the outside nothing can be transferred to me. Thus, it is with science to a T. The name Muller has been completely transferred onto the sealing wax. Who states that such an effect would not be possible does not understand that there is no border between the material and the spiritual. We have to figure out more and more the fact that the spirit has to do nothing with that which is in us, but that it is outside and in us. We have to distinguish soul and mind from each other. Then we have created a basis to know that all bases of life are bases of the spirit. Psychology tries more and more to lead back the spiritual to something purely physical. However, we had to experience that the spiritual was derived from physical and purely mechanical processes! The sciences that are not intentionally materialistic today are unaware of it. Let us go back once again! Imagine how a faint originates from hypoxemia in the brain and thereby the soul is immobilised. We must approach this process with spiritual science. This shows us that the human being is not only this material being, which we can perceive with the external senses, but that he is a complex being. The physical body is a compression, a coarsening of something spiritual, of something finer, that there is a coarsening of the etheric body or life body at first. We see the human being literally as a water ball, which solidified partially as ice, so that the ice lump swims in the water from which it has formed like from a fine mother substance. It is with the physical and etheric bodies in such a way. Matter is a form of spirit different from the spirit as such like the ice is another form of water. However, the etheric body is not yet the finest. It is the compression of the astral body. Now we have the human being already as a tripartite being. He has the physical body in common with all beings of the physical world. One can recognize the etheric body purely logically at first. If we take a rock crystal, it keeps its form, until it is destroyed from the outside. These are the essentials of the mineral. That does not apply to the plant, the animal, and the human being. We probably have the same substances in the human being, but these are so complex that the human body would break up immediately if it did not bear a fighter against the decay of the physical body in itself: this is the etheric body or life body. If the etheric body is outside, like after death, then only the physical body disintegrates. However, the etheric body or life body prevents the decay between birth and death. The human being has it in common with plant and animal, the astral body only with the animal. Here with the astral body, we have already arrived at finer and finer spiritual members, we have already come to the soul. Spiritual science could speak of three human members, of body, soul, and mind. However, if we pursue this more exactly, we separate into physical body, etheric body, and astral body. If we have a human being before ourselves, we have the physical body at first, as far as one can see it physically. However, we also have the etheric body, the fighter against the decay. However, this is not yet the whole human being. Already the most primitive human being knows that joy and grief, desire and pain live in him. We call the bearer of that “astral body.” Materialists could argue that this is only an effect of the physical processes, that it is nothing real. If this were the case, if these processes were only an outflow of physical processes, for example, of the blood circulation, it would be a mere quibble speaking of an astral body. However, the astral is not a result of physical processes, but the processes in the nerves are the results of the astral. That which excites joy and grief, desire and pain was there sooner than the physical body. We see how in us today, so to speak, the last rests of the immediate effect of the spiritual on physical processes express themselves. I have pointed to the senses of shame and anxiety already earlier. A human being turns pale because of fear. What has happened there? On the other hand, if the human being feels: something is in me that I would like to hide — and he blushes. The sense of shame and anxiety are soul processes, soul experiences. However, they express themselves in physical processes. If we are anxious, we like to take together all forces inside, assert ourselves; the blood contracts inside, as it were. It is almost corporeal: a direction, which is unconsciously materialistic, has turned the whole process upside down. Pragmatism, which came from America, pronounced the view: if we face a loaded gun, not the fear makes us tremble, but something that goes out from the gun makes us tremble at first. The result of it is the appearance of fear. The human being cries not because he is sad, but he is sad because he cries. Materialism plays such pranks to you. However, spiritual science shows us that everything that happens, that trickling of water, or a process which we examine under the microscope or a human being, an animal, a plant, is also an outflow of something spiritual as something mental-spiritual is the cause of fear. Thus, we find the spirit everywhere round ourselves if we are only accustomed to look at everything as a physiognomy of the spirit. Everybody can attain the spirit in this way. On the other hand, one could say, there the human being sees the spirit through the veil of the material. Is it also possible, however, to see the spirit immediately? The human being must take the word “initiation” completely seriously. Goethe made so many remarks important for spiritual science, for example: “the eye forms in the light for the light.” From indifferent organs the eyes of the human being have gradually developed. Goethe has the certainty in common with all spiritual scientists that the human being looks back at a long, long development. If there had been no light, eyes would never have come into existence. As the animals lose the ocular light in dark caves, the light has formed the eye. As true as without the eyes the world is dark and sinister for the human being, it is also true that the eye is formed in the light for the light, that there would be no eyes without light. In addition, the tones conjure up the ability of hearing, the smells the ability of smelling, and so on. It was in the past that way and even now it is that way concerning the physical organs of the human being. However, it is also for the spiritual organs in such a way. One can speak only of light and colour if the organs are there; but the light is there for a long time before. In addition, it is with the spirit. It also is there already before and is capable to wake up the slumbering spiritual abilities in the human being, which then perceive the spirit as the eyes perceive the light. The spirit forms the spiritual organs as the light the eyes. Thus, the human being can develop the spiritual organs, which the spirit formed for the spirit. If anything appears to us as physiognomy of the spirit, we can grow into a spiritual world there, if we have the patience to develop and to form. So spiritual science speaks of the spirit still in another way. As we get to know by the botanist, the physicist, and others, what they fathom of the secrets of the physical world, there is and there has always been spiritual science. Today, the majority of the human beings know nothing about the concealed worlds of this spiritual science. At first, this science was fostered in the mysteries, unnoticed by the remaining world. Spiritual science must come out today and announce publicly what it has to say as the physical science announces its results publicly. Just as the physical science uses external tools, the spiritual researcher must be his own tool. There have always been such researchers. Only somebody who develops the organs can tell how it is in the spiritual world. However, if it is pronounced, then the simple, healthy human mind suffices to understand it. Another development is only necessary to research. I would like to give you an example how by intimate processes spiritual development takes place. This way is not tumultuary. Many a human being becomes a citizen of the spiritual world, without his fellow men anticipating it. Nevertheless, large is the area that reveals us how to work on ourselves if we want to gain an insight of the spiritual world. I give an example how intimate this work is. There are three levels of knowledge: at first the knowledge of the physical world, then imagination which, however, has nothing to do with speculative fiction; it leads in a certain way into the spiritual world. The inspired and intuitive worlds form the third level. One attains the imaginative level doing certain internal exercises patiently for a long time. These exercises do not deduct you from the external world, but make you more competent and more practical. However, at the same time they lead into the higher worlds. There, for example, is such an instruction of a teacher to his pupil: have a look at a plant. It grows out of the ground, develops leaves, blossoms, fruits; have a look at this whole development of the plant how it develops chlorophyll, et cetera. The plant can be a model for the human being. As well as the plant is interspersed with the green colouring the human being is interspersed with the red blood. Although the plant is on a lower level than the human being is, nevertheless, it has something over him. Its substance, its matter, its chlorophyll is not interspersed with low desires and passions. The human being is no longer chaste and pure, but he had to pay his higher development with the fact that he took up desires and passions in himself. The expression of it is the red blood. Juxtapose both, and then think of the Goethean saying that is the saying of all spiritual teachers at all times: And so long as you don't have it, this: “Die and be transformed!” you will only be a gloomy guest on the dark earth. (From Blissful Longing in the West-Eastern Divan ) That is the substance, which is penetrated with desires and passions and must be purified again, so that it is raised about itself, although it is on a higher level, and becomes again chaste and pure. The blood must be again the expression of this chastity and purity. Imagine the red rose; you face the chaste red plant sap. Admittedly, it is there still a plant sap, but you may see something before yourself in the red plant sap that can be to you like the dawn of a higher development of the human being, a symbol shows this: the black cross with red roses. Become engrossed in this symbol excluding any other thought, experience in it how the human beings have to develop up to the purity of the red rose petal. If you experience this, you experience the first trace of the spirit. Thus, always other pictures are added to this picture. These pictures are there to conjure up the spiritual organs inside of the soul. Then this comes true for the human being that he finds any rest and help in the spiritual world. Therefore, spiritual science is of such an immense significance to the external world. It is true what Novalis says: the human being is the perfect tool, if he only wants to be it. In addition: the human being lives in a spiritual world that he can perceive if he is only elastic enough to develop the necessary organs in himself. In addition, true it is what Goethe lets Faust say: This spirit world is not sealed off; your mind is closed, your heart is dead! go, neophyte, and boldly bathe your mortal breast in roseate dawn! Goethe spoke that way because he had recognised the spirit and wanted to put it up as a motto for all spiritual researchers.

How and Where Does One Find the Spirit?

https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA057/English/eLib2014/19081015p01.html

Berlin

15 Oct 1908

GA057-1

Whoever follows the history of human development, not only in the usual documents and traditions, but goes rather deeper into things which though at first appearing only symptomatic of that development, really point the way to the inner and therefore true forces of evolution, will find renewed significance in a memorable scene at the end of the eighteenth century. An address based on the highest contemporary Science was given to the Natural Science Society at Jena by a very important Botanist of the day called Batsch. Two men, one some ten years older than the other, listened to this address, and it happened that they left the place together and fell into conversation. The younger said to the elder: ‘When one considers such an address, it shows once again how the scientific method of observation picks things to pieces, sets one by the side of another, and scarcely takes into consideration the homogeneous spiritual bond existing in all the different units.’ In other words it seemed wrong to the younger man that plant should be put side by side with plant without any reference to a higher something, which must also exist in the world, uniting the various plants. The elder man replied: ‘It might perhaps be possible to find a method of studying nature, which goes to work differently, and which in spite of being a study which must lead to knowledge, has, as its aim, the unifying element, namely that which is absent in external observation by the various senses.’ The man took a pencil and a piece of paper from his pocket and at once drew a remarkable shape, a shape that resembled a plant, but no existing plant, to be seen or perceived by the outward physical senses, a shape which, as it were, exists nowhere and of which he said that it existed indeed in no individual plant, but was the ‘plant-hood,’ the proto-plant type which existed in all plants and represented the unifying element. The younger man looked at it and said: ‘Yes, but what you have drawn there is not an experience, not observation, that is an idea’ — having in mind that only the human spirit could form such ideas, and that such an idea had no significance for external, so-called objective nature. The elder man was unable to understand this objection at all, for he replied: ‘If that is an idea, then I see my ideas with my eyes!’ He meant that just as an individual plant is visible to the external sense of sight, and is an experience, so his proto-plant, although invisible by means of an external sense, was objective, existent in the outer world, living in all plants, the archetype in all individual plants. You know that the younger of these two men was Schiller, the elder Goethe. This conversation is a symptomatic, significant indication of modern spiritual science. What really prompted that reply of Goethe's to Schiller? There spoke in him the consciousness that one does not only grasp an external objective truth with that representation given by the external sense, and furnished by a limited understanding from external sense-perceptions, but that the human being, when he sets in motion higher spiritual forces, which are not applied to separate sense-observations, arrives at truth and reality just as one does by means of external sense perceptions. We may well say that Schiller, who at that moment was incapable of realizing what lay behind, when he believed that Goethe had made his drawing in terms of subjectivity, has left us the finest testimony of man's capacity to scale the heights as revealed to him by Goethe. From that moment we see Schiller's ever increasing comprehension of Goethe's ideas. A letter of his provides a psychological document of the first importance, where he says: ‘For a long time, although from a distance, I have watched the progress of your spirit with ever renewed admiration, and noticed the path you have set yourself. You seek the necessity of nature, but on the most difficult road, from which indeed any weaker power would draw back. You take all nature as one in order to obtain light on each separate part, and you seek the explanation of the individual in the “all” of its phenomena. You ascend from the simple organism, step by step to the more complex, in order finally to erect genetically from the materials of all nature's structure the most complex of all, the human being. You seek to penetrate into his hidden technique, by re-creating him in the manner of nature. A great and truly heroic idea which sufficiently shows to what extent your spirit holds together the rich totality of its conceptions in a beautiful unity.’ Thus we may regard as a testimony to the objectivity of Goethe's idea-world that which in his consciousness brought forth such a reply, and which Schiller later confirmed in this letter. It is remarkable that Heinroth, a psychologist who lived in the twenties of the nineteenth century and is to-day forgotten, uttered a very significant phrase about Goethe in his Anthropology, which is really a psychology — one of those phrases which are significant through their application, and throw great light on what they are meant to illumine. He used the phrase, speaking of Goethe's whole method of approach, ‘objective thinking’ and he enlarged upon the phrase by saying: Goethe's thinking is a quite peculiar thinking, really inseparable from the objectivity of things, resting quietly in objects, in which it is raised to ideas. Now whoever is able to look into Goethe's whole spiritual organism — as we shall to-day and the day after tomorrow, when we shall try to penetrate still deeper into this question, when we shall consider more inwardly what we are to have presented to us to-day outwardly — will see that in this thought he adheres to facts without stopping merely at the surface of things and the experience of the senses, and finds within these facts the spiritual, the world of ideas. We see that for this reason Goethe's thought has become so important for a large part of our modern human development. We may say that there is something exceedingly remarkable in this effect of Goethe's spirit on the most diverse types of people, on the most varied views even on the different successive epochs. Let us consider for a moment the point at issue and we shall see what unique results Goethe's spiritual standard has in fact produced. If we take three philosophers of German spiritual life, who are quite different from each other in their points of view, Fichte, Hegel and Schopenhauer, we find from a study of their mutual relationships and of their relationships to Goethe something quite remarkable about Goethe's influence on history. Fichte reveals himself as a thinker, wandering on remote heights, especially when he had finished his Foundation of Science at Jena in 1792. It is difficult to rise to an understanding of Fichte's peculiarity, it is difficult to penetrate to him, although everyone who has succeeded must admit that he has gained food for spiritual discipline from him to an extraordinary degree. But it is not for every man to ascend to such spheres of the purest concept. Fichte, who wandered on these heights of abstraction, particularly at that moment, sent his work to Goethe with the following significant words: ‘I see and have always seen in you the purest representative at the present stage of humanity of the spirituality of feeling. To your feeling therefore, philosophy rightly turns. The spirituality of your feeling is the normal standard for philosophy.’ Thus Fichte to Goethe. Let us look now at another philosopher, at Schopenhauer, and let us see first how Schopenhauer stood to Fichte. They were, in truth, a hostile pair — at least Schopenhauer was very hostile to Fichte. Schopenhauer never wearied of abusing Fichte. To him he is a windbag, thinking and writing empty ideas. He repeatedly emphasizes how unreal and meaningless Fichte's philosophy is. In fact there could not be a greater contrast than these two. And Schopenhauer indeed went to Goethe to be taught. For a time he experimented together with Goethe in order to learn the fundamental physical concepts, and a good deal in his first work, and even in his chief work is derived from the impression Goethe made on him. If you know Schopenhauer, you know also with what homage he spoke of Goethe. Schopenhauer and Fichte — two great contrasts unite in Goethe, and he seems like the unifying force of each. Let us take finally Hegel and Schopenhauer. Hegel is also difficult to reach with the understanding. He tries to create a fact-world of concepts in a comprehensive, systematic frame, and demands that man should lift himself to a stage where he grasps concept as fact, where he is capable of experiencing it directly. Schopenhauer finds in this something entirely worthless, merely a playing with abstract words. If we wish to know Hegel's relation to Goethe, we need mention only one instance and we shall see how they stand. There is a beautiful letter in which Hegel writes: ‘Goethe seeks behind the sense-revelations the actual spiritual phenomena, which he calls the proto-phenomena, as he calls the proto-plant the proto-phenomenon of the vegetable world. While he speaks from the heights of the spiritual world as philosopher and shows us what we can think and comprehend, he works himself on the other hand up to the point where he comes into touch with spirit-created thoughts. Thus Goethe's proto-phenomenon is united with what the pure, thinking philosophy derives from above.’ Here also we see a harmony between Hegel and Goethe, as between Goethe and Schopenhauer. In Goethe they find themselves united. And when we proceed from these older times to our own, what do we find? In Goethe's lifetime research in Natural Science was different. More than then the only right method of strict Science to-day is considered to be a research relying on external sense-observations and the formal working out by the mind of what is limited by the obscuration of the results thus obtained. But a Haeckel, as he shows in every book, is determined to stand on the firm ground of Goethean world-conception, and so we see a more materialistically coloured philosophy emphasizing the importance of relying on Goetheanistic world-conception. You can find books to-day written on a basis for which the spirit is an absolute reality in the highest sense of the word, and in them you can trace the debt to Goethe. Spiritualistic and materialistic students can fight from opposite camps, but both believe they may look up to Goethe in the same way. He thus provides something which bridges the gulf between opponents. These facts testify to the force of Goethe's world-conception, a force which has such an influence on others that though they do not understand each other, they find something in Goethe which they have themselves. Perhaps some of you know how widely apart Virchow and Haeckel stood from each other. But Virchow also, who saw eye to eye with Haeckel in so few things, has in an important address on Goethe equally found support in him. So in Goethe we see a power, which, in face of all the contradictions and struggles of world-conceptions, is able to show, that things are not what these representatives of science consider, and for which they so stubbornly fight. It is just when you consider the relation of these important people to Goethe, that you realize that it is the same towards what is called knowledge as it is with different painters, sitting round a mountain, and painting it from different points of view. The resultant pictures must also of course be different, though it is the same mountain they paint. You will get a comprehensive idea of the mountain only by comparing the various representations with each other and compounding them into a whole. If you put yourself in the same position with regard to knowledge, you will see that Goethe does not select a single point of view, but rather scales the mountain and shows that it is possible to take up a position on the summit and there to find a comprehensive panorama, in which all views are revealed in their deeper consistency or interconnection. It is this which makes Goethe's spirit so eminently modern, and if in plunging deep into Goethe we get the feeling that he appears to us a modern, it will be a sufficient justification if in our frequent studies here of spiritual science and a world-conception based on the spiritual, we consider what he did and wanted to do as a kind of invitation to penetrate deeper into his nature. If he is a stimulating spirit in so many respects, why should he not also be a stimulant for that spiritual tendency (Spiritual Stream) one of whose highest and most beautiful aims is a tolerant investigation into the different standpoints of world-conceptions, and which makes it a principle not to stand still on one fixed point, but, in order to find truth, to climb ever higher and higher by means of methods applied to inner development and growth of inner organs of perception, because thus alone can one see the deeper spiritual foundations? We shall now consider how far Goethe coincides with the deepest feelings of modern mankind on a narrowly limited subject. As an example we shall choose a feeling many of you know, which can be described by saying that there are many people to-day who strive to throw overboard old traditions, and create feelings, thoughts and ideas which lead direct to the present time. You will see at once what I mean when I remind you of a picture which many to-day cherish. You can take what attitude you like to the picture, but it is an expression of the contemporary age. I refer to the picture: ‘Komm, Herr Jesus, sei unser Gast’ — ‘Lord Jesus, come and be our Guest.’ The picture lives not only in its creator, but also in those who would enjoy it; they feel the longing to see the figure of Jesus in their immediate presence, as is represented near the table. One might say that the picture has not only value for this age, but for all ages, that it is there eternally and cannot pass away and that every age has the right to put this figure into its own epoch. These few words alone will indicate the feeling which many have towards this picture. Now one might believe that in these things Goethe belonged still to the ancients — a conclusion one would draw from his preference for the old art, with its old, sound, artistic traditions, and his preference for the Greeks; one might believe Goethe had no understanding of the emotion expressed in this picture — ‘Lord Jesus, come and be our Guest.’ In order to get a glance into Goethe's soul let us refer to a book by Bossi on Leonardo da Vinci's ‘Last Supper.’ Goethe wrote a criticism of this book, and in it there are significant words. Of this picture which is in the refectory of the Santa Maria delle Grazie cloister at Milan and in spite of recent restoration looks as if it would soon disappear, Goethe relates how he stood in front of it at a time when it still had a certain freshness. He describes the impression which he once got from this picture in his youth: ‘Opposite the entrance in the narrower wall, in the body of the hall stood the Prior's table, on each side the monks' tables, all raised from the floor on a dais, and now when you had come in and turned round, you saw the fourth table painted on the fourth wall, above the fairly low doors; and at it Christ and His Disciples, just as if they belonged to the company.’ — He, summoned by the Dominicans in their sense and in their place, with the emotional thought ‘Lord Jesus, come and be our Guest.’ The whole, says Goethe, made a unified picture. And not to leave any doubt as to his meaning he adds: ‘It must have been a significant sight at meal-times, when the tables of the Prior and of Christ looked across at each other like two opposite pictures and the monks found themselves in between. And therefore the painter in his wisdom had to take the monks' tables as his model. And it is certain the table-cloth with its creases, its striped pattern and its open corners, was taken from the linen-room of the Cloister, and the dishes, plates, mugs and other utensils were copied from those the monks used. There was thus no question of approximation to an uncertain, old-fashioned costume. It would have been extremely clumsy to have made the Holy Company lie on cushions. No, it had to resemble the present; Christ was to take his Evening Meal with the Dominicans of Milan.’ And now let us ask whether Goethe had this understanding which we must call a modern understanding. He had it in that comprehensive manner which is another proof of how universal his powers are as against the sometimes one-sided powers which mutually exclude and fight each other. We must put ourselves into Goethe's soul in this way and then we shall understand why Goethe stands so close to us and why we look up to him whenever the current attitude to deeper spiritual questions is under discussion. It was his deep consciousness that it is possible for man to awake in himself spiritual organs in order to ascend to higher conceptions, and thereby to gain something which not merely lives in the human spirit, but at the same time lies deeper. Were it possible to enter upon Goethe's scientific studies, as you will find them discussed in detail in my book, Goethe's World-Conception , we should be able to show the working of his whole method. But to-day we want to approach him from another side. Goethe has expressed things here and there which indicate the deep foundation of his philosophy. We shall have to speak of this in the last two addresses of this winter's cycle on ‘Faust.’ [See note on publications at end of book. {There is none! - e.Ed}] He once said to Eckermann concerning Faust, that he had drawn him in such a way that the reader who is content only with externals has some satisfaction in the colourful scenes, but that he can also find behind the words the secrets which lie there. Here Goethe is pointing out in Part II that we have to differentiate between the external and the inner essential secret meaning. In accordance with ancient custom we describe the external as the exoteric and the other as the esoteric. Now we shall approach Goethe by considering to-day in an external, exoteric way a work in which he expressed his whole ‘methodical thinking and willing;’ and the day after tomorrow we shall consider it esoterically. It is a comparatively unknown little work of Goethe's to which we must go if we want to look into his deepest secrets of knowledge — we merely describe them as such. It is the little piece at the end of the ‘Conversations of German Emigrants,’ under the title, ‘Legends,’ from which the reader, if he strives to get Goethe's world-conception, will get the feeling that Goethe wishes to say more in it than appears from the scenes. For the thoughtful student this ‘Legend of the Green Snake and the Beautiful Lily’ will provide riddle after riddle. And now allow me to explain the chief features of this story, for I cannot talk about it unless we recall the important points, if we are to look more deeply into Goethe's philosophy. We shall therefore have to give a moment to the content of this little work; and after that we shall understand each other better in what we shall have to say. I have often had it said to me when I have lectured on this story, ‘I never knew there was a “legend” in Goethe's works;’ and so I repeat that it is contained in every edition of Goethe and constitutes the ending of the ‘Conversations of German Emigrants.’ Now to the scenes. A Ferryman lives by a River and to him come remarkable forms — Will-o'-the-Wisps. They want to be put across to the other side by the Ferryman in his boat. The Ferryman agrees to take them across. On the way they behave in a curious manner; they are restless and fidgety, so that he is afraid they will upset the boat. But they arrive safely and then they propose to pay him in an odd way. They shake themselves and golden pieces fall from them, and they are the reward for his trouble in taking them over. The Ferryman is not enthusiastic about the golden pieces and says: ‘It is a good thing that nothing has fallen into the river, for it would have surged up wildly. I cannot take this payment; I can be paid only with the fruits of nature.’ And he demands three Onions, three Artichokes and three Cabbages. They had to pay with fruits of the earth. We shall soon see what deep significance every point and every fact has. The Ferryman continues: ‘Now you give me the extra trouble of taking down the river the golden pieces you've thrown about and I must bury them.’ Wherefore he takes them actually a short way downstream and buries them in the crevices of the earth. When they have been thus buried, another remarkable being comes along to them — the Green Snake, who crawls in and on and about the earth and through its crevices. Suddenly she sees the pieces of gold falling down through the cracks of the earth and thinks at first they are falling from Heaven. She therefore devours them and becomes, by thus taking the golden pieces into her own body, more and more luminous. As she comes to the surface she notices that she gives off a peculiar light in a marvellous manner and gleams like emerald and precious stones. Now the Snake and the Will-o'-the-Wisps come together, the latter still shaking themselves and throwing away what they shake out, the Snake, having acquired a taste for gold, taking up and swallowing what the others throw about. The conversation between them is significant. The Snake calls herself a relative of the Will-o'-the-Wisps in a horizontal line, the Will-o'-the-Wisps call themselves relations of the Snake in a vertical line. They ask the Snake moreover if she could not inform them how to come to the Beautiful Lily. ‘Oh,’ says the Snake, ‘the Beautiful Lily is on the other side of the River.’ ‘Well, then we've done a fine thing,’ answer the Will-o'-the-Wisps, ‘we've just had a lift across because we wanted to come to the Beautiful Lily. If we could only find a Ferryman who would ferry us back again!’ And now follow very important words. ‘You will not find the Ferryman again, and if you did, be certain that he may indeed take you across, but not back again. If you want to get to the other side of the River, there are only two ways. Either you try at noon, when the sun is at its highest, to find a bridge over my own body, in order to cross’ — The Will-o'-the-Wisps say, ‘We do not like journeying at midday’ — ‘Or you use the second way; for there is another possibility. At dusk you will find the huge Giant at a certain place. He has no strength in him, but when he stretches out his hand and its shadow falls across the river, you can cross over on the shadow. The shadow gives enough support to walk over on it. So if at midday you will not cross over me, you must find the Giant.’ The Will-o'-the-Wisps let themselves be told this, but the Snake has returned into the crevices, rejoicing in her increasing light-giving power through swallowing the gold. And now the Snake notices something extremely odd. On descending again into the earth, she notices that where she had formerly found metals and so on, she now sees remarkable forms. Before, she had perceived them only through the sense of touch; now, being luminous, she can also see the things. She was able to feel pillars and also shapes like human beings, but till then she never really knew what there was in the underground caves. Now she enters again and her radiating light serves to illuminate everything. On entering this large cavern under the earth, the Snake can at once perceive that there are four kingly figures standing in the four corners: a Golden King, a Silver King, a Brazen King, and in the fourth corner a Mixed King, put together in the gayest manner of all kinds of other metals. The moment the Snake enters the cavern and lights up the figures, the Golden King puts the very significant question: ‘Whence comest thou?’ ‘From the crevices, where the gold lives,’ answers the Snake. ‘What is more splendid than gold?’ asks the Golden King. ‘Light,’ is the Snake's reply. The King asks further: ‘What is more comforting than Light?’ ‘Speech.’ No one will doubt that these words are not meant to give just pictures, but that they also have a significant content. As the Snake enters the cavern a crack opens in the Temple where the four Kings live and there enters the Old Man with the Lamp. He is asked why he comes at that moment, whereupon he says the remarkable words: ‘Do you not know that my lamp may illumine only what is already illumined? that I may not lighten the Darkness?’ After the Snake has lit up the objects in the room he may also come in with his wonderworking Lamp. Now a conversation takes place between the Kings and the Old Man with the Lamp. He is asked: ‘How many secrets do you know?’ ‘Three,’ he answers. ‘Which is the most important?’ asks the Silver King. ‘The open one,’ replies the Old Man. ‘Will you open it also to us?’ asks the Brazen King. ‘As soon as I know the Fourth.’ And now come the most significant words of the whole story: ‘I know the Fourth,’ said the Snake, and whispers something into his ear; whereupon the Old Man with a great voice cries out: ‘The time is at hand!’ There are a great number of attempts to solve the riddles of this story, and many people have tried to explain in one way or another what was felt to be a riddle even in Goethe's and Schiller's time. It is characteristic that Goethe and Schiller agreed about it and pronounced it explicitly in the words: the word that solves the story is in the story itself. So the solution has to be sought in the story itself, and in the course of my address it will be found to be so, though in a remarkable way. The Snake whispers something into the Old Man's ear, and what is whispered, but not spoken, is the solution of the riddle. The Old Man then says: ‘The time is at hand!’ So what we have to find out is what the Snake whispered to the Old Man in the subterranean Temple. The Old Man now proceeds to the dwelling-place of his Wife. Through the power of the Lamp's light the most diverse materials are metamorphosed: stones into Gold, wood into Silver, dead animals into Precious Stones, but Metals are destroyed. He finds his Wife in an almost unconscious state. When he asks what has happened, she says: ‘There were quite extraordinary people here. One might have taken them for Will-o'-the-Wisps. They behaved pretty badly.’ ‘Well,’ says the Old Man: ‘considering your age, no doubt they were decently polite.’ Then she relates how the Will-o'-the-Wisps went for the Gold and licked it, so that they could shake it out again. ‘If it had been no worse than that — but just look at the Pug-dog. He ate of the golden pieces, was changed into precious stone, and died. Now he's dead,’ the Old Woman continues: ‘Had I known this before, I should not have promised them to pay their debt to the Ferryman, namely, three Cabbages, three Onions and three Artichokes.’ ‘Well,’ says the Old Man, ‘take the Pug-dog and carry him to the Beautiful Lily, who has the quality of being able to change precious stone into life by touching it.’ So she takes the three times three fruits, to pay off the debt she has undertaken to the Ferryman, and takes the Pug-dog as well. Now we come to a very significant point in the story. As she carries the basket, it seems unusually heavy, although anything dead has no weight for her; the basket with the dead dog alone would be no heavier than if it were empty; the living things, the Cabbages, Onions and Artichokes alone weigh down the basket. On the road to the Ferryman, another singular thing happens to her. The Giant holds his arm so that its shadow falls across the River, seizes one Cabbage, one Artichoke and one Onion out of the basket and devours them, so that she has now only two of each kind left. She proposes therefore to pay off only a part of the debt to the Ferryman. But he says that it is absolutely necessary to bring the whole of it at one time. After considerable argument the Ferryman says there is a possible way out, namely, if she goes bail for the production of the three missing fruits. She must therefore put her hand into the river, as security that she will keep her promise. This she does, but notices that her hand as far as it is immersed in the River has become black and smaller. ‘Now it only looks like it,’ said the Old Ferryman, ‘but if you do not keep your word, it might become a fact. The hand will gradually dwindle and finally disappear, but without your losing the use of it. You will be able to do everything with it, but no one will see it.’ She prefers, however, to have a visible hand, even if it is useless. If she brings the tribute at the agreed time, the Ferryman says everything will be all right. On the way to the Beautiful Lily, she meets a handsome Youth, who, however, as he says, has lost all his former power and strength, and we learn from their conversation how this has happened. The Youth had conceived the active desire to reach the Beautiful Lily. She had become his Ideal. But her lovely eyes had such a baneful effect that they deprived him of all his strength, and still he was ever attracted to her. At length the two come to the Beautiful Lily. Everything, indeed, that surrounds her is highly indicative, but we can now select only a few points. The Beautiful Lily is the image of most perfect Beauty, but her touch possesses the power of killing everything that lives, and restoring to life everything that has gone through life and died. The Old Woman now presents her requests. The Youth has come to satisfy his longing for the Beautiful Lily, but we see that she also feels a longing: she feels herself cut off from all living fruitfulness; in her garden flourish flowers, but only to the point of bloom, not to that of fruit; beautiful she is, but far from all life. The Old Woman then says something significant: she repeats what the Man in the subterranean Temple had said and that gives the Lily new hope. It was indeed the last moment in which she could receive any hope, for she had lost the last living thing, which had been a sort of link between her and the living. She had had a Canary in her neighbourhood, and had taken great care not to disturb it, since that would have killed it. But a Hawk had come near, the Canary fled from it and flew up against the Lily and was killed. And so the Beautiful Lily was reduced to complete spiritual loneliness and isolation from all that human beings have. The Old Woman now gives the Pug to the Lily. The Lily touches him and thereby restores him to life. The Youth tries to calm his longing by embracing the Lily and thereby he is killed. Life is completely annihilated in him. The Snake next forms a Magic Circle; and the Youth and the Canary are put inside it. By this means — and the Snake points this out significantly — what is hopeless is to be quickly altered, and in fact it is so. We learn that the Old Man with the Lamp now approaches and that through him a solution of the whole situation can be actually attempted. For there is still just time when he arrives; the bodies of the Canary and the Youth have not yet begun to decay. The Old Man leads them towards the subterranean Temple, which the Snake had already reconnoitred. He says to the Will-o'-the-Wisps: ‘You are also there to help us. When we come to the Gates of the Temple, you will have to be the ones to unlock them.’ The Snake makes a bridge over the River and the whole company proceeds over it. Then we see, when they have arrived on the other side, that through the contact with the Snake, who now decides to sacrifice herself, the Youth becomes alive again, though not yet in possession of his spirit. And because the Snake is prepared to sacrifice herself, the Youth is translated into a remarkable state. He can see, but cannot understand what he sees. The Snake divides up into numerous wonderful precious stones, which the Old Man sinks in the River and thereby a bridge is formed over it. The procession moves on under the guidance of the Old Man into the subterranean Temple. As they enter we see that questions full of meaning are exchanged between the newcomers and the Kings. For instance: ‘Whence come ye?’ ‘From the World.’ ‘Whither are ye going?’ ‘Into the World.’ ‘What do ye want with us?’ ‘You to accompany!’ (i.e. the Kings.) Now the group, with the Temple, begins to move. They go under the River and rise again, with the whole Temple, on the other side, and as when they have risen something that looks like woodwork falls into the Temple. It is the Ferryman's Hut. It changes and becomes a small Temple inside the large one. And now takes place a scene which is important for the Youth, who, you remember was until now alive, but not spiritualized. We have seen that the first, the Golden King, represents Wisdom; the second or Silver one, Illusion, Semblance or Beauty; the third Brazen one, Strength or the Will. We now see a symbolic act taking place. The Youth is presented with three different gifts by the three Kings; the Brazen King with the Sword, accompanied by the significant words: ‘The Sword on the left hand, the right free,’ — Will-power. From the Silver King he receives the Sceptre, with the words, — ‘Tend the Sheep.’ We shall see that the Youth is filled with the feeling of the soul, which expresses itself in Beauty. The Golden King sets the Crown on his head, saying: ‘Recognize, Realize the Highest.’ And the power of imaginative thought enters the Youth. At this instant he is spiritualized, he gains his spirit and may be united with the Beautiful Lily. We are then also told that everything is made young. What is still specially significant is the part played by the Giant, who has no strength in himself, but in his shadow. He staggers clumsily over the bridge and the King is indignant about it. But it turns out that the Giant's coming has a good meaning. Like the pointer of a great Sun-dial, he is held fast in the middle of the Temple Court. We see what strength we find in the Sun-dial, in the Giant pointing to and harmonizing Time, and we see how the bridge leading to the Temple across the River is made out of the Snake's body. We see also that not only pedestrians, but carts, horsemen and herds can cross to and fro. We are shown how the Youth, on being united with the Beautiful Lily, regains the strength of which her touch had deprived him, how he may now come near to her and embrace her and how happy and blessed they both are. Who would not say, when he studies the scenes of the fairy tale: ‘These are riddles!’ For the moment we can get only a slight idea of what there is in this legend. But if we proceed historically, if we consider that it arose in the middle of the year 1800 at the beginning of his friendship with Schiller and what took place between Goethe and Schiller, we shall understand what Goethe set out to do in this story. To this period belongs the production of a work, the fruit of a study of Goethe's world-conception, which became deeply important for the education and cultivation of German spiritual life; Schiller's letters on ‘The Æsthetic Education of Man.’ We can only outline Schiller's intentions in these letters. He asks himself the question how man can succeed in developing his powers higher and higher, so that he can, in a free and perfectly human manner, penetrate the secrets of the world. This work is written in letter-form to the Duke of Augustenburg, and Schiller wrote this significant sentence in it: ‘Every individual human being, one may say, carries in him according to inclination and his destiny, a pure, ideal person, to find agreement with whose unchangeable unity in all its variations is the great task of his existence.’ And then Schiller tries to examine the means whereby man has to develop himself upwards to the higher stages of human existence. There are two things that chain man and prevent a free view of the secrets of existence. One is the control by the senses, and the other is the insufficient development of the Reason. And Schiller explains these things thus: Take a person who is unaware of the compelling, logical part of concepts, or even the concept of duty, and follows only his inclinations and instincts. He cannot freely develop the powers of his nature, he is caught in the slavery of impulses, desires and instincts; he is unfree. But he also is not free who struggles with his desires, impulses and instincts, and follows only a purely conceptual and logical necessity of reason. Such a person becomes the slave either of the necessity of nature or the necessity of reason. By what means can a man develop his inner powers? Schiller answers that he must develop his inner, divine states, strive to cleanse and purify them and make them correspond with what we call logic. When his impulses and instincts are purified so that he does willingly what he considers his duty, when the necessity of reason is no longer felt as compelling, then a man will act reasonably from force of habit, for then reason has led him down to the senses and the senses led him up again to reason. Consider a man looking at a work of art. He sees something of the senses: but through every sense organ there is revealed to him something spiritual, for in the physical is expressed the spiritual which the artist has put into his work. Spirit and physical senses in the contemplation of beauty — these become the intermediaries. So art, life in beauty, becomes for Schiller a great means of education, a means of aesthetic education, a freeing of nature, so that it can unfold its own powers. How, therefore, does a man develop himself in Schiller's sense? He must guide his nature down so that it proves true in physical nature, and train the sense up, so that it prove true in rational nature. Goethe uttered wonderful words concerning these letters: ‘Their effect on me is to show what I always lived or wished to live.’ It can be proved that Goethe was stimulated to write his fairy tale by Schiller's words in his aesthetic letters. Goethe expresses the same thing in it, in his own way. He did not wish to express the riddles of the soul in abstract ideas. For him they were too rich and too important to be grasped by natural necessity and in logic. Hence the need grew up in him to personify the different powers of the soul in the figures of his story. Goethe answers Schiller's question in this story and we shall see how wonderfully his psychology is revealed in it. We see in the presentation of the Will-o'-the-Wisps how the soul is always taking in and giving out, how certain powers are personified in the Snake, which works only on the ground like human research, human reason, and experience, which remain in the horizontal plane, while the idealist climbs to the heights. The power of the religious mood is characterized in the Old Man with the Lamp, and finally we see by means of the narrative events how Goethe shows the way in which each soul-power must work. We shall see the day after tomorrow that Goethe shows how each soul-power must work together with the others, in order to formulate a complete picture of the soul, so that it can develop itself to human perfection, embracing all things. When man tries to grasp knowledge, but is immature, he is killed, like the Youth. There is such a thing as maturing towards knowledge. In the ‘Fairy Tale’ Goethe presents the evolution of the soul in a correct and pictorial way, by creating a parallel work to Schiller's ‘Æsthetic Letters.’ Goethe was aware that there is a goal for the development of the human soul, which in ancient times was called the ‘initiation into higher secrets.’ He knew such a thing is possible and that there are societies which develop the soul in secret places, in the Temples of Initiation. He shows also that humanity in the newer age must make it more and more possible to attain this Initiation, to develop the soul, and in larger spheres. He shows in the events that take place between the separate people, the progress of initiation up to the highest stages, to the point where the soul is capable of grasping the highest secrets. This is viewed exoterically, and purely historically. By living with Goethe, Schiller experienced what Goethe had done in one of the most important periods of his life. And if Schiller had some difficulty in understanding Goethe, we must admit that what one said in an abstract answer in the Æsthetic Letters, and what the other had to say in a much more comprehensive way, in a way which is attained only by expressing oneself in scenes and persons, is one and the same thing. The Fairy Tale is Goethe-psychology in the deepest sense. We see that Goethe has become so fruitful through this method of his aspiration, that we still gladly take him as guide to-day. He still seems to us a man of the present. We read him as a writer of our time. He is so fruitful, because he has so much that belongs to all time in his work and his whole method. Thus his influence is consistent with that truth which he himself considered the real one, and he once uttered significant words when he said: ‘That which is fruitful alone is true.’ The meaning is that man must acquire such truths that when he enters upon life, they find confirmation by proving themselves fruitful. That was his criterion of truth: ‘That which is fruitful alone is true.’ These addresses, which are meant to bring Goethe nearer, ought to show us that he tested this saying himself, and those who go deeper into him will feel this. You will feel that there is something of genuine truth in Goethe, for he is fruitful, and what is fruitful is true.

Goethe's Secret Revelation

Goethe's Secret Revelation: Exoteric

https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA057/English/TP1980/19081022p01.html

Berlin

22 Oct 1908

GA057-2

The objection might easily be raised to an address such as this to-day that symbolic and allegoric meanings are forced out of something which a poet has created in the free play of his imaginative fancy. The day before yesterday we set ourselves the task to explore the deeper meaning of Goethe's ‘Fairy Tale of the Green Snake and the Beautiful Lily,’ as it was then presented to our eyes. It will always happen that such an analysis or explanation of a work of fantasy will be turned down with the remark: ‘Oh, all sorts of symbols and meanings with profound applications are looked for in the figures of the work.’ Therefore I want to say at once that what I shall say to-day has nothing whatever to do with the symbolic and allegoric interpretations often made by Theosophists about legends or poetic works. And because I know that again and again the objection has been made to similar explanations which I have given: ‘We are not going to be caught by such symbolic meanings of poetic figures,’ I cannot stress the fact sufficiently that what is to be said here must be taken in no other sense than the following. We have before us a poetic work, a work of comprehensive imaginative power or fantasy, that goes to the depths of things: ‘The Fairy Tale of the Green Snake and the Beautiful Lily.’ We may well be allowed the question, whether we may approach the work from any particular point of view, and attempt to find the basic idea, the true content of this so poetic a product. We see the plant before us. Man goes to it and examines the laws, the inner regularity, by which the plant grows and flourishes, by which it unfolds its nature bit by bit. Has the botanist, or even someone who is no botanist, but arranges the growth of the plant in his imagination, the right to do it? Can one object: the plant knows nothing of the laws you are discovering, the laws of its growth and development! This objection against the botanist or the lyric poet who expresses the sensations derived from the plant in his poetry would have the same weight as the objection one could bring against such an explanation of Goethe's story. I do not want things to be taken as if I were to say to you: There we have a Snake, which means this or that, there we have a Golden, a Silver, and a Brazen King, who stand for this or that. I do not intend to expound the story in this symbolic, allegoric sense, but more in such a way that as the plant grows according to laws of which it is itself unconscious, and as the botanist has the right to discover these laws of its growth, one must also say to oneself that it does not follow that the poet Goethe was consciously aware of the explanations which I shall give you. For it is as true that we must consider the inevitability, and the true ideal content of the story as it is that we discover the laws of the plant's growth; that the plant grows in accordance with the same inevitability which originated it, though it is itself unconscious of it. So I ask you to take what I shall say as if it presented the sense and the spirit of Goethe's methods of thought and idea-conception and as if he who, as it were, feels himself called upon to put before you the ideal philosophy of Goethe, were justified — that you might find a way to it — in expounding the product of Goethe's invention, in emphasizing the figures, and in pointing out their correlation — just as the botanist demonstrates that the plant grows in accordance with laws he has discovered. Goethe's psychology or soul-philosophy, namely, what he considers determinative for the nature of the soul, is illustrated in his beautiful Fairy Story of the Green Snake and the Beautiful Lily; and if we are to understand each other in what I have to say it will be a good thing if, in a preliminary study, we make the spirit of his soul-world clear. It has been already pointed out in the previous address that the world-conception represented here starts from the view that human knowledge is not to be looked upon as something stationary once for all. The view is widely held that man is as he is to-day, and being what he is he can give unequivocal judgment on all things; he observes the world with his sense-organs, takes in its phenomena, combines them with his reason, which is bound to his senses, and the result is an absolute knowledge of the world which must be valid for all. On the other side — but only in a certain way — stands the spiritual scientific world-conception which is represented here. This starts from the premise that what is to become our knowledge is continually dependent on our organs and our capacity for knowledge and that we ourselves are, as men, capable of development; that we can work on ourselves, and raise higher such capabilities as we have on a given level of existence. It holds that we can educate them, and they can be developed still further, even as man has developed himself from an imperfect state to his present position, and that we must come to a deeper penetration of things, and a more correct view of the world by rising to higher standards. To put it more clearly, if also more trivially: if we leave out altogether a development of humanity and look only at people as they are around us; and then turn our eyes on those men whom one reckons as belonging to primitive races in the history of civilization, and if we ask ourselves what they can know of the laws of the world around us and compare it with what an average European with some ideas of science can know of the world, we shall see there is a great difference between the two. Take, for instance, an African negro's picture of the world and that, let us say, of an European monist, who has a sense of reality through having absorbed a number of the scientific ideas of the present age: the two are entirely dissimilar. But on the other hand Spiritual Science is far from depreciating the world-picture of the man who takes his stand on pure materialism, and from declaring it invalid. It is more true to say that in these things it is considered that in every case a man's world-picture corresponds to a stage in human evolution, and that man is able to increase the capabilities in him and to discover by means of the increase other new things. It lies thus in the purview of Spiritual Science that man reaches ever higher knowledge by developing himself, and what he experiences in the process is objective world-content, which he did not see before because he was not capable of seeing it. Spiritual Science is therefore different from other one-sided world-conceptions, whether spiritualistic, or materialistic, because it does not recognize an absolute, unchangeable truth, but only a wisdom and truth belonging to a given stage of evolution. Thus it adheres to Goethe's saying: ‘Man has really always only his own truth, and it is always the same.’ It is always the same because what we instil into ourselves through our power of learning, viz., the objective, is the same. Now how does man succeed in developing the capabilities and powers that lie in him? One may say that Spiritual Science is as old as human thought. It always took the view that man has before him the ideal of a certain knowledge-perfection, the object of his aspiration. The principle contained in this was always called the ‘principle of initiation.’ This initiation means nothing other than increasing the powers of man to ever higher stages of knowledge, and thereby attaining deeper insight into the nature of the world around him. Goethe stood completely and all his life long, one may say, on this principle of development towards knowledge, this principle of initiation; which is shown us most particularly in his Fairy Tale. We shall understand each other most easily if we proceed from the view which is held most often and most widely to-day, and which is to a certain extent in opposition to the initiation-principle. To-day one can hear in the widest circles those people who think about such things and believe themselves to have an opinion on them representing, more or less consciously, the point of view that in what concerns truth and objective reality only physical observation, or objects of physical observation can be decisive in formulating ideas. You will constantly hear it: that alone can be Science which is based on the objective foundation of observation, and by this one understands so frequently is meant only the observation of the senses and the application of the human reason and capacity to formulate thoughts to these sense-observations. Every one of you knows that the capacity to formulate ideas and concepts is a capacity of the human soul among other capacities and every one of you also knows that these other capacities of the soul are our feeling and our will. Thus, even with this comparative superficial review, we may say: man is not merely an ideating, but also a feeling and willing being. Now those who think they must put forward the purely scientific point of view will always repeat: in science, only the power of thought may enter, never human feeling, never what we know as will-impulses, for otherwise that which is objective would become clouded, and that which the power of thought might achieve by being kept impersonal, would only be prejudiced. It is correct enough that when a man introduces his feeling, his sympathy or antipathy, into the object of a scientific enquiry, he finds it repulsive or attractive, sympathetic or antipathetic. And where should we be if he were to consider his desire as a source of knowledge, so that he could say about a thing, I want it or I do not want it? Whether it displeases or pleases you, whether you desire it or not, is entirely the same to the thing. As true as it is that he who believes himself able to stand on the firm ground of science can confine himself only to externals, so true it is that the thing itself compels you to say it is red, and that the impression you get concerning the nature of a stone is the correct one. But it does not lie in the nature of the thing that it appears to you ugly or beautiful, that you desire it or not. That it appears to you red has an objective reason; that you do not desire it has no objective reason. In a certain respect modern psychology has got beyond the point of view just described. It is not my task here to speak for or against that tendency of modern psychology which says: ‘When we consider psychic phenomena and the soul-life, we must not confine ourselves only to intellectualism, we must regard man not merely in what concerns the power of conception, we must also consider the influences of the world of feeling and will.’ Perhaps some of you know that this belongs to Wundt's system of philosophy, which takes the will to be the origin of soul-activity. In a way that is in some respects fundamental, whether one agrees with it or not, the Russian psychologist Losski has pointed out the control of the will in human soul-life, in his last book called ‘Intuitivism.’ I could say much to you if I wanted to show how concerned the theory of the soul is to overcome the one-sidedness of intellectualism, and if further, I wanted to show you that the other powers also play a part in human soul-power. If you carry the thought a step further, you will be able to say that this shows how impossible the demand is that the power of formulating ideas, limited as it is to observation, may lead to objective results in science. When science itself shows its impossibility, shows that everywhere Will plays a part, on what grounds would you then establish the purely objective observation of anything? Because you prefer to recognize only matter as objective, subject as you are to the tricks played by the will and your habits of thought, and because you have not the habit of thought and feeling to recognize also the spiritual element in things, therefore you omit the latter altogether in your theories. It is not a question, if we want to understand the world, of what kind of abstract ideals we set before us, but of what we can accomplish in our souls. Goethe belongs to those people who reject the principle most categorically that knowledge is produced only through the thinking capacity, the one-sided capacity to form ideas. The prominent and significant principle expressed more or less clearly in Goethe's nature is that he considers that all the powers of the human soul must function if man is to unravel the riddles of the world. Now we must not be one-sided and unjust. It is quite correct, when the objection is raised that feeling and will are qualities subjected to the personal characteristics of a man, and when it is asked where we should come to if not only what the eyes see and the microscope shows, but also what feeling and will dictate were considered as attributes of things! All the same that is just what we have to say in order to understand someone who, like Goethe, stands for the principle of initiation and development, namely, that, given the average feeling and will in man to-day, they cannot be applied to the acquirement of knowledge, that, in fact they would lead only to an absolute disharmony in their knowledge. One man wants this, the other that, according to the subjective needs of feeling and will. But the man who stands on the ground of initiation is also quite clear that of the powers of the human soul — thinking, representation, feeling, will — the capacity to construct thoughts and to think has advanced furthest, and is most inclined and adapted to exclude the personal element and to attain objectivity. For that soul-power which is expressed in intellectualism is now so advanced that when men rely upon it, they quarrel least, and agree most in what they say. Feeling and will have not had the chance of being developed to this point. We can also justifiably find differences when we examine the region of ideas and their representation. There are regions of the idea-life which give us completely objective truths, which men have recognized as such, quite apart from external experience, and these truths are the same if a million people differ in their opinions about them. If you have experienced in yourself the reasons for it, you are able to assert the truth even if a million people think otherwise. For instance, everyone can find such truths confirmed as those dealing with numbers and space dimension. Everyone can understand that 3 x 3 = 9, and it is so, even if a million people contradict it. Why is this the case? Because regarding such truths such as mathematical truths, most people have succeeded in suppressing their preference and their aversion, their sympathy and their antipathy, in short, the personal factor, and letting the matter speak for itself. This exclusion of the personal in the case of thought and the capacity to formulate ideas has always been called the ‘purification’ of the human soul, and considered the first stage on the way to initiation, or, as one might also say, on the way to higher knowledge. The man who is versed in these things says to himself: It is not only with regard to feeling and the will that people are not yet so far that nothing personal enters into it, and that they can verify objectivity, but also with regard to thought the majority are not yet so far as to be able to give themselves up purely to what the things, the ideas of the things themselves say to him, as everyone can in mathematics. But there are methods of purifying thought to such a point that we no longer think personally, but let the thoughts in us think, as we let mathematical thought do. Thus, when we have cleansed thought from the influences of personality, we speak of purification or catharsis, as it was called in the old Eleusinian mysteries. Hence man must reach the point of purifying his thinking, which then enables him to comprehend things with objective thought. Now, just as this is possible, so is it also possible to eliminate all the personal factor from feeling, so that the appeal of things to the feelings has no longer any say, to the Personal, or to Sympathy and Antipathy; nothing but the nature of the thing is evoked, in so far as it cannot speak to mere concept capacity. Experiences in our souls which have their roots or origin in our feelings, and which therefore lead to inner knowledge, and lead deeper into the nature of a thing, speaking however to other sides of the soul than mere intellectualism, can be purified of the personal element as well as thought, so that feeling can transmit the same objectivity as thought can. This cleansing or development of the feelings is called in all esoteric doctrine ‘enlightenment.’ Every man capable of development, and striving after it in no casual way, (that lies in intention of the personality) must take pains to be stirred only by what lies in the nature of the thing. When he has reached the point where the thing rouses in him neither sympathy nor antipathy, where he allows only the nature of things to speak, so that he says: whatever sympathies or antipathies I have are immaterial and are not to be taken into consideration, then it lies in the nature of the thing that the thought and action of the man assume this or that direction — then it is a declaration of the innermost nature of the thing. In esoteric doctrine this development of the will has been called ‘consummation.’ If a man takes his stand on the ground of spiritual science, he says to himself: ‘If I have a thing in front of me, there is in it a spiritual element, and I can so stimulate my mode of conception, that the essence of the thing is represented objectively through my concepts and ideas. Hence there is present in me the same thing that works externally, and I have recognized the essence of the thing through my mode of conception. But what I have recognized is only a part of the essence.’ There exists in things something which can speak not to thought at all, but only to feeling, and indeed only to purified feeling or to feeling which has become objective. The man who has not yet developed in himself by this cultivation of the feelings such a part of the essence, cannot recognize the essence along these lines. But for the man who says to himself that feeling as well as the capacity to think can provide a basis of knowledge (not the feeling as it is, but as it can become by means of well-founded methods of the teaching of cognition) for such a man it becomes gradually clear that there are things deeper than thought possibilities, things which speak to one's soul and the feelings. There are also things which reach even down to the will. Now Goethe was particularly convinced that this really is the case, and that man really has in him these possibilities of development. He stood firmly on the ground of the principle of initiation, and he has shown us the initiation of man through the development of his soul and the development of the three powers of will, feeling and thought by representing them in his Fairy Tale. The Golden King represents the initiation for the thought-capacity, the Silver King represents the initiation with knowledge capacity of objective feeling, and the Brazen King the initiation for knowledge capacity of the will. Goethe has emphasized that man must overcome certain things if he wishes to receive these three gifts. The Youth in the story represents man in his struggle for the highest. As Schiller in his Æsthetic Letters depicts man's aspiration towards complete humanity, so Goethe depicts in the Youth man's aspiration for the highest, wanting straight away to reach the Beautiful Lily, and attaining then inner human perfection, given him by the three Kings. How that happens is pointed out in the course of the story. You remember that in the subterranean Temple, into which the Snake looks because of the earth's power of crystallization, one King was in each of the four corners. In the first was the Golden, in the second the Silver, in the third the Brazen King. In the fourth was the King who was a mixture of the other three metals, in whom, therefore, the three composite parts were so welded that one could not distinguish them. In this fourth King, Goethe depicts for us the representative of that stage of human development in which will, thought and feeling are mixed together. In other words he stands for that human soul which is governed by will, thought and feeling, because it is itself not master of these three capacities. On the other hand in the Youth, after he receives the three gifts from the three Kings separately, so that they are no longer chaotically mixed, that stage of knowledge is represented which does not allow itself to be ruled by thought, feeling and will, but which, on the contrary, rules over them. Man is ruled by them as long as they flow chaotically and intermingled in him, as long as they are not pure and independent in his soul. Until man has reached this separation, he is not capable of being effective through his three knowledge-capacities. When he has reached this point, however, he is no longer the subject of Chaos, but on the contrary himself controls his thought, his feeling and his will, when each is as pure and unalloyed as the metal of the respective Kings: his mode of Conception, pure as the Golden King (for nothing is mixed in him); his mode of Feeling, where nothing is added or mixed, but pure as the Silver King; and so too the Will, pure as the brass of the Brazen King; Concepts and Feelings no longer govern him, for he stands, in his nature, free; he is capable, in a word, of comprehension by means of thought, of feeling and will as required, making use of each separately. He can grasp according to necessity and the nature of things either by means of thinking, feeling or willing. Then he has advanced so far that the whole pure knowledge-capacity which we see in thought, feeling and will, leads him to a deeper insight, and he really steeps himself in the current of events, in the inner nature of things. Of course only experience can teach that this is possible. Now it will not be difficult to agree, after what I said just now, that if Goethe makes the Youth represent striving mankind, we may see in the Beautiful Lily another soul-condition, namely, that soul-condition which man attains when the beings lying in things spring forth in the soul, and he thereby raises his existence by blending the things in himself with the nature of things in the external world. What man experiences in his soul by growing out of himself, by becoming master of the powers of the soul, victor over the chaos in his soul; what man then experiences, that inner blessedness, that unity with things; their awakening in him, is shown us by Goethe in his representation of the union with the Beautiful Lily. Beauty here is not merely aesthetic beauty, but a quality of man brought to a certain stage of perfection. So that we shall also now find it easy to understand why Goethe makes the Youth proceed in his effort to reach the Beautiful Lily, in such a way that all his powers at first disappear. Why is this? We understand Goethe's presentation of such a scene if we hold fast to a thought he once expressed: ‘Everything which gives us mastery over ourselves without liberating us, leads us into error.’ Man must first be free, he must reach the point of being master of his inner soul-powers, and then he can attain union with the highest soul-condition, with the Beautiful Lily. But if he sets out to attain it unprepared, with still immature powers, they are lost and his soul is shrivelled. Hence Goethe points out that the Youth seeks this liberation which will make him captain of his soul. The moment his soul-powers are no longer chaotic, but are purified, cleansed and ordered, he is ready to reach that condition of soul which is symbolized by his union with the Beautiful Lily. So we see that Goethe constructs these figures in free creative fantasy, and if we look upon them as representing soul-powers, we see that they permeate and work in his whole soul. If we look upon them like this, if we are as sensitive to these figures as in a way Goethe was — Goethe who unlike a second-rate didactic poet was not content to say what this or that soul-quality meant, but used it to express what he felt himself, then we shall realize what is expressed in these poetic figures. And therefore the various figures stand in the same personal relationship to each other as the soul-powers of a man stand to each other. It cannot be clearly enough insisted upon that there is no question of the characters meaning this or that. That is certainly not the case. Rather is it that Goethe felt this or that in this or that soul-activity and transformed his feelings in connection with one or the other soul-activity into one or the other figures. Thus he created the sequence of the story's events, which is still more important than the figures themselves. We see the Will-o'-the-Wisps and the Green Snake, and that the former cross over from the other side of the river and reveal quite peculiar qualities. They absorb the gold greedily, even lick it from the walls of the Old Man's room, and then throw it about prodigally. The same gold which in the Will-o'-the-Wisps is a sign of worthlessness, as we are also shown by the fact that the Ferryman has to refuse it — otherwise the river would surge up 1 and the waves rear up like horses — aufbäumen . Ed. — the Ferryman may take only fruits in payment — this gold — what effect does it have in the body of the Green Snake? The Snake, after taking it, becomes internally luminous! And the plants and other things round her are also lit up because she takes into herself what in the case of the Will-o'-the-Wisps is a symbol of worthlessness. But a certain importance is ascribed even to them. You know that the Old Man at the critical moment calls upon the Will-o'-the-Wisps to open the Temple gates, so that the whole train can enter in. Precisely the same thing which happens here in the case of the Green Snake, is to be found in the human soul, a thing we came across particularly clearly two days ago in the conversation between Goethe and Schiller. We saw that Schiller, as he spoke with Goethe about the way in which nature should be regarded, was still of the opinion that the drawing with a few strokes by Goethe of the proto-plant was an idea, an abstraction, which one receives when one omits the differentiating features and puts together the common ones. And we saw that Goethe thereupon said that if that was an idea, then he saw his ideas with his eyes. At this moment there were two quite different realities in opposition. Schiller trained himself completely to take Goethe's way of looking at things; so that it shows no lack of honour to Schiller if he is taken as an example of that human soul which moves in abstractions, and preferably in those ideas of things which are comprehended by the mere reason. That is a particular inclination of the soul, which, if a man wishes to attain a higher development, can, in certain circumstances, play a very dangerous part. There are people whose inclination lies in the direction of the abstract. Now when they combine this abstraction with something they come across as soul-power, this is, as a rule, the concept of unproductivity. These people are sometimes very acute, they can draw fine distinctions, and connect this or that concept wonderfully. But you also often find with such a soul-condition, that the spiritual influences, inspirations, are excluded. This soul-condition, characterized by unproductivity and abstraction, is represented to us in the Will-o'-the-Wisps. They take up the gold wherever they find it; they lack any inventive faculty, are unproductive and can grasp no ‘ideas.’ These ideas are alien to them. They have not the will unselfishly to yield themselves up to things, or to stick to facts or to use concepts only as far as they are interpreters of facts. All they care about is to stuff their reasons full of concepts, and then scatter them about prodigally. They are like a man who goes to libraries, collects wisdom there, and takes it in and then gives it out again correspondingly. These Will-o'-the-Wisps are typical of that soul-capacity which is never able to grasp a single literary thought, or feeling, but which can nevertheless grasp in beautiful forms what creative spirits have produced in literature. I do not mean to say anything against this kind of soul. If a man did not have it nor cultivated it when he was insufficiently endowed with it, he would lack something which must be present when it comes to the real capacity for knowledge. In his picture of the Will-o'-the-Wisps, in the whole circumstances in which they appear and act, Goethe shows the manner in which such a soul-type functions, in relation to other soul-types, how it harms and benefits. In truth, if someone wanted to climb to higher stages of knowledge and had not this faculty of soul, there would not be the means to open the Temple for him. Goethe shows the advantages equally with the drawbacks of this soul-condition. What he gives us in the Will-o'-the-Wisps represents a soul-element. The moment it wants to lead an independent life in one direction or another, it becomes harmful. This abstraction leads to a critical faculty which makes men learn everything indeed, but incapable of further development, because the productive element is missing in them. But Goethe also clearly shows how far there is value in what the Will-o'-the-Wisps represent. What they contain can become something valuable; in the Snake the Will-o'-the-Wisps' gold turns to something valuable in so far as she illumines the objects round about her. What lives in the Will-o'-the-Wisps, when worked out in another way, will become extremely fruitful in the human soul. When man strives so to regard his experiences of concepts and ideas and ideal creations not as something abstract in themselves, but as capable of leading to and interpreting the realities round him, so that he thinks as selflessly and willingly of his observations as of the abstract quality of the concepts, then he is as regards this soul-power in the same position as the Green Snake: then he can produce light and wisdom out of the purely abstract concepts. Then he is not brought to be in the vertical line which loses all connection and relation to the horizontal plane. The Will-o'-the-Wisps are the Snake's relatives, but of the vertical line. The gold-pieces fall through the rocks, are absorbed by the Snake which thereby becomes inwardly luminous. He who approaches the things themselves with these concepts absorbs wisdom. Goethe gives us also an example of how one is to work on the conceptions ( Begriffe ). He has the conception of the proto-plant. Primarily it is an abstract conception, which, were it worked out in the abstract, would become an empty picture, killing all life, as the gold, thrown down by the Will-o'-the-Wisps, killed the Pug-dog. But just think what Goethe does with the conception of the proto-plant. If we follow him on his Italian journey, we see that this conception is only the ‘leit-motif’ going from plant to plant, from being to being. He takes the conception, goes from it over to the plant, and sees how this is made in one or another shape, taking on quite different shapes, in lower or higher places, and so on. Now he follows from step to step how the spiritual reality or form creeps into every physical form. He himself creeps about like the Snake in the crevices of the earth. Thus for Goethe the conception-world is nothing else but that which can be spun into objective reality. The Snake for him is the representative of that soul-power which does not struggle upward selfishly to higher regions of existence in an attempt to raise itself above everything, but which continually and patiently lets the conception be verified by observation, patiently goes from experience to experience. When man not merely theorizes, not merely lives in the conceptions, but applies them to life and experience, then he is as far as this soul-power is concerned, in the position of the Snake. This is so in a very wide sense. He who takes philosophy not as a theory, but as what it is meant to be, he who regards the conceptions of spiritual science as exercises for life, knows that just such conceptions, even the highest, are meant to be applied in such a way that they merge into life and are verified by daily experience. The man who has learnt a few conceptions but is incapable of applying them to life is like a man who has learned a cooking-book by heart, but cannot cook. As the gold is a means to throw light on things, so Goethe illuminates the things round him by means of his ideas. This is the instructive and grand thing about Goethe's attitude to Science, and his every effort, that his ideas and conceptions have reality and have the effect of lighting up all objects round him. The day before yesterday special importance was laid on the universality in Goethe which gives the reason why we never have the feeling: that is Goethe's ‘meaning.’ He stands there, and when we see him, we find only that we understand things better which before were not so clear. For this reason he was capable of becoming the point of agreement between two hostile brethren, as we saw the day before yesterday. If we wanted to discuss every feature in this fairy tale and characterize every figure in it, I should have to speak not for three hours but for three weeks on it. So I can give you only the deeper principles contained in the story. But every feature shows us something of Goethe's method of thought and his opinion of the world. Those soul-powers which are represented in the Will-o'-the-Wisps, in the Green Snake and in the Kings, are on one side of the River. On the other side lives the Beautiful Lily, the ideal of perfect knowledge and perfect life and work. We heard from the Ferryman that he can bring the people ( gestalten , forms) from the other side to this, but can take no one back again. Let us apply this to our whole soul-mood or soul-condition and our improvement. We find ourselves on earth as beings with souls. These or the other soul-capacities work upon us as talents, as more or less developed soul-powers. They are in us; but we have also something else in us. In us human beings if we take ourselves properly there is the feeling, the knowledge that the powers of our soul, which finally interpret the nature of things to us, are closely related to the elemental spirits ( grundgeister ) of the world, with the Creative, Spiritual forces. The longing for these creative forces is the longing for the Beautiful Lily. Thus we know that everything derived on one hand from the Beautiful Lily, strives on the other to return to her. Unknown forces unmastered by us have brought us from the world on the other side over the river-boundary to this side. But these forces, characterized by the Ferryman, and working in the depths of unconscious nature, cannot take us back again, for otherwise man would return, without his work and co-operation, to the kingdom of the divine, precisely as he came over. The forces which as unconscious nature-forces have brought us over into the kingdom of struggling humanity, may not lead us back again. For this other forces are required; and Goethe is aware of it. But he wants to show also how man must set about being able to re-unite with the Beautiful Lily. There are two ways. One leads over the Green Snake; we can cross by it and gradually find the kingdom of the spirit. The other way goes across the Giant's shadow. We are shown that the Giant, otherwise without strength, stretches out his hand at dusk, and its shadow falls across the River. The second road leads over this shadow. Whoever wishes therefore to cross by clear daylight to the kingdom of the spirit must use the way provided by the Snake; and whoever wishes to cross at dusk can use the way leading across the Giant's shadow. Those are the two ways to reach a spiritual picture of the world. The man who aspires to the spiritual world — not with human concepts and ideas, not with those forces which are symbolized by the worthless gold (as spirits of bare sophistry) and the Will-o'-the-Wisps — but by proceeding patiently and selflessly from experience to experience, succeeds in reaching the other bank in full sunlight. Goethe knows that real research does not stop at material things, but must lead over beyond the boundary; beyond the river which separates us from the spiritual. But there is another way, a way for undeveloped people, who do not want to take the road of knowledge, but a way represented by the Giant. He himself is powerless, only his shadow has a certain strength. Now what is powerless in a true sense? Take all the conditions possible to man when his consciousness is reduced, as in hypnotism, somnambulism and even dream-conditions; everything by which the clear consciousness of day is subdued, whereby man is subject to lower soul-power than in clear consciousness, belongs to this second way. Here the soul, by surrendering its ordinary daily functional power of the soul, is led into the real kingdom of the spirit. The soul, however, does not itself become capable of crossing into the spiritual kingdom, but remains unconscious and is carried across like the Shadow into the kingdom of spirit. Goethe includes in the forces represented by the Giant's shadow everything which functions unconsciously and from habit, without the soul-powers which are active during clear consciousness taking part. Schiller, who was initiated into Goethe's meaning, once, at the time of the great upheavals in Western Europe, wrote to Goethe: ‘I rejoice that you have not been roughly caught in the shadow of the giant.’ What did he mean? He meant that had Goethe travelled further West, he would have been caught in the revolutionary forces of the West. Then we see that the objects of man's quest, the height of knowledge, is represented in the ‘Temple.’ The Temple represents a higher stage of man's evolution. Goethe nowadays would say that if the Temple is something hidden, it is under the narrow crevices of the earth. Such an aspiring soul-force as is represented in the Snake can feel the shape of the Temple only dimly. By absorbing the ideal, the gold, she can illumine this shape, but fundamentally the Temple can be there to-day only as a subterranean secret. But though Goethe leaves the Temple as something subterranean for external culture, he points out that to a further-developed man this secret must be unlocked. In this he indicates the current of Spiritual Science which to-day has already caught up wide masses of people, which in a comprehensive sense seeks to make popular the content of Spiritual Science, of the principle of initiation, and of the Temple's secret. The Youth is therefore to be regarded in this truly free Goethean sense as the representative of aspiring mankind. Therefore the Temple is to rise beyond the River, so that not only a few individuals who seek illumination can cross and re-cross, but so that all people can cross the River by the bridge. Goethe, in the Temple of Initiation above the earth puts before us a future state, which will have arrived when man can go from the kingdom of the senses into the kingdom of the spiritual, and from the kingdom of the spiritual into the kingdom of the senses. How is this attained in the Fairy Tale? Because the real secret of it is fulfilled. The solution of the story is to be found in the story itself, says Schiller, but he has also pointed out that the word that solves it is inserted in a very remarkable way. You remember the Old Man with the Lamp, which illuminates only where there is already light? Now, who is this Old Man, and what is the Lamp? What is its curious light? The Old Man stands above the situation. His lamp has the peculiar quality of changing things, wood into silver, stone into gold. It has also the quality of shining only where there is already a receptivity, a definite kind of light. As the Old Man enters the subterranean Temple he is asked how many secrets he knows. ‘Three,’ he replies. To the Silver King's question, ‘Which is the most important,’ he answers: ‘The open one.’ And when the Brazen King asks whether he would tell it them also, he says: ‘As soon as I know the fourth.’ Whereupon the Snake whispers something in his ear and he says at once: ‘The Time is at Hand.’ The solution of the riddle is what the Snake whispered in the Old Man's ear, and we have to find out what that is. It would lead us too far to say at length what the three secrets mean. I shall only hint at it. There are three Kingdoms which in evolution are so to speak stationary: the mineral, the vegetable and the animal Kingdoms, which are completed, as compared with progressive man, who is still developing. The inner development of man is so vehement and important that it cannot be confused with the development of the other three nature kingdoms. What the secret of the Old Man contains is the fact that one Kingdom of nature has arrived at the present point of a full-stop, and this is what explains the laws of the mineral, vegetable and animal kingdoms. But now comes the fourth kingdom, that of man, the secret which is to be revealed in the human soul. The secret which the Old Man must first discover, is of this kind. And how must he discover it? He knows of what it consists, but the Snake has to tell him first. This indicates to ns that man has still to go through something special, if he wants to attain the goal of evolution as the three other kingdoms have done. What this is the Snake whispers to the Old Man. She tells how a certain soul-power must be developed, if a higher stage is to be reached; she says that she has the will to sacrifice herself for this, and she does in fact sacrifice herself. Hitherto she has made a bridge when here and there someone wished to cross; but now she will become a permanent bridge, by falling in pieces, so that man will have a lasting connection between this side and that, between the spiritual and the physical. That the Snake has the will to sacrifice herself must be taken as the condition of revealing the fourth secret. The moment the Old Man hears that the Snake will sacrifice herself, he can even say: ‘The time is at hand!’ It is that soul-power which adheres to the external. And the way to be trodden is not to make this soul-force and inner science the ultimate end but self-surrender. That really is a secret, even if it is called an ‘open secret,’ that is, when any who will can know it. What is regarded in a wide circle as end in itself — everything we can learn in natural science, in political science of civilization, in history, in mathematics and all other sciences can never be an absolute end. We can never come to a true insight into the depths of the world, if we consider them as ends in themselves. Only if we are at all times ready to absorb them and regard them as means, which we offer as a bridge to let us cross over, do we come to real knowledge. We bar ourselves off from the higher, true knowledge unless we are also ready to sacrifice ourselves. Man will get an idea of what initiation is only when he ceases to carve for himself a world-conception out of external-physical concepts. He must be all feeling, with all-attuned soul, such a soul as Goethe describes in his ‘Westöstlichen Divan’ as the highest acquisition of man: ‘And so long thou hast not this, Death and Birth! Thou art but a sorry guest, on this dark Earth.’ Death and Birth! Learn to know what life can offer, go through with it, but surpass, transcend yourself. Let it become a bridge for you, and you will wake up in a higher life and be one with the essence of things, when you no longer live in the illusion that, cut off from the higher ego, you can exhaust the essence of things. When Goethe speaks of the sacrifice of the idea and the soul-material, in order to acquire new life in higher spheres, and of the deepest inner love, he likes to think of the words of the mystic Jacob Böhme, who knows from experience this self-surrender of the Snake. Perhaps Jacob Böhme has pointed out just this to him and made it so clear to him that a man can live, even in the physical body, in a world which otherwise he would tread only after death, in the world of the eternal, the spiritual. Jacob Böhme knew also that it depends on the man, whether he can, in the higher sense, slide over into the spiritual world. He shows it in the saying: ‘Who dies not before he dies, is ruined when he dies.’ A significant saying! Man, who does not die before he dies, that is, who does not develop in himself the eternal, the inner kernel of being, will not be in a position, when he dies, to find again the spiritual kernel in himself. The eternal is in us. We must develop it in the body, so that we may find it outside the body. ‘Who dies not before he dies, is ruined when he dies.’ So it is also with the other sentence: ‘And so death is the root of all life.’ Thus we see that the things of the soul can only illumine a place where light already is: the Lamp of the Old Man can only shine where there is already light. Once more our attention is directed to those special soul-powers, of devotion and religious self-surrender, which for hundreds and thousands of years have brought the message of spiritual worlds to those who could not seek the light by way of Science or otherwise. The light of the different religious revelations is represented in the Old Man, who has this light. But to him who does not bring an inner light to meet the sense of religion, the Lamp of Religion gives no light. It can shine only where light already is and meets it. It is the Lamp which has transfigured man, which has led all mortality across to a life of soul. And then we see that the two Kingdoms are united through the Snake's sacrifice. After it goes, so to say, through incidents symbolic of what man has to go through in his higher development in an esoteric sense, we see how the Temple of Knowledge is brought by means of all the three human soul-powers across the river, how it rises and each soul-power performs its service. This is meant to show that the soul-powers must be in harmony, since we are told: the single personality can achieve nothing; but when all work together at a favourable moment, when the strong and the weak co-operate in the right relationship, then the soul can acquire the ability to reach the highest state, the union with the Beautiful Lily. Then the Temple moves out of the hidden crevices up to the surface for all who strive in truth after knowledge and wisdom. The Youth is endowed with the knowledge-powers of thought by the Golden King: ‘Know and recognize the highest.’ He is endowed with the knowledge-powers of feeling by the Silver King, which Goethe expresses beautifully with the words: ‘Tend the sheep!’ In feeling are rooted art and religion, and for Goethe both were a unity — already at the time when he wrote on his Italian journey concerning Italy's works of art: ‘There is necessity, there is God!’ But there is also the doing — when man does not apply it to the struggle for existence, but when he makes it into a weapon for gaining beauty and wisdom. This is contained in the words spoken by the Brazen King to the Youth: ‘The Sword in the left hand, the right free!’ There is a whole world in these words. The right hand free to work the self out of human nature. And what happens with the Fourth King, in whom all three elements are mingled together? This mixed King melts into a grotesque figure. The Will-o'-the-Wisps come and lick what gold there is off him: man's soul-powers here still want to examine what sort of stages of human development, now overcome, there once were. Let us take yet another feature: namely, when the Giant comes staggering in and then stands there like a statue, pointing to the hours: when man has brought his life into harmony, then the subordinate has a meaning for what is intended to be methodical order. It ought to express itself like a habit. The unconscious itself will then receive a valuable meaning. Hence the Giant is depicted like a clock. The Old Man with the Lamp is married to the Old Woman. This Old Woman represents to us nothing else but the healthy, understanding human soul-power, which does not penetrate into high regions of spiritual abstractions, but which handles everything healthily and practically, as, for instance, in religion, represented by the Old Man with the Lamp. She is the one to bring the Ferryman his pay: three heads of cabbage, three onions and three artichokes. Such a stage of development has not passed beyond the contemporary. That she is so treated by the Will-o'-the-Wisps is no doubt a reflected picture of how abstract minds look down with a certain amount of scorn on people who take things in directly by instinct or intuition. Every point, every turn of this story is of deep significance, and if we enter into one more explanation, it must be of an esoteric kind, and you will find that one can really only give the method of explanation. Bury yourselves in the story, and you will discover that a whole world is to be found there, very much more than it has been possible to indicate to-day. I should like to show you in two examples how much Goethe's spiritual world-view runs through his whole life, how in things of spiritual knowledge he stands in agreement in extreme old age with what he had written earlier. While Goethe wrote ‘Faust’ he adopted a certain attitude which harks back to a symbol of a deeper evolution-path of nature. When Faust speaks of his father, who was an alchemist, and had taken over the old doctrines credulously, but had misunderstood them, he says that his father also made ‘... a Lion red, a wooer daring, Within the Lily's tepid bath espoused.’ Faust I , Scene II, p. 32. That is what Faust says, without knowing its significance. But such a saying can become a ladder leading to high stages of development. In the Fairy Tale Goethe shows in the Youth the human being striving for the highest bride, and that with which he is to be united he calls the Beautiful Lily. You notice this Lily is to be found already in the first parts of ‘Faust.’ And, again, the very nerve of Goethe's philosophy which found expression in his Fairy Tale, is to be found also in ‘Faust:’ in Part II, in the Mystic Chorus, where Faust confronts the entry into the spiritual world, where Goethe sets down his avowal of a spiritual world-conception in monumental words. He shows there how the ascent on the road of knowledge follows in three successive stages, namely, the purification of the thought, the illumination of feeling and the working out of will. What man attains through the purification of the thought leads him to recognize the spiritual behind everything. The physical becomes a symbol of the spiritual. He goes deeper still, in order to grasp what is unattainable to thought. He then reaches a state at which he no longer regards things by means of thought, but is directed into the thing itself, where the essence of it, and what one cannot describe become accomplished fact. And that which one cannot describe, that which, as you will hear in the course of the winter addresses, must be thought of in another way, that whereby one must advance to the secrets of the will, he labels simply ‘the indescribable.’ When man has completed the threefold road through thought, feeling and will, he is united with what is called ‘eternal womanhood’ in the Chorus Mysticus, the goal of the human soul's development, the ‘Beautiful Lily’ of the Fairy Tale. Thus we see that Goethe utters his deepest conviction, his secret revelation there also, where he brings his great confessional poem to an end, after rising up through thought and feeling and will to union with the Beautiful Lily, up to that state which finds its expression in the passage of the Chorus Mysticus, which expresses the same thing as Goethe's philosophy and spiritual science, as well as the Fairy Tale: ‘All things transitory But as symbols are sent: Earth's insufficiency Here grows to Event: The Indescribable, Here it is done: The Woman-Soul leadeth us Upward and on!’

Goethe's Secret Revelation

Goethe's Secret Revelation: Esoteric

https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA057/English/TP1980/19081024p01.html

Berlin

24 Oct 1908

GA057-3

There is in our culture certainly no document that has intervened so deeply and so intensively in the whole spiritual life as the Bible. One would have to write a history, not of centuries, but of millennia if one wanted to describe the effect of the Bible on humankind. If one completely wanted to refrain from the influence of this document on the mainstream, one would still find something immeasurable in the Bible concerning the influence and the deep effects on the human soul. Certainly, one may say that just our modern time presents exceptionally many things, because one could show that today not only those who stand on the ground of the Bible are deeply influenced by this human document, but also that those who have turned away from the Bible are subject to its influence. For the Bible is really not only a document, although it is it in the most particular measure, because it fulfils the soul with a sum of images about the world and life giving the soul a worldview, but the Bible was, for millennia, an enormous means of education of the souls. It has meant something not only to the imagination, and means something to it even today, but it is maybe important and more essential what we must regard as an effect on the emotional life, on the ways of thinking. There we must often admit today that the Bible only developed the emotions, the sensations of those who combat the Bible. But who looks around only a little at the spiritual life of humankind, in particular at that of our western humankind and that which is connected with it, that will note what an immense reversal has taken place concerning the position of humankind or, at least, of a big part of humankind to the Bible. Those who stand still firmly on the ground of the Bible today could maybe think too little of that to which is pointed with it. They could say, even if there may be some people who turn away from the Bible who state that the Bible can no longer be that for humankind what it was for millennia, it is presumably only a temporary phenomenon. We believe in the Bible; whatever the gentlemen say who believe to stand on the ground of science, it may seem to them fantastic — we rely on the Bible! One could find this judgment among certain personalities very much common, and it is only a matter of course. For someone who is still able to take the happiness, the certainty and the strength of his soul from the Bible cannot put enough in the balance according to his character against those phenomena that exist around him as criticism and refusal of the Bible. However, such a judgment would be rather careless. It would be even selfish in a certain way, for the human being — if he pronounces such a judgment — says to himself: the Bible gives me this or that; whether it gives the same to other human beings, I do not care about. — Such a human being does not pay attention to the fact that humankind is a whole. What single human beings experience, think and feel at first flows down into the whole humankind and becomes common property. Somebody who says, I do not want to hear what the critics and the scholars say about the Bible today, I do not care about it judges only for himself. He does not remember whether also his descendants, whether those human beings who follow him can have the chance to gain such a satisfaction from this document if criticism and science are about to take this document away from humankind. The power of the authorities who are involved in the life of this document is big and strong. It means, actually, to act blind and deaf towards that which goes forward round one if one wants to start only from the just characterised point of view of naive faith, undeterred faith. Today one has to hear what can shake the respect and the meaning of this human document with our fellow men. The shock, the radical changes that took place in the course of the last centuries with reference to this document are enormous. Still a few centuries ago, the Bible was believed to be something that enjoyed unconditional authority; it was believed to be of higher divine origin. This belief, this assumption is shaken long-since and will be shaken more and more by always new reasons. At first, neither our modern science nor the present natural sciences turned against the old view of the Bible. Already more than hundred years ago, the more materialistic way of thinking — we are allowed to use the expression, because we have often explained it here — considered the Bible from the purely external point of view. We speak about the Old Testament first. For centuries, it was believed to be — like the New Testament — an inspiration of higher powers. It was believed to be written out of a consciousness that could rise to a sphere of truth to which the sensuous consciousness could not rise. The first to shake this belief in the fact that the Bible was written out of a higher human consciousness, that it is due to another authority than to any authority of a human writer was that one said to oneself: if one reads the Bible, it turns out that it is no uniform document. In the eighteenth century, the French doctor Astruc (Jean A., 1684–1766) wrote, one says, the human beings would have written under the influence of higher powers the chapters of the Bible that we call the history of creation by Moses. However, we read the creation story and find that single parts are not in accordance with each other; we find stylistic and objective contradictions. Hence, we must suppose that not a single author, Moses or anybody else, wrote this document, because somebody who describes the conditions successively as a single person would not bring in inner contradictions. I can only outline all these contradictions: old documents would be taken from different sides and combined by various authors. These were the first objections against the Bible. We want now to characterise the spirit of this kind of opposition against the spiritual origin of the Bible, apart from that how the things happened. One sees there how immediately in the beginning in tremendous, overpowering pictures the creation is unrolled. In them, the so-called Six-Day Work is told. One tells further on how within this creation the human being originated, how he came to the sin, how he developed from generation to generation. There one notes that in the first parts, in the first verses, a name is chosen for the divine powers, for God, different from the fourth verse of the second chapter on. One sees there that really these two names of the divine alternate, the Elohim and Yahveh or Jehovah. There somebody must ask himself, should an author have called the divine with two different names? Where from this may come? He says to himself that that or those who put together the document finally found old traditions or also old documents which they interlinked and formed a whole from them. The one may come from this tribe, the other from that tribe, and one interlinked them. This one makes itself noticeable. Starting from this one notes, going on, that similar and other contradictions appear. Thus, one got around to separating and tearing the original documents in different pieces. If today anybody wanted to put together a Bible from the different pieces and fragments from which one thought that it must be composed, if anybody printed with blue letters everything that one counts among one document, with red letters what among a second, with green letters what among a third and so on, then a strange document would originate. However, it has already come about — the so-called Rainbow Bible! The ancient, venerable document is there, one would like to say, disassembled in the single pieces from which it should be composed. The Bible is, of course, a document of which one believes, however, to be able to prove that it is due not to Moses, but that parts of it originate from this or that clerical council in relatively late time. Other parts of the Bible are put together from legends and myths that one gathered from here and there from religious views of this or that school. What became a whole this way cannot be believed to be something that was brought into history with a raised human consciousness that is able to behold into the spiritual worlds. However, nobody is allowed to believe that these both talks, which I have to hold today and on Saturday, are intended to lower any way the diligence and the sedulity of the works just only briefly outlined. To somebody who knows the spiritual means that was used to tear the Bible to small pieces and to explain them, the diligence and the sedulity and the skill of the researchers of all these works become apparent. They appear to him as the most tremendous that was maybe performed in science. In relation to the formal, in relation to the industrious research one cannot find anything comparable. If we look closely at the result of this research performed by modern theologists, so just from those, who due to their profession believe to stand on the ground of Christianity, we must say to ourselves, it must cause another relation to the Bible as it was for centuries. If this research comes to fruition, the Bible — many things had to be discussed to reason it in detail — cannot longer exist as the document that comforts and raises the human beings in the saddest problems of life. Apart from that, numerous human beings have looked around in the fields of scientific research, in geology, in the developmental history of animals and plants, in the history of civilisation, in anthropology and so on. These human beings are hardly able to conceive anything reading the Bible. One has to be also fair in this respect and not position oneself simply on the ground of naive faith and say that this signifies nothing. They are often those who are the most conscientious ones in their feeling of truth, in their thirst for knowledge. They say to themselves, I see that research standing on firm ground has found That the earth developed throughout geologic periods, That the earth developed from a mist of higher temperature to the present form, That the inanimate develops and from this inanimate the living being, That everything developed from the simple up to the most complex being, the human being, That the forms of civilisation ascended to the modern complex forms. Numerous human beings say, if we see which tremendous geological periods were necessary to receive the earth when it had not yet produced amphibians nor mammals, if we survey all that and open ourselves to that, what shall we to do if the Bible tells us that the world was created within six or seven days? We have no use neither for the creation in six or seven days nor for anything else. Which use are we able to make of the Flood, of the miraculous rescue of Noah if we read that Noah brought so many animals in the ark, and so on? — Thus, it happens that some human beings gifted with dignity and serious sense of truth oppose so sharply and vigorously against the Bible based on the modern scientific viewpoint, in so far as it wants to extent to a worldview. All that exists in our worldview. We are not able to deny all that. However, there the question arises: does one take all things really into consideration that are to be taken into consideration in relation to the Bible if either the first viewpoint, the historical one, or the second, the physical-historical view is asserted? There one has to say that already the third viewpoint exists in relation to the Bible, a viewpoint that develops from that real research method and human viewpoint that is characterised in these talks as the spiritual-scientific or anthroposophic one. We have to deal with this viewpoint in relation to the Bible today and the day after tomorrow. What a viewpoint is this? One often says today, the human being is not allowed to rely on external authority, he has to approach world and life without presuppositions and to investigate truth, and one believes to insult just the Bible if one takes up such a viewpoint. Does one really insult the Bible with it? One can compare the spiritual-scientific or anthroposophic viewpoint to something that happened to humanity concerning something else, even if less significant, some centuries ago. We come to an understanding of the spiritual-scientific viewpoint concerning the Bible the easiest, if we compare it with the radical changes in relation to the view of the earth. There we see that all schools, the lower and the higher ones, taught about the external nature in the whole Middle Ages following up old writings, indeed, writings of a great personality, of the old Greek philosopher and naturalist Aristotle. Thus, if you could go back with me to the sites of the spiritual life of the older time, you would find that that was not communicated in the old schools and training centres which was found in laboratories, but which was printed in the books by Aristotle. Aristotle was the authority and his books were the Bible of the natural sciences at that time. Where one only communicated and taught what Aristotle had already said about the matters. Now the times came when a new aurora arose concerning the view of nature, the new way of the physical view of Copernicus, Kepler and Galilei and all the others up to now. What was the basic feature of this aurora? While one had taken before Aristotle as a firm starting point, and spoke about nature as he had spoken, now Copernicus, Kepler and Galilei used their own senses of observation and research. They themselves looked at nature and investigated what life could show them. Thus, they wanted to describe and explain nature according to that which they themselves had seen. There they came into conflict with the teachings of Aristotle's strict believers. It is more than a mere anecdote, it means the deep truth of a process that happened at that time: one tells that a believer of Aristotle was asked to have a look at a corpse and to observe that it is not right that the nerves go out from the heart — as Aristotle teaches — but from the brain. The believer of Aristotle was persuaded to look at this. Then, however, he said, if I look at this, it seems that nature contradicts Aristotle. However, if nature contradicts Aristotle, I do not trust nature but Aristotle. — Natural sciences faced tradition that way. The view of the researcher was rejected in the light of that which was reproduced and repeated as tradition for centuries. If we read Giordano Bruno's writings, we see the opposition against Aristotle out of the new spirit that tells and explains what the human being himself should see. We look at the whole matter again differently today. We face the immediate scientific observation and Aristotle differently. We know that a lot of that which was read out from him in the Middle Ages was only an ambiguous interpretation of his writings. Aristotle was a researcher out of the spirit of his time who looked immediately into nature and communicated what he was able to say. If we understand Aristotle correctly, if we can defer to what he said, then he does no longer seem to contradict the immediate scientific observation, as he seemed to contradict at that time. Then we can become his admirers again, because just concerning the origin of the nerves from the heart instead of from the brain, it becomes apparent that he meant something else, namely something that is still correct for our time. In a quite similar way, the spiritual-scientific research faces not only these documents — the writings by Aristotle — but also the western original document, the Bible. What has happened in relation to the observation and investigation of the external nature since the sixteenth century takes place again in relation to the investigation of the spiritual undergrounds of the world. Out of the spirit of that research, I have characterised in the last three talks, how humankind tries to penetrate again into those worlds that are not discernible by the outer senses. However, they are discernible to the higher developed senses of the human being, to the spiritual senses of the human being with which we can behold also in the spiritual world as we can see with the physical senses in the physical world. It is not necessary to keep on explaining because I have often enough said that the human being is able to develop the forces in himself that he can perceive not only the sensuous things, but that he can perceive a spiritual world between and behind the sensuous, a spiritual world that is much more real than the sensuous world. With good reason, humankind had forgotten the methods of spiritual research for a while. The big progress, the big conquests in the physical world were done because the instruments were perfected in such a way, as it was the case during the last centuries. However, if one thing extends in the human nature, other abilities take a backseat. That is why we see how during the last centuries the scientific methods blossomed for the external physical world of facts. Never were instruments that are more stupendous invented to pick up the secrets of nature and to investigate her principles. The concerning abilities were extended and perfected tremendously, but those abilities have withdrawn with which the human being is able to behold into in the spiritual world. Hence, it is not surprising that the human being was convinced that the spiritual could also be explained from the material existence. However, we stand before the dawn of an epoch today when humankind becomes aware again that there are still instruments and tools different from those in the physical and physiological laboratory where they are used so excellently. Indeed, we have to do it with an instrument that differs thoroughly from the other. We deal with the basic and original instrument that we have to see in the human being himself. We get to know the human being by the methods of concentration and meditation in the course of the winter. These are other methods that the human being can apply to his soul and by which he gets around to seeing the environment unlike he has seen it before. He can get around to saying to himself: I am like an operated blind-born who could deny the colours and the light of the world before. — However, the moment had now come that he himself could see. Now he could see that something else is behind that which the senses and the mind perceive. Now he sees into the spiritual things; now he does not know, not hypothetically, by speculative philosophy that the sensuous, the material is only like a compression of the spiritual, that that which we see with the senses relates to something spiritual behind it as ice relates to water. The water is thin, the ice is solid, and somebody who is not able to see the water, but can see the ice would say, there is nothing round the ice. — Somebody, who can see only with the senses, states that there is nothing but sensuous processes, nothing but sensuous events everywhere. However, we must penetrate into this supersensible field, into these supersensible events, and then we can recognise and explain the spiritual. Who has not developed spiritual ears and eyes sees nothing but compression — like the ice in the water — all over the world, as well as the primordial mother of substance, the spiritual in which the sensuous is only embedded does not appear to him. If the geologist shows us how, for example, a human being could sit on a chair in the universe and could watch how the world has developed: the external sensuous view would be as the natural sciences describe it. Spiritual science has to object nothing to that which natural sciences have to say in the positive sense. However, it becomes apparent to someone who is in the right know of the physical science that before the first forming of the physical the spiritual was there. There it becomes apparent how the progress became only possible because the spiritual helped, and that the spirit is mostly involved in the development. So this spiritual worldview points to the fact that the human being can make himself the instrument of the investigation of the important bases of the world, and, finally, our view gets around to investigating the spiritual original grounds and beginnings independently. Thus, spiritual science stands there, independently of any document. It says, we do not do research in a document first. We do not do research as it was done once, in the books by Aristotle, we do research in the spiritual world. We adapt ourselves in such a way: what you learn as usual school geometry, the Euclidean geometry, was written down in its first beginnings by Euclid, the great mathematician. Today we can accept it as a document and understand it historically. However, who learns geometry at school today, is he still learning after the elementary book of Euclid? One works, learns, and recognises by the things themselves. If one constructs, for example, a triangle, the internal lawfulness appears to the mind out of the thing itself. Then with that which you have gained in such a way, you can move up to Euclid and recognise what he already wrote in his textbook. Thus, the spiritual scientist does also research, regardless of the books, only with his organs how the world has developed. He finds the development of the world, the development of the earth at that time before the earth crystallised in its present form. He investigates the spiritual processes and finds how at a certain point our mind starts in the earthly existence; he shows that the human being appears first and has not developed from subordinated creatures, but that he was first there as a descendant of spiritual beings. We can go back to former times when still the spiritual primordial grounds existed. We find the human being connected with these spiritual processes, and only later, the lower creatures develop besides the human being. As well as in the development generally certain things remain behind and other advance, the lower also diverted from the higher. The spiritual researcher knows that spiritual organs can be developed by methods that the spiritual researcher is able to show. Thus, the spiritual research teaches the origin and evolution of the world according to principles which are independent of any document, only out of own principles, as well as one learns mathematics regardless how it has developed in the course of history. In the same way as the researcher has appropriated knowledge of this wisdom, he approaches the Bible. He looks at the Bible. It becomes apparent now, why there are contradictions in the Bible from the viewpoint of the historical-critical biblical studies as well as from the viewpoint of scientific research. Both viewpoints come from one big error that originated from the fact that one thought generally to be supposed to understand the truth of the Bible from the viewpoints of physical-sensuous perception. One thought that it is possible to approach the Bible with such criteria. One did not yet have the research results of the anthroposophic spiritual science. I want to show with single examples what I have just said. Spiritual science shows us that we come investigating the earthly creation with the methods of geology et cetera only to a certain point, and that then the human development seems to proceed backwards in the uncertain. Why? The sensuous science, may it hope it ever so much, will never be able to pursue the human being back to the origin, because sensuous science can find the sensuous only. However, the mental and spiritual have led the way of the sensuous in the human being. He was soul first and at even former times, he was spirit, then he descended to the earthly existence. Only as far as the physical life is involved in the descent of the human being in the earthly existence, natural sciences can show this course of development. We cannot investigate the soul life with the usual forces of the sensuous observation. Geology can also be no guide to us. It gives us the investigation of that which remained behind as sense-perceptible matters. It can only say what one would see if anybody sat on a chair in the universe and saw everything that developed on earth. Spiritual science does not defer to this. However, one must have developed spiritual eyes and ears to see the human being as a spiritual being in primeval times. If one does not have these organs, the soul and the spirit of the human being disappear. However, if one has the spiritual eyes, the sensuous disappears, and the spiritual picture originates. One cannot see this, however, in the same way as the sensuous. One must appropriate quite different concepts of knowledge if one wants to go back to such primeval times. What one sees developing there from the human being when it was only a soul does not appear in sensuous concrete perception as the external sensuous world offers it. This appears to us as pictures. Our consciousness becomes a picture consciousness, an imaginative consciousness by the development of the internal forces of the soul. Then the consciousness is filled with pictures. We see in another condition of consciousness, what has happened at that time, now in pictures. Pictorial is that which goes forward inside of the seer. The rudiment that still exists of the seer's gift is the dream. However, it is chaotic. The vision of the qualified seer also exists in such pictures, but these pictures correspond to reality. It corresponds to the condition as the physical-sensuous human being can make a distinction whether his mental images correspond to reality or are only fantasy. Who wants to stop with the sentence: “The world is my mental image” and “the external things only stimulate the mental image,” to that I might propose that he should have a piece of glowing iron in his nearness and feel how it burns. Then he has to leave it and feel whether the mere mental picture still burns in such a way. There is just something that makes a distinction between the mere mental picture and that perception that is stimulated by the external object. Hence, one is not allowed to say that the seer lives only in the phantasms. He has just so developed in this field that he can make a distinction what is a mere speculative fiction, or what is a picture of the reality of a spiritual-mental world. The pictures become the means of expression of a spiritual-mental world. If the seer looks with supersensible senses back at times, before there are sensuous objects, the true spiritual beings and events present themselves. The spiritual researcher speaks not about forces that are abstractions, but about real beings. As to him, the spiritual phenomena become truth and beings, and the spiritual world becomes populated again by spiritual beings. Imagine the primeval development of the human being when a force or being intervened in his evolution, in his whole figure that this being or force differs certainly from other beings who have intervened even earlier. We can trace back the spiritual-mental of the human being who is quite supersensible even further; we can trace back it in even higher spheres where we find even higher beings. If the spiritual researcher approaches the beginning of the Bible, it becomes apparent to him that the pictures are exactly given which show the mental-spiritual in the development of the human being, before he has come into the physical life. The spiritual researcher is able to say to himself — if he finds his own imaginations again in the external documents — that he recognises them as truth. If he goes back now to the times when the human being was connected with the even higher spheres, he has to choose another name for these basic beings, and he finds really that the passages which lead the way of the fourth verse of the second chapter have another name of God. It complies exactly with the results of spiritual research that a new name of God appears from the fourth verse of the second chapter on. Thus, we are as spiritual researcher in the same position in which today an expert of geometry is. He can find geometry out of himself, and then he appreciates the work of Euclid who found the same. Thus, we see the development in the marvellous pictures of the Old Testament, and now something extremely strange appears. The text of the Bible becomes light and clear, as it could not become with the scientific critics. A researcher said: what the elohim did must be due to a side different from that which comes from Yahveh If anyone wants to apply that seriously, it is weird. We want to try it. Imagine this passage in the Bible: “The serpent which was the most cunning of all creatures the LORD God had made asked the woman: Is it true that God has forbidden you to eat from any tree of the garden (Genesis 3:1)?” If you read “God” instead of “Elohim” or “Yahveh,” it is not translated correctly. It is weird. In the original text you read, “The serpent which was the most cunning of all creatures Yahveh had made.” Where you read, “Is it true that God has forbidden you ... you read “Elohim” in the original text. In the translation, the woman keeps on saying “God.” Then in the eighth verse, one says, “The man and the woman heard the voice of the LORD God.” However, you read in the original text, the voice of the Yahveh God. — Thus, we have now put together the story of the serpent, so that it becomes explicable that those who used the names “Yahveh” or “Elohim” meant different beings. According to the opinion of the Bible critics, this comes from different traditions. The passage “Is it true that God has forbidden you to eat from any tree in the garden?” comes from the Elohim tradition. — You see, the Bible is really so composed of pieces that even in the middle of the sentences the different traditions are taken together. If you approach the Bible with spiritual-scientific research, then you recognise that this must also be that way. There is talk of the fourth verse of the second chapter that the world creation goes over from the elohim to the Yahveh God. He is that power which unfolds everything that happens then up to the Fall of Man. Spiritual science shows that Yahveh is that God who speaks within the human being in our ego, he is the I-am. This being of the I-am causes everything that is said from the fourth verse of the second chapter on. This being, Yahveh, who intervenes now, is a being who belongs to a former development, but seceded ... (gap in the transcript). Hence, there is talk of the Yahveh God. However, the serpent knows nothing about Yahveh; therefore, it must turn to that which is of its own substance, up to the moment when this takes place which has just to take place by Yahveh. Only in the eighth verse of the third chapter, the name Yahveh appears again. Thus, you get the consciousness by spiritual research that the Bible is a document in which nothing is accidental. A modern author may ask himself, why should this God not assume another name? — The ancient initiates do not have these stylistic forms of the modern authors. Where exactly and precisely should be spoken, you cannot talk in any stylistic form. What there is written and what there is omitted has its meaning. If the name Yahveh appears and if it is omitted, this means something highly essential. However, you must carry out the principle to read the Bible extremely exactly. Read the Bible if you have it! Read the Six-Day Work. You find the passage, if you keep on reading from the first verse of the second chapter to the Sabbath, “When the LORD God made the earth and the heavens...” One interprets these verses normally as a hint to the preceding, as if the Seven-Day Work had been told and one still said now, the Seven-Day work was made in such a way. — “This is the story of the heavens and of the earth after their creation,” and then, “When the Lord God made the earth and the heavens” (Genesis 2:4). Who studies the original text, detects the following: The fourth verse of the second chapter does not refer to the preceding, but to the following; even as later — in the chapter after the Fall of Man — “This is the list of Adam's descendants” (Genesis 5:1) refers to the following, to the next generations, to that which originated from Adam. This is said in the same way as: which follows there, “This is the story of the heavens and the earth after their creation” (Genesis 2:4). Here the same Hebrew word is used. Someone who reads exactly knows that the creation of the spiritual world is described from the words “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” to the third verse of the second chapter. Then from the fourth verse of the second chapter on it is said: after the heavens and the earth were created the following is described. It is the most wonderful transition if one understands the matter, from the Six-Day Work to the following. Who gets involved in these matters finds that no better composed book exists than the Bible, in particular its oldest parts. The confidence that one is able to approach the Bible without spiritual research, that one is able to approach it with external documents has dissolved this perfect and harmonious work, so that it seems to be composed of nothing but pieces and fragments. One also has to follow up on the principle to read the Bible exactly and to have it. One does not have the Bible if one has only the text that suggests what it depends on. One must have the principle to go into the Bible. It is told to us during the fourth day of the Six-Day Work how the sun and moon originate, how the sun and moon cause day and night (Genesis 1:14–18). Already before, however, it was spoken in the Bible of day and night (Genesis 1, 5). One can deduce from that: day and night, which depend on the sun and moon (Genesis 1: 14–18), cannot be meant with “day” and “night,” which do not depend on the sun and moon (Genesis 1: 5). Here one can see a palpable tip where the Bible speaks of the sensuous solar day and the sensuous solar night. These originate due to the rotation of the earth around the sun. However, we can see, where the Bible points beyond this sensuous day to the supersensible, the spiritual. Those who could investigate the Bible spiritually said always to themselves if anyone has the visionary gift and can find the sense of the Bible in reality, this sense of the Bible must have come also from visionary gift. If we are able — because our soul has put itself in another state of consciousness — to look into the tremendous pictures of the Bible, then we know that the writer must also have been under the inspiration of the spiritual world. We may probably say: the time begins when one should understand more and more that there are four levels to look at the Bible today. The first level is that of naive faith. It takes the Bible with undeterred certainty and anticipates nothing of the objections that are made against the Bible today. The second level: these are the clever people, the Bible critics, who find — either by investigating internal contradictions or by the scientific point of view — that the Bible was the primitive legend work of a humankind not yet doing research. They are way beyond the Bible, they do no longer need it, and they attack it from the most different directions and say: it was good for the childish humankind. Now, however, humankind has outgrown the Bible. — These are the clever ones, the freethinkers. Then there is the third level: the human being outgrows this cleverness. Indeed, the human beings of this level are also freethinkers, but they are way beyond this second point of view; they see symbolic and mythical covers of inner soul experiences in the stories of the Bible — the Old and the New Testaments. You see what the human soul imagines shown in the Bible in symbols in the abstract. Some freethinkers have been forced to this attitude. They had to transform the viewpoint of the freethinker into that of the mythical symbolist. Then there is the fourth point of view. This is that of spiritual science I have characterised today. The day after tomorrow we follow up on this spiritual-scientific viewpoint. It shows the spiritual facts again in simple descriptions, indeed, in such a way as one can see these spiritual facts in imaginations. These are the facts that are described in the Bible. Someone who had to leave the naive viewpoint and has become a clever person or maybe a symbolist as researcher may get to the viewpoint on which the spiritual researcher stands, and then he can become able to take the Bible again literally, to take the words literally in a new sense to understand them really. For centuries, one did not criticise the Bible in reality. The Bible critics have fought against their own imaginary creation, against that which they themselves have made of the Bible. The adversaries of the Bible are such even today; they fight against their own imaginary relation, against that which they believe to understand of it; they do not affect the Bible at all. The Bible can be taken literally, one must only understand the words correctly. There is a certain tendency today that turns against such a remark: not the letter, the spirit must decide. “The letter kills, the spirit brings back to life,,” and you name it from certain relations of the letters. I wish we could bring the real Bible letter of the world again as soon as possible. The world would be surprised about the contents of the original text. As something completely new, it will appear to humankind. One is not allowed to peddle the saying around: the letter kills, the spirit brings back to life. It is usually the gentlemen's own spirit that is reflected in the letters (Faust I, v. 578–579) . That applies to the symbolist in particular. If he is trivial, he puts something trivial into the symbols; if he is witty, he puts something witty into the symbols. It is with this word like with Goethe's words: And so long as you don't have it, this: “Die and be transformed!” you will only be a gloomy guest on the dark earth. These words suggest how the human being should come beyond the sensuous view, generally beyond the usual nature. Who would take these words as an instruction to neglect the physical has ignored that the spirit develops bit by bit from the physical. That also applies to the letter and the spirit. You must have the letter first, then you can decipher it, and then you find which the spirit is. Indeed, the letter kills, but it creates the spirit at its death, and this saying corresponds to the other: who does not have it, this “die and be transformed” remains only a gloomy guest on the dark earth. I could draw your attention only to the criticism of the Bible and to the viewpoints, which spiritual science takes towards the Bible. From the few indications I have given today, you may guess that by the work of spiritual science something like a recapture of the Bible can take place. Spiritual science shall find wisdom, independently from the Bible. However, spiritual science comes and recognises then what flowed into this Bible, and then one experiences what many have experienced out of spiritual science towards the Bible. Some things could elevate them, but the most do no longer make sense to them. Only with the help of spiritual science, the human beings understand what is said with this or that in the Bible. However, there are still other contestable passages, and one comes to the viewpoint to say, in the Bible are passages that contain deep spiritual truth, but something flowed into it that was integrated as something inorganic. — If you go on, you discover something again, and you notice that it was due to you yourselves that you were not far enough to understand the matter. You reach the point to say to yourselves, where I have believed once that the sense of the Bible cannot be maintained compared with science, there I see now: I understand the one that I have to consider the Bible with trust and admiration; I do just not yet understand the other. However, the time comes when I understand it, and I find the viewpoint where I can look into it. Spiritual science leads to the right appreciation of the Bible. We have spoken about the beginning of the Bible, about the creation from the spiritual-scientific viewpoint. The biblical studies have to go through a crisis. The investigations of spiritual science are coming up to meet them, and in new figure the old light of the Bible shines again to humankind in the future. ˂˂ Previous Table of Contents Next >> These words suggest how the human being should come beyond the sensuous view, generally beyond the usual nature. Who would take these words as an instruction to neglect the physical has ignored that the spirit develops bit by bit from the physical. That also applies to the letter and the spirit. You must have the letter first, then you can decipher it, and then you find which the spirit is. Indeed, the letter kills, but it creates the spirit at its death, and this saying corresponds to the other: who does not have it, this “die and be transformed” remains only a gloomy guest on the dark earth. I could draw your attention only to the criticism of the Bible and to the viewpoints, which spiritual science takes towards the Bible. From the few indications I have given today, you may guess that by the work of spiritual science something like a recapture of the Bible can take place. Spiritual science shall find wisdom, independently from the Bible. However, spiritual science comes and recognises then what flowed into this Bible, and then one experiences what many have experienced out of spiritual science towards the Bible. Some things could elevate them, but the most do no longer make sense to them. Only with the help of spiritual science, the human beings understand what is said with this or that in the Bible. However, there are still other contestable passages, and one comes to the viewpoint to say, in the Bible are passages that contain deep spiritual truth, but something flowed into it that was integrated as something inorganic. — If you go on, you discover something again, and you notice that it was due to you yourselves that you were not far enough to understand the matter. You reach the point to say to yourselves, where I have believed once that the sense of the Bible cannot be maintained compared with science, there I see now: I understand the one that I have to consider the Bible with trust and admiration; I do just not yet understand the other. However, the time comes when I understand it, and I find the viewpoint where I can look into it. Spiritual science leads to the right appreciation of the Bible. We have spoken about the beginning of the Bible, about the creation from the spiritual-scientific viewpoint. The biblical studies have to go through a crisis. The investigations of spiritual science are coming up to meet them, and in new figure the old light of the Bible shines again to humankind in the future.

The Bible and Wisdom

https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA057/English/eLib2014/19081112p01.html

Berlin

12 Nov 1908

GA057-4

The last talk should suggest with a few lines that spiritual science can investigate the deeper profundities and the truth of the biblical documents and that it can read that in the right sense again which is written in this document. With some simple lines should be shown how concerning the Bible such a right penetration is possible into the deeper sense of the Bible in a quite unexpected way and how it can lead many human beings to a recapture of this document of humankind. What could be said in the last talk about the position of our newer time, about its research, its criticism, its worldview compared with the Old Testament someone can also say concerning the New Testament. In addition, here we are able again to point to the fact that in the seventeenth, eighteenth centuries a criticism started which has analysed and cut the Gospel to pieces, a document of such an immense significance for countless human beings for centuries, and attacked its bases. One would have to tell a long story if one paid attention to this biblical criticism of the New Testament in detail. How could it be different, because since that time, after the invention of the art of printing, the Bible has come to all hands, and with it, the materialistic thinking got out of control! How could it happen other than that people recognised clearer and clearer that there are contradictions in the Gospels? For example, you need only compare the genealogies of Jesus in the Matthew Gospel and the Luke Gospel, if one adheres to the external letter of the matter, and you find that already the first chapters of both Gospels are contradictory. Not only that Luke and Matthew differently give the ancestors; also, the names do not comply. If you compare the single facts of the life of Jesus, you can find contradictions everywhere. In particular, people realise how extremely the first three evangelists, the writers of the Matthew, Mark, and Luke Gospels, on one side, and the writer of the fourth so-called John Gospel, on the other side, contradict. The result was that one tried to produce an accordance of the first three Gospels in a certain way. One believed to find that these three evangelists — even if they differ from each other in many details — give a picture of Jesus which is attractive to the whole view and to all ways of thinking of a newer time, at least to many personalities of our time. However, many people realised long-since concerning the fourth evangelist that there cannot be talk of a historical document at all. Not only that the writer of the John Gospel, who completely brings the facts differently grouped, above all, concerning the miracles that he describes quite differently; it also becomes apparent that his whole standpoint towards the centre of the whole world history is different. This sight has developed more and more. If we want — we cannot go into the details — to turn again to the sense of this research, it is approximately this that one says that the three Gospels could give the image of the superior Jesus, the founder of the Gospel, if one considers them as portrayals of the brilliant time. The fourth Gospel is a confessional document, a kind of hymn of that which the writer wanted to show concerning his faith in the crucified Jesus. He wanted to give no story, but a teaching writing. In particular, in the nineteenth century, this view settled in the souls of numerous people more and more due to the so-called Tübingen School, which the great Bible scholar, the brilliant Ferdinand Christian Baur (1792–1860) led. Baur's view is approximately this: the John Gospel is late; it was written very late whereas the other evangelists wrote earlier, still after certain reports of those who, perhaps, themselves had experienced or come to know it from persons who had witnessed the story in Palestine. However, the John Gospel originated only in the second century. Not from the original story, but influenced by the Greek philosophy and by that which had already appeared in the Christian communities, it were written, so that John created a picture of Christ Jesus, which could uplift the human beings in such a way that it is lyrical in certain ways. It teaches how one began to think and to feel like a Christian up to the second century, however, it was no longer able to inform about the events in the beginning of our era. Indeed, there were also souls who vindicated the opposite viewpoint. If one must say on the other side that Christian Baur and his students proceeded with tremendously critical astuteness, nevertheless, we are not allowed to forget a biblical scholar like the historian and academic Gförer (August Friedrich G., 1803–1861) who asserts that the Gospel is due to the apostle John himself. With diligence he shows how just this Gospel shows almost in each sentence that an eyewitness wrote it or that somebody who had received his message from eyewitnesses wrote it. Gförer goes so far that he says in his Swabian way that anybody who cannot believe in the fact that the Gospel is due to John is out of his mind. He is also out of sorts with those who say that it is not historical and who bear down on this Gospel with all possible arguments. The question that interests here is this: did really research, history cause this view in spite of all astuteness, in spite of all scholarship, which is never denied a moment? — Someone who can thoroughly explore not only the outside of history, but is able to immerse with his thinking and feeling, and with his whole view in the mental undergrounds of human development, notices something else. It was not only the historical sense, it was not only the so-called objective research, but they were the ways of thinking of the newer time, the beloved views that were spread more and more since the last century. They did not accept that the confidence and the ideas of the figure of Christ Jesus survived which prevailed for centuries, that not only a superior being was included in Jesus of Nazareth, but a universal being, a spiritual-divine being that is not only related to the whole humanity but to the whole development of the world generally. The confidence and the idea got lost that this spiritual-divine being worked in the mortal body of Jesus of Nazareth, and that we face a unique event there. This contradicts the ways of thinking so much that they had to be directed against such confidence. The critical research slipped in unconsciously to justify what the habitual ways of thinking wanted for the time being. More and more the sense came up, which could not endure that anything topped the normal human-personal, the sense that says to itself, yes, there have been great human beings in the world evolution: Socrates, Plato, or others. Indeed, we have to admit that Jesus of Nazareth was the greatest. Nevertheless, we must remain within this human level. — The fact that something could have lived in Jesus that one can compare to the normal human being contradicts the materialistic mental images, which settled down more and more. We can see this sense slipping in unconsciously and combining with that which the so-called historical research ascertained. Why did the first three evangelists become more and more the respected ones and the writer of the John Gospel the mere lyricist and confessional writer? Because they could say to themselves, the three evangelists, the Synoptics, describe an ideal human figure that does not top the human level, even if Jesus is an elevated one. It flatters the modern sense if one says what a modern theologian said: if we subtract everything supersensible and spiritual from Jesus of Nazareth, if we take the simple man of Nazareth, we are closest to Jesus. That is not possible with the John Gospel. It immediately begins with the words: “In the beginning the Word already was. The word was in God's presence,” before a material world existed. What there was in the spiritual primeval grounds became flesh; it walked around in Palestine in the beginning of our calendar. — The writer of the John Gospel applies the highest wisdom to understand this event and to bring it to understanding. In view of this matter, it is not appropriate to speak of the simple man of Nazareth. Hence, he was never allowed to deal with a historical document. These are not only scientific reasons, it is the development of the usual thoughts, emotions and sensations which have found their expression in that which the Bible criticism of the New Testament and the historical research claim today to have the unconditional or at least relative authority of these matters. However, there emerges another question from spiritual science. Let us position ourselves really on the ground on which some new researchers have positioned themselves. The ones wanted to portray an event that took place in the beginning of our calendar. They added mythical and legendary aspects. Assume that we positioned ourselves on this ground. There we must ask ourselves, is it yet possible to speak about Christianity as such under these conditions? Is it possible to speak about Christianity if we understand the documents, which tell about this Christianity, purely materialistically? Is it possible to behave towards the whole Bible in such a way? — Two things should be stated at first that prove that the question cannot be put different than it was put, and that it can be answered in outlines. Let us assume that Christian Baur's view is right that something took place in Palestine that one has to explain as the external historical, and that in the course of time the writers delivered that out of the prejudices of their time to the future generations what was in them. Let us assume that we have to presuppose such a research while we believe in the descent of a spiritual being from spiritual spheres that lived in Jesus of Nazareth, resurrected, won the victory of life over death — what we regard as the real essence of the Mystery of Golgotha. One has to break this doctrine, Baur says. One considers this view as a dogmatic one. This view must be cancelled. One has to investigate an event in Palestine like another historical event. Is it then possible to speak generally in the true sense of the word of Christianity, of the Bible as such a work which reports what has to appear? On the other hand, I would like to point to two facts. What is the first big and enclosing effect of the Christian worldview based on, an effect that nobody can deny? What is the sermon of Paul based on? Is it based on the interpretations of the Gospels by a new sober research? Never Paul's strength is based on an announcement of that which is to be exhausted by the means of history. Paul's whole efficacy is based on an event that you can understand only from supersensible, never from sensuous causes. Someone who checks Paul's writings sees that his whole teaching is based simply on the fact that he could win the conviction and the experience that Christ has risen, and that in the Mystery of Golgotha the life in spirit carried off the victory over death. Wherefrom does Paul take his conviction of the true nature of Christ Jesus? He does not take it, as for example the others who were round Christ Jesus, from an immediate instruction. He takes it, as you all know, from the event by Damascus. He takes it from this fact and he could say, I have seen Him who lived, suffered, and died in Palestine, I have seen Him living. — Paul means nothing but that he has seen Christ in spirit and has won the truth from the spiritual view that Christ lives. He announces Christ, whom he got to know in his spiritual view. In addition, he equates this appearance to the other phenomena, because he says to us, after death, Christ appeared to various persons, to the twelve disciples and others, and in the end to me as a mistimed birth. — With it, he thinks that he really beheld Him in a higher view, who carried off the victory over death, and that he knows since that time that Christ lives for someone who rises in the spiritual world. Here we already stand concerning the New Testament where the new spiritual science must separate from any only literal view of the Bible. What do you find as a rule in the writings of the so-called new research about the event of Damascus? Saul became Paul in an ecstatic condition, a condition into which one cannot look really. This escapes from the human research. Yes, it escapes from the external human research. We have emphasised this so often in spiritual science that the human being — what we can learn in the following talks — can ascend to the knowledge of a higher world which is round him in such a way, as the colours and the light are around a blind person. The human being can behold this higher world as the operated blind-born can learn to see colours and light. This takes place by the spiritual-scientific methods in the soul of the true pupil of spiritual science and enables him to behold into the spiritual worlds, to behold what is there. What takes place with this pupil, what every pupil can bear witness today and at all time, that took place with Paul. He received it: to hear with ears which are not sensuous ears to see with eyes, which are not sensuous eyes. Then he could also perceive Him who lived in Jesus of Nazareth. So Paul's whole strength extends into the supersensible realm. If you take the whole Paul as he is, you can say, what he said is set aglow by “Christ was raised. Hence, our faith is not futile” (1 Corinthians 15:17). If one goes just into the effects of Paul's sermons how he spread that form of Christianity, which went through the world, then one can never say, it does not depend on going back to any supersensible facts to investigate the facts about Jesus. One says that one must apply the usual scientific forms. Then one forgets not only the original facts in Palestine not only that which happened during 33 years, but also what happened for the dissemination of Christianity. One forgets that it is based on a supersensible event, and that this supersensible event is to be understood at first. However, in quite similar way we also find if we consider the matters only seriously and really that the Old Testament, at least its most important document, the Law, is based on something similar. We find that the whole mission of Moses, the whole strength of Moses by which he provided big services to his people is also based on a supersensible event. We had to say the day before yesterday that if the spiritual researcher develops higher, so that he becomes sighted in the spiritual world and is able to behold into the spiritual undergrounds of the things that he can survey the facts of the spiritual world in pictures, in imaginations. Yes, you can express the processes, which happen in you if you ascend to the spiritual fields, only in pictures, however, you must get clear that somebody who speaks in such pictures does not want to speak about the pictures as those, but thinks that one has these pictures as expressions of his supersensible experience. The supersensible experience by which Moses got his mission was clearly described in the phenomenon of the burning bush. There we see Moses, the leader of the people, facing his God, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, who issued the order to Moses to act for his people what we find happening then as the action of Moses. While we use this, we already face a basic issue of the whole Bible, namely the question: how have we generally to position ourselves in order to penetrate deeper into this document to these two supersensible facts, which make any merely external research impossible? How have we to behave to this basic issue of the Bible in the spiritual-scientific sense? We can penetrate if we bring the contents of the revelation or the experience of Moses home to ourselves. The most important traits are only cited. Moses faces the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. God gives him the order at the same time to lead the people from Egypt, to increase it to a certain size and to teach it a certain attitude. If then Moses wants to have something by which he can exculpate himself before the people, so that he can say who he is and who sends him, God reveals his name: “I am the I-am.” Nobody can understand the word who is not able to go into the whole sense and the being of old naming. Old naming is unlike the modern naming. Old naming should absolutely express the being of the personality, the being of that who faces us. In “I am the I-am” the being of the God had to express itself in particular who faced Moses, and who calls himself “the Lord the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.” Why does he call himself the Lord the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob? There is a secret hidden behind it, which must be unravelled. We can unravel it only if we move up to it with the help of spiritual science. We have to emphasise it over and over again at various places that the human being consists of the members of his being, that we only face one part of the human being as the physical body, that we have higher members which are supersensible, which are the real bases, the creative principles. We must add the etheric body or life body, then the astral body and as the fourth the bearer of the ego. The human being has the physical body in common with the apparently lifeless beings, with the minerals, the etheric body with the plants and all living beings, the astral body with the animals, which can have passions and desires. Because of the ego, the human being towers above all sensuous beings, which surround him. Spiritual science has always recognized these four members of the human being. We have to point to the physical body that also has its spiritual primal ground and is only condensed from the spiritual. As well as ice originates from water, the physical originated from the spiritual. We must go far back in the view of the spiritual development if we want to look for the first spiritual origins of the physical human body. This fourth member is absolutely the oldest of the human members. Today the physical body is the densest. It emanated from the spirit in the distant past. It has become denser and denser, has experienced some changes, and has thereby taken on its physical figure. This is the oldest in the human being. A younger member is the etheric body or life body. It came later; hence, it is less condensed. The astral body is even younger. The ego is the youngest member, the bearer of the human self-awareness. All these members originated from spiritual primal grounds and spiritual beings, from divine-spiritual beings. We can say, spiritual science shows that this ego, by which the human being became the modern self-conscious being, immersed in the body. It was composed, before he became an ego-being, of the physical, etheric and astral bodies. The Bible also distinguishes those beings now who are the creators of these three human members. The teaching of Moses speaks about the creator of the human ego, of the creator of the bearer of the human self-awareness. Hence, the Bible also sees in the God who let the ego flow into the human being, so to speak, that God who was the last to come concerning the evolution of the human being. The divine beings, the Elohim, whom we have strictly distinguished from the God Yahveh or Jehovah, are the creators of the physical, etheric and astral bodies. They are exactly distinguished in the Bible from the God appearing last in our evolution, from the Yahveh God, from that who brought the ego to the human being. If we ask, where does the human being find the being of this God, this youngest of the creative gods about which the Bible starts speaking in the fourth verse of the second chapter of the Genesis? Spiritual science shows that where the human being finds his ego in himself, which differs so substantially, already after its name, from all other beings round us, that he there finds a drop of this divine being in himself. This is no pantheistic teaching, also no explanation of the fact that the human being has to find his God in himself. Asserting this would be like someone who asserts that a drop of water is the same being like the sea — and says: this drop of water is the sea. If we speak in the sense of spiritual science, we speak about something infinite, comprising, universal that is connected with the earthly development and the other things that belong to this earthly development. In our ego, we find a spark of this God Yahveh as we find the same being in the drop of water as in the sea. Nevertheless, it was a very long way the human development had to cover, while the God Yahveh started forming the human being in such a way that he could grasp the ego consciously. The strength of the ego had to work in the human being already well before, before he got the consciousness of the ego. Moses became the great precursor bringing the consciousness of the human being to the ego. However, these forces work and form in the human evolution already long before. They form in such a way that we can recognise their way if we deal with the evolution of the human consciousness itself. Let us look somewhat back in the development of the human consciousness. One uses the word development very often today, but as drastically, as intensely as spiritual science takes the word development seriously, it is the case with no other science. This human consciousness, as it is today, developed from other forms of consciousness. If we go back far to the origin of the human being, not in the sense of materialistic science, but in such a way, as I have explained it the day before yesterday, then we find that the human consciousness appears more and more different, the farther we go back. The consciousness that connects the various intellectual concepts, the external sensory perception in the known way originated firstly, even if in the far-off past, but it originated firstly. We can find a condition of the consciousness at that time, which was completely different from today because memory was completely different in particular. The memory of the modern human being is only a dilapidated rest of an old soul force, which existed quite differently. In old times when the human being did not yet have the inferring force of his today's mind, when he was not yet able to count in the today's sense, when he had not yet developed his intellectual logic, he had another soul force for it: he had developed a universal memory. This had to decrease, had to withdraw, so that at its cost our today's mind could develop. This is generally the way of development that a force takes a backseat, so that the other can appear. Memory is a decreasing force; mind and reason are increasing soul forces. For those who hear these talks already for some years, it cannot be something especially miraculous what I say now. For the others it will seem absurd if one speaks about the nature of memory in the following way. What is the appearance of the human memory? It is that which remembers yesterday, the day before yesterday and so on, until the childhood. Then, however, it discontinues once. The memory did not stop in old far-off past, not in childhood, not even at birth; but like the modern human being remembers what he himself has experienced in his personal life, the prehistoric human being remembered what his father, his grandfather had experienced through whole generations. Memory was a soul force through generations that extended really. For centuries, memory survived in the old far-off past, and another kind of naming was connected with the different formation of memory. We come to the question now: why is talk of individuals in the first chapters of the Bible who become hundreds of years old like Adam, Noah? Because it makes no sense to limit these human beings. Memory reached through generations up to the primal father. One gave this whole generation one name. It would have made no sense to give the name Adam to a single person. Thus, in those days one gave the name to that which remembered, holding on the same recollection, for centuries from generation to generation — Adam, Noah. What was this? It was that which goes through father, son and grandson, but maintained recollection. So faithfully, the biblical document maintains these secrets, which one can understand only with the help of spiritual science. If we look at the consciousness of the ego with which we comprehend the being of the Yahveh God, we see that the ego lives in us between birth and death, and that it maintains its kind between birth and death. Thus, the ego maintained for generations at that time, for centuries. As we speak today about the ego and know that it goes back as far as we can remember, the human being of primeval times said to himself: it makes no sense to call myself an ego. I recall my father, grandfather, and great-grandfather. His ego went through generations, and it had even a name. As we find an expression of God in our personal ego if we become engrossed in this ego, the ancient human being said to himself, looking up through the generations: God who lives in the ego lives for generations, — as a divinity which then Moses recognised in the higher worlds. The God was the same who lived as an ego from generation to generation in ancient times. One declared as ego, in the parlance of the past, what reproduced as an expression of the Yahveh God, with the Yahveh word “I am the I-am.” Moses learnt to recognise this in his spiritual revelation. In contemplating the burning bush this was revealed for the first time. The same God once lived from generation to generation, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He was the force, which lived in the memory and brought everything at the same time that founded the human order. Thus, we look up at the predecessors of Moses. In the biblical sense, we look up at the patriarchs, at those, in whom the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob lived. These times needed no external commandments, no external laws. For that lived on with the lively memory, quite different from ours, which one had to do. According to what did one act in these primeval times? If you understand the Bible correctly, you find that the human beings did not act after commandments. One acted after that which memory said to one, what the father, the grandfather et cetera had done. With his blood, the human being got the direction to that which he had to do. In these ancient generations was something like a spiritualised instinct that one can compare with “acting instinctively” as we call it today. Not after a commandment the ancient human being acted, no, he acted after the character of his being, after his type. How did Abraham, Isaac and Jacob act? They acted in such a way as the blood running through generations induced them. They had brought down the God Yahveh with their egos, whether they waged war whether they lived in peace. They had no commandments; they had no law. The spiritualised instinct of God lived in them. At the time when Moses appeared, the human personality was on the first level of its development. There its consciousness broke away from this common generational consciousness. There the generational memory had already stopped quite thoroughly. There one did no longer have the spiritualised instinct of action. There something else had to replace it. The God of Abraham, of Isaac and Jacob — who in his spiritual physical figure gave Moses the law, the commandments because one did no longer have the spiritualised instinct — had to regulate the external order, the social living together by commandments, by laws. It is the same God who worked before as a natural force, who is now efficient as legislator to found the external order with laws. We see that it has a deep sense to read the words at this point: the God of Abraham, of Isaac and Jacob. The God who calls himself the God “I am the I-am” is the same as the fourth member of the human being, the same who let flow the ego into the human being. However, the human beings could not take up the spiritual nature of the ego in their consciousness. A longer preparation was necessary to it, and this takes place at the time, which is portrayed in the Bible as the Old Testament, at the time of Moses up to the Mystery of Golgotha. Hence, this time is a time of promise, which the new Gospel shows, the beginning of the “time of fulfilment.” The God announces himself to Moses as the “I am the I-am.” He announces himself in such a way that he orders the external order of the human beings, their living together by laws indirectly by Moses's vision. Humankind lived this way in the pre-Christian time in which the God was creating, in which the Yahveh God was forming, in which the “I am the I-am” lived, in which, however, humankind could not yet live consciously but according to the external law coming from the Yahveh God. More and more the time approached when humankind should become completely aware of the ego. For the whole antiquity, there was only one means for the human beings who could not yet behold, could not yet face God in the physical world. There was only one way how this God could become effective for them. This was the law, the order. This applied to the external world. Moreover, there was a supersensible way to get to know this God, and these were the mysteries or initiation. What was initiation? Everything that was delivered to certain personalities which were regarded as suitable to apply the methods of spiritual-scientific research to develop the forces and abilities slumbering in the human being, so that they could behold into the spiritual world. Hence, for the confessors of the Old Testament it would be in such a way to behold God spiritually from face to face who lives in the “I-am.” If they applied this method, they were able to see and to hear with spiritual eyes and ears independently what Moses had seen, when the God, the “I-am” gave him his mission. Only in the mysteries, only by initiation this was possible. However, there were also those who recognised the “I am the I-am,” but they had to go through the procedures, the methods with which the human being is transformed into an instrument of the higher vision, the vision in the spiritual world. So the God who already lived in Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob was concealed to the physical world. He ordered the world by law. To the initiate, the secret of the mysteries becomes visible in thinking. Then the time came when the Mystery of Golgotha should take place. What happened there, actually? Imagine what the initiate experienced in the old times. Only sketchily, I can describe the process of initiation by meditation, concentration and the other exercises. The soul of the neophyte was prepared for a long time. Then the processes of initiation were finished during three and a half days. There the sages of initiation prepared the neophyte prepared so far, so that he was transported to a state in which his physical body was completely sleeping. It was not only sleeping but it was like dead, so that the neophyte could not use his physical senses, his physical eyes, and ears. For it, however, he beheld with the organs of his spiritual members into the spiritual worlds. He could perceive there if he was outside his body if he was not connected with the physical organs. Then he could behold what lived invisibly in him as the “I am the I-am;” but he could behold it only in the depths of the mysteries. Then he was awoken — as everybody knows who has experienced these things — in his physical body and used the physical senses again. Now he had the full consciousness: I am the I-am, I was in the spiritual world. What has spoken to Moses, the “I am the I-am” faced me, and it is that which refuses eternity to me, which has entered my body. I was connected with it. I was connected with the divine primal bearer of the I-am whose reflection is my I-am. Thus, the initiate returned to the physical world and bore witness of the fact that something spiritual exists in the ego, because he had beheld it. He could give his listeners news and message of it. However, one could only behold the “I am the I-am” in the spiritual world. By the event of Golgotha, the same being descended to the human beings who had announced himself by Moses in the burning bush with the words “I am the I-am.” This complies completely with the sense of the John Gospel: the ego became flesh in the body of Jesus of Nazareth, lived in it, and walked around among the human beings. This primal force brought the human being to the height on which he stands today. The primal force became a human being; the human being became a divine being and walked around among the human beings. It was possible that on Golgotha that took place as a historical event within the evolution of humankind, which the initiates could behold only in spirit: the fact that the Christ-being carried off the victory over the death of matter. This is the historical-external-real fact, which the initiates often experienced in the mysteries. This was the course of initiation in the ancient times in the deep darkness of the mysteries with those who left their physical bodies for three and a half days, walked around in the spiritual world and recognised that a spiritual-divine being descends into the physical world, and that this event would take place once as a historical fact. This was the course of initiation. However, the time came now when humankind came to the event of Golgotha turning emotions, sensations, and thoughts to it by faith. Then the understanding originated from it. It was something new. One got as something external that one could have, otherwise, only by the rapture in the spiritual world. If one assumes this in such a way, we understand why Christ Jesus says: I am the I-am in a completely new figure. He says, look back at the primeval times, at that which lived as the everlasting in the human being that lived in Abraham, Isaac and Jacob that made known itself then in the Law of Moses. Now the time has come when the ego becomes aware in the single person, when the human being has to become aware in his ego, in the divine living in him. If it was in the old times in such a way that the human being looked up at the God that he beheld and could say to himself: what lives in me lives for generations, — it is now in such a way that he finds the divine in his ego if he beholds into himself. The divine from which any ego originated was embodied in Jesus of Nazareth, and someone understood this who wrote: In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and God was the word. — By these words, the being of the innermost human nature and at the same time the primary source of this innermost being is meant. He lets Christ Jesus say, what lives in me a spark of which is in every human being existed before the Gospel was. — The significant sentence in the John Gospel was “Before Abraham was, I am.” — Before Abraham was, the “I-am” was, this I-am which is not bound to any time which was before Abraham, was already in the spiritual primeval grounds of the human being. While he calls himself the primary source of this I-am, Christ spoke the significant words: “Before Abraham was, the I-am was.” Therefore, we realise how the sense of human development, which flows through these fundamental books of humankind, the Old and the New Testaments, is brought back to life again by spiritual science. In addition, we realise how to us the most important words become readable first if we fathom the sense of these books, regardless of the words, with the help of spiritual science. I give an example that gives something to think to the materialistic sense. I would like to remind you of the resurrection of Lazarus. There such a man like Gförer says: who asserts that the John Gospel is not written by John, helps himself saying, the writer wrote down a lot, as he experienced and understood it, but the Lazarus miracle must have been told to him. He cannot have been present. One must understand the Lazarus miracle only correctly. Let us understand it in such a way that Christ when he entered the world took on the body of Jesus of Nazareth. Let us believe, however, that that which prepared in the Old Testaments became expression in the New Testament. He had to have somebody who could understand him completely, who could penetrate in the deepest sense into what he could announce, and that means that he had to initiate a person in his way. Initiation stories are told to us secretly at all times. The Lazarus miracle is nothing else than the miraculous and tremendous representation how Christ created the first initiate of the New Testament. Christ waked up Lazarus as an initiate recalled the soul of his pupil to the body who was for three and a half days in a state similar to death, after he had walked around in the spiritual world. Someone can simply see through all that who understands something of it, because it is the language in which generally initiation stories are told. “This illness is not to end in death; through it God's glory is to be revealed and the Son of God is glorified” (John 11:4). This means: external appearance as revelation of the inside; so that one has to translate the sentence in truth: “The illness is not to end in death, but that the God manifests as an external appearance, so that He can also be revealed to the senses.” In Lazarus slumbers the deeper human being who has the ability and the strength that it could be developed in mysterious way in him, could be led up in the spiritual world, so that he could recognise the being of Christ, the Son of God. However, this strength had to develop first. Christ Jesus developed it in Lazarus, so that the divine that rested in Lazarus could be revealed, and could reveal the Son of God. Christ Jesus created in Lazarus the first to know from own inner observation who Christ Jesus is real. At the same time, this miracle shows — because it is to someone a real miracle who wants to accept the external physical principles only — what the pupil concerned has to go through during the three and a half days. Because this can be compared to a real death since the etheric and the astral bodies are raised out of the physical body and only the physical body lies there. Thus, we have understood even such a miraculous event like the Lazarus miracle — miraculous only to anyone who cannot explain it out of spiritual science. All that reveals itself to you in the Lazarus miracle if you have the light only, which illuminates it with the words: “His illness is not to end in death but to reveal the inside.” — If these abilities are woken in the human being, it is like a birth. As a child arises from the womb, the higher is born by the lower human being. In the same way, the illness of Lazarus is connected with the birth of the new life, of the divine human being, so that the divine human being is born in the physical human being, in Lazarus. So we could go through the John Gospel step by step and would experience that that which happens in the spiritual initiation had to be described quite different from that which we see in ancient times when with quite different spiritual powers the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob is working. If we look into the Bible in such a way, then it is the high universal book again, which lets shine to us what we have now found ourselves. While we must admit — we can say this — that only someone who has developed the higher spiritual forces can come to this truth, we have also to admit and say — if it faces us in the John Gospel — what brought it in these writings. While a new spiritual researcher approached the Gospel and the whole Bible, he learnt to see this and can say: the human beings will come to the true value of this document and recognise that only a materialistic prejudice can speak the words: “the simple man of Nazareth.” However, because of true knowledge we have recognised Christ as an overwhelming world being living in the body of Jesus of Nazareth. The first three Gospels appear to us in relation to the John Gospel possibly, as if three persons stand grouped on a slope of a mountain and every reports what he sees. Everybody sees a part. Someone who looks down from the higher vantage point surveys more and portrays more from this higher vantage point. We come to know not only what the others below describe, but also what can make the three understandable at the same time. That is why it is not difficult to say, who stood on the higher vantage point, but for us it is in such a way that the first three writers were also initiates in certain respects. However, the deep initiate, who could write much deeper, could look much deeper than the three others could and about the true spiritual facts of the matters, which lie behind the sensuous, this is the writer of the John Gospel. So the Gospels combine harmoniously and show that the Mystery of Golgotha cannot be understood as a usual historical event, but is only explicable by a process as we find it with Paul, who says: “the life I now live is not my life, but the life Christ lives in me” (Galatians 2:20). What the external research shows beside becomes also important in the spiritual research. If we look at Christianity, it is important to us to figure the clairvoyance of Moses out which is shown to us in the vision of the burning bush. It is this what one had to explain. I have to emphasise that this new spiritual science is able to form the picture of the world events of its own accord, to look at Christ, so to speak, spiritually from face to face and to find Him again and, hence, to find Him truly in the Gospels. That biblical scholarship is not really without presuppositions, which says, we want to investigate the Bible like any other story. For it assumes the dogma that there can be only usual, sensuous, natural facts. Only spiritual science is really without presuppositions, and this leads to a renewed recognition and high esteem of the Bible in all its parts. A time will come when maybe those are disgruntled who want to say today that only the simple mind is able to grasp the Bible. This wisdom must misjudge the Bible. The time will come when just the wisest wisdom estimates the highest what is given to us in the Bible because clairvoyance will face clairvoyance in the Bible. Then some word, which is written in the New Testament, appears in a new light. It will become apparent that a document like the Bible can lose nothing by impartial research. It would be sad if any research cut this Bible of its reputation, of its name. A research that cuts the Bible of its name has only not come far enough. Research that goes until the end will show the Bible again in its greatness. The human being is allowed to do research freely. Who has the view that by research religion could perish shows with it only that his piety stands on weak feet. The divine being put the impulse of research in the human being, so that he is active. It would be a sin against this impulse if one did not live researching. I recognise God by my research. God recognises Himself in my research. Truth is a good in the human development from which the religious life will never have anything to fear. However, this is a basic truth, which penetrates the New Testament completely. You should not take those into accounts who want to keep away the human beings from the Bible because of comfort, and who say, if you come to philosophers and interpret the Bible, these say, they want to know nothing about it. — However, such a research is based on comfort. However, that research is justified and right which says: we cannot go deeply enough to understand what is written in the Bible. — That research in the Bible is the right one that goes into it in free research and then understands the Bible in the right sense. These researchers understand the truth of the biblical saying: “you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free” (John 8:32).

The Bible and Wisdom (New Testament)

https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA057/English/eLib2014/19081114p01.html

Berlin

14 Nov 1908

GA057-5

Before some time when I stayed in a little town in Germany, I made the acquaintance of a poet, a dramatist, and in the time of our acquaintance, he was just occupied to complete a drama. On an afternoon, he worked on the completion of his drama almost like with steam power, as I could notice in a visit which I had to do. One could not speak at all with him, because he had to further the matter as quickly as possible. In the evening shortly before eight o'clock, I did a walk. I met my good dramatist, when he speeded on a bicycle to the post office and could not be impeded. Nevertheless, it interested me — you will soon see why — why the person concerned speeded so exceptionally fast to the post office just that day. It was shortly before eight o'clock when it was closed. When he came back, he said to me on my question, why he had to go in such haste to the post office just even today, this would be a peculiar matter. Now you understand this matter best of all, if I say first that after a just beginning, then prevailing fashion the dramatist concerned belonged to the freest spirits of the present and that he represented his worldview in the freest phrases. He was a very advanced person. Telling the following, I would like to show that I commit no indiscretion. If he were here, he would completely be pleased to hear that I tell this matter. Now we are able to form an opinion about what he said when he came from the post office: “I have gone so quickly to the post office because I wanted to bring my drama to the post office today. Today is the last auspicious day. If I had waited till tomorrow, I would have exposed myself to the danger that the theatre management rejects the drama.” — I asked, “Have you finished it, actually?” For it seemed impossible to me. “No,” he said, “however, I have written a letter, so that one sends the drama back again to alter the last scenes.” This was the free spirit! I had to remember a lady who had worked on a dress many years ago and wanted to have it ready and put on at Thursday. If she had put it on for the first time on Friday, she would certainly experience a misfortune. One normally does not take into consideration sufficiently, what it means for our feeling and thinking in the present if a free spirit makes a post, like the poet speeding to the post office to send off the drama incomplete and then to let it send back again, so that he can finish it. You see that superstition can be something rather strange. It may be something that a person has banished completely from his worldview and it may be that he protests strongly against it in a boasting way to be concerned with such superstition. However, if it depends on it, there are loopholes through which this superstition can slip in. We live in a time in which in the most scornful sense one speaks about all possible forms of superstition. However, at the same time it happens in this present that those who speak about superstition have no idea of it now and again through which loophole slips in just with them. For it does not need to be an old form of, like with this dramatist speeding on his bicycle. New forms of superstition can also appear. Just somebody who speaks scornfully about the old forms of superstition may be exposed worst to some new form of superstition. It is maybe difficult to realise these concepts of superstition anyhow in our time, because in our time the tendency prevails so much to regard everything that one himself believes as the only reasonable and to deny everything that one himself does not believe. Just this way of feeling in our time opens the doors to various new forms of superstition. Hence, it is not sufficient to continue the common talking about superstition, if we want to get involved thoroughly in superstition from the spiritual-scientific viewpoint. Various old traditions have come into our time, various things that our ancestors have believed various things that our ancestors and the scholars of ancient time believed to be strictly scientific and what is expelled to the region of superstition today. We ask ourselves, should not the idea light up in those who face the old traditions with a shrug who seem to be scientifically advanced, that that could be erroneous which is believed today? Could it not be that our descendants may regard this as the biggest superstition some centuries later? Indeed, someone who believes to stand on the firm ground of natural sciences is easily inclined, for example, to cast everything that is pronounced from a viewpoint that assumes a spiritual world beside the physical one, generally in the field of superstition. On the other side, one can easily understand that theosophy — admittedly maybe also unfounded — combats and characterises the superstition of natural sciences. The fact that the one or the other party regards this or that as superstition can never become a characteristic feature of the real nature of superstition. Various things which project from old times just show us if it is real superstition that it depends with such matters much less on the human logic, on human reason than rather on the human ways of thinking, on that which people are used to think today. How many things appear in our popular literature, in our daily press today, which are apparently contrary to the enlightened thinking! For example, there is a city in Germany — it is not far away from Berlin — where you would look for a cab with the number 13 in vain. He who had it once got no passenger. It was ignored, the number 13. Also at hotels you can often experience that the number 13 is absent in the room numbers. You can also find in baths where nothing but enlightened doctors are that the number 13 is ignored with bathing cubicles because nobody wants it. That right in the middle and beside the way of thinking of modern literature and daily press! However, someone who is a soul expert to some degree already finds that superstition is, nevertheless, something that slips into the human thinking and feeling completely quietly. There is a popular booklet about superstition in which something reasonable and something absurd can be found. Then, after the author slaughters what astrology and astronomy and other forms of superstition are, he states that astrologers once existed who cast horoscopes to the human beings and derived their destinies from the moment of birth. Such astrologers would no longer exist as far as he would know; the midwives would do this now. Indeed, it would not take place in Berlin but in remaining Germany. You can really read this sentence in this booklet about superstition. I do not believe that anybody can call it other than superstition, because, otherwise, he would have to say that many astrologers cast horoscopes today. What the man says does not correspond at all to the facts; it is the purest superstition. Every investigation could show him the opposite of his assertion. Similar things slip in the consciousness of the human beings every day if these are also less palpable things and one would regard it as a paradox if I spoke of superstition. The opinion has arisen in certain circles of scientific consideration since some time that one has to look for physical causes of human memory, in particular in the field of sexuality. Not only this, but also the writings and brochures are numerous which examine the mental conditions of great spirits. A Leipzig scholar took great pains till recently to examine a whole group of great spirits, among them Goethe, Schopenhauer, Scheffel (Joseph Victor von Sch., 1826–1886, German poet), and Conrad Ferdinand Meyer (1825–1898, Swiss poet), to what extent they had, actually, this or that insanity and whether their geniuses would be connected with this or that insanity. On the other side, the tendency of physical illness relates to inheritance, and no current event escapes from such an interpretation today. Here we are concerned with a superstition that rises just now, which penetrates, however, our education like a scourge. Future times will not understand that it was possible that science could worship such a superstition for a while. If our descendants repaid this in the same sense, judged in the same sense what science believes and teaches today as one teaches and judges today what our ancestors believed in former times, then those who are active in these fields today would come off the worst. Thus, we already see, while we survey the facts impartially, that the old forms of superstition are rightly thrown to the window and, on the other side, new forms slip in that are not just simply recognised as those. Who looks around a little in science knows how many demons of superstition slip in here and there which only have a short existence fortunately, but can be not less detrimental. Sometimes trends are not far from that which one may call superstition. I would like to give an example. During my activity as educator, I could make some observation that was possible only because I could go into a large field concerning the human development. More than twenty years ago, it was standard to give little children red wine, generally wine to drink — possibly in the second, third, fourth years. One could realise how by a certain trend of medicine just children got their glass of red wine at this age every time during dinner. He, who observes such a thing, maybe observes too short periods in relation to the effect of these matters. If one compares those persons who are 20-year-old today and were children of two to five years at that time to others who got no wine at that time for their strengthening, the difference of the present nervous manifests itself to a hair's breadth between those who got wine and those who got no wine. There was in those days the superstition that wine contains a strength in itself. This was a trend of superstition. One offered this opinion like any other superstitious opinion. Now we can refrain from all that and go over to some other fields where one does not speak at all of superstition, although the mental fact of the matter is completely the same one in the human being. If speak of the weird idols, fetishes or catchwords people have in social life which they run after like others run after certain idols in other fields, and we realize how much superstition is contained in it, then you would recognise: if the quantity of superstition does not live it up in one field, it changes over to another field. If the human being towers above superstition on one side, it is swiftly expressed in another field where one does not notice it so much. After we have characterised the situation a little, we may be allowed to try to come to the real origin of superstition, to the peculiar state of mind in which a superstitious person is. Above all one is allowed to say that with the emergence of this state of mind the bias of a human being plays the conceivably biggest role in this or that school of thought. Someone understands the same fact — depending on his school of thought — in the one or other way. Let us try to bring a concrete case home to us. The French physiologist Richet (Charles R., 1850–1935, Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine, 1913) had the following experience: he walked in the street once, and on the other side of the street a person was walking. At this moment, he had the thought: nevertheless, it is strange that professor Lacassagne is in Paris today. However, it is not so strange. Fourteen days ago, professor Lacassagne sent me an article and wrote that he would be here in fourteen days. Richet wanted already to go to the other side and greet him when he said to himself that he wants to go to the editorial office, and the other would probably also come there. At the same moment, he realised that the professor resembled an ophthalmologist known to him. Richet goes to the editorial office, and there appears professor Lacassagne after one hour. Richet says to him, I saw you in the street before one hour. The professor answers: this is impossible. I was not there an hour ago, but somewhere else. — It is no doubt; Richet could not have seen him. It is peculiar how two persons often behave to each other if they have two different lines of thought. Richet saw a person and had the certain impression to see professor L. However, when he faced the professor L., it seemed to him brainless to have taken another person who was big and blond for professor L., who was of medium height and had a dark moustache. However, Richet is a man who believes in occult effects, in telepathy. He said to himself, professor L. is in Paris and thought to go to the editorial office — and at this moment, I saw this thought by telepathy! A Danish researcher, Lehmann (Alfred Georg Ludvig L., 1858–1921, psychologist), who has written a book about Superstition and Magic (1898) thinks differently about that. He says, “Richet believes in telepathy; that is why he sees something mystic in this quite usual experience which should prove the correctness of his confidence, however, he overlooks the incidental circumstances completely which explain the matter absolutely naturally. I myself have experienced various such cases, and because I do not believe in telepathy, I have always looked for and found an obvious cause of the phenomenon.” There you have two persons who judge the same event quite differently depending on the school of thought. I myself would like to agree with the Danish researcher Lehmann, because those who approach occult matters by inadequate means overstate the case the easiest and can explain anything in the world to themselves like in this case. However, you see from it how the bias, in which a person is with his line of thought, causes that he colours another person whom he faces in such a way. Now think how the things are reflected in the human soul if they are not exactly figured out. There we come to the real nature of superstition in the spiritual-scientific sense. You can read countless writings and discussions about the superstition of alchemy, the hapless art to produce gold to which so many have dedicated themselves. Those who wrote about it were mostly — in the modern view — exceptionally competent, positive researchers in other respect. They occupy an important place with their writings, in which in this or that way the art of making gold is informed. However, what you read there appears to you as sheer madness, as absolute nonsense. Moreover, it appears in numerous cases as such obvious fraud that one can realise very easily how just at that time when the human being believed such a thing in this field fallacy by fallacy was spread. Even though chemistry developed from alchemy, we must be infinitely happy that we have, finally, the true chemical science, in contrast to those figments and errors to which our ancestors have abandoned themselves in alchemy. Perhaps we can understand just the easiest what is deception if we consider some simple cases. We want to refrain from the number thirteen, but you know that for some people the number seven causes something dreadful that some regard it as a lucky number, sometimes, however, also as an unlucky number with which magic effects should be connected. I need to mention something only that can lead you to that which is connected with the number seven. I want not only to mention that the number seven is also found in the purely physical nature — seven colours, seven tones et cetera — what has often enough been mentioned here from which one can conclude that this or that is connected with the number seven. However, we want to refrain from that today. We want to turn our attention to something else. There is an illness, pneumonia, which increases for seven days and then decreases. Only during the seventh day the crisis occurs, so that someone who has to treat such a sick person has to pay attention in particular to this physical rhythm. There we have the number seven connected to a particular process, something that can be observed in any single case. The modern materialistic science does not get involved with any explanation of this process. If we traced back medicine in ancient times in which you do not have to see a sum of mistakes only as it is shown in the history of medicine, one would understand that the ancient doctors and experts of nature knew how all life proceeds in a certain rhythm. They knew that a rhythmical coherence exists between the processes in the human being and outdoors in the big nature, in the macrocosm. Because the human being is, actually, born out of the macrocosm whose life proceeds in certain external processes, the human life also proceeds in a certain rhythm. He, who knows the rhythm of human life, knows very well that an increasing and decreasing rhythm of 28 days, of four times seven days, in an organ like the lung in which certain functional strengths and weaknesses appear. There it is no longer surprising, as soon as one recognises this basis, that the illness of the lung becomes especially dangerous where it collides, so to speak, with the general rhythm of life phenomena. Briefly, we would see if we considered the facts in the sense of spiritual research and not superstitiously, why after seven days a particular crisis of pneumonia takes place. However, one does not want to come to such things in our materialistic age, which can be pursued only by the means of spiritual science. There was a time in which the doctors not only knew that pneumonia goes through this crisis during the seventh day, but in which they also knew why this is so. They knew how this is connected also with the healthy rhythm. However, this spiritual-scientific knowledge is forgotten to the external life. One does no longer know the real lawfulness, it got lost to humankind. The mere number seven remained. One did not know at all, in the end, why pneumonia shows something particular after seven days. Then one takes out such a thing, of course, without being able or wanting to understand it. One applies it because one sees something particular in the number seven as such. One says to himself, something particular is connected with the number seven. One can apply it anyhow here or there. As long as one keeps to formalities, as long as one does not look into the matter, one has no reason to apply the thing here or there. So one applies it where apparently an occasion exists. Above all, a human law is involved, which is only too comprehensible: in all cases where one has arranged such a thing from abstraction where one applies it and sees that it fits the thing works; however, if it does not fit , one overlooks it. Thus, it also applies to some country lore. Who comes from the country knows for sure that from the first thunderstorm, which appears in the spring, this and that is prophesied. If the prophesied comes true, it is accepted as a rule, if it does not come true, one forgets it. Nevertheless, deep profundities are in some country lore, and one would have to investigate it on its deep wisdom. Then again, one applies not the purely exterior of superstition, but intends to penetrate the thing independently. Indeed, I was pleased rather well if beside other country lore once again that is pronounced, if the cock crows on the dung heap, the weather changes or remains as it is. — A healthy trait appears here that must not be generalised but individualised. On these essentials, the development of our soul and spirit should depend. In a similar way, only not so transparently, many things of alchemy are concerned. Some of you know when I spoke about the Rosicrucian initiation and the philosophers' stone that I showed what one has to understand by the philosophers' stone in the real spiritual science of all times and what can remain in force before our present most modern thinking. Among the various methods that lead up the human being to higher knowledge, in particular to the Rosicrucian initiation, you find one method that one calls “the preparation of the philosophers' stone” downright. Something is understood by this preparation of the philosophers' stone that is connected with a regulation of the respiratory process. Becoming conscious and regulating breathing according to spiritual principles belonged to the different methods, with which the human being works his way up to the higher worlds. After particular instructions, someone breathes who becomes a disciple of spiritual science in the positive sense. This breathing has a particular result for the whole organism that the external science is no longer able to investigate because it knows nothing of the matter. The human being develops something by the instrument of his own body in himself that really appears in his body and enables him to another worldview because by the respiration an effect happens which expresses itself in the mineral composition of the physical body. Thus, we have produced something by the regulation of the respiratory rhythm in the human being that was called the philosophers' stone. It is that which is to be produced inevitably in the human organism if the human being has to grow into the higher worlds. The process can be given, but one cannot impart it to any human being just without further ado. Since only someone can apply this process by its very nature who does it in a completely unselfish way without any personal regard. When I spoke once in a little circle how one is able to do it today already as I would suggest it also wholeheartedly in one of the talks, a person said afterwards, it would be rather useful, if one publicly announced the method to produce a particular mineral in the human being. For this mineral would be something very useful if one produced it in big masses. — I had to answer: the fact that you put this question gives the reason why it is not allowed to be announced. As long as such questions are put, it is just impossible that it is allowed to be announced. You can find it in the literature, but it is veiled there. It is only comprehensible to that who gets to know the parlance going through a pre-school. “Mercury,” “philosophers' stone,” “silver” mean something else. If one speaks of the union of mercury and its addition to any other product, “mercury” and “philosophers' stone” just mean something else than external matters. However, these things exist in literature. Those who have no idea what the expressions and the signs in particular signify which are connected with them take the thing simply literally. If one takes them literally, it is the purest nonsense. So, for example, it has happened to a Danish researcher of superstition that he read something about strange personalities of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, about Ramon Llull (~1232–1316) and others. It is at everybody's discretion to regard him as a swindler, a charlatan or as the greatest sage of his time, depending on he can understand him. Now, however, it is told that Ramon Llull succeeded in finding the philosophers' stone after a 30-year-study — to most people an uncomfortable matter — and that he thereby became able to make gold, while he transformed a certain amount of mercury by a part of the stone into a powder which still had all qualities of the stone. If one takes a tiny amount of it, it gets the quality again to transform mercury. Then a tiny amount is taken from this again, and so on, until gold originates finally. If one tries this, if he takes what he finds in the book, takes certain substances, mixes them and adds them to the mercury, it is the biggest nonsense that can be done. Everybody is right to mock it. The Danish researcher also does this. He mocks it. Who knows, however, how to interpret the expressions finds that in literature the “philosophers' stone” exists just as in the writings by Ramon Llull, with which he achieved his goal. This is the wonderful of the matter that the sentence has been known for centuries and is right even today. This shows somebody who knows something about it how brilliantly right it is. Then he realises that in Ramon Llull really the soul of one of the wisest of his age lived. However, who sticks only to the external mode of expression gets up to nonsense really. Many people got up to nonsense who believed that the wise alchemist produced external gold, and they also went insane, although I believe that they already went insane a little when they started the matter. Psychiatrists, however, state that they went insane thereby. They may have lost their wealth, because they did not find gold at last. Hence, one must not disagree with the writer so much who calls alchemy nonsense, because — what he could understand of it is nonsense only. However, no nonsense is big enough not to be believed by this or that person. This is connected with an addiction that you can experience in the field of spiritual science day by day. You experience the following: if you face this or that person with a natural phenomenon, which needs clarification, and you try to explain such a phenomenon in connection with its spiritual undergrounds and claim to lead back an everyday phenomenon to its spiritual base, then you excite no special interest with most people today. Many human beings do not search the explicable but the inexplicable. They are happy if they can find anything that remains inexplicable to them. Tell to anybody that here or there, something has taken place that cannot be explained, and then they are pleased with it. People really want to be pointed to the inexplicable. They do not want to penetrate what presents itself to them, but they want to increase the miraculous. Try to explain something about the development of plants to anybody, while he can grasp them from the undergrounds of development and look deeply at nature, so that he is led from the sensuous where one deals with the spirit at one end deeply into the spiritual — then he cannot believe in a spiritual world! However, if you tell such a person that a hand of a statue got lost, was found again in another city, and has been reinserted, he says: no one can explain this, consequently I believe in a spiritual world. — This is in such a way that the persons want to remain without an understanding of the spirit because they believe that one is not allowed to fathom this. With it, they open the doors to superstition everywhere. If the human being does not strive for impartiality with that which is available to him in his reason and logical thinking, he is exposed to all possible forms of superstition when he does not want to rely on this, as soon as something appears that is different from the usual. Thus, one could see, for example — you forgive if I say this, although I stand completely on the ground of spiritual science and theosophy — how often just those who stand on the ground of theosophy reject what could lead to enlightenment in the spiritual-scientific sense. When the theosophical movement had begun in the world, two significant persons lived by whom this wisdom was revealed to humankind at first. Those who have this wisdom have not behaved in such a way as it... (Gap) I have characterised this heaps of times. For: how could one have behaved compared with a truth that was received from an unknown side? The first intermediaries of the theosophical worldview said, from personalities who stay in the background we have got the wisdom we committed to this or that book. — There one could have said the following, well, these human beings who bring this wisdom are honourable, but we want to check this wisdom ourselves. — I always emphasise that only somebody can do research in the higher worlds who has attained particular abilities. However, if this wisdom is informed, so that it is verifiable, then what? This wisdom was not checked in many cases. One accepted the matter in good faith because one said to them that it has come from higher beings. The others, however, said, whether it is founded or not, this does not matter; whether the higher beings generally exist, that is the point; and if one does not know for sure whether these higher beings exist or not, we reject the whole theosophy. However, could it not have happened that anybody said to himself, this wisdom may have come wherever from at first, I check it, whether and how it fits the phenomena of life, whether it proves true in life; above all, I check its relation to the current worldview, to the positive science? — There one could maybe come to the view: how poor is that which the worldview gives us built up on positive science compared with that, which has come from theosophical side. One must not accept it in good faith, but one can check and understand it. The result will be whether those from whom this wisdom has come are greater than those who stand on the ground of the so-called scientific facts. We have no reason to assume that H. P. Blavatsky received her worldview from a rain cloud. Such wisdom that one has found as reasonable must originate from somewhere. Whether one can call it great, this depends on what arises if one compares this worldview to that which one already recognises as great. Such a check would have been reasonable. However, this is the only one that brings honour to the human mind, not accepting on good faith, also not rejecting on good faith, but examining without prejudice. Indeed, not anybody can do research. Those should do it who can develop their mental powers especially. However, everybody can examine impartially, if only he did not search the inexplicable instead of the explicable and were satisfied having found the inexplicable. As long as one says to him, he should try hard to fathom the spirit; he does not want to come along. However, if one informs him of anything that is not to be understood at all, he is present because it is more comfortable. This is especially distinctive of the soul state of the human being. There is another case, which took place ( taken from Lehmann's book ). I talk again not in such a way, as if anything true is behind it, but I talk about the human spiritual condition that has become obvious thereby. One told that in certain regions of Asia human beings existed who can do the following: they spread out a cloth, take a rope, throw the rope in the air, let a little child climb up, until it becomes invisible on top; then they themselves climb up, and after some time the limbs of the child fall down dismembered. Then the fakir also follows, takes a bag, packs the limbs into it, shakes the whole, then he pours out the bag and — the child is recreated completely. I do not want to decide what is behind, but only speak about the way of superstition. The process appears to the human beings as something that is hard to believe at first. A certain S. Ellmore wrote about that in the Chicago Tribune , and a painter drew strange pictures that showed the different stadia quite correctly: the thrown rope, the climbing child and so on. Ellmore himself added photos which were shot especially cunningly, because one always saw the fakir and the spectators only who looked upwards once, then downwards. However, one did not see the remaining. Ellmore explained the whole matter, so that one could easily elucidate it. He meant namely that the person concerned who carried out the matter must be a very significant hypnotist who could suggest the process to a whole company. There people said to themselves that the process was no superstition but suggestion, and it seemed explicable that all people were hypnotised. However, this suggestive process appeared to a person even more incredible than the original process. For he thought that there could be matters in the world, which cannot be explained by our principles, and said to himself: concerning suggestion one already knows something, but concerning the soul forces one must still investigate many a matter. — This person turned to S. Ellmore to find out the place where this was present at such a performance. Now the truth became known. S. Ellmore explained that the whole story was invented, what already his pseudonym points to: S. Ellmore = sell more. He had dressed the matter in this form, because he could not believe the original process and found the form of suggestion acceptable to the modern consciousness. You see that it really depends on the mental constitution that it depends on what takes place in our souls if one wants to elucidate the concept and the being of superstition fairly. Quite different factors must decide whether a matter is correct or is not correct in the end. However, what can protect us from any aberrations which become superstition can be solely the pursuit of real knowledge, of seeing through the matters. Someone is always addicted to superstition who does not want to penetrate really into the depth of the matters. It anyway is in such a way that this longing for a certain quantity of superstition prevails absolutely. With it, I pronounce the basic principle of superstition: as long as the human being remains only in the observation of the physical environment, as long as he does not want to penetrate to spiritual science, to the real knowledge of the spiritual primal grounds of the things, a certain need of superstition lives in him. If you like, take a modern doctor: if he rejects any form of superstition in his thinking ever so much — that who is impartial can easily prove how he covers his requirements of superstition in another form copiously. This is the principle of compensation in the human soul. You see in it how typical the principle is. You have a person who wants to be way beyond the old superstition in every respect, but how much superstition Haeckel (Ernst H., 1835–1919, naturalist, philosopher) registers in his Miracles of Life and in his World Riddles ! Those who know me know that I recognise Haeckel in all because he is the great researcher. Who knows me also knows that I always point to the positive that Haeckel has performed. Because he has thrown out the old superstition and does not want to go back to the spiritual backgrounds of the things, he applies it to another field. He becomes the most superstitious person on the other field. In the field of energy and matter, as he imagines it, there the atoms are dancing and whirling. He calls that his god. He attributes to the dancing and whirling atoms that they can create conditions which simple living beings show, and that these again are made up to more complex things which fit together, in the end, to the form of the human brain. Everything that the human being can feel and want, all ideals, and moral, all religions are for that who can judge the thing impartially only dance of atoms. No difference exists to him between the dance of the atoms and the big fetishes of African savages. Whether the African savage adores his wooden block and looks at it as his god, or whether Haeckel lets his little atoms dance and looks at them as little gods — there is no difference between both concerning superstition. The one and the other superstition stand at the same point of view. There was a time — it is behind us already in certain ways — there one could see how this superstition emerged bit by bit. New discoveries of natural sciences were done in the course of time, in particular in chemistry. New compounds could be explained that one noticed differences of weight of the smallest parts in space. Many a thing was explained by the principle of the atomic weights. The view appeared fertile to construct such an atomic theory. Later, one forgot that one had constructed this atomic theory in spirit. The atoms became real idols which one adored. When I was a pupil, a headmaster ( Heinrich Schramm, see Steiner's autobiography, chapter II ) made me realise what atomic superstition is. The headmaster calculated all phenomena of physics and chemistry as movements in those days — a long time ago. However, he did not yet calculate the thinking. However, he made calculations up to the chemical phenomena. The booklet, which contained these things, is called The General Movement of Matter as a Basic Cause of All Natural Phenomena . This was something that could fascinate somebody who defers to this issue. I would just give everybody this booklet with pleasure. However, it is no longer available in the book trade for a long time. Perhaps in libraries it may be still to be found. There we see superstition appearing in the omnipotence of the atomic whirl. We saw all possible forms of superstition appearing one by one in natural sciences. Consider once that we really have a certain direction in natural sciences that speaks of the omnipotence of natural breeding. Everywhere you can see that everything is gathered that is or is not indicative of the one or the other theory, if once the researcher concerned is fascinated by a catchword that has an effect on him like an idol. We would just see similar cases in our time if we only wanted to have an eye for them. Already at the beginning of the talk, I mentioned how the matters slip in that will become obvious as the dreadful superstition of time in a time not too far away. Where is the cause of superstition now? Always the possibility occurs that superstition replaces what can prevail only as a fertile thought, as a fertile opinion. If we forget the original thought, the original opinion and take the formality presenting itself for it, we forget the essentials like the crisis of pneumonia appearing after seven days. If we pull the number seven out and retain it, the possibility exists that this changes into superstition. There you have the reason why ancient sages could show great natural phenomena. Spiritual science wants to bring to the human being: that he does not search the inexplicable, but that he wants to search the explanation. Otherwise, if he stops in the area of the environment and does not want to rise to the higher point of view from which he can see what is justified or not justified in the one or the other field, then he replaces superstition by superstition. Who stops in the physical world leaves the one superstition and comes into the other. Not before he rises above himself and above superstition, he sees the right in the one and in the other. Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778, philosopher) already ascertained that it does not make a difference whether one is more or less clever. He said, the clever ones and the prudent ones have their prejudices just as the silly ones, even if the clever and prudent ones know something more and have more prejudices than the silly ones. The silly ones retain to few prejudices the more tenaciously in return. — This is absolute a principle which someone who observes human life can find confirmed in many cases. Thus, we see that a basic healing of superstition can be if one rises to the higher point of view from which the spiritual undergrounds of the world are readily comprehensible. Various sorts of superstition will still emerge, and something slips into our view today. We are developing in such a way that the human beings have no right sense, actually, to eliminate superstition from the public life if it does not just come from old times. Oh, it absolutely applies to our time in various fields what an old story tells us. Call it an anecdote, but it applies, and it shows truth better than something else does. In a certain region of Spain, on the border between two provinces, an epidemic had broken out once. It was close to two universities. One university had a medical faculty in which one swarmed for bloodletting in particular. At the other university, one swarmed against bloodletting. In this region were two doctors. The one doctor was instructed in the one university, the other one at the other university. The one prescribed medicines, and the other venesected. It turned out that the one doctor kept all patients alive, while all patients of the other doctor died. Even if all patients stayed alive and all patients of the other died, nevertheless, both operated correctly according to their theory; one, indeed, wrong in practice, but correctly according to his theory. If one tells such a thing, it may seem stupid. If one sees the things, however, day by day, one finds that the anecdote says nothing wrong, and one finds it even necessary. Therefore, it can only concern — if about superstition is spoken — that spiritual science has really no reason to propagate this or that superstition. It stands on the ground that the spiritual is explorable and that there are means and ways to penetrate into the spiritual world by which one is able to overlook the world from a higher viewpoint. Thereby the human being is led beyond superstition, and beyond that, which superstition can cause as damage in the human life. One can express that with a Goethean word which reveals truth comprehensively even if simply: “Wisdom is eternal, and it will be victorious, and it will raise the human being in us to humaneness in the most manifold tumults.”

Superstition from the Standpoint of Spiritual Science

https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA057/English/eLib2014/19081210p01.html

Berlin

10 Dec 1908

GA057-6

It seems strange to people when spiritual science has something to say about that which is regarded by many with a certain logic as the most material, as the most unspiritual subject: nutrition. There are people who want to indicate their particular idealism, their particular spirituality by saying: oh, we care only about that which is above the questions that are connected with the material life. Such persons also believe — and in certain respects they may be right — that it is irrelevant to one's spiritual development how the human being satisfies his bodily needs. The materialistic way of thinking judges differently. A great philosopher of the nineteenth century had a saying that has often been repeated and that causes many who are idealistically minded to shudder. Feuerbach (Ludwig F., 1804-1872) once said: “The human being is what he eats.” Most people understand it in such a way — and the materialistic sense will absolutely agree with it — that the human being is made up of the substances which he supplies to his body, and from this develops not only the course of his bodily life but also that which presents itself in his mind. If outsiders hear more or less cursorily about spiritual science, they believe that anthroposophists are too concerned with eating, with diet. An outsider cannot understand why the anthroposophists care so much about their diet. It should not be denied that in some anthroposophical circles whose members want to penetrate rather deeply into the spiritual life in an easy way, lack of clarity prevails. Some believe, nevertheless, that they should avoid this or that, should not eat or drink certain things in order to reach certain higher levels of knowledge! This is also a fallacy, like that just characterised view of Feuerbach's saying: “The human being is what he eats.” It is a one-sided view at least. However, in a certain sense spiritual science can agree with this sentence, only in a rather different way than it is meant by the materialists, differing in two respects. Firstly, we have already stressed on occasion that everything around us is the expression of something spiritual. A mineral, a plant or something in our surroundings is material only with respect to its outer form. As with the limb of a human being, the outer form is the expression, the gesture of the spirit. Something spiritual is behind all material, and this is true of food as well. When we eat we absorb not only what spreads out materially before our eyes, but also that which is spiritual behind it. We come into relation through the material element of the food to the spiritual which is behind it. This is a rather superficial standpoint. However, someone who understands this is able to admit the materialistic sentence in certain respect: “The human being is what he eats.” Only one has to understand that there is a spiritual process within the material process. This is the only way we can orient ourselves to these questions in the spiritual-scientific sense. If spiritual science puts emphasis on and pursues investigations regarding the nature of the foodstuffs, a unique perspective on the relation of the human being to nature appears. The human being comes into relation with nature because he absorbs the surrounding nature in a certain way and composes himself with that which is in it. The question arises, is the human being not subject to the external forces, because he ingests that which is external, and can he free himself from these forces? Is there any possibility that the human being can become free from the effects of his diet, so that he receives a certain power from and a certain influence on the surroundings? Could it not be that the human being, indeed, could be what he eats, through following a certain diet — and could it not be that by another diet the human being gets rid of the compulsion that is exercised on him by diet? So, the question is asked by spiritual science: how has nutrition to be arranged that the human being gets rid of the compulsion of diet, so that he becomes more and more the master of the processes within himself? When we put this question to ourselves today, something must be said about the whole position of spiritual science in regard to these questions. This question, also about health, must be understood in such a way that in no way spiritual science argues for any particular point of view. Whoever believes that what is said today is agitating for or against this or that diet has an extremely erroneous view. Today nobody should go away from here with the view that I argued for or against abstinence, vegetarianism, meat diet. All these questions about dogmas have nothing to do with the innermost feeling of spiritual science. We do not want to agitate, do not command the human being in this or that way; we want to say only how matters are. Then everybody may organise his life, as he wants, according to these overarching principles of existence. Thus, this talk will solely expound what is real in this field. On the other side, I ask you very much to take into consideration that I do not speak for anthroposophic circles in the narrow sense which want to go through a certain development and have to observe special conditions. Today, the question is discussed in the general-human sense. Because of the vast range of the subject, only single things can be taken out, and, above all, everything must be avoided that is connected with general health. We shall hear about this in the next talk. Today, we deal with nutrition in the narrower sense. That is why the respiratory process is not taken into account. The human being has to take up proteins, carbohydrates, fats and salts in order to maintain the life process of his organism. You know that the human being satisfies the needs of his organism with the so-called mixed diet. He takes the main parts of his diet partly from the animal, partly from the plant realm. There are many more defenders of the mixed diet than of a one-sided diet among our contemporaries. We must ask ourselves, how do the laws of our environment dictate how the human being takes his food to the true forces and needs of the human organism? I speak only about the human being today, not about the animals. The human being is easily inclined to understand his organism rather materially according to the so-called scientific results of his time. Spiritual science has to substitute this with the laws of the spiritual connections. Even if not always stated explicitly, the method which is adopted is based more or less unconsciously on the idea that the human organism consists more or less only of the physical body, and the sum of the chemical substances in their interaction with each other. One traces these substances back to their individual chemical elements and attempts — after one has recognised how these substances work — to get an idea how they could continue chemically working in the retort which one regards as the human being. It is not necessary to state that many people are already beyond the view that the human being is only a big retort. It is not a matter of theories, but of the ways of thinking. The true practitioner is not concerned about anybody's thoughts, but about the effects of the thoughts. That is the point. It does not matter so much whether one is an idealist or not, but it is significant for life that one has fertile thoughts which are active in such a way that life prospers and progresses. It is important to bear in mind that spiritual science, even in this direction, has nothing to do with dogma or any belief. Anyone may espouse the most spiritual theories. It is not this which is important, but rather the fact that these thoughts are fertile if he introduces them in life. If one says that he is not a materialist, that he believes in the vital force, even in the spirit, but proceeds in the question of nutrition always as if the human being is a retort, his worldview cannot become fertile. Spiritual science has something to say about these concrete questions only if it itself is able to illuminate the details, and it is able to do so concerning the issues of nutrition and of health. We must come again to clarity regarding the multi-membered human being. For the spiritual researcher the human being is not only the physical being, which one sees with the eyes, can touch with the hands - this physical body is only one part of the human being. This physical body consists of the same chemical substances that are spread out in nature. However, the human being has higher members. Already the next part of the human being is supersensible, has a higher reality than the physical body. It forms the basis of the physical body; it is the whole life through a fighter against the decay of the physical body. At the moment when the human being goes through the gate of death, the physical body is subject only to its own principles, and then disintegrates. In life, the life body fights against the decay. It gives the substances other directions and forces, other connections than they would have if they followed only their own nature. For the clairvoyant consciousness, this body is as visible as the physical body for the eye. The human being has this life body or etheric body in common with the plant. We know from other talks that the human being still has a third member of his being, the astral body. What is it? It is the bearer of joy and sorrow, of desires, impulses and passions, of all that we call our inner soul life. All that has its seat in the astral body. It is spiritually discernible, as the physical body for the physical consciousness. The human being has this astral body in common with the animals. The fourth member is the bearer of the ego, of self-consciousness. The human being is thereby the crown of creation, he towers over the things of the earth, which surround him. Thus, the human being faces us with three invisible members and a visible member. These always work in each other and with each other. They all work on any single member and each single member works on all others. Thus, the physical body — I say once again in parenthesis that all this applies only to the human being — as it faces us, is an expression in all its parts also of the invisible members of human nature. This physical body could not have in itself the members that serve the nutrition, the reproduction, life generally if it did not have the etheric body. All organs that serve nutrition and reproduction, the glands and so on, are the external expressions of the etheric body. They are that which the etheric body creates in the physical body. Among other things, the nervous system is, in the physical body, the expression of the astral body. Here the astral body is the actor, the creator. We can imagine just as a clock or a machine is constructed by a watchmaker or by a mechanical engineer, the nerves are constructed by the astral body. The characteristic of the human blood circulation, the blood activity, is the external physical expression of the ego-bearer, the bearer of the self-consciousness. Thus, the human physical body is also four-membered in certain ways. It is an expression of the physical members and of three higher, invisible members. The senses are pure physical; the glands are the expression of the etheric body, the nervous system of the astral body and the blood of the ego. If we look at the human being in contrast to the plant, the plant faces us as a two-membered being. The plant has a physical body and an etheric body. Now we compare the human being to the plant, while we proceed universally and take the inner, the spiritual, into consideration. We relate the human four-membered organism with the two-membered organism of the plants. In order to support our view we may start from physical, known facts. We can show how the plant builds up its organism. It builds up its body from inorganic substances. It has the strength to compose its body from single inorganic components in the most wonderful way. We need to see only how the plant is in a special interaction with the respiratory process. The human being inhales oxygen and exhales carbonic acid. The plant can absorb what is useless to the human being. It holds the carbon back for the construction of its organism and returns the oxygen for the most part. However, it requires something that is not regarded by many people as something particular: it needs the sunlight. Without sunlight, it could not build up its organism. The light that flows to us and delights us, that can animate us also emotionally, is at the same time the great assistant of the construction of the plant organism. We see how there a marvel takes place, how the sunlight helps to construct an organic being. What makes our eyes effective helps the plant to construct itself. The human being also has the astral body beyond the physical one and the etheric body. The plant does not have it. That which helps the sunlight to build up the plants so marvellously is the etheric body. This is turned on one side towards the substances. The human being could not develop his physical organism if he did not do anything that is in certain ways in the opposite way that which the plant does. Already in the respiratory process, the human being does something contrary. The human being already goes through the contrary process. We can say the same concerning the complete nutrition of the human being. We can say, nutrition must take place in such a way that everything that is built up in the plant is destroyed in the human being again. The process in the human being is very peculiar. If it were only the etheric body that built up a physical body, consciousness or soul sensation would never appear. What the etheric body has built up must be destroyed internally over and over again, must be destroyed. Indeed, the etheric body is a fighter against decay, but, nevertheless, always some decay occurs. The astral body causes the decay that keeps the human being from becoming a plant. The sunlight and the human astral body are two opposite things in certain ways. For one who gets to know the human astral body with clairvoyant consciousness the astral body is an internal spiritual light, invisible to the external eye. A spiritual light body is this astral body. It is the contrast to the external luminous light. Imagine once the sunlight becoming weaker and weaker, until it expires, and let it go even farther to the other side, let it become negative, then you have an inner light. This inner light has the opposite task of the external light that would build up the plant body from inorganic substances. The inner light which initiates the partial destruction, only by which process consciousness is possible, brings the human being to a higher level than the plant, because the process of the plant is transformed into its opposite. Thus, the human being is in a certain contrast to the plant because of his inner light. This is to understand the matter spiritually, and we would see on closer consideration how the destruction caused by the astral body is then continued by the ego. However, today this does not need to occupy us further. We now take the relationship of the human being to the plant, which becomes so real that the human being takes up his nutrients from the plant. He continues within himself what is for the plant a whole world process. What is built up by the sunlight is destroyed by the astral body, indeed, over and over again, but it thereby integrates the nervous system into the human being and makes the human life a conscious one. Thus, the astral body being a negative light body is the other pole that is opposed to the plant. Something spiritual forms the basis of this process of building up the plant organism; spiritual science shows us more and more how that which appears as light to us is only the external expression of something spiritual. Something spiritual shines, through the light, perpetually towards us, the light of the spirits shines towards us. What is hidden behind this physical light, but is separated in parts appears also in our astral body. It appears externally in its physical form, astrally in the astral body. The spiritual light works in us internally on the construction of our nervous system. So wonderfully do the plant and the human life work together. We now examine the human being's relationship with the animal realm as food. Here matters are different. In the animal from which he takes his foodstuffs, the process is already carried out in certain ways. What man takes usually from the plant is partially transformed by the animal, already prepared, Since the animal has an astral body and a nervous system, too. Therefore, the human being takes up something that does not come to him unchanged, but that has already gone through a process that has taken up astral forces. What lives in the animal has already developed astral forces in itself. One could now believe that thereby the human being saves work. However, this thought is not quite correct. Imagine once the following: I build up a house with the help of various pieces of equipment. I take the original equipment. There I can construct the house completely by my original intentions. However, let us assume that three or four other persons have already worked on it bit by bit and now I have to complete it. Does this make my work easier? No, surely not. You read in a widespread literature that work is made easier for the human being if someone has already worked on it. However, human being becomes a more versatile, more independent being just by taking up the original. Another picture: somebody has a balance with two scale pans. The identical weights keep the balance. On both sides there may be fifty pounds. However, that is not always the case. I can take a balance on which the arms are different lengths. Then we only need half the weight at twice the distance. Here the weight is defined by distance. It depends not only on the amount of the forces but also on the delicacy of the materials in particular. The animal processes the materials in a more imperfect sense. What the human being takes up continues to have an effect by that which the astral body of the animal caused in it, and then the human being has to overcome this first. However, because an astral body has worked so that a process has already taken place in a sentient being, the human being gets something in his organism that has an effect on his nervous system. This is the basic difference between food from the plant realm and food from the animal realm. The food from the animal realm works in particular on the nervous system and with it on the astral body. In contrast, with plant food the nervous system is left untouched by anything external. Then, however, the human being has also to create everything concerning the nervous system by himself. Thereby only that which originates in him flow through his nerves. He who knows how much in the human organism depends on the nervous system understands what that is. If the human being builds up his nervous system himself, it is fully receptive to that which the human being has to expect of it in relation to the spiritual world. The human being owes to the plant foods the ability to look up at the greater connections of things that raise him above the prejudices that arise from the narrow borders of the personal being. Where the human being regulates life, and thinking freely from the great viewpoints, this he owes to the plant foods. Where the human being lets himself get carried away by rage, antipathy, by prejudices, he owes this to his meat-based food. I do not agitate for plant foods. On the contrary: the animal food was necessary for the human being and still today it is often necessary because the human being should be firm on earth, should be hemmed in the personal. Everything that brought him to his personal interests is connected with the animal food. The fact that there were human beings who waged wars, who had sympathy and antipathy, sensuous passions for each other originates from the animal food. However, the human being owes to the plant foods that he is not limited to these narrow interests, that he can grasp universal interests. That is why the talents of certain peoples who prefer plant foods are more spiritual, while other people develop more bravery, courage, boldness that are also necessary to life. These qualities are not to be developed without the personal element, and this is not possible without animal food. We speak about these questions from a general human viewpoint today. However, this brings to our mind that the human being can go in this or that direction, can immerse himself also in his personal interests with the animal food. His sense is thereby clouded concerning the larger overview of existence. One mostly does not see how it is founded in the diet when the human being says: now I do not know how I should do this or that, how has he done it? This impossibility of surveying these connections comes from the food. Compare this to someone who can see the larger connections. You can look back at the food of these human beings and maybe at the food of the ancestors. A person who has a virginal nervous system given to him by his ancestry is completely different. This person has a different sense of the larger connections. Sometimes, abuses in one life cannot destroy what the ancestors have founded. Even if such a person, descended from peasants, for instance, stirs up what he has in himself, it has only been stimulated by the consumption of meat because he was more sensitive. Progress is made when the human being, as far as the requirement for protein that is not prepared in the human nature itself, confines himself to the animal foods that are not yet set aglow by passions, such as milk. The plant food will take up more and more room in the human diet. Concerning single foodstuffs, we can emphasise certain advantages of the vegetable foodstuffs. If the human being gets his protein from vegetable foodstuffs, he has to work harder, but he develops the forces that make his nervous system fresher. A lot of that which humanity would face if the consumption of meat got out of control would be avoided if vegetable foodstuffs would be preferred. We can see in the vegetarian and meat-based food the different effects they have. To illustrate this, we can say the following: look at the physical process under the influence of meat-based food. The red blood cells become heavy, darker; the blood tends to coagulate. Impacts of salts, of phosphates originate easier. If plant food is absorbed, the blood sedimentation is much lower. It becomes possible for the human being not to let the blood take on the darkest colouring. Just thereby is he able to control the coherence of his thoughts from his ego, while heavy blood is an expression of the fact that he is given away slavishly to that which is integrated in his astral body by the animal food. This picture is definitely an external expression of truth. The human being becomes internally stronger by the relation to the plant realm. By meat-based food he integrates something that gradually becomes foreign matter which goes its own way in him. This is avoided if the food consists mostly of plants. If the materials in us go their own ways, they strengthen the forces which cause hysterical, epileptic states. Because the nervous system receives these impregnations from the outside, it becomes susceptible to heterogeneous nervous diseases. Thus, we see how in certain respects “the human being is what he eats.” In details it would be still even more provable, but through two examples we can show that one must not be one-sided. A one-sided vegetarian may say, we are not allowed to enjoy milk, butter and cheese. However, milk is a product in which the etheric body of the animals is advantageously involved. The astral body is involved in it to the least extent. The human being can live in the first times of his life as a baby only on milk. There everything is contained in it that he needs. With the preparation of milk, the astral body comes into consideration only rudimentarily. If one enjoys milk primarily at later age, if possible only milk, one achieves a particular effect with it. Because the person ingests nothing that is processed externally and can influence his astral body, and because he absorbs something in the milk that is already prepared, he is able to develop particular forces of his etheric body in himself, which can exercise curative effects on the fellow men. The healers who want to have a curative effect on their fellow men have a particular aid in the consumption of milk. On the other hand, we want to describe the influence of a luxury that is taken from the plant realm, the influence of alcohol. This has a particular significance. It originates only when the real plant process, the effect of the sunlight, has stopped, namely the opposite that the astral body carries out. Then a process begins in the assimilation of alcohol that takes place on a lower level and impairs the human being even more than animal food. The human being brings the substances up to the astral body, gives them a particular structure with the astral body. However, if that which should be brought to the astral body disintegrates in the way as it is the case with the alcohol, then that happens without the astral body, hat which should happen under the influence of the astral body, namely the effect on the ego and the blood. The effect of the alcohol is to take over that which should happen, otherwise, from the free decision of the ego, by the alcohol. In certain respects, it is correct that a person who enjoys alcohol needs less food. He lets the forces of alcohol penetrate the blood. He provides what he himself should do with something external. One can say in certain ways that in such a person the alcohol thinks and feels. Because the human being provides to the alcohol what his ego should be subject to, the human being places himself under the constraint of something external. He gets a material ego. The human being can say, I just feel a stimulation of my ego thereby. Indeed, but now he is not experiencing the ego, but something else with which he has banished his ego. Thus, we could still show by various things how the human being can get around to being more and more what he eats. However, spiritual science also shows us how he is able to become free from the forces of food. Thus, I wanted only to describe the relation of the human being to his surroundings along general lines today, how he relates to the realms of nature through the processes of nutrition. Who visits this or that talk further on will see that individual questions can also be answered on other occasions. This talk will have shown you that spiritual science is something that has its effect also on the most material needs of life. Spiritual science is something that can be an ideal for the human future. Today one still says often if one sees the substances combining and separating in the human being: it is like in a retort, and one believes that one can find something salutary in it for the human beings. However, a time is coming when someone who does research in the laboratory will also keep in sight what I have said about the light and the astral body. Is not anybody able to make the usual chemical observations if he says to himself, that here the larger elements have an effect on the smallest things which are penetrated by the external physical sunlight, and those which shine up to the spiritual in the human consciousness? One will explore these things in a light that gives us an overview of the whole. By the spirit, everything is born that is in our surroundings. The spirit is the primal ground of all. If we want to come to truth, the spirit has also to stand with us as we conduct the research. Then we recognise that truth which the human beings need both on the macro cosmic and on the microcosmic scale.

Questions of Nutrition in the Light of Spiritual Science

https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA057/English/eLib2014/19081217p01.html

Berlin

17 Dec 1908

GA057-7

The subject that should occupy us today encloses a number of questions, which rightly interest the human being in particular. The issues of health are connected with everything that makes the human being able to cope with life, with everything that helps him to fulfil his determination in the world without hindrance. Therefore, health is indeed for most people something they aim at, as one aims at external goods. However, health is also to be considered as an internal good that is aimed at like the external goods first not for their own sake by the healthily thinking human being but as the means of his working and creating. Hence, we can probably explain why the urge, the longing for getting enlightenment about the riddles and questions of the healthy and ill life are so far-reaching in particular in our present. Indeed, you find that attitude in the general thinking only a little which is suitable to make the human being receptive just to those answers that one needs if one wants to solve such questions connected so intimately with the whole nature of the human being. As already once at a similar occasion, I remind of an old saying, which comes to somebody in mind if one speaks about health and illness: there are so many illnesses and only one health! This saying seems to be natural to some, and nevertheless it is a fallacy, a fallacy in the eminent sense of the word, because there is not only one health, but there are as many healths as there are human beings. We must incorporate that in our attitude if we want to see the issues of health and illness in the right light. We must incorporate in our attitude that the human being is an individual being that every human being is different from the other, and that that which is salutary to the one is noxious and disease causing to the other, that it completely depends on his individual state. Each of us can experience every day that these viewpoints are not so widespread. For example, a mother finds out that her child is not quite healthy; she remembers that this or that has helped her in similar cases once, so she cures straight on in such a way. Then comes the father who remembers that something else has helped him once. Then the aunt comes, then the uncle; they maybe say, fresh air, light, or water help. These prescriptions often contradict each other so that one cannot fulfil them at all. Everybody has his remedy by which he swears, and then this must be unleashed on the poor sick person. Who would not have found out that this good advice coming in a rush from everywhere is, actually, a surely awkward thing if the human being lacks this or that! All these things originate from an unrealistic way of thinking, from an abstract way of thinking, from a dogmatism that does not take into consideration that the human being is an individual being, a single being. Every human being is a being for himself, and it depends on it above all: to contemplate this reality “human being” if one deals with the phenomena of health and illness. Now arises such a need for help as the ill human being has it indeed from a property of his inner being, which must evoke the sympathy, the compassion of his environment. We can understand that everybody would want to help with pleasure, because this is only an expression of the fact that these questions just cause the deepest interest in the connection with the whole human nature. Indeed, if one contemplates this deep interest on one side, however, looks only a little into that which different views of health and illness prevail in our time, on the other side, then one can be rather saddened possibly. One could say, illness is such an important matter in human life and why it happens that learnt and unlearned people, doctors and laymen, argue not only about the remedies of the single illnesses, not only about the right ways to health, but even about the nature of illness in the most manifold theories. It sometimes seems that in our time of mental and scientific activity the ill human being and maybe the healthy one is exposed more than ever to the biased views asserting from all sides concerning important questions of human development. Are we allowed to hope that spiritual science, which I have characterised from the most different sides in these talks, can also bring light into the theories and biased views concerning health and illness, which we see today round ourselves? I have many a time emphasised here that spiritual science aims at a higher viewpoint that makes it possible to bridge that which divides the human beings into parties, because they have certain narrower circles of watching and observing only, and to show how one view resists to the other because it is one-sided. We have shown many a time that spiritual science is there just to search the good in the one-sidedness and to harmonise the different one-sided views. It may be one-sidedness — someone must say to himself, who considers the matter not only cursorily — what faces us if these or those dogmas are preached with demanding authority from the side of this or that pathology. You all have come to know how many biased views are opposing each other concerning these questions. Everybody knows that the academic or allopathic medicine — as it is called already, unfortunately, in the contemptuous sense — is on one side and homeopathy on the other side. Then, however, also wide circles have gained confidence in natural medicine that often has another view about illness and health and recommends not only what concerns the ill human being, but also that which is regarded as right for the healthy human being, so that he keeps himself robust and strong. Everything is coloured from this or that side, from the academic medicine or from natural medicine. If we realise from which viewpoint such a quarrel about illness and health comes into being between the supporters of the natural medicine and those of the academic medicine, then we hear the supporters of the natural medicine saying, the academic medicine searches its certain remedy of any illness. It takes the view that illness is something that seizes the human being as an external cause, and that there is also this or that external remedy for the illness. We do not want to forget with such characteristic that that which the one or the other side says often overshoots the goal and do not want to forget that in many aspects both parties do wrong by each other. Nevertheless, we want to stress single reproaches, which can clarify this. The supporter of natural medicine emphasises that the academic doctor relieves an inflammation in certain cases by ice packs and that he tries to help in articular rheumatism with salicylic acid et cetera. Particular supporters of natural medicine make serious allegations. They say, if the stomach secretes too much acid, the academic doctor tries to neutralise this stomachic acid. The naturopath says, this disregards the deep nature of illness and, above all, the deep nature of the human being. All that does not hit the nail on the head. If we assume that the stomach really secretes too much acid, it may be a proof of the fact that anything is wrong in the organism. In the properly functioning organism, the stomach does not secrete too much acid. Hence, if one neutralises the stomach acid, one does not yet suppress the tendency to create too much acid. One must not pay attention to remove the excess of acid in the stomach. Those who polemicise against the academic medicine say this. One would almost stir up the organism — if one removed the stomach acid — to produce quite a lot of acid. One has to go deeper and look for the real cause. Therefore, in particular the naturopath if he becomes fanatic will rail if one gives anybody who suffers from sleeplessness sleeping pills. Sleeping pills remove sleeplessness for a certain time; but you have not removed the cause. However, you must remove it if you want to help the sick person really. Among those who prefer the pharmacological point of view are two parties: the allopaths who state and use < specific remedy against certain illnesses, so to speak, a remedy that has the task to remove this illness. They start from the view that the illness is a disturbance in the organism, and a medicine must remove this disturbance. The homeopaths argue against it that this is not at all the real nature of illness, but the real nature of illness is a kind of reaction of the whole organism against an impairment in it. An impairment has appeared in the organism, and now the whole organism defends itself against this impairment. They say that one has to recognise with the aid of the symptoms, which appear with the ill human being and take into account that that which produces fever et cetera is something like an appeal to the forces in the organism. They can expel the enemy that has crept in. — Hence, the supporters of this method of healing say that one must just take those substances from nature, which cause the illness in the healthy organism. Of course, one must not give the ill organism these substances in heavy doses, which cause certain symptoms in the healthy organism, but just only so much that the relevant substance is sufficient to cause a reaction of the organism against the impairment. This is the principle of homeopathy: what can cause a certain illness in the healthy organism can also make the ill organism healthy again. One applies that remedy, which the organism shows by the symptoms. One imagines that in such a way that the organism shows in the ill state by the symptoms that he tries to overcome the illness That is why the homeopathic doctor applies just the opposite of that in many cases, which the allopathic doctor would apply. The naturopath stands often — not always — on the point of view that it does not matter whether any specific remedy removes an illness but that it matters to support the organism and its activity, so that it evokes its inner forces of recovery to control the illness process. Thus, the naturopath is anxious above all to advise also the healthy human being to support the activity of his organism. He stresses, for example, that it matters less for the healthy one whether a diet gives the human being special opportunity to stuff himself with this or that, but whether a diet gives the human being opportunity to evoke his inner forces in such a way that they become active. The naturopath stresses the function of the organs above all also with the healthy human being. He says, you do not strengthen your heart if you try to spur it perpetually with stimulants, but you strengthen your weak heart activating it, for example, with mountain walks et cetera. — Thus, someone who aims at the activity of the human organs also recommends to the healthy human being to activate his organs appropriately. You have may be seen if you have cared about such questions because they occupy, nevertheless, the present so much, with which fierceness and with which dogmatism is often fought by the one or the other side, how the one or the other side emphasises what it has to argue for its view. Thus, the academic medicine can point to the fact that it made big advances in the field of infectious diseases in the course of the last decades, in particular in the course of the last three to four decades. This academic medicine can point to the fact that it investigated the external pathogenic agents that destroy the human health. It improved the living conditions in such a way that, indeed, in the last time an upturn took place. Just that direction of medicine looks preferably at the pathogenic agents — at the today so dreaded realm of bacteria. That is why it has intensely intervened in the field of hygiene and sanitary facilities — not at all in a transparent way for the nonprofessionals — and has improved the health conditions. It is stressed indeed by some side — again, not completely wrong, but even with one-sided right — that this academic medicine has almost caused a fear of bacteria. However, on the other side the investigations have led to the fact that the health conditions were improved in the course of the last decades. The supporter of this direction proudly points to the fact that the death rate has really decreased by so many percent in the last decades. Those, however, who say that these are not so much the external causes of an illness, but that the causes are in the human being, in his disposition of illness, in his reasonable or unreasonable life, stress again that in the last times, indeed, the death rates have decreased undeniably; however, the numbers of patients have increased in terrifying way. One stresses that certain kinds of illness have increased, for instance, heart diseases, cancer illnesses, kinds of illness, which are not mentioned in the literature of the older time, illnesses of the digestive organs et cetera. Those reasons, which the one or other side alleges, are remarkable. One cannot object from a superficial point of view that the bacteria are not pathogenic agents of the most dreadful kind. However, one cannot deny on the other side that either the human being is strengthened in certain respects and is protected against the influence of such pathogenic agents or he is not. He is not protected if he has cut himself out of his strength by unreasonable life-style. In many a respect those things are admirable which have been performed by the academic medicine in the last time. How subtle are the investigations of the yellow fever concerning the way in which certain insects transfer it from person to person. How superior are the investigations of malaria and the like! However, on the other side, we can see that justified demands of this academic medicine can thwart our whole life very easily, what can lead to tyranny in certain respect. With a certain right one asserts that in the case of stiff neck, an illness often appearing in the last time, the pathogenic agent is not transferred from a sick person to another person, but that quite healthy human beings bear the germs in themselves and transfer them to other human beings. So human beings who walk around among us are the carriers of germs from whom then those who have a disposition of the illness can get it, while others who bear germs do not fall ill. Thus, it could happen that one demanded to isolate the carriers of germs; for if anybody has fallen ill with stiff neck, he is not as dangerous as those are who nurse him and are perhaps the real carriers of illness. To which consequences this must lead if one impeded the contact to these persons, one may recognise from the following: one can assert — and it has already been asserted — that at any school suddenly a bigger number of children fell ill with this or that illness. One did not know where from the illness came. Then it became apparent that the teachers were the real carriers of the illness. They themselves did not catch the illness, but they infected the whole school. The expression bacteria carrier or bacteria catcher is an expression, which a certain side can use even with a certain right. Already after the few explanations I could give, it is almost a matter of course that the nonprofessional knows just a little in these fields, which face him from this or the other side. We have to say now, just that which we have explained at the beginning of this consideration would have to be a real guide of welfare based on good reasons that are brought forward by the one or the other side. We have to regard, as a principle in the deepest and most significant sense that the individuality of the human being is a single reality, is something that is different from any other human being. We visualise, so to speak, a concrete example best of all. Imagine a human being — I say things which have definitely happened — who had an uncontrollable aversion of meat. He could not bear meat, could not eat it. He could not eat what is connected anyhow with meat, too. He developed quite healthy with his vegetarian diet. This went well as long as benevolent, good friends used all their energy to dissuade him from his paradoxical sensation. They advised him first, urged him, so to speak, to try broth at first. He was driven on and on, up to mutton. Besides, he always felt more and more ill. After some time, a phenomenon appeared with him like a particular abundance of blood. A peculiar hypersomnia appeared, and the good man perished by an encephalitis. If one had not drawn his attention every day once more to what he should eat, actually, if one had left him with his healthy desire, if one had not believed, “every shoe fits every foot,” if one had not adhered to dogmatism but had respected the individual nature of the person, then he would have kept well and fit. However, from such a case we should only learn to respect the individual nature of the human being. We should not derive a new dogma from it; thereby we would come to one-sidedness. If we consider how the death was caused in this case, we can answer this question in the following way. If you remember what I have said about issues of nutrition last time in the talk, you can infer the following from it: what one calls life processes leads the plant up to a certain point; it processes lifeless material to living organism. This process continues in the human organism. In certain respects is that which the human organism and the animal one do a decomposition of that which the plant has built up. The human and the animal bodies are based in certain respects on the fact that that is destroyed, which the plant has built up. Now an organism can be arranged in such a way that it requires, so to speak, just the point for itself to begin where the plant has stopped with its activity. Then it can be detrimental to it in the most remarkable sense if he is relieved of that part of the process, which the animal has already performed with the plant products. The animal leads the plant process up to a certain point, and then the human being can only continue it. If he enjoys animal food, he is relieved of it. If his nature just disposes of the forces, which can absorb the plant food freshly and strongly and continue them, then he has forces in himself, which are not used now for any absorption of nutrients and food processing. These forces are there. We do not get rid of these forces by the fact that we give them nothing to do, for then they turn to something else. They work inside of the human organism. The result is that it destroys the organism as an excess activity inside. You see — if you have a view sharpened by spiritual science — this excess activity occupying the whole human being, turning to his blood and his nervous system. One sees how it has looked in the organism like with a house building where one has used inappropriate material so that one must try to order and to arrange the material. One does not lead the forces for the processing of the nutrients to the inside with impunity. If we realise this, we become tolerant and do not position ourselves against nature. Then we must not stereotype in the opposite direction again and to become fanatics of vegetarianism for every human being. Just in such a way as with the above-mentioned man the activity was deflected to the inside and came in a rush, it can be on the other side that there are human beings who do not dispose of this force at all who cannot continue the plant process directly where it has stopped. Such persons would experience if one expected from them to become vegetarians just without further ado that they would have to take the forces that they need there poorly from their own organism. They would consume it and thereby make it starve. This can happen absolutely on the other side. What it concerns is that we turn away our view from these or those dogmas if we talk about conditions of health and illness, turn away from the view to eat this or that only. The point is to get to know the single human being and the necessity of his needs. It depends above all on the fact that this single human being has the possibility to feel and to recognise his needs in certain respects. If a materialistic view looked too very much at the only material, nevertheless, it would be necessary to this materialistic view to move in this direction that I have suggested now. Just to this, it would be actually impossible to stereotype and standardise. How much does one stereotype in our time! There one says, for example, just like that, this or that foodstuff or this or that medicine is detrimental. It has literally broken out an epidemic of stereotyping, and this has to happen if not any one-sidedness is excluded with the controversy of the different methods of healing. An epidemic has broken out under the headword “force,” so that one says, for example, at meetings of naturopaths, this or that is “force.” With it, one believes to have done enough to denounce this or that and to say that they only started from the material. Those who arrogate to themselves above all to consider the human being as an individuality should also consider it. In addition, if one surveys, for example, the other living beings, the word “force” loses any sense. We must modify our views concerning such matters. Who would not assume a particular force of the human being if he hears that, for example, rabbits eat the hemlock without harm, while Socrates died of it? In addition, goats and horses can eat the hemlock without harm, likewise aconite. With all these matters, we must always visualise the individual organism as a rule. If we visualise the individual organism, we get around to saying to ourselves: in single cases something may be right but “every shoe fits not every foot.” The question is, how can the human being gain a criterion for his health in himself? The child could be a certain lighthouse to us. Hence, we must absolutely keep in mind that the child expresses its sympathy or antipathy for this or that food in particular way. The careful observation of these things would be of extraordinary importance to each of us. It proves sometimes absolutely mistaken if anyone who has to educate a child wants to expel the instincts, which appear there with the child and express themselves as a certain desire, if one regards it as misbehaviour. Rather it is in such a way: what the child expresses as desire, as instinct, is a sign how the inner being of the child is natured. What the child feels and tastes, what it longs for, there the sensation, the desire is nothing but the expression of the fact that the organism requires just this or that. Yes, a hint, or, if we want to speak more drastically, a lighthouse for knowledge can be to us this leading instinct of the child. We can wander through the whole life and find the necessity everywhere that the human being must just develop this inner assurance concerning the needs of his organism. This is more uncomfortable than to get the direction dictated from this or that party and to listen to anybody what is good for all human beings. The human beings do not have it as easy as those who come with a certain general prescription, which one needs only to put in the pocket to know what can sicken and what can cure the human being. Just if one looks at such a guide of health, one also has to realise concerning illness that for the different human beings the most different conditions of health and healing exist. Let us assume that anybody has migraine. Somebody who stands dogmatically on the viewpoint — even if the academic medicine does no longer want to admit this — that there are specific remedies for this or that illness will say, one gives certain remedies against migraine to the sick person. The sick person will feel finer, and the migraine disappears. — Who stands on the viewpoint of natural medicine and has become a practitioner says, one can only combat the symptom that way and has damaged more with it than it was useful. It depends on the fact that one comes to the deeper causes; then one gets to all kinds of things which come, however, more to the core of the thing, which maybe do not restore the well-being in the single case so fast, which come, however, really deeper to the core of illness. One will combat the one or the other or regard it as useful if one positions himself dogmatically on the one or the other viewpoint. However, it concerns, as strange as it may be, the human being again. There could be a person who says to himself, if I have a violent migraine, indeed, it would be nice to wait until the natural medicine has got to the core of the illness to recognise it in its deeper roots and then to do what removes it. Nevertheless, I have no time. It is much more important to me that I get rid of the migraine as soon as possible and that I can resume my activity. — We assume now that this person has a wholesome occupation, so that he would get rid of the evil also without any remedy. There the remedy for migraine would damage him a little, because he would be torn out a little from his activity that is useful to him. Then, indeed, he would be treated after a prescription, which compares the human being to a machine to be overhauled. However, one has to end this comparison. One must not forget that someone must be there who works like the engineer on the locomotive. We assume that a crank of the locomotive moves with difficulty. There anybody could say, I see that the engineer cannot move the crank because he is too weak; I take another engineer who can exercise more strength to turn the crank. Another could say, perhaps one could file off what obstructs the crank, so that the crank has less difficulty to move; then the engineer can remain. — Therefore, one overhauls the engine. Of course, one must not apply this as a general prescription, because if one wanted to say: if the engine lacks something, one has to file off something, this does not always need to be right. It could be that not anything must be filed off at the concerning place, but that one has to add something. With the person, who had migraine, one simply repaired the harm by the remedy, and if he has the inner strength, the thing will already be in good order if he is not disturbed. Of course, it would be bad eventually if one proceeded in the same way towards anybody who wants to get rid of a migraine, but does not go over to an activity connected with his medical capability. He would have done better to remove the inner causes. Thus, we have to have penetrated this matter completely and have seen that there are specific remedies for illnesses, and that the application of specific remedies is connected in certain respects with the fact that our organism is an independent being and can be mended in many a direction. If one can rely on the fact that after the repair a right efficient strength exists which drives the human being, one does not need to stress that one pursues a cure of symptoms only, for there one thinks again materialistically. The naturopath knows something that would be quite appropriate to remove this or that illness, but it is as true that this or that human being does not have the time and not the strength to carry out it, and that he is concerned above all to compensate for the harm quickly. You see that here must be spoken not in one-sided, but in a universal way and one must accept the inconvenience to be not only a theorist, but to go into the facts and to look at the whole human being. That is the point. If we speak in such a way, we must take stock of the fact that we must consider the whole human being if we want to consider the human being as reality. For spiritual science, the whole human being is not only the external physical body, in particular if our health is not destroyed only by external, but by inner causes. What one has to consider even more is the health of the etheric body that is a fighter against the illnesses, up to death, is the health of the astral body, which is the bearer of passions, desires, impulses and ideas, and, finally, the health of the ego-bearer that makes the human being a self-conscious being. Who wants to take the whole human being into account must take the four human members into account, and if the issue of health is considered, it concerns not only that we remove disturbances of the physical body, but also look at that which takes place in the higher members, the more mental-spiritual members. There we must note that not only this or that party trespasses against that but also our contemporary attitude. You can learn from this that one puts the question very seldom: how is the issue of health connected with the mental-spiritual matters? — Today, you get a lot of approval if you speak about the caloric values of this or that food and about the effects this or that food has. One will also find full approval if one explains how the air is in this or that region where this or that sanitarium is located, how the air and the light work there and there. However, you do not find an echo if you indicate mental qualities as possible causes of certain illnesses. We take the instincts of the child as they express themselves in sympathy and antipathy compared with this or that food. If we take the feelings of disgust with which it rejects this or that as a sign which points to the fact that also the astral body must be healthy. It forms the basis of the healthy physical body, and if one notices a divergence from the healthy condition of the human being, one must pay attention to the recovery of the astral body. Does one still ask today really considering these questions, which experiences the human soul has towards the outside world? The spiritual scientist has to point to the fact that it depends basically a little whether one sends a person who suffers from this or that disease to this or that place, because one believes that the air or the light have a recovering effect on him because of external mechanical or chemical reasons. Another, much bigger question is whether I can bring him in such surroundings that he can experience joy, raise, in certain respects a brightening up of his emotional life. If we look at this on a large scale, we also understand that it belongs to the human health that the human being likes a diet that he has, so to speak, an indicator in his taste, in the immediate sensation of taste, an indicator of that which he should eat. On the other side, he has an indicator in the emerging sensation of hunger when his organism should eat. These are not only influences coming from the material world, which destroy this inner assurance of the human being, these are in the most cases also influences from the mental life which undermine the assurance of the sensation of hunger. Instead of teaching a healthy sensation of hunger at the right moment, the mental influence on the human nature can work in such a way that he feels no hunger but lack of appetite. A human being who has developed the needs of his organism in the right way also has the right pleasant feeling to find the right surroundings which serve his health in relation to light and air, so that the sensation of hunger comes to him at the right time afterwards. These are demands that are connected tightly with the medical life, and lead there to that which the astral body and the ego have to contribute to this health. One easily objects: if anybody has hunger, he cannot live on feelings and sensations. It is true that if one serves anybody with a tasty dish, his mouth is watering, but one cannot sate him with it if the real taste of the dish remains concealed to him. This objection is easy. We cannot sate or bring anybody back to health while we influence his soul to let the sensations and mental pictures proceed in the right way; this is a matter of course. However, one ignores something else. We cannot regulate the food explaining it, however, regulating the taste up to the appearing sensation of hunger. Here leads that which is fragmented today, because it is used only from the external material viewpoint, to the spiritual-mental. It is relevant whether the human being takes in this or that food with appetite or aversion, whether he lives in these or those surroundings, whether he does his work with joy or listlessness. The inner disposition of health is connected with it in mysterious ways, more than with something else. As we see with the child that it develops right instincts, and have an indicator of its inner needs, it is also necessary that the adult experiences the spiritual-mental, so that the right needs appear before his soul at the right time, that he feels which relation he has to produce between himself and the outside world. Life is appropriate in the broadest sense to mislead the human being concerning his relation to the outside world repeatedly. Moreover, just our today's attitude is the reason of such mistakes in more than one respect. In order to understand each other better I would like to point to the small beginning, which we have done with a certain method of healing. In Munich, one of our spiritual-scientific friends tries a kind of cure or method of healing as it results from the views of spiritual science. Someone who believes today that only material, physical-chemical and physiological influences can have recovering effects on the human being will maybe laugh about the fact that the person concerned is led into especially coloured chambers. There one works on the human soul — indeed, not on the surface — by the forces of a certain colour and other things, which I do not discuss. However, you must see the difference between this impact in the chambers, a kind of chromotherapy, a kind of colour therapy, and that which one calls light therapy. If the human being is irradiated with light, the idea forms the basis to let the physical light work immediately, so that one says to himself if one lets this or that beam of light work on the human being, one works on the human being from without. However, that does not apply to the mentioned colour therapy. With this method of healing taken from spiritual science, which our friend Dr. Peipers has arranged, one does not count on the effect of the beams of light as those, regardless of the human soul. However, one takes that into account, which, for instance, under the effect of the blue colour, not of the light via the mental picture originates in the soul and thereby it reacts on the physical organism. One has to consider this huge difference between light therapy and colour therapy. It happens that certain sick people are filled with the contents of a particular colour image. One has to know that the colours contain forces in themselves, which appear if they irradiate us not only, but work on our soul. One has to know that one colour works challenging, that another colour is something that releases longing forces, that the third colour is something that raises the soul above itself, and another colour is something that depresses the soul beneath itself. If we look at this physical-spiritual effect, the primal ground of the physical and the etheric becomes apparent to us: the fact that our astral body is the real creator of the physical and etheric. The physical is only a condensation of the spiritual, and the spiritual can react again on the physical, so that it is processed and enlivened in the right way. If we visualise the basic idea of such a thing, we can hope to be able to understand that that which lives in the spiritual-mental expresses itself in health and illness in the physical. Who realises this can hope for spiritual science concerning the issues of health. One can easily say, with any worldview, you cannot cure a human being — nevertheless, it is also true that the health of the human being depends on the worldview. This is a paradox to the modern humankind; it is a matter of course in future! I want to discuss this still a little more. One can say that the human being must come to the purely objective truth; he must make his concepts precise likenesses of the external physical facts. One can put up such a demand as a theorist. One can put a human being as an ideal who tries to think only what the eyes see what the ears hear and what the hands can touch. — Now there spiritual science comes and says: you can never understand what is real if you look only at that which is externally discernible, what the eyes see, what the ears hear, what the hands can reach. What is real contains the spiritual as a primal ground. One cannot perceive the spiritual; one must experience it by the cooperation, by the production of the spiritual-mental. One needs productive forces for the spiritual. The spiritual scientist is — if he speaks of the single parts of his science — not always in the position of demonstrating quite plainly what leads to his concepts. He describes what cannot be heard with ears, what cannot be seen with eyes, or cannot be seized with hands because it must be pursued with the eyes of the spirit. It is a portrayal of something that does not exist in the sensory world. We consider that as truth which gives an inner likeness of the outer reality. One may put up such a theory, but today we do not want to speak about its logical or epistemological value, we want to speak about its curative value. The point is that all those mental pictures which we abstract only from the outer sensuous reality which are not based on the inner co-operation of the soul creating pictures, have no inner formative forces; they leave the soul dead; they do not invoke the soul to activate its forces slumbering within. The fanatics of the external facts may speak about it ever so much that one should not intersperse reality with pictures of the supersensible world. However, as paradoxical as it may be, these pictures put our mind again in an activity that is commensurate with it. They harmonise it again with the physical organism. Someone who sticks to the purely abstract mental pictures of the merely materialistic science does nothing for his health from his spiritual. Who positively creates abstractions in his concepts only, makes his soul dull and void, and he always is dependent to make the external instrument of the body the carrier of health and illness. Who lives in disordered and wrong mental pictures does not know that he inoculates the causes of destruction of his organism to himself in mysterious way. Hence, spiritual science represents the viewpoint that by its points of view of the supersensible world, of that world which we do not recognise with external senses, but which we have to wake up with strong inner activity, we activate our soul, so that its activity complies with the spiritual world from which our whole organism has been created. Hence, our organism is healed not with petty means, but spiritual science itself is the great remedy. Somebody who forms his thoughts from the big viewpoints of the world and enlivens these thoughts causes such an inner activity that also his feelings and sensations proceed harmoniously making the soul happy. Who works on his thoughts in such a way works also on his intentions, and these have a recovering effect. However, they do this only because really a healthy worldview, a healthy harmony of thoughts fulfils our soul. Our sensations, and in connection with them also our desire and listlessness, our sympathy and antipathy, our longing and disgust are thereby, so that we face the world in such a way that we know what to do in every single case, like the child whose instinct has not yet been ruined. Thus, we evoke those feelings, sensations, will impulses, and desires in our souls, which are sure guidelines, which instruct us what to do to cause the right relation between the outside world and us. We say not too much if we say, clear, bright thoughts, comprehensive thoughts, as they are caused only by a comprehensive worldview, considering the whole world and aiming at the supersensible, are a condition of health. Pure feelings and will impulses that correspond to the objective of the spiritual enable the human beings to feel healthy hunger. Even if one cannot feed the human being a worldview, nevertheless, this offers the possibility to find what corresponds to his soul to look for what is suitable to him and to abhor what is not suitable to him. Thoughts that are likenesses of the supersensible world are the best digestive means — even if as a paradox — not because in the thoughts the forces of digestion are, but because the forces are evoked by energetic thoughts which make digestion proceed in a way. As long as the human beings do not hear this call of spiritual science, as long as they believe over and over again that any form of illness finds its recovery if one has found suitable means for it, as long they will not have recognised the significance of spiritual science. They will also not have recognised to what extent health plays a role in the development. In addition, those do not go far enough who say, one should not cure symptoms. They also do not grasp the spiritual core. Who approaches spiritual science finds out that it is a worldview through which internal bliss flows, a worldview of joy and desire, that it is a condition to promote the big remedy for health. It is easier to use this or that means than to enter the current of spiritual science in order to find what makes the human beings healthier and healthier. Then, however, one understands that it is true what an old proverb says: “Sound mind in a sound body,” but that it is wrong to understand this proverb materialistically. Who believes that he has to understand this proverb materialistically should only also say, here I see a house. This house is nice. Therefore, I conclude from it that a nice owner built it. The nice house makes a nice owner. — Nevertheless, someone is a little cleverer who says: here is a nice house; I conclude from it that in it an owner lives who has artistic taste. I consider the owner of the nice house as a person of good taste, and the house as the external sign of the fact that the owner is a person of good taste. Perhaps, anybody clever says, because external forces have made the body healthy, the body has formed a healthy soul again. — However, that is not correct, but someone is right who says: here I see the healthy body. This is a sign of the fact that a healthy soul must have built up it. It is healthy because the soul is healthy. — Therefore, one can say, because one sees the external symptom of the healthy body, a healthy soul must form the basis there. A materialistic time may interpret the proverb “sound mind in a sound body” quite materialistically. However, spiritual science shows us that a healthy soul works in a healthy body.

Questions of Health in the Light of Spiritual Science

https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA057/English/eLib2014/19090114p01.html

Berlin

14 Jan 1909

GA057-8

The basis of our consideration today may seem a weird arrangement to somebody: on one side Tolstoy, on the other side Carnegie, two personalities about whom probably some say, more different, more opposite persons one can hardly find. On one side, the solver of riddles of the highest social and spiritual problems searching from the depths of spiritual life — Tolstoy; and on the other side the steel tycoon, the rich man, the man about whom one knows literally hardly more than that he thought about how the accumulated wealth is to be used best of all — Carnegie. Then again the arrangement of both persons with spiritual science or anthroposophy. Indeed, with Tolstoy nobody probably doubts that one can illumine the depths of his soul with the light of spiritual science. However, with Carnegie some probably say, what has this man to do generally with spiritual science, this man of the only practical, business work? — Spiritual science would be the grey theory, the unrealistic and life-hostile worldview as one regards it is so often, if it does not care a little about the issues of practical life, as one believes sometimes. Therefore, it could appear weird that just such a man of practical life is adduced to illustrate certain issues. If one has understood that this spiritual science is something that can flow into all single fields, yes, into the most mundane fields of practical life, then one does not consider it as something surprising that also this personality is adduced to illustrate something that should be just illustrated within spiritual science. Secondly — to speak in the sense of Emerson — we have two representative personalities of our time before ourselves. The one like the other expresses the whole striving on the one side, the work on the other side typically, as they prevail in our time. Just the opposite of the whole development of personality and soul is so characteristic with these both men on one side for the variety of life and work in our time, on the other side, nevertheless, again for the basic nerve, the real goals of our present. We have, on one side, Tolstoy who has grown out of a distinguished class, of wealth and abundance, of a life sphere in which everything is included that external life can offer as comfort and convenience. He is a human being whom his soul development has brought almost to proclaim the worthlessness of all he got with birth, not only to himself, but also to the whole humankind like a Gospel. We have the American steel tycoon on the other side, a personality that has grown out of hardship and misery, grown out of a life sphere where nothing at all exists of that which external life can offer as convenience and comfort. A person who had to earn dollar by dollar and who ascended to the biggest wealth, who got around in the course of his soul development to regarding this accumulation of wealth as something absolutely normal for the present and to thinking only about it how this accumulated wealth is to be used to the welfare and happiness of humankind. What Tolstoy never desired when he had reached the summit of his soul development he had it abundantly in the beginning of his life. The external goods of life that Carnegie had abundantly acquired last were refused to him in the beginning of his life. This is the expression of their natures, even if in exterior way, however, the characteristic of both personalities to a certain extent at the same time. What can take action with a person in our time, what one can reflect of these external processes in and around the personality shows us with both what prevails in our present in the undergrounds of the social and mental existence generally. We see Tolstoy, as said, born out of a sphere of life in which everything existed that one can call comfort, wealth, and refinement of life. Of course, we can deal only quite cursorily with his life, because today it concerns of characterising our time in these representative personalities and of recognising their needs in a certain way. In 1828, Leo Tolstoy is born in a family of Russian counts about which he himself says that the family immigrated originally from Germany. Then we see Tolstoy losing certain higher goods of life. Hardly he is one and a half years old, he loses the mother, the father in the ninth year. Then he grows up under the care of a relative who is, so to speak, the embodied love, and from her spiritual condition, the marvellous soul condition had to flow in his soul like by itself. However, on the other side, another relative who wants to build up him out of the viewpoints of her circles, out of the conditions of time as they formed in certain circles influences him. She is a person who is completely merged in the outward world activity which later became very odious to Tolstoy and against which he fought so hard. We see this personality striving from the outset to make Tolstoy a person “comme il faut,” a person who could treat his farmers in such a way, as it was necessary in those days, who should receive title, rank, dignity, and medals and should play a suitable role in the society. Then we see Tolstoy coming to the university; he is a bad student as he absolutely thinks that everything that the professors say at the University of Kazan is nothing worth knowing. Only oriental languages can occupy him. In all other matters, he was not interested. Against it the comparison of a certain chapter of the code of Catherine the Great (1729–1796) with The Spirit of the Laws (1748) by Montesquieu (Charles de Secondat, Baron de M., 1689–1755) attracted him. Then he tries repeatedly to manage his estate, and we see him almost getting around to diving head first into the life of luxury of a man of his circles, diving head first into all possible vices and vanities of life. We see him becoming a gambler, gambling big sums away. However, he has hours within this life over and over again when his own activities disgust him, actually. We see him meeting peers as well as men of letters and leading a life, which he calls a worthless, even perishable one at moments of reflection. However, we also see — and this is important to him who looks with pleasure at the development of the soul where this development manifests in especially typical signs — particular peculiarities appearing with him in the development of his soul which can disclose us already in the earliest youth what is, actually, in this soul. Thus, it is of immense significance, what a deep impression a certain event makes on Tolstoy at the age of eleven years. A friendly boy once told him that one has made an important discovery, a new invention. One has found — and a teacher has spoken in particular of the fact — that there is no God that this God is only an empty invention of many human beings, an empty picture of thought. Everything that one can know about the impression that this boy's experience made on Tolstoy shows already how he absorbed it that in him a soul struggled striving for the highest summits of human existence. However, this soul was weird in other ways as well. Those people who like to state outer appearances and do not pay attention to that in the soul, which emerges from the centre as the actual individual through all outer obstacles, they ignore and do not pay attention to anything in such youth experiences that has different effects on the one soul and on the other one. In particular, one has to pay attention if a soul shows a disposition in the earliest youth that one could pronounce with the nice sentence of Goethe in the second part of his Faust : “I love the man who wants what cannot be.” This sentence says a lot. A soul, which desires, so to speak, something that is obvious foolishness to the philistine view, such a soul, if it appears in its first youth as such, shows the width of the scope of view just by such peculiarities. Thus, one must not ignore it, if Tolstoy tells such things in one of his first writings, in which he gives reflections of his own development. We are not allowed to ignore when he says there things, which were absolutely valid for him, for example, when he shaved off his eyebrows and defaced his not very extensive beauty in such a way for a while. This is something that one can regard as a big outlandishness. However, if one thinks about it, it becomes an indication. Another example is that the boy imagines that the human being can fly if he presses the arms against the knees rather stiffly. If he did this, he would be able to fly, he thinks. He goes up once in the second floor and jumps out of the window, retaining the heels. He is saved like by a miracle and carries off nothing but a little concussion, which compensates one another by an 18-hour sleep again. He proved for his surroundings with it to be a strange boy. However, someone who wants to observe the soul and knows what it means to go out in his soul in the earliest youth from the track, which is predetermined on the left and on the right, does not disregard features in the life of a young person. Thus, this soul seems to be great and to have many talents from the start. Hence, we can understand that he was fulfilled with a certain disgust of himself when he was tired of the debaucheries of life, which were due to his social rank, in particular after a gamble affair. When he goes then to the Caucasus, we can understand that there his soul becomes fond of the simple Cossacks, of those people whom he gets to know and recognises that they have, actually, quite different souls than all those people whom he had got to know up to now basically. All the principles of his peers appeared to him so unnatural. Everything that he had believed up to now seemed to him so strange, so separated from the original source of existence. However, the human beings, whom he got to know now, were people whose souls had grown together with the sources of nature like the tree by the roots with the sources of nature, like the flower with the liquid of the ground. It impressed him enormously that they were grown together with nature, that they had not become foreign to the sources of existence, that they were beyond good and evil in their circles. In 1854, when he became a soldier, full of zest for action, to take part in the Crimean War, we see him with the most intensive devotion studying the whole soul life of the simple soldier. However, we see now a more specified feeling taking place in Tolstoy's soul, we see him being deeply moved by the naturalness of the simple human being on the one side, on the other side, also by the misery, poverty, the tortures, and depression of the simple human being. We see how he is fulfilled with love and desire to help, and that the highest ideals of human happiness, human welfare, and progress flash as shades in his mind, how he realises completely on the other side that the natural human beings cannot understand his ideals. This causes a conflict in his soul, something that does not allow him to penetrate to the basic core of his being. Thus, he is thrown back repeatedly from that life he leads and in which he is thrown just with the Danube army from one extreme to the other. A superior says, he is a golden human being whom one can never forget again. He works like a soul that pours out goodness only and, on the other hand, has the ability to amuse the others in the most difficult situations. Everything is different if he is there. If he is not there, everybody hangs his head. If he has plunged into life, he comes back with a terrible remorse, with awful regret to the camp. Between such moods, this great soul was thrown back and forth. From these moods and experiences those views and pictorial descriptions of his literary career come, which caused, for example, the most accepting review even from Turgenev (Ivan T., 1818–1883, Russian author), and which have found recognition everywhere. However, we see at the same time how in a certain way beside the real centre, the centre of his soul, always he looks at the big strength, at the basic spring of life, how he struggles for the concepts of truth and human progress. However, he cannot help saying at a being together with Turgenev: you all do not have, actually, what one calls conviction. You talk, actually, only to hide your conviction. One can say, life made his soul feel low, bringing it into heavy, bitter conflicts. Indeed, something most serious should yet come. At the end of the fifties, one of his brothers fell ill and died. Tolstoy had often seen death in war, had often looked at dying human beings, but he had not yet realised the problem of life to such extent as at the sight of the beloved dying brother. Tolstoy was not so fulfilled at that time with philosophical or religious contents that these contents could have supported him. He was in such a basic mood that expressed itself towards death possibly in such a way that he said, I am incapable to give life a goal. I see life decreasing, I see it running in my peers worthlessly; they do things which are not worth to be done. If one strings up an event to the other and forms ever so long rows, nothing valuable results. — At that time, he could also not see any contents and life goal in the fact that the lower social classes were in distress and misery. He said to himself at that time, such a life whose sense one searches in vain is finished by the futility of death and if the life of everybody and any animal ends in the futility of death, who is generally able to speak about the meaning of life? Sometimes, Tolstoy had already set himself the goal to strive for perfection of his soul, to search contents for the soul. He had not advanced so far that any contents of life could be roused in the soul even from the spirit. Therefore, the sight of death had put the riddle of life in such horrible figure before his spiritual eye. We see him travelling in Europe just in the same time. We see him visiting the most interesting cities of Europe — in France, Italy, Germany. We see him getting to know some valuable persons. He gets to know Schopenhauer (Arthur Sch., 1788–1860, German philosopher) personally shortly before his death, he gets to know Liszt (1811–1882, Austrian-Hungarian composer) and still some others, some luminaries of science and art. He gets to know something of the social life, gets to know the court life at Weimar. Everything was accessible to him; however, he looks at everything with eyes from which the attitude looks that has just been characterised. From all that he had gained only one: as well as it is at home, in the circles, which he has grown out of, it is also in Western Europe. Now a goal faces him in particular. He wanted to found a kind of model school, and he founded it in his hometown where every pupil should learn after his talents where it should not be a stencil. We cannot get involved with the description of the pedagogic principles, which one used there. However, this must be stressed that he had an ideal of education in mind, which should meet the individuality of the child. We see a kind of interregnum taking place, where in certain way the stormy soul experiences a kind of standstill, that soul in which the problems and the questions followed in rapid succession, into which the sensations and emotions have flowed in contradicting way. A calmer life prevails in it. This time begins with the marriage in the sixties. It was the time from which the great novels come in which he gave the comprising tremendous pictures of the social life of the present and the previous time: War and Peace (1869) and Anna Karenina (1873–1877). So much has flowed in from that which he had learnt onto these works. Thus, he lived until the seventies of the last century. Then comes a time of his life where he faces a crucial decision where all qualms, doubts, and problems come to life again which prevailed once like from dark spiritual depths. A comparison, a picture that he forms is rather typical of what his soul experienced. One needs to visualise this picture only and to know that it means quite another matter to a soul like Tolstoy's soul, as for another soul that is much more superficial. You need to visualise this picture only, and you can deeply look into the mind of Tolstoy. He compares his own life to an Eastern fable, which he tells possibly in such a way: There is a man, pursued by a beast. He flees, finds a dried out well and plunges into it to escape from the beast. He holds fast onto the branches, which have grown out on the sides of the well wall. In this way, he thinks he is protected against the pursuing monster. However, in the depth, he sees a dragon, and he has the feeling, he must be devoured by it if he gets tired only a little or if the branch breaks, onto which he holds fast. There he also sees on the leaves of the shrub some drops of honey from which he could feed himself. Nevertheless, at the same time he also sees mice gnawing away at the roots of the shrub onto which he holds fast. Two things to which Tolstoy adhered were family love and art. For the rest, he considered life in such a way that all tantalising worries of life pursue him. He escapes one and is welcomed by the other monster. Then one sees mice gnawing away the few things that one still. — One must take the picture deeply enough to see what goes forward in such a soul, what is shown there and what Tolstoy experienced in all thinking, feeling and willing in the most extensive way. The branches still pleased him. However, he also found various things, which had to gnaw away at the delight in them. If the whole life is in such a way, that one cannot find sense in it, that one looks for the meaning of life in vain, what does it mean to have a family, to build up descendants to whom one transfers the same futility? This was also something he had in mind. And art? If life is worthless, what about art, the mirror of life? Can art be valuable if it only is able to reflect that in which one looks for sense in vain? That just stood before his soul and burnt in him after an interregnum again. Where he looked around with all those who tried to fathom the meaning of life in great philosophies and in the most various worldviews, he nowhere found anything that could satisfy his searching. Recently it was in such a way that he turned his look to those people who were originally connected with the springs of life according to his opinion. These human beings had preserved a natural sense, a natural piety. He said to himself, the scholar who lives like me, who overestimates his reason finds nothing in all researching that could interpret the meaning of life to him. If I look at the usual human being who unites there in sects: he knows, why he lives, he knows the meaning of life. How does he know this, and how does he know the meaning of life? Because he experiences the sensation in himself, there is a will, the everlasting divine will as I call it. What lives in me devotes itself to the divine will. What I do from morning to evening is a part of the divine will. If I move the hands, I move them in the will of the divine. Without being brought by reason to abstractions, the hands move. — That faced him so peculiarly, that grasped him so intensely: if the human is deeply grasped in the soul. He said to himself, there are human beings who can answer the question of the meaning of life to themselves that they can use. It is even magnificent how he contrasts these simple human beings with those who he got to know in his surroundings. Everything is thought out of the monumental of the paradigms. He says, I got to know people who did not understand to give life any meaning. They lived by force of habit, although they could gain no meaning of life, but I got to know those who committed suicide, because they could not find any meaning of life. — Tolstoy himself was before it. Thus, he studied that category of human beings about whom he had to say to himself, it could not be talk of a meaning of life and of a life with a meaning. However, the human being, who is still connected with the sources of nature, whose soul is connected with the divine forces as the plant with the forces of life, can answer to the question: why do I live? — Therefore, Tolstoy came so far to search for a community with those simple human beings in the religious life. He became religious in certain way, although the outer forms made a repellent impression on him. He went to the Communion again. Now it was something in him that one can explain in such a way: he strove with all fibers of his soul to find and to feel a goal. Nevertheless, again his thinking and feeling impeded him everywhere in certain way. He was able to pray together with these human beings, who were believers in the naive sense and answered to the question of the meaning of life to themselves. He could pray — and this is tremendously typical — up to the point of a uniform way of feeling. However, he was not able to go further when they prayed: we confess ourselves to the Father, to the Son and to the Holy Spirit. — This made no sense to him. It is generally typical that he was able to come up to a certain point, looking for a religious life, which was based on brotherly feelings. This life in devoutness should produce a unity of feelings, unity of thoughts. However, he could not rise to the positive contents, the knowledge of the spirit, to the spiritual view, which gives reality. The traditional dogmatics meant nothing to him. He could not connect any sense with the words, which are given in the Trinity. Thus, he came, while all these things flocked together, to the mature period of his life, to the period in which he tried to delve completely into that which he could call true, real Christianity. He strove in such a way, as if he had wanted to comprise, to penetrate the liveliness of Christ's soul with his own soul. With this spirit of Christ's soul, he wanted to penetrate himself. A worldview should arise from it, and from this something like a transformation of all present life should result which he subjected to harsh criticism. Because he believes now to feel in his soul, what Christ had thought and felt, he feels strong enough to issue a challenge to all ways of life, to all ways of feeling and thinking of the present. He criticised harshly that out of which he has grown and which he could see in the farther environment of his time. He feels strong enough to put up the demand, on the other side, to let the spirit of Christ prevail and to get out a renewal of all human life out of the spirit of Christ. With it, we have characterised, so to speak, his maturing soul and have seen this soul having grown out of that which many of our contemporaries call the summits of life. We have seen this soul getting around to harshly criticise the summits of life, and to putting as its next goal the renewal of the spirit of Christ which it finds strange to everything that lives presently, in the renewal of Christ's life which it nowhere finds in reality. Therefore, in certain sense, Tolstoy says no to the present and affirms what he calls the spirit of Christ, which he could not find in the present but only in the first times of Christianity. He had to go back to the historical sources, which came up to him. There we have a representative of our present who has grown out of the present, saying no to this present. Now we have a look at the other man, who affirms most intensely, what Tolstoy denies most intensely, who reaches the same formula but applies it quite differently. There we see Carnegie, the Scotsman, growing out of that dividing line of modern times which we can characterise by the fact that trade, large-scale industry and the like sweep away the small trade from the social order. We really see Carnegie growing out of that dividing line of modern life, which a newer poet so nicely characterised with the words (poem by Heinrich von Reder, 1824–1909, Bavarian officer, poet, and painter): Gone to rack on a mule track a smithy stands in woodland solitude; no longer does the hammer blow accompanied by merry songs. Not far away the buildings rise where sooted blacksmiths are working so hard. With the steam mill's nails the coffin is closed, it carries the nail-smith impoverished to grave. One needs to wake only such a mood, and one illuminates brightly that dividing line in the cultural development of modern times, which has become so important to life. Carnegie's father was a weaver who had a good living at first. He worked for a factory. This went well up to the time when the large-scale industry flooded everything. Now we see the last day approaching, when Carnegie's father can still deliver the produced to the trader. Then poverty and misery enter in the weaver's family. The father does no longer see any possibility to make a living in Scotland. He decides to emigrate to America, so that both sons do not live in misery and die. The father finds work in a cotton factory, and the boy is employed as a bobbin boy in his twelfth year. He has to perform hard work. However, there is after one week of hard, heavy work a happy day for the 12-year-old boy. He gets his first wage: 1 dollar and 20 cents. Never again — so says Carnegie — he has taken up any income with such delighted soul as this dollar and twenty cents. Nothing made more joy to him later, although many millions went through his fingers. We see the representative of practical pursuit in our present that grows out of distress and misery that is natured in such a way to immerse himself in the present, as it is, and to become the self-made man in it. He struggles. He gains his dollar every week. Then somebody employs him in another factory with a better wage. Here he has to work even more, he must stand in the basement and has to heat and maintain a small steam engine with big heat. He feels that as a responsible post. The fear to turn the tap of the engine wrongly what could lead to an accident for the whole factory is dreadful to him. He often catches himself sitting in his bed at night and dreaming of the tap the whole night which he turned taking care of turning it in the right direction. Then we see him employed as a telegraph messenger in Pittsburgh after some time. There he is already highly happy with the small wage of the telegraph messenger. He has to work at a place where also books are which he had hardly seen before. Sometimes he also has newspapers to read. He has now only one worry: telegraph messengers are not to be needed in the city if they are not able to know all addresses of the companies by heart, which receive telegrams. He really manages to know the names and addresses of the Pittsburgh companies. He also already develops a certain independence. His consciousness is paired exceptionally with cleverness. He goes now a little earlier to the telegraph office, and there he learns to telegraph by own practicing. Thus, he can aim at the ideal that any telegraph messenger is allowed to have in a young, ambitious community: to become a telegraph operator once. He even succeeds in a special trick. When one morning the telegraph operator was not there, a death message comes in. He takes up the telegram and carries it to the newspaper to which it was determined. There are connections where one regards such an action, even if it succeeds, not as favourable. However, Carnegie thereby climbed up to the telegraph operator. Now something else presented itself to him. A man who dealt with railways recognises the talents of the young man and one day he makes the following proposal to him. He said to him, he should take over railway stocks of 500 dollars that had just become available. He can win a lot if he pursues these matters. Carnegie tells now — it is delightful how he tells this — how he raised 500 dollars really by the care and love of his mother, and how he bought his stocks. When he got the first revenue, the first payment of more than five dollars, he went with his fellows out to the wood. They looked at the payment and thought and learnt to recognise that there is something else than to be paid for work, something that makes money from money. That aroused big viewpoints in Carnegie's life. With it, he grew into the characteristic of our time. Thus, we see him immediately understanding when another proposal is made. It is typical how he grasps with complete presence of mind what appears before his soul for the first time. An inventive head shows him the model of the first sleeping car. Straight away, he recognises that there is something tremendously fertile in it, so that he takes part in it. He emphasises now again by what this consciousness, actually, grew. He did not have enough money to take part in suitable way in the enterprise of the first sleeping car society of the world. However, his ingenious head caused that he got money already from a bank: he issued his first bill of exchange. This is nothing particular, he says, but this is something particular that he finds a banker who accepts this bill of exchange. This was the case. Now he needed to develop this only to become completely the man of the present. Hence, we have not to be surprised that he became a steel tycoon when he got the idea to replace the many wooden bridges with iron and steel bridges, that he became the man who set the tone in the steel industry and acquired the countless riches. Thus, we really see the type of the human being in him who grows into the present, the present, which unfolds the most exterior life. He grows into the most outward of appearance. However, he grows into it by his own strength, by his abilities. He becomes the extensively rich person out of distress and misery, while he himself really acquired everything from the first dollar on. He is a pensive person who associates this whole impulse of his life with the progress and life of whole humanity. Thus, we see another strange Gospel growing out of his way of thinking, a Gospel that follows Christ. However, Carnegie immediately says at the beginning of his Gospel, it is a Gospel of wealth (essay Wealth or Gospel of Wealth , 1889). That is why his book shows how wealth is applied best of all to the welfare and to the progress of humanity. He opposes Tolstoy immediately about whom he says: he is a person who takes Christ in such a way as it is not suitable at all to our time, who regards him as a strange being of old past. One must understand Christ in such a way that one transfers Him to the present life. — Carnegie is a person who affirms the whole life of the present completely. He says: if we look back at the times when the human being were more alike than today, they were still less divided into those who had to assign a job and those who have to take a job, and if we compare the times, we see how primitive the single cultures were in those days. The king was not able in that old time to satisfy his needs in such a way as today the poorest person can satisfy them now. What happened had to happen. That is why it is right that one distributes the goods in such a way. Carnegie establishes a strange doctrine of the distribution or application of wealth. Above all, we find with him that ideas of the purely personal efficiency, of the nature of the efficiency of the human being originate in his soul who has worked his way in life up to that which he becomes in the end. At first Carnegie sees outward goods only, then also that the human being must be efficient, externally efficient. Someone has to apply his efficiency not only to acquire wealth but also to manage it in the service of humanity. Carnegie intensely draws the attention to the fact that quite new principles would have to enter, so to speak, in the social construction of humanity if welfare and progress should originate from the new progress and the distribution of goods. He says, we have institutions of former time that make it possible that by inheritance from the father to the son and the grandchildren goods, rank, title and dignities go over. In the life of the old time, this was possible. — He regards it as right that one can substitute with routine what the personal efficiency does not give: rank, title, dignities. Nevertheless, he is convinced by that life he has experienced that it requires personal, individual efficiency. He points to the fact that one had ascertained that five of seven insolvent houses became insolvent, because they demised to the sons. Rank, title, and dignities devolved from the fathers upon the sons, however, never business acumen. In those parts of modern life, where commercial principles prevail, they should not be transmitted simply from the testator to the descendants. It is much more important that someone builds up a personally efficient man, than to bequeath his wealth to his children. That is why Carnegie concludes in the absurd sentence: someone has to make sure that he applies the accumulated wealth to such institutions and foundations by which the human beings are promoted to the largest extent. — The sentence with which he formulates this, which can appear grotesque, which originates, however, from Carnegie's whole way of thinking is this: “Who dies rich dies dishonourably.” One could say in certain sense, this sentence of the steel tycoon sounds even more revolutionary than many a sentence of Tolstoy. ”He who dies rich dies dishonourably” means: someone dies dishonourably who does not apply the accumulated goods to endowments by which the human beings can learn something, can get the possibility to do further studies. If he makes many human beings efficient with his wealth during his life and does not hand it down to descendants, who can use it their way lacking any talent and only to their personal well-being, he dies not dishonourably. Thus, we see with Carnegie a very strange principle appearing. We see that he affirms the present social life and activity, that he gains, however, a new principle from it: the fact that the human being has to advocate not only the use of wealth, but also its management, as a manager of the goods in the service of humanity. This man does not at all believe that anything can devolve from the parents upon their descendants. Even if he knows the outward life only, he realises, nevertheless, that inside of the human being the forces have to originate which make the human being efficient to do his work in life. We see these two representatives of our present: that who harshly criticizes what has developed bit by bit and who wants to lead the soul to higher fields out of the spirit. On the other side, we see a man who takes the material life as it comes, and who is pointed to the fact that within the human being the spring of work and of the health of life is to be found. Nevertheless, one may find something just in this teaching of Carnegie that allows me to remark the following. If anybody does not look thoughtlessly and pointlessly at this soul life, but looks at the forces pouring out of the souls bit by bit, does look at the individual, and is clear in his mind absolutely that it is not handed down, — what has one then to look at? One has to look at the real origin, at that which comes from other sources. One finds if one comes to the sources of the present talents and abilities that these are caused in former lives. By the principle of reincarnation and of spiritual causing, karma, one finds the possibility to process such a principle meditatively that it has forced the practical life upon a practical person. Nobody can hope that from a mere externalisation of life anything could come that the soul satisfies, can bring the civilisation to the highest summits. Never can one hope that on those roads anything else would come than a distribution of wealth salutary in the external sense. The soul would become deserted, it would overexert its forces, but it would find nothing in itself if it could not penetrate to the sources of the spirit, which are beyond the external material life. While the soul is rejected by a material approach to life, it must find the spring, which can flow only from a spiritual approach to life. With such a life praxis, as Carnegie has it, that deepening and spiritualisation coming from spiritual science have to combine, so that the souls do not become deserted. On the one side, Carnegie demands that from the single soul, which makes it fit for the external life, on the other side, Tolstoy wants to give the single soul what it can find from the deep well of the spiritual being. As well as Carnegie grasps the being of the present with sure look from the material life, we find Tolstoy on the other side with sure look grasping the characteristic of the soul. Up to a certain limiting point, we see Tolstoy coming who affects us, indeed, strangely if we compare everything that lives in Tolstoy's worldview to that which faces us in particular in the West-European civilisation. One can examine work by work of Tolstoy and one sees one fact emerging above all. The matters, which one has gathered here in the West with an immense expenditure of philosophical reflection, academic pondering, and moving conclusions from pillars to post, appear to Tolstoy in such a way that they occur in five to six lines like flashes of thought and become conviction to that who can understand such a thing. Tolstoy shows, for example, how we have to find something in the human soul that is of divine nature that can visualise the divine in the world if it lights up in us. Tolstoy says there, around me, the academic naturalists live; they investigate what is real outdoors in the material, in the so-called objective existence. They search the divine primal ground of existence. Then such people try to compose the human being from all principles, substances, atoms et cetera that they search spread out outdoors in the space. Then in the end, they try to understand what the human being is, while they believe to have to combine all external science to find the primal ground of life. Such human beings, he says, appear to me like human beings who have trees and plants of the living nature round themselves. They say, this does not interest me. But there is a wood far away, I hardly see it; I want to investigate and describe this wood, then I also understand the trees and the plants which are around me, and I am able to describe them. — People appear to me that way who investigate the being of the animals with their instruments to get to know the nature of the human being. They have it in themselves; they only need to see what is in close proximity. However, they do not do this. They search the faraway trees, and they try to understand what they cannot see, the atoms. However, they do not see the human being. This way of thinking is so monumental that it is more valuable than dozens of insights and theories that are written out of old cultures. This is typical for the whole thinking of Tolstoy. To such things, he came, and in such things, one must look. To the West European this is extremely unsatisfactory; only by a devious route via Kant he gets around to it. With the assurance of his soul, Tolstoy is driven to pronounce what is not proved, but is true, what is recognised by immediate view and of which one knows if it is pronounced that it is true. His work On Life (1887) shows this monumental original springing of the deepest truth like from the spring of life, which he searched. His last writings just show this and what is in such a way that it can shine like an aurora to a rising future. Therefore, we have to say, the less we are inclined to take Tolstoy dogmatically, the more we are inclined to take up the gold nuggets of a primitive paradigmatic thinking, the more he becomes fertile. Of course, those who accept a personality only in such a way that they swear on their dogmas, who cannot allow to be fertilised by it, they do not have a lot from him. Something does not agree with them. However, someone who can allow to be fertilised by a great personality may receive a lot from Tolstoy. We see truth working in him, paradigmatically, and that this truth flows with strong forces onto his personal life. How does it flow in there? It is rather interesting to see that different views live in his family and tolerate each other. How was he able, however, to introduce his principles in the everyday life? By working, and not only with principles. Thereby he becomes a true pioneer of something that only must sprout in future. On the other side, Tolstoy is also a child of his time, even though he is a pioneer of the future. Perhaps, one can nowhere feel more impressively how he puts himself in the present than in that strange picture of the year 1848, when he was twenty years old. One looks only at the face of the 20-year-old, which expresses energy and willpower, also reticence at the same time. However, the spirited twinkle in the eyes reveals something that faces the riddles of life quizzically. He is volcanic inside but not able to cause the volcano to erupt. Indeed, we see mysterious depths of the soul expressing themselves in his physiognomy, and we get the expression of the fact that something tremendous lives in him but that he cannot yet express it completely in this hereditary organism. It is also that way with the variety of the forces which live in Tolstoy, and which could not be expressed so really. It is in such a way, as if they are expressed as caricatures, distorted in certain respect. One has also to recognise the character in him that is sometimes distorted grotesquely. Hence, it is quite wonderful if he is able to point to that which one calls something transient with the human beings normally: look at the human body. How often its substances have been exchanged! Nothing material is there that was there in the ten-year-old boy. Compare the usual consciousness to the image life of the fifty years old man: it has become completely different, until the soul structure. We cannot call it permanent, but everywhere we find the centre in it, which we may imagine possibly in the following way. The objects of the outside world are there. There is this, there is that, there a third one. Two human beings face the objects. The eyes see the same things, but they are to the one this way, to the other that way. The one says, I like this; the other says: I do not like this. — If in the outside world everything is the same, and if the one soul says, I like it, and the other says, I do not like it, if the way of life is different, a centre is there that is different from all appearance that remains constant, in spite of all change of consciousness and body. Something is there that was there before birth and is there after birth, my particular ego. This my particular ego has not begun with birth. It is not the point that anybody positions himself with the west-European habits to such a remark, but it matters that one has the sensation: one can do such a remark. Therein the greatness of the soul appears. It becomes apparent that the soul lives and how it lives. Immortality is guaranteed therein. Tolstoy just approaches the border of that which we get to know as the innermost being of the soul by spiritual-scientific deepening. He is wedged by the world against which he himself fights so much and cannot penetrate to true cognition of that which is there before birth, and of that which comes after death. He does not come to the teaching of reincarnation and karma. Just as little, he gets to the inner impulse of the soul like Carnegie who almost demands it. Therefore, we see whether now a human being is in contradiction to everything that lives and works in the present or whether someone complies with all life forms of the present: he is led to the gates of the anthroposophic approach to life. Tolstoy would be able to find the way to Carnegie, Carnegie never to Tolstoy. With this talk, I wanted to show that a worldview and an approach to life could be given which introduces into the immediate life praxis, which can transfer the newfound to the known, to the performed. Moreover, we see if we familiarise ourselves deeper and deeper with spiritual science that it brings that to the human beings of the one and the other view which, in the end, Tolstoy has found his way and Carnegie has found his way: a satisfying life. However, it does not depend on it that the immediate viewfinder finds the satisfactory life, and that those who search with him can find it. What Tolstoy and Carnegie have found for themselves as adequate, this can be found for all human beings only impersonally and spiritually if true spiritual knowledge of that is found which goes from life to life, which carries the guaranty of eternity in itself.

Tolstoy and Carnegie in the Light of Spiritual Science

https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA057/English/eLib2014/19090128p01.html

Berlin

28 Jan 1909

GA057-9

The anthroposophic spiritual science that is represented here — of course, always only piecemeal — is regarded by a lot of people who do not know or do not want to know it as a field of daydreamers and of such human beings who, as one says so easily, are not in the real, in the practical life. Indeed, someone who wants to inform himself cursorily with this or that brochure or with a single talk about the contents and the goal of spiritual science can easily get to such a judgment. That applies, in particular if he — like many others — is less willing on penetrating into the real spiritual fields or if he has all prejudices and suggestions which arise from our civilisation so numerously against such a field of research. Moreover, it is not so seldom today that the bad will is added, no matter whether consciously or unconsciously, then the judgement is ready: oh, this spiritual science deals with matters which the practical human being who wants to stand firmly with both feet on the ground of life should not care about! However, spiritual science feels intimately related with the most practical fields of life, and where it is appropriately pursued, it places the greatest value on the fact that thinking, the most certain guide, experiences a practical development with the real practical life. Because firstly spiritual science should not be anything that hovers unworldly and otherworldly anywhere in the cloud-cuckoo-land and wants to deduct the human being from the usual everyday life. However, it should be something that can serve our life with all that we think, act, and feel at every moment. Secondly, spiritual science is in a certain sense a preparation of our soul for those levels of knowledge, by which the human being himself penetrates into the higher worlds. One often stresses that spiritual science has a value not only for the human being who already has open eyes to penetrate in the spiritual world, but that the healthy human mind, the unclouded reason and power of judgement are able to understand what the spiritual researcher knows about the higher worlds. For the acceptance of his communications has an infinite value for the human being, long before he himself can penetrate into the spiritual fields. One can say, spiritual science is for everybody a preparation to develop the higher organs of knowledge bit by bit slumbering in the soul by which the spiritual worlds become discernible to us. We have already spoken partly; we will have still to speak partly about the different methods and performances, which the human being has to carry out in order to penetrate into the spiritual worlds. However, there is always an unconditional requirement: who wants to penetrate into the spiritual world, who wants to apply the methods exactly given by spiritual research, so that the spiritual senses are opened to him, that should never ever venture this way to the higher fields of life without standing on the ground of a healthy, a practically qualified thinking. This healthy thinking is the guide, the true leitmotif, in order to reach the spiritual worlds. Someone reaches them best of all using the methods of spiritual science who does not disdain to educate himself strictly to a thinking bound to reality and its principles. Indeed, if one speaks about the real practical thinking, one easily is contrary to practice, and probably practice of thinking in our world. One has only to remind of something that I have already often suggested here in order to characterise this. Many a person attributes practice to himself in our world. What is, however, practice about which today the so-called practical human beings talk? There is somebody apprenticed to a master. There he learns all those performances and measures which were carried out for decades, maybe since centuries and which are strictly compulsory. He appropriates that all, and the less he thinks, the less he forms an independent, free judgement, the more he goes beaten tracks, the more the world considers him as practical, in particular those consider him who are active in this field. One calls this often impractical what differs only in the least sense from anything that one practises since long time. Maintaining such a practice is mostly not bound to reason, but only to force. Someone who has any position in life and has to carry out things in a way, which appears to be correct for him, insists that every other who is active in this field must do this just as he does it. If he has the power, he pushes everybody out who wants to go forward differently. Life praxis consists of such conditions in many cases. Then the right also results, as for example in the case where a big progress should be implemented: The first German railway should be built from Fürth to Nuremberg. One consulted an eminently practical board, the Bavarian Medical Council, whether generally this railway should be built. One can read this judgement, even today. It reads, one should build no railway because the driving would ruin the nerves. However, if one wanted to build railways, one should fence them on the left and on the right with high wooden walls, so that passing persons would not get concussions. This is a judgement of practitioners. Whether one would consider these practitioners as practitioners even today, this is the question. Probably not. Another example, which can show us whether progress originates from those who call themselves practitioners or from other people: you find it certainly very practical that one has no longer to go to the post office with any letter where the postage has then to be determined according to distance and weight. Only during the forties of the nineteenth century, the uniform letter postage was introduced in England. However, not a practitioner of the postal system invented it, but such a practitioner said when the matter should be decided in the parliament, firstly he did not believe that such an advantage arose, as Hill (Sir Rowland Hill, 1795–1879) calculated, and secondly the post-office building had to be extended. He could not imagine that the post-office building has to comply with the postal traffic and not vice versa the traffic with the post-office building. When the first railway should be built from Berlin to Potsdam, a practitioner said, namely that who let two stagecoaches go to Potsdam for many years: if people wanted to throw their money out of the window, one could build the railway. Because this practice of the so-called practitioners is so impractical, if the big issues of life are considered, one can become contrary to these practitioners if one speaks about the practical development of thinking. Something presents to the impartial observer in all fields of life that can show how it is with the real life praxis. Once I experienced a quite vivid example, what practical thinking can prevent. A friend of my study time came once excitedly with red head to me. He said, he must immediately go to the professor and inform him that he has made a great invention. Then he came back and said, he could speak the expert only in one hour, and then he explained his invention to me. It was a device, which set a machine in motion expending a very small quantity of steam power only once supplied, and then this machine perpetually performed an immense work. My friend himself was surprised that he was so clever to make such an invention, which exceeded everything and made good economic sense. I said to him, he should trace back the matter to a simple thought. I said, “Imagine, you stand in a railroad carriage and you try to push against the walls of the carriage in order to move it. If you succeed in moving the carriage standing and pushing in it, your engine is good, because it is based on the same principle.” At that time, I realised that a main obstacle of all practical thinking can be called with a technical term: one is a “carriage pusher from within!” This fits the thinking of many people; they are “carriage pushers from within.” What does that mean? That one is only able to survey a certain narrow field and to apply to this field what one has learned to this field. However, one is also forced to stop within this field and cannot see at all that everything changes substantially, as soon as one exits from the “carriage.” This is one of the principles, which one has to follow above all with a practical development of thinking: that every human being who is active in any field must try to connect it with adjacent fields regardless of his own activity. Otherwise, it is impossible that he gets to a practical thinking. For this is a peculiarity which is connected with a certain internal sluggishness that the human thinking likes to be encapsulated and forgets what is outdoors, even if it is palpable. I have recently stated in other connections that one wants to prove the Kant-Laplace theory: Once the universal nebula was there. This started rotating by any cause; the single planets of the solar system separated bit by bit and received the movement, which they have still today. One makes this very clear in a school experiment, the so-called Plateau (Joseph P., 1801–1883, Belgian physicist) experiment: one gives an oil drop in a vessel with water. Then one cuts out a disc of cardboard as the equator. One lays this under the oil globule. Then one pierces it with a needle, rotates the needle — and small oil globules separate in the equator area like planets, and they move around the big globule. One has committed something very impractical in intellectual respect: the experimenter has forgotten himself what is sometimes rather good; he has forgotten that he himself has turned the thing. For one is not allowed to forget the most important of the matter. If one wants to explain an experiment, one has to invoke all things in the field to which it comes down; these are the essentials. The first that must exist with that who wants to experience a practical development of thinking is that he confides in reality, in the reality of thoughts. What does this mean? You cannot scoop water from a glass without water. You cannot take out thoughts from a world without thoughts. It is absurd if one believes that the whole sum of our thoughts and mental pictures exists only in us. If anybody disassembles a clock and reflects the principles of its construction, then he must suppose that the watchmaker has joined the parts of the clock first according to these principles. Nobody should believe that one could find any thought from a world, which is not created and formed according to thoughts. All that we learn about nature and its events is nothing else than what must be put first into this nature and its events. It is no thought in our soul, which has not been outdoors in the world first. Aristotle said more correctly than some modern people did: what the human being finds in his thinking last exists in the world outdoors first. However, if anybody has this confidence in the thoughts, which are contained in the world, then he sees very easily that he has to educate himself at first to a thinking full of interest in the world. He has to educate himself to that great, beautiful ideal of thinking as it distinguished Goethe: the concrete thinking, that thinking which isolates itself as little as possible from the things, that sticks to the things as intensely as possible. Heinroth (Johann Christian August H., 1773–1843, physician, formed the term “psychosomatics”), the psychologist, used a sentence concerning Goethe that his thinking is a concrete one, where the thoughts express nothing else than what is included in the things themselves and that in the things nothing else is searched than the real creative thought. If anyone has this confidence, this faith in the reality of thoughts, he easily realises that he can educate himself in harmony with the environment, in harmony with reality to a practical, healthy thinking not receding from the things. One has to take into consideration three ways if the human being really wants to take on an education to practical thinking: firstly, the human being must and should develop an interest in the surrounding reality, interest concerning facts and objects. Interest in the environment, this is the magic word for the education of thought. Secondly, desire and love of that which we do. Thirdly, the satisfaction of that which we reflect. Who understands these three things: interest in the environment, desire, and love in the activities and the satisfaction of contemplation soon finds that these are the main demands of a practical development of thinking. Indeed, the interest in our environment depends on matters that we discuss with the next talks when we speak about the invisible members of the human nature and about the temperaments. The biggest enemy of thinking is often thinking itself. If anybody thinks that only he himself can think and the things would not have any thought in themselves, he is hostile, actually, to the practice of thinking. Imagine that a person would have formed some narrow mental pictures of the human being, would have made a few stereotyped schematic concepts of the human being. Now any human being faces him who has roughly the qualities, which fit his pattern. Then he is ready with his judgement and does not believe that this human being can tell him anything particular. If we approach anything that surrounds us with the feeling that any fact can tell us something particular, that we are not entitled at all to let judge something else about the things than the things themselves, then we soon notice which fruits such concrete sense bears. The confidence that the things can tell us much more than we are able to say about the things is again such a magic ideal of the practice of thinking. The things themselves should be the educators of our thinking, the facts themselves. Imagine once that a person brings himself to use the following two important means of education for his practical development of thinking: he opposes himself with any fact, for example, that somebody has done a walk to this or that place just today. He experiences that at first. Now the person concerned wants to educate his thinking. There it is good if he says to himself, I have experienced this and that, now I want to contemplate how the today's event was caused yesterday, the day before yesterday and so on. I go back and try to form a view from that which goes forward to that which could have been. If I have selected such an event and the cause of it after my intellectual imagination, then I can investigate whether the real cause complies with my thoughts. I have something very important from such compliance or non-compliance. If my thoughts comply with that which I can know as the cause, then it is good. In most cases, this will not be the case. Then one investigates in what one was deceived and tries to compare the wrong thoughts with the right course of the events. If one does this repeatedly, one notices that one no longer makes mistakes after a shorter or longer time, but that one can liberate such a thought from a fact, which corresponds, to the objective course of the events. Alternatively, one does the following: again, someone takes an event and tries to construct in thoughts what can result tomorrow or in some hours from this event. Now he waits quietly whether that happens which he has thought himself. In the beginning, he experiences that this is not right which he has thought. However, if he continues this, he sees thinking immersing itself in the facts that it does not form any mental pictures for itself, but that the thoughts proceed as the things proceed. This is the development of the factual sense. If he even forbids to himself to form abstractions, then he experiences that he grows gradually together with the things and that he obtains a sure judgement. There are people who are directed by a certain sure instinct to such a thinking. This is because they are already born with special dispositions to develop such a thinking. Such a person was Goethe. He had grown together with the things so that his thinking did not proceed in the head, but in the things inside. Goethe, who was once a lawyer, had a healthy power of judgement and a sure instinct to tackle the things. There was no long referring to documents and reviewing of documents if a case had to be undertaken. Goethe did not allow that. It was a practitioner. If once all documents of the Weimar minister Goethe are published — I have seen big parts of them — then the world will recognise Goethe as an eminently practical nature, not as a quixotic human being. One knows that he accompanied his Grand Duke with the training of recruits to Apolda (small town near Weimar). He observed everything that took action — and, besides, he wrote his Iphigenia . Compare to it what disturbs a modern poet at work. Moreover, Goethe was a much greater poet than anyone was who is not allowed to be disturbed today. Because of the eminently practical thinking, he could also say, for example, if he looked through the window: today we cannot go out, because it will be raining in three hours. — He had done cloud studies, but had put up no theory. It was in such a way that from his thinking developed what developed in nature outdoors. One calls this concrete thinking. One obtains such concrete thinking if one does such exercises in particular as I have just stated them. However, this is connected with a certain unselfishness, as strange as this sounds. However, there are principles also in the soul, and someone will not attain very much who thinks only of himself if he does such experiments. If he looks, for example, at a fact and says then immediately, ah, have I not said it? Therefore, this is the most certain obstacle of practical thinking. Thus, we could state many things to show how one can systematically develop the sympathetic adherence of the thoughts to the things, so that one learns to think in the things. The second is desire and love of all we do. They really only exist if we can renounce success. Where it depends only on success desire and love are not undimmed. Hence, not anyone who is dependent on success can develop that rest in trying which is necessary, so that desire and love of activity can inspire us bit by bit. By nothing, we learn more than by lending a hand to everything possible and renouncing the so-called success. I knew somebody who had the habit to bind his schoolbooks himself ( Steiner himself ). It looked bad, but he thereby learnt enormously. If he had looked at the success, he would have maybe refrained from it. However, just in the activities we develop the qualities, the talents that enable us to become dexterous up to the movements. We never become dexterous if we look at the success of our activities in particular. If we are not able to say to ourselves, the failures in our activities are as dear to us as our results, we never reach the second level, which is necessary if one trains thinking. Thirdly, we have to find satisfaction in thinking itself. This is something that appears so unambitious and is mostly combated today. How often does one hear saying, why have our children to learn this and that? They cannot need this in the practical life. — This principle to think only what one can need is the most impractical principle. There must be areas for a human being if he wants to think practically where the mere activity of thinking grants satisfaction to him. If a human being does not find time, may it be only short, to do something that he does purely intellectually and that satisfies him intellectually, he can remain always only on beaten paths. If he finds, however, such a thing that he does only because of his inner interest, then he has something that has a big, strong effect on him, on his finer organisation, on the finer structure of his organism. Never work the things on us creatively, which captivate us to life, which enslave us; they wear out our talents, they take vitality from us. The things, however, which we do intellectually only to our satisfaction create vitality, new talents and they go into the subtlest organisation of our being and increase the subtle structures of our organism. Not by working for the benefit of the outside world, but by working to our satisfaction we create something by which we advance a developmental step. If we approach practice with this finer organisation again, this affects the practice, and everybody can see that it is right. Take a painting, for example, the Sistine Madonna by Raphael, and put a human being and a dog before it. The painting makes a different impression on the human being and the dog. The same applies to the life praxis. If one remains captivated in life, the things always make the same impression on us, and one is not able to intervene creatively. If anyone develops a level higher in his activity of thinking, he faces the impressions as the same being in two different forms. He faces it once with that on which he has not yet worked, the other time with that on which he has worked. He becomes more and more practical because the impressions, which make the things on us, are raised more and more. Hence, there is loss of time, indeed, if one does such a thing that does not belong to life praxis directly, however, it promotes life praxis extraordinarily indirectly. These are the three levels of any practical development of thinking: interest in the environment, desire, and love of all trying and working, and perpetually controlling oneself. You see, for example, such an astute man like Leonardo da Vinci already describing the way in which one can advance just while trying. He does not despise to say how one can appropriate the art of drawing bit by bit. He says, draw on tracing paper, put what you have drawn on the template, and look at that in which the drawn differs. Then make it once again and try — doing so — to do the right thing at the wrong places. — Thus, he shows how it depends on working with desire and love. The third is the satisfaction within contemplation that refrains from the external world and can quietly rest in itself. These are such things that can show us first that we grow into a real practice of thinking by the trust in the thoughts in nature, in the world building of thoughts. However, if we also believe that thinking itself is a creative force, we advance. Someone does much for the practical development of his thinking who does the following systematically: he thinks about something, for example, about what he has to do or about a question of the worldview, it may be anything usual or anything of the highest. If he is out now to find a solution quickly, then he develops no practical thinking as a rule. This rather means saying to himself: you are as little as possible allowed to interfere, actually, in your own thoughts. — Besides, most human beings can imagine nothing at all if one says this. This is a main requirement: that we open ourselves to the thoughts in ourselves that we get used to becoming the scene of the work of our thoughts. We could think, there would be only one single way to accomplish a certain thing, or only one single answer to a question. Nevertheless, we are no dogmatists to whom only one single answer is right. If we want to learn practical thinking, we have to try to give ourselves also another answer, maybe also a third one, or a fourth. There are things to which one can think ten sorts of answers. One has to imagine them all carefully, of course, only such things where this is possible, not with such ones, which must be made quickly; one often makes them rather badly than too slowly. If one has ten possible solutions, one carries out each in thoughts with love. Then one says, I want to think no longer about it, I wait until tomorrow and open myself to the thoughts. These thoughts are forces that work in my soul, even if I am not at all involved with my consciousness. I wait until tomorrow or the day after tomorrow, and then I cause this thought again in myself. — Maybe I do this still a second or a third time, and each time I survey the single things much clearer and can then decide better than before. This is an incredible schooling of practical thinking presenting different possible solutions of a thing in thoughts to oneself, to allow them to rest and to take up them later again. Who does this for a while notices that his thinking becomes versatile, that he develops presence of mind and repartee by a certain practice. Then he grows together with life until the most usual things and recognises what is clever and clumsy, what is wise, and what is foolish. It does not come into his mind to behave in such a way as often so-called practical persons behave. I already had to know many practical persons who can use the beaten paths of their occupation very well; if you see such persons in other situations, for instance, at travelling, their practice is often rather odd. The proof that the practical development of thinking can lead to real life praxis is founded in experience. This works up to the hands, up to the way to seize something. Much less, you drop plates and pots than other persons if you work in such way on your inside. Practical thinking works up to the limbs. If it is carried out actively and not in the abstract, it makes pliable and flexible. However, impractical thinking is most obvious where the practice of thinking should work, for example, in science. I have stated the hypothetical astronomic experiment as an example. One often experiences, how frightfully impractical just the scientists of today are. I do not attack the real methodical work, the excellent activity of our science in the slightest. Nevertheless, the thoughts, which the modern human beings form, are often almost dreadful. Our microscopes and the photograph are very well developed. One can observe all possible mysterious facts in the various little beings. One observes plants and sees certain strange things in these plants, possibly faceted organs like the eyes of a fly, and one even sees a sort of lenses in some plants at this or that place. One observes with other plants that certain insects are attracted, and then the plants close their leaves and catch the insects. One has excellently observed that all. How does the present impractical thinking explain these phenomena? One confuses the human soul, which reflects the outer processes internally, with that which one observes purely externally in the plants. One talks about the ensoulment of the plant, and one throws plant soul, animal soul and human soul in a mess. One throws this in a mess. Indeed, I object nothing to the marvellous observations of nature, which are popularised in the world. However, the thinking of our contemporaries is confused if anybody says, certain plants have their stomachs at the surface with which they draw in the food and devour it. This thought is approximate in such a way, as if anybody says: I know a being, this is organised artfully and has an organ in itself by which something like a magnetic force is exercised on little living beings, so that they are drawn in and are devoured; this being, which I have in mind, is the mousetrap! This thought is completely the same as that which assumes the ensoulment of the plant. You could speak in the same sense of an ensoulment of the mousetrap as you talk about the ensoulment of the plant if you really thought in this peculiar way. The matter is that one is able to penetrate into the very own nature of thinking, and that one becomes no “carriage pusher from within” in such fields. Something else is important for the practical development of thinking and this is that one has confidence in the inner spiritual organ of thinking. With most human beings, the benevolent nature provides that this spiritual organ of thinking is not ruined too very much because the human being must sleep. Because the spiritual does not stop then, because it is there always, this organ of thinking works for itself and the human being cannot ruin it perpetually. However, it is quite another matter if the human being allows nature to take care of thinking with important and serious facts of life only, or if he himself takes this in hand. It is a very important principle to let the organ of thinking work in yourselves. You are practicing this best of all if you try not to think for a while, howsoever short. A big, immense decision belongs to it to sit or to lie somewhere without letting thoughts go through the head. It is much easier to let your thoughts surge up and down in yourselves, until you are released from them by a good sleep than to tell yourselves: now you are awake and, nevertheless, you do not think, but you think nothing at all. If you are able to sit or to lie quietly and to think nothing with full consciousness, then the organ of thinking works in such a way that it gains strength in itself, accumulates strength. Who puts himself in the situation over and over again not to think with full consciousness notices that the clearness of his thinking increases, that in particular repartee grows because he does not only leave his apparatus of thinking to itself by sleep, but that he lets this apparatus of thinking itself work under his guidance. Only somebody who has taken leave of his spiritual senses can believe that then it is not thought at all. Here the word applies that Goethe says about nature: “She has thought and thinks continuously.” In addition, the innermost nature of the human being has thoughts, even if the human being is not present with his conscious thoughts. Nevertheless, in the case where he is not at all with his thinking, something thinks in him of which he is not aware. At these moments, if he lies there without his own personal thoughts, something higher really thinks in him, and this higher works tremendously educating on him. This is essential and important that the human being also lets the superconscious, the divine work in himself, which does not announce itself directly but in its effects. You become a clear and glib thinker gradually if you have dedicated yourselves to such exercises of thinking. A certain energy belongs to it to carry out such exercises of thinking. You realise at the single examples, which I have given today, how one can develop this thinking with own strength. I could only give some examples of self-education of thinking, but these examples have shown that one is able to point to real remedies of thinking whose fruits life and experience can give only. Who exercises his thinking that way experiences that — on the one side — he can go up to the highest fields of spiritual life, that he can use this thinking — on the other side — also in the everyday life. What one gains with the overview of the big spiritual facts one should apply to practical life. All fields of the everyday life, education in particular, could experience a tremendous fertilisation because of this, and another view of life praxis would make itself noticeable all around us. In addition, someone who wants to develop the qualities slumbering in him in order to penetrate to the spiritual fields would have a sure base and stand firmly in life. This is something that one has to demand absolutely, before anybody penetrates to the higher spiritual fields. In addition, the usual science would be able to attain tremendous knowledge if it is fertilised by spiritual science. The carriage pushers of thinking who fancy themselves often as great practitioners do not have this practical thinking; they lack it. They are not able to lead back something to a simple, comprising thought. Spiritual science gives us this: it enables us to survey what is usually small and detailed in life, with big, comprising viewpoints. The human being thereby gets the survey because he is able to think from great viewpoints into the details; then he is led to real life praxis. We can take Leonardo da Vinci as an example, who was a practitioner in many fields. He said, theory is the captain, and practice is the soldiers. — Who wants to be a practitioner without controlling the viewpoints of practical thinking is like someone who goes on board a ship without compass, he does not have the possibility to steer the ship correctly. Goethe showed repeatedly from his practical way of thinking how just scholarship gets by impractical thinking to infertile fantasising. There are people, who lead the outside world back to atoms, and others who lead them back to movements; others deny any movement. On the other hand, the most practical thinkers point to the fact that simplicity comes from the greatness of the worldview. Goethe's dictum is suitable, and we can put it before our eyes: Some hostile may occur, Keep quiet, remain silent; And if they say There is no movement, Walk around right Under their noses.

Practical Training in Thought

https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA057/English/eLib2014/19090211p01.html

Berlin

11 Feb 1909

GA057-10

If there is talk of the practical significance of the invisible, particularly of the invisible in the human being, I would like to illustrate by a comparison what I meant. Those people are practical who turn their look, their view to the supersensible view of existence, and those are impractical who stop at the only exterior, at the mere physical. Is anybody, actually, the true practitioner who has a horseshoe-shaped iron as a magnet before himself and uses this thing for anything that appears useful to him by all appearances? On the other hand, is such a person not impractical in the true sense of the word, and practical only someone who says to himself: in this piece of iron something rests that makes a lot of higher, nobler application possible to me than the mere inspection allows to suppose. — This is, of course, only a comparison, because we are not allowed to compare the higher forces about which we speak today with any natural force. However, practical is only someone who chooses the internal forces from the things and can use the things corresponding to their true values. Compared with those who can be led by a certain practical sense one could quote Fichte's word of the practical significance of ideals. Fichte (Johann Gottlieb F., 1762–1814) tried to explain the determination of the human being using high ideals. In the introduction to his lectures on The Vocation of the Scholar (1794), he protests that none who speaks from such high idealistic viewpoints knows what can be objected to it, namely, that ideals cannot be shown directly in practical life. Perhaps, those who put up these ideals know this better than the opponents do. “We state only that reality has to be assessed and modified according to them by those who feel sufficient strength in themselves. Assumed, they could also not convince themselves, they lose very little, after they are once what they are; and, besides, humanity loses nothing. It becomes thereby only obvious that one does not count on them in the plan of the improvement of humanity. This will continue its way without any doubt; the benevolent nature may provide for them rain and sunshine, wholesome food and undisturbed circulation of humours at the proper time and — clever thoughts as well!” I want to point to this in particular. We briefly want to imagine the invisible members of the human nature. Spiritual science speaks of these invisible members of the human nature, but not as of anything that is there, as of an adjunct of the visible, but it speaks just of the spiritual as of the creative of the visible. An almost obvious example is the following: everybody — also someone who cannot see into in the workshop of spiritual life — should imagine the senses of shame and anxiety repeatedly, so that he learns to believe that the supersensible is the reason of the sensuous. What are they? They are soul experiences undoubtedly to someone who does not think complicatedly. Anything, we must say, is there that threatens us; the soul feels threatened. This expresses itself as sensations of fear. Indeed, we could state various physical mediations. This would be easy, of course, and the modern researcher would hardly be able to state anything that the spiritual scientist would not know, too. Nevertheless, the matter is that the blood is forced back from the surface of the body to the centre. We have a material process resulting from a soul process. The same is the case with the sense of shame. Again, we have a rearrangement of the blood, a change of the circulation caused by something spiritual. What one sees here in microcosm and what one can observe to a bigger extent, if because of a sad event tears are shed shows that the soul can cause bodily processes. Today, of course, there are people under the influence of our not evidently but latently materialistic way of thinking who also assert materialistic views here. I have also quoted the sentence of a certain worldview: one cries not because one is sad, but one is sad because one cries. This sentence came, actually, from somebody who thought idealistically, but one interpreted it wrong. These are full-grown materialistic ways of thinking. Who has retained a piece of healthy thinking from the materialistic basis of our time sees in such evident connections between physical facts and spiritual-mental facts something that can make him gradually understand that spiritual science must say from its point of view: everything material has a spiritual origin. Thus, something mental forms the basis of that which we see in the human being, what we can seize with hands with him. It is not the influence of the physical but just the primal ground of the physical. We call that a physical body in the human being, which he has in common with all beings surrounding him, which he has in common with the mineral world. The next, supersensible human member is the etheric body or life body. It prevents the physical body to being a corpse during the whole life, to following the principles of the physical only. Plants and animals also have such an etheric body, which one can deduce by thinking of someone who thinks philosophically only. It is real to the clairvoyant like the physical body. A spiritual way of thinking defends itself with pleasure to understand the human body as a machine, however, does not need to defend itself if one is not a “carriage pusher of thinking from within.” One can absolutely say, the human body is a complex mechanism if one wants to include the physical and chemical in the mechanic. However, behind any machine, a builder and preserver must be, so also here, and this is the etheric body or life body, that is a loyal fighter against decay. Only at death, it separates from the physical body, and then the physical body follows as a corpse its physical laws. Then it is a corpse. The etheric body is something more certain than the mere physical body. If we keep on studying the human being, we get to another member of his being, which every human being could already realise if he said to himself, I face a human being, a physical body, and an etheric body. Is there nothing else included in this human being than what one can see from without, what physiology et cetera disclose to us? Oh, there is something else: the sum of emotions, sensations, desires and wishes, pains and sufferings, impulses and passions. All that represents the astral body. Now one could say, nevertheless, one cannot imagine that these things form a concluded reality. However, the spiritual scientist can perceive this clairvoyantly. There the astral body exists as the physical body exists. Nevertheless, the healthy human mind could also already say to itself that such a thing as an astral body must be there. Why could it say that to itself? I want to give you an example where, so to speak, with hands is to be seized how the astral body works, actually. There are people who say when the human being enters the physical world; he is not yet as developed as later. The external science can determine that, indeed, the senses and their organs exist in the brain that, however, the connections of the single senses in the brain develop relatively late. One can really study how the connecting nerve cords develop from the hearing to the facial sphere and make the human being the thinker finally. So — the materialist concludes — one sees how the internal parts develop bit by bit and then the world of sensations, images, sufferings, joys, complexes of thought et cetera flashes in the human being. — Imagine this development of the human brain. The complex lines of thought, which solve the world riddles, develop bit by bit. Are we then allowed to call that a mere mechanism which has developed, which builds itself up? One can also admire a marvellous construction, as for example that of a clock. However, he would be a fool who wanted to believe that the clock has originated by itself. Who is able to do something, can develop only what he is able to do. Someone who had seconds, minutes, the principles of the clock in himself has joined it; one has thought ahead what we then reflect. Is there nothing that joins these connecting cords in the brain in such a way that you become a thinker finally? I mean, a healthy thinking would have to realise that for that which develops a master builder must exist who joins the cords, so that you can become a thinker. We are loyal only to ourselves and to our healthy human mind if we say, an astral body has to have constructed the physical brain. In the first weeks, months, years of the child, the astral body constructs the instrument only, which is able later to solve the world riddles. Who does not believe this, acts just as anybody who wants to use a machine, but denies that a constructor was there who has built it. The time will already come when again healthy judgments prevail in the human being, when they say to themselves that first the spiritual master builder must be there if anything should originate. This master builder has been already there before the human being is born. The third human member is this astral body, that which forms the basis of the material again. The fourth human member is the ego, which makes the human being the crown of creation. The human being has the physical body in common with all minerals, the etheric body with all plants, and the astral body with the animals. He rises above the three physical realms by the ego. Therefore, all religions have probably directed their attention to the fact that there is only one name, which differs from all other. There is one thing that can be never called from the outside: this is in us as our core. No name can come from without that signifies us. Therefore, “I” was in the old Hebrew religion the inexpressible name that was inexpressible for all others. These are the four lower members of the human nature from which only one is visible. The three others are real, are the primal grounds of the real. Any member is a basic being and cause for the next lower body; the ego-bearer for the astral body, the astral body for the etheric body, the etheric body for the physical body. Any experience of the ego imprints itself on the astral body. Here all experiences of the ego express themselves. Any momentary imagining, judging and feeling originate in the human being that way. What lives in the astral body, expresses itself, imprints itself on the etheric or life body, and thereby it becomes permanent, not momentary, but keeps itself in a certain way. Let us assume that we pass momentary judgment; we make a mental picture about this or that. If we form a mental picture repeatedly, it becomes a habitual mental picture. Because it becomes a habitual image, it imprints itself in the etheric body. What lives in our memory, what we keep in mind from day to day, lives in our etheric body or life body. The fact that we play a piano piece once is in our astral body; the fact that we acquire the talent, the habit of playing is in the etheric body. All habits are in the etheric body or life body. If we pass moral judgment, it is again an action of the astral body. If a certain direction of judging imprints itself on us by repeated judgments, the moral judgment becomes a permanent once, it becomes conscience. The moral judgment is an experience of the astral body; the conscience is an experience of the etheric body or life body. Thus, we see how by the interaction of the higher members with the lower ones the whole human life builds itself up from within outwardly. As far as the human being is a mere physical being, he has the etheric body or life body in common with the plants. What allows the humours to ascend in the plants, what causes that they subsist, reproduce, this causes the same in the human being. However, on this etheric body or life body custom, skill, conscience is imprinted top-down. Something mental-spiritual is imprinted on the human beings top-down. The experiences of the higher members are transferred more and more to the lower members. It is important for the human being to know that the higher members work into the denser members. Thus, the human being can work into the lower members in healthy, practical way. The human being can ruin again, what nature has given him. As with the plant only malformation could originate if the etheric body or life body did not regulate what goes forward, an internal malformation originates in the human being if he works wrong inside, from the ego on the lower members. The astral body must be penetrated by the experiences of the ego in a healthy way. Who does not admit that an astral body builds on the brain of the child will also not realise how important it is that the ego has a proper effect on the astral body. Who realises this, however, says to himself, you are able to keep on working where nature has stopped. If you allow the whole scale of sensations to take place in healthy way, this continues working on your physical body, on your brain, and thus you build up your physical body during your whole life. How many human beings walk around today with writer's spasm? The human body is wonderfully constructed. The human being adjusts his hand with everything that he does to the world outdoors. This cooperation of the hand with the outside goes adrift in certain ways from him if he is not able to set his hand aglow, to invigorate it with his inner life. This is a similar process, as if one gets artificial teeth. It is essential that all that we can get as our own is set aglow and invigorated by our ego. You get trembling hands only if the hands go adrift from the remaining forces to some degree. These are matters which one takes into consideration most intensely again in a not so distant future, and then one will realise what it means to grasp the spirit of the human being again. I want to make clear this at an example. We remain in our field. It will become apparent how that which happens in the spirit really seizes the human being and makes him suitable or unsuitable for life, practical or impractical. Let us take a person who is impractical for life because he suffers from certain sensations of anxiety, so that thereby nervousness originates. This word already sounds the whole sum of lacking practice. Any human being who does not control himself completely in any respect is characterised as nervous, or one uses the catchword of genetic predisposition if anything is absent or exists that makes the human being impractical for life. All these things do not originate from a careful observation of the real facts, but because one has no palate for the spiritual due to the materialistic way of thinking. It is important to pursue whether in the first times of life, when the invisible works so intensely on the visible, everything proceeds properly and is not disturbed. What is omitted here cannot be corrected later. If something is not formed well enough, the manifold discrepancies originate in the whole life. The human being, who is not able to let harmonising experiences surge up and down in the astral body, will always make himself impractical for life in certain ways. Instead of searching for genetic predispositions of fear and anxiety, we should rather look for something that is formed by this or that experience which has a solidifying effect on the physical body. It could be, for example, — however, it needs not always be in such a way — that a considerable part of claustrophobia was caused possibly by a particular way of parenting in the human being. He does not get loose from this evil because he lacks the means to stir it up again. Imagine children who recognise all festivities, actually, all the year round, only because they are showered with presents! They receive more than they can destroy. This abundance of undeserved gifts immobilises certain striving forces, which would generate healthy self-assurance. Such a thing can slumber in the human being during the time when the external education fulfils him or a new occupation absorbs him; but this appears once in the form of claustrophobia. One cannot realise this if one does not understand what it means that the astral body changes itself bit by bit into that which the human being is in his physical, discernible behaviour. On the other hand, we can find — if particular states of unsuitability appear anyhow — that something presses on his soul. He cannot say it, cannot confess it, and thinks to have to conceal it. Because the human being does not find the way to the word, it seizes the lower members and works on them. What a soothing effect experiences the human being if he can confess such a thing! Then he has the feeling, now it is no longer lying on my heart like a stone, and this feeling of relief works recovering. Confession is an important remedy in this respect. The denominations have known this well. There we realise how the invisible inside of the human being works on the visible. Even certain reasonable doctors already realise that one cannot cure unsuitability for practical life by systematic application of cold water (Kneipp cure), but in such a way that one has to induce a kind of confession, has to detach something from the human being if healing should take place. We want to look at the reverse now. There are reasonable doctors who say to themselves, one has to turn to the soul of the human being if one wants to know how the human being becomes unsuitable in certain respects. These doctors know that joy and desire are remedies, that they work recovering, that they soften again, what is solidified and ossified, and bring it under our control. However, this is not enough, just as little as it is enough if anybody says, the concealed secret must be detached from the soul of the human being. They do not know that everything that is experience of the inside has a big significance even if it appears wrong. Should we cancel everything mysterious in the human nature because it appears wrong with some persons? Should we make the doctors father confessors, as it one demands here and there? It can also be infinitely recovering for the soul if it is able to draw the veil of secret about some things. A Persian saying says, one saves the time that one uses for silent reflection, before one says something, in relation to the time of remorse about that which one has said thoughtlessly! Goethe pronounced the word of the “obvious secret” not without reason. In everything sensuous that surrounds us, we can realise something mysterious, something that lies so deeply in the things and that one cannot pronounce; however, it still flows from soul to soul. Health spreads out if the human being can feel the secret of life that way. Spiritual science maintains this secret of life. Indeed, it does not make it easy for the human beings to approach the things. It is not so comfortable to approach them. Spiritual science can only stimulate, only say, this and that exists. Then the human being has to approach and co-operate. It may be uncomfortable, but it is infinitely healthy. The innermost member of the human being is thereby stimulated; spiritual science works immediately on the ego. If we hear anything about the evolution of the planets, if to us is told about the invisible members of the human nature, what goes from life to life with the human being — with all that one appeals immediately to the ego. All these world-enclosing ideas do not remain dry ideas and abstractions. They emit warmth and bliss; warmth and bliss irradiate and penetrate the astral body of the human being. Contentment and bliss originate from that which spiritual science offers. What sets the human being aglow as warmth, as fire keeps moving to his life body. The forces of spiritual science itself penetrate all forces of the etheric body, and the etheric body transfers the forces again to the physical body, it transfers it as a skill, in such a way that, for example, the hand becomes dexterous and practical if the great, elated ideas of spiritual science flow into the physical body. Spiritual science makes the brain a flexible, pliable tool, so that it can get away from prejudices. Spiritual science works strongly down until the physical body of the human being. Up to the practical movements, he can be immersed in spiritual science. I want to give you an example of that. It helps, indeed, if one makes gymnastics possible to the child. This is an exceptionally healthy exercise if one makes it properly. Already in the talk on education, I have drawn your attention to the fact that it is important to remain aware that the human being is not only a physical apparatus, but is spiritualised by higher members. One should be able to project oneself completely into doing gymnastics to share any emotion of the etheric and the astral bodies. I knew a gym teacher, who was a big theorist. He knew the human physical body to a hair's breadth. He also had to give theoretical physical education. It does not matter that one knows the physical exactly, but that he experiences an increase of the inner ease with any exercise. One should experience purposefully what should be the single exercise. Who has a living feeling, not only an abstract idea of the physical body knows that one can have a living feeling for everything that the child experiences, for example, while climbing up a ladder. A sort of gymnastics is imaginable that works so harmoniously on the cooperation of the etheric and the physical bodies that the best basis is laid of a good memory in old age. In addition, that which takes action visibly is properly understood only if it is understood from spiritual science. We would have the best means against the dwindling memory in old age in gymnastics if one wanted to do physical education from spiritual science. Spiritual science is no theory, nothing dogmatic, but bestows something living to life. Once one will realise that only by spiritual science the human being can become a true practitioner of life. Someone only is a practical person who can use this life who is not its slave. The human being should always control his outer nature with his invisible members. The human being becomes a practitioner only down to the last detail of his life if he is the guide of the bodily. That human being is a practical person who can understand out of a true understanding of his members what Fichte said, but what is often misunderstood. This will be the ideal of the human being if he controls the visible from his invisible again: “The human being can what he has to do; and if he says: I cannot, he does not want it.”

The Invisible Elements of Human Nature and Practical Life

https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA057/English/eLib2014/19090218p01.html

Berlin

18 Feb 1909

GA057-11

It has frequently been emphasized that man's greatest riddle is himself. Both natural and spiritual science ultimately try to solve this riddle — the former by understanding the natural laws that govern our outer being, the latter by seeking the essence and purpose inherent in our existence. Now as correct as it may be that man's greatest riddle is himself, it must also be emphasized that each individual human being is a riddle, often even to himself. Every one of us experiences this in encounters with other people. Today we shall be dealing not with general riddles, but rather with those posed to us by every human being in every encounter, and these are just as important. For how endlessly varied people are! We need only consider temperament, the subject of today's lecture, in order to realize that there are as many riddles as there are people. Even within the basic types known as the temperaments, such variety exists among people that the very mystery of existence seems to express itself within these types. Temperament, that fundamental coloring of the human personality, plays a role in all manifestations of individuality that are of concern to practical life. We sense something of this basic mood whenever we encounter another human being. Thus we can only hope that spiritual science will tell us what we need to know about the temperaments. Our first impression of the temperaments is that they are external, for although they can be said to flow from within, they manifest themselves in everything we can observe from without. However, this does not mean that the human riddle can be solved by means of natural science and observation. Only when we hear what spiritual science has to say can we come closer to understanding these peculiar colorations of the human personality. Spiritual science tells us first of all that the human being is part of a line of heredity. He displays the characteristics he has inherited from father, mother, grandparents, and so on. These characteristics he then passes on to his progeny. The human being thus possesses certain traits by virtue of being part of a succession of generations. However, this inheritance gives us only one side of his nature. Joined to that is the individuality he brings with him out of the spiritual world. This he adds to what his father and mother, his ancestors, are able to give him. Something that proceeds from life to life, from existence to existence, connects itself with the generational stream. Certain characteristics we can attribute to heredity; on the other hand, as a person develops from childhood on, we can see unfolding out of the center of his being something that must be the fruit of preceding lives, something he could never have inherited from his ancestors. We come to know the law of reincarnation, of the succession of earthly lives and this is but a special case of an all-encompassing cosmic law. An illustration will make this seem less paradoxical. Consider a lifeless mineral, say, a rock crystal. Should the crystal be destroyed, it leaves nothing of its form that could be passed on to other crystals. 1 Translator's note: The reader may conclude from this remark — for it was, after all, a remark, not a published claim — that Steiner was ignorant of the concept of seed crystals. However, a likelier explanation is that Steiner, whose audience was very likely not a scientifically knowledgeable one, was simply indulging in a bit of rhetorical hyperbole. He doubtless knew that a seed crystal will hasten the crystallization process in a saturated salt solution, but this fact is not really relevant to his point, which comes out only gradually in this paragraph. His point is not that a newly-forming crystal cannot receive some contribution from a previously existing one, only that it need not; this is in contrast to living things, which require a progenitor. A new crystal receives nothing of the old one's particular form. When we move on to the world of plants, we notice that a plant cannot develop according to the same laws as does the crystal. It can only originate from another, earlier plant. Form is here preserved and passed on. Moving on to the animal kingdom, we find an evolution of the species taking place. We begin to appreciate why the nineteenth century held the discovery of evolution to be its greatest achievement. In animals, not only does one being proceed from another, but each young animal during the embryo phase recapitulates the earlier phases of its species' evolutionary development. The species itself undergoes an enhancement. In human beings not only does the species evolve, but so does the individual. What a human being acquires in a lifetime through education and experience is preserved, just as surely as are the evolutionary achievements of an animal's ancestral line. It will someday be commonplace to trace a person's inner core to a previous existence. The human being will come to be known as the product of an earlier life. The views that stand in the way of this doctrine will be overcome, just as was the scholarly opinion of an earlier century, which held that living organisms could arise from nonliving substances. As recently as three hundred years ago, scholars believed that animals could evolve from river mud, that is, from nonliving matter. Francesco Redi, an Italian scientist, was the first to assert that living things could develop only from other living things. 2 Francesco Redi, 1626-1697. Refuted spontaneous generation of living beings out of mud. For this he was attacked and came close to suffering the fate of Giordano Bruno. 3 Giordano Bruno, 1548-1600. Italian philosopher, Dominican monk, burned at the stake as heretic. Taught that the world is infinite in space and time and filled with innumerable suns. Today, burning people at the stake is no longer fashionable. When someone attempts to teach a new truth, for example, that psycho-spiritual entities must be traced back to earlier psycho-spiritual entities, he won't exactly be burned at the stake, but he will be dismissed as a fool. But the time will come when the real foolishness will be to believe that the human being lives only once, that there is no enduring entity that unites itself with a person's inherited traits. Now the important question arises: How can something originating in a completely different world, that must seek a father and a mother, unite itself with physical corporeality? How can it clothe itself in the bodily features that link human beings to a hereditary chain? How does the spiritual-psychic stream, of which man forms a part through reincarnation, unite itself with the physical stream of heredity? The answer is that a synthesis must be achieved. When the two streams combine, each imparts something of its own quality to the other. In much the same way that blue and yellow combine to give green, the two streams in the human being combine to yield what is commonly known as temperament. Our inner self and our inherited traits both appear in it. Temperament stands between the things that connect a human being to an ancestral line, and those the human being brings with him out of earlier incarnations. Temperament strikes a balance between the eternal and the ephemeral. And it does so in such a way that the essential members of the human being, which we have come to know in other contexts, enter into a very specific relationship with one another. Human beings as we know them in this life are beings of four members. The first, the physical body, they have in common with the mineral world. The first super-sensible member, the etheric body, is integrated into the physical and separates from it only at death. There follows as third member the astral body, the bearer of instincts, drives, passions, desires, and of the ever-changing content of sensation and thought. Our highest member, which places us above all other earthly beings, is the bearer of the human ego, which endows us in such a curious and yet undeniable fashion with the power of self-awareness. These four members we have come to know as the essential constituents of a human being. The way the four members combine is determined by the flowing together of the two streams upon a person's entry into the physical world. In every case, one of the four members achieves predominance over the others, and gives them its own peculiar stamp. Where the bearer of the ego predominates, a choleric temperament results. Where the astral body predominates, we find a sanguine temperament. Where the etheric or life-body predominates, we speak of a phlegmatic temperament. And where the physical body predominates, we have to deal with a melancholic temperament. The specific way in which the eternal and the ephemeral combine determines what relationship the four members will enter into with one another. The way the four members find their expression in the physical body has also frequently been mentioned. The ego expresses itself in the circulation of the blood. For this reason, in the choleric the predominant system is that of the blood. The astral body expresses itself physically in the nervous system; thus in the sanguine, the nervous system holds sway. The etheric body expresses itself in the glandular system; hence the phlegmatic is dominated physically by his glands. The physical body as such expresses itself only in itself; thus the outwardly most important feature in the melancholic is his physical body. This can be observed in all phenomena connected with these temperaments. In the choleric, the ego and the blood system predominate. The choleric thus comes across as someone who must always have his way. His aggressiveness, everything connected with his forcefulness of will, derives from his blood circulation. In the nervous system and astral body, sensations and feelings constantly fluctuate. Any harmony or order results solely from the restraining influence of the ego. People who do not exercise that influence appear to have no control over their thoughts and sensations. They are totally absorbed by the sensations, pictures, and ideas that ebb and flow within them. Something like this occurs whenever the astral body predominates, as, for example, in the sanguine. Sanguines surrender themselves in a certain sense to the constant and varied flow of images, sensations, and ideas since in them the astral body and nervous system predominate. The nervous system's activity is restrained only by the circulation of the blood. That this is so becomes clear when we consider what happens when a person lacks blood or is anaemic, in other words, when the blood's restraining influence is absent. Mental images fluctuate wildly, often leading to illusions and hallucinations. A touch of this is present in sanguines. Sanguines are incapable of lingering over an impression. They cannot fix their attention on a particular image nor sustain their interest in an impression. Instead, they rush from experience to experience, from percept to percept. This is especially noticeable in sanguine children, where it can be a source of concern. The sanguine child's interest is easily kindled, a picture will easily impress, but the impression quickly vanishes. We proceed now to the phlegmatic temperament. We observed that this temperament develops when the etheric or life-body, as we call it, which regulates growth and metabolism, is predominant. The result is a sense of inner well-being. The more a human being lives in his etheric body, the more is he preoccupied with his internal processes. He lets external events run their course while his attention is directed inward. In the melancholic we have seen that the physical body, the coarsest member of the human organization, becomes master over the others. As a result, the melancholic feels he is not master over his body, that he cannot bend it to his will. His physical body, which is intended to be an instrument of the higher members, is itself in control, and frustrates the others. This the melancholic experiences as pain, as a feeling of despondency. Pain continually wells up within him. This is because his physical body resists his etheric body's inner sense of well-being, his astral body's liveliness, and his ego's purposeful striving. The varying combinations of the four members also manifest themselves quite clearly in external appearance. People in whom the ego predominates seek to triumph over all obstacles, to make their presence known. Accordingly their ego stunts the growth of the other members; it withholds from the astral and etheric bodies their due portion. This reveals itself outwardly in a very clear fashion. Johann Gottlieb Fichte, that famous German choleric, was recognizable as such purely externally. 4 Johann Gottlieb Fichte, 1762-1814. German Idealist philosopher. His build revealed clearly that the lower essential members had been held back in their growth. Napoleon, another classic example of the choleric, was so short because his ego had held the other members back. 5 Napoleon Bonaparte, 1769-1821. French ruler and emperor 1804-1814 and 1815. Of course, one cannot generalize that all cholerics are short and all sanguines tall. It is a question of proportion. What matters is the relation of size to overall form. In the sanguine the nervous system and astral body predominate. The astral body's inner liveliness animates the other members, and makes the external form as mobile as possible. Whereas the choleric has sharply chiseled facial features, the sanguine's are mobile, expressive, changeable. We see the astral body's inner liveliness manifested in every outer detail, for example, in a slender form, a delicate bone structure, or lean muscles. The same thing can be observed in details of behavior. Even a non-clairvoyant can tell from behind whether someone is a choleric or a sanguine; one does not need to be a spiritual scientist for that. If you observe the gait of a choleric, you will notice that he plants each foot so solidly that he would seem to want to bore down into the ground. By contrast, the sanguine has a light, springy step. Even subtler external traits can be found. The inwardness of the ego, the choleric's self-contained inwardness, express themselves in eyes that are dark and smoldering. The sanguine, whose ego has not taken such deep root, who is filled with the liveliness of his astral body, tends by contrast to have blue eyes. Many more such distinctive traits of these temperaments could be cited. The phlegmatic temperament manifests itself in a static, indifferent physiognomy, as well as in plumpness, for fat is due largely to the activity of the etheric body. In all this the phlegmatic's inner sense of comfort is expressed. His gait is loose-jointed and shambling, and his manner timid. He seems somehow to be not entirely in touch with his surroundings. The melancholic is distinguished by a hanging head, as if he lacked the strength necessary to straighten his neck. His eyes are dull, not shining like the choleric's; his gait is firm, but in a leaden rather than a resolute sort of way. Thus you see how significantly spiritual science can contribute to the solution of this riddle. Only when one seeks to encompass reality in its entirety, which includes the spiritual, can knowledge bear practical fruit. Accordingly, only spiritual science can give us knowledge that will benefit the individual and all mankind. In education, very close attention must be paid to the individual temperaments, for it is especially important to be able to guide and direct them as they develop in the child. But the temperaments are also important to our efforts to improve ourselves later in life. We do well to attend to what expresses itself through them if we wish to further our personal development. The four fundamental types I have outlined here for you naturally never manifest themselves in such pure form. Every human being has one basic temperament, with varying degrees of the other three mixed in. Napoleon, for example, although a choleric, had much of the phlegmatic in him. To truly master life, it is important that we open our souls to what manifests itself as typical. When we consider that the temperaments, each of which represents a mild imbalance, can degenerate into unhealthy extremes, we realize just how important this is. Yet, without the temperaments the world would be an exceedingly dull place, not only ethically, but also in a higher sense. The temperaments alone make all multiplicity, beauty, and fullness of life possible. Thus in education it would be senseless to want to homogenize or eliminate them, but an effort should be made to direct each into the proper track, for in every temperament there lie two dangers of aberration, one great, one small. One danger for the young choleric is that he will never learn to control his temper as he develops into maturity. That is the small danger. The greater is that he will become foolishly single-minded. For the sanguine the lesser danger is flightiness; the greater is mania, induced by a constant stream of sensations. The small danger for the phlegmatic is apathy; the greater is stupidity, dullness. For the melancholic, insensitivity to anything other than his own personal pain is the small danger; the greater is insanity. In light of all this it is clear that to guide and direct the temperaments is one of life's significant tasks. If this task is to be properly carried out, however, one basic principle must be observed, which is always to reckon with what is given, and not with what is not there. For example, if a child has a sanguine temperament, he will not be helped if his elders try to flog interest into him. His temperament simply will not allow it. Instead of asking what the child lacks, in order that we might beat it into him, we must focus on what he has, and base ourselves on that. And as a rule, there is one thing we can always stimulate the sanguine child's interest in. However flighty the child might be, we can always stimulate his interest in a particular personality. If we ourselves are that personality, or if we bring the child together with someone who is, the child cannot but develop an interest. Only through the medium of love for a personality can the interest of the sanguine child be awakened. More than children of any other temperament, the sanguine needs someone to admire. Admiration is here a kind of magic word, and we must do everything we can to awaken it. We must reckon with what we have. We should see to it that the sanguine child is exposed to a variety of things in which he has shown a deeper interest. These things should be allowed to speak to him, to have an effect upon him. They should then be withdrawn, so that the child's interest in them will intensify; then they may be restored. In other words, we must fashion the sanguine's environment so that it is in keeping with his temperament. The choleric child is also susceptible of being led in a special way. The key to his education is respect and esteem for a natural authority. Instead of winning affection by means of personal qualities, as one does with the sanguine child, one should see to it that the child's belief in his teacher's ability remains unshaken. The teacher must demonstrate an understanding of what goes on around the child. Any showing of incompetence should be avoided. The child must persist in the belief that his teacher is competent, or all authority will be lost. The magic potion for the choleric child is respect and esteem for a person's worth, just as for the sanguine child it was love for a personality. Outwardly, the choleric child must be confronted with challenging situations. He must encounter resistance and difficulty, lest his life become too easy. The melancholic child is not easy to lead. With him, however, a different magic formula may be applied. For the sanguine child this formula was love for a personality; for the choleric, it was respect and esteem for a teacher's worth. By contrast, the important thing for the melancholic is for his teachers to be people who have in a certain sense been tried by life, who act and speak on the basis of past trials. The child must feel that the teacher has known real pain. Let your treatment of all of life's little details be an occasion for the child to appreciate what you have suffered. Sympathy with the fates of those around him furthers the melancholic's development. Here too one must reckon with what the child has. The melancholic has a capacity for suffering, for discomfort, which is firmly rooted in his being; it cannot be disciplined out of him. However, it can be redirected. We should expose the child to legitimate external pain and suffering, so that he learns there are things other than himself that can engage his capacity for experiencing pain. This is the essential thing. We should not try to divert or amuse the melancholic, for to do so only intensifies his despondency and inner suffering; instead, he must be made to see that objective occasions for suffering exist in life. Although we mustn't carry it too far, redirecting the child's suffering to outside objects is what is called for. The phlegmatic child should not be allowed to grow up alone. Although naturally all children should have play-mates, for phlegmatics it is especially important that they have them. Their playmates should have the most varied interests. Phlegmatic children learn by sharing in the interests, the more numerous the better, of others. Their playmates' enthusiasms will overcome their native indifference towards the world. Whereas the important thing for the melancholic is to experience another person's fate, for the phlegmatic child it is to experience the whole range of his playmates' interests. The phlegmatic is not moved by things as such, but an interest arises when he sees things reflected in others, and these interests are then reflected in the soul of the phlegmatic child. We should bring into the phlegmatic's environment objects and events toward which “phlegm” is an appropriate reaction. Impassivity must be directed toward the right objects, objects toward which one may be phlegmatic. From the examples of these pedagogical principles, we see how spiritual science can address practical problems. These principles can also be applied to oneself, for purposes of self-improvement. For example, a sanguine gains little by reproaching himself for his temperament. Our minds are in such questions frequently an obstacle. When pitted directly against stronger forces such as the temperaments, they can accomplish little. Indirectly, however, they can accomplish much. The sanguine, for example, can take his sanguinity into account, abandoning self-exhortation as fruitless. The important thing is to display sanguinity under the right circumstances. Experiences suited to his short attention span can be brought about through thoughtful planning. Using thought in this way, even on the smallest scale, will produce the requisite effect. Persons of a choleric temperament should purposely put themselves in situations where rage is of no use, but rather only makes them look ridiculous. Melancholics should not close their eyes to life's pain, but rather seek it out; through compassion they redirect their suffering outward toward appropriate objects and events. If we are phlegmatics, having no particular interests, then we should occupy ourselves as much as possible with uninteresting things, surround ourselves with numerous sources of tedium, so that we become thoroughly bored. We will then be thoroughly cured of our “phlegm;” we will have gotten it out of our system. Thus does one reckon with what one has, and not with what one does not have. By filling ourselves with practical wisdom such as this, we learn to solve that basic riddle of life, the other person. It is solved not by postulating abstract ideas and concepts, but by means of pictures. Instead of arbitrarily theorizing, we should seek an immediate understanding of every individual human being. We can do this, however, only by knowing what lies in the depths of the soul. Slowly and gradually, spiritual science illuminates our minds, making us receptive not only to the big picture, but also to subtle details. Spiritual science makes it possible that when two souls meet and one demands love, the other offers it. If something else is demanded, that other thing is given. Through such true, living wisdom do we create the basis for society. This is what we mean when we say we must solve a riddle every moment. Anthroposophy acts not by means of sermons, exhortations, or catechisms, but by creating a social groundwork, upon which human beings can come to know each other. Spiritual science is the ground of life, and love is the blossom and fruit of a life enhanced by it. Thus spiritual science may claim to lay the foundation for humankind's most beautiful goal — a true, genuine love for man.

The Four Temperaments

https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA057/English/Singles/19090304p01.html

Berlin

4 Mar 1909

GA057-12

It was in August, 1831, that Goethe sealed up a packet and handed it to his faithful secretary Eckermann and prepared his testamentary directions for the editing of this sealed-up treasure. This packet contained in a comprehensive way the whole striving of Goethe's life. It contained the second part of Goethe's Faust; which was not to be published until after Goethe's death. Goethe was aware that in this work he had given the contents of his rich, many-sided, far-reaching and deeply-penetrating life to human existence, and the importance of this moment for him may be gathered from the words he uttered at the time, ‘I am now finished my life's true work, anything I do further and whether I do it or not, is all the same!’ If we permit a fact such as this to work on the soul we can say: It would not be easy for a human life to become fruitful for the rest of humanity in a more beautiful, harmonious way, or indeed to become fruitful in a more conscious manner. There is something deeply affecting in the thought of Goethe's life at this point of time — for he lived barely one year longer — in that he should have visited Ilmenau once more and there re-read the beautiful verse he had written on the 7th of September, 1783, when he was still a comparatively young man. ‘Above all heights Is rest, In the tree tops Thou feelest Scarce a breath, The birds are silent in the woods, Only wait, soon Thou too shalt rest.’ One may well ask whether these lines may not have signified at that time a frame of mind regulating Goethe's ideas in a new way as he re-read them in the evening of his life with affecting tears. Goethe's Faust is truly a testament of the very first order when considered with reference to its literary and intellectual standpoint. In 1831 Goethe finished the work which had occupied him from his earliest youth, having worked energetically from the year 1824 at the second part of Faust. We find that Goethe knew from the beginning of 1770 that he had what may be called the Faust disposition and that he began in 1774 to write down the first part of Faust, returning again and again to this poem in the most important moments of his life. Notably he took the first part of Faust with him when he went to Weimar and owing to his position there entered the great world. Certainly it was not produced there. But because one of the Weimar Court ladies, Fräulein von Göchhausen, preserved a copy of the Faust which Goethe took with him to Weimar, we to-day possess the form in which it was when he took it there. We therefore know the form in which Faust was printed for the first time and published in 1790, and further we know the setting in which the whole of Goethe's works appeared in 1808 in the first edition. All that we have of Faust, including that very important document which Goethe left as his testament, shows us the different stages of Goethe's growth. It is endlessly interesting to observe how these four stages of Goethe's Faust-creation appear to us in different ways, according to its inner nature, and how they represent a crescendo in the whole of Goethe's life-endeavour. What Goethe took with him to Weimar is a literary work of a quite personal character into which he had poured the feelings, the degrees of knowledge and also the despair of knowledge, as they went with him through the Frankfort time into the Strassburg time and also into the first Weimar period. It is the work of a man hotly striving after knowledge, striving to feel himself into life, experiencing every despair that an upright honourable man can go through, and all this he had poured into this work. All this is in the first part of Faust. But when Faust appeared in 1790 as a fragment, it was recognized that Goethe had worked at it and transformed it out of a longing lying deep in his soul and inner life which had become enlightened through his contemplation of Italian nature and of Italian works of Art. Out of this personal work of one who had been tossed to and fro in life's storms there emerged the work of one, who to a certain degree, had become unshackled and who had a very clear view of life before his soul. Then came the time of Goethe's friendship with Schiller. The time when in his inner being he learned to know and experience a world which had long become rooted within him. A world of which one can say that he who experiences it has had his spiritual eyes opened, so that he can see into the surrounding spiritual world. And now Faust's personality becomes a being placed between two worlds, between the spiritual world to which man can raise himself through purification, through the ennobling of himself and that world which drags him down. Faust becomes a being placed between the world of good and the world of evil. And while previously we saw in Faust the life of the single striving personality, now we see before us a great conflict carried on between the good and evil powers around man. Man is thus placed in the centre as the worthiest object for which the good and evil beings fight in the world. Though in the very beginning Faust is seen as a man doubting all knowledge, he now comes before us as one placed between heaven and hell. Thus the poem reaches an essentially higher stage and a higher existence. In the form in which Faust appears in 1808 it seems as if thousands of years of human development resound. We are reminded of the great dramatic representation of man's life produced in ancient times in the Book of Job, where the evil spirit went among men and stood up before God, and God said to him: ‘Thou hast been to and fro on the earth, hast thou considered my servant Job?’ What is here said we find in the poem, ‘The Prologue in Heaven’ where God speaks with Mephistopheles, the messenger of the evil spirituality: The Lord: Know'st Faust? Mephistopheles: The Doctor Faust? The Lord: My servant, he — So out of what Goethe wrote in order that his Faust Mystery should appear in its right light there sounds an echo of the Book of Job, ‘Dost thou know my servant Job?’ Then Goethe's fine, full life continued further, going ever deeper into the human existence of which the world to-day knows so little. And having brought to expression in many different ways what he had experienced in his soul, in 1824 he looked back on his whole life, and once more sat down and described Faust's passage through the great world, but in such a way that the second part is a complete character picture of the inner human development of the soul. Looking back to the first part we can see how completely true to life and to the reality of life is this description of a striving soul. Everything that meets us in the first part, especially in the beginning, is full of deep truths regarding nature, but much in it resembles a kind of theory of art — as if someone spoke of things that his soul had not yet fully experienced. And the second part: Here everything is the inward experience of his own soul. Here are the highest experiences of a spiritual kind by means of which man climbs the stages of existence, passes through the physical world and penetrates to the place where the human soul is united with the spirituality of the world, dissolves together with it and knows wherein it finds peace and at the same time that which gives freedom, dignity and self-dependence. All this is given in the second part of Faust as his own inner experience. The time will come when Goethe's Faust will be understood in quite another way from what it is to-day, when people will understand what Goethe wished to say when he said to Eckermann on 29th Jan., 1827: ‘All in Faust is of the senses, material, thought out in terms of the theatre to please everyone and I wished for nothing more than that. If the crowd of onlookers takes pleasure in its appearance, the higher meaning will not escape the observation of the initiated.’ Though the first part in many ways appears to be theoretical and not worked down into life, the second part is one of the most realistic of those pieces of world literature which go most deeply into reality; for everything in the second part of Faust is experienced, though not with the physical eye, because to have such experiences, spiritual eyes and spiritual ears are necessary. It is for that reason that the second part of Faust has been so little understood. People merely saw symbols and allegories in what is for the spiritual inquirer, who can experience it in the spiritual worlds, something far more true and real than anything that can be seen with the outer physical eyes or heard with the outer physical ears. From such a work we can promise ourselves much, and the task of the lectures to-day and tomorrow will be to consider something of what lies in it. To-day we will consider the matter more from the outer side, but tomorrow we will show how Goethe's Faust poem, in the true meaning of the word, is a picture of an inner esoteric life and intuitive vision of the world. Step by step we will endeavour to penetrate into that which is within and to look behind the curtain where the deepest secrets of Goethe's life lie hidden. The Faust mood was in Goethe even when he was a student at Leipzig, and we know that at that time he had a very serious illness, bringing him very near death. Much that a man's soul can grasp at such a time passed before Goethe, but many other things had already preceded this. He had learnt to know the way in which outer science looked at life. Certainly he had troubled himself very little about his own profession at Leipzig, but had occupied himself with many other sciences, more particularly with natural science. A strong faith never left Goethe that it would be possible to look into the deeper secrets of life through natural science; but at Leipzig at that time he stood full of despair before all that an outer knowledge could give him, in many ways a mere jumble of ideas and disconnected observations of nature. Nowhere could he find what he had already looked for as a boy, when at the age of seven he took a writing desk, placed on it some minerals and other geological products and plants, a wax taper and a burning glass. Then waiting for the morning, as the first rays of the sun came in, he took the burning glass, let the sun rays fall through it on to the wax taper and in this way lighted a fire on the altar which he had erected to the ‘great God’ of Nature, a fire which should have come from the foundation and source of life itself. But how far away were these sources of life from what Goethe met in the different branches of knowledge of the High School ( Hoch-Schule ), how far these ‘sources of life’ were removed from all such striving! Goethe then went to Frankfort and came into touch with thoughtful, sensible men who possessed above all things through their developed soul life, something of the flowing together of the human inner life with the spiritual weaving and living in the world; men who in the fullest meaning of the word, felt in themselves what Goethe expresses in the words: ‘The self in them expands to a spiritual universe.’ At that time at Frankfort he had the feeling, ‘Away from the mere striving after ideas! Away from the merely perceptive sense observation! There must be a path to the sources of existence!’ and he came into touch with what one can call alchemistic, mystical and theosophical literature. He himself attempted the practice of alchemy. He relates how he came to know of a work through which many sought for similar knowledge at that time, Welling's ‘Opus Mago-Cabalisticum et Theosophicum.’ This book was much thought of then as giving a knowledge of the sources of existence. Goethe studied by degrees Paracelsus, Valentinus and above all a work which from its whole method must have produced a deep impression on all those who strove after such knowledge, ‘Aurea Catena Homeri.’ This was a representation of nature the Mystics in the Middle Ages believed to see. The study of these mystical, alchemistic, theosophical books must have had a similar effect on Goethe to that which a man striving to-day after the same things would experience if he took up the books of Eliphas Levy or any other thinker on the same lines. Indeed at that time these things must have had an even more bewildering effect upon Goethe because these different writers no longer really understood the magic, theosophy, etc., of which they wrote. It was impossible to speak in direct way of the real grandeur and meaning of these things, proceeding from an ancient wisdom which had lived in human souls, for the meaning was hidden under an outer garb which included all kinds of physical and chemical forms. For those who merely saw what appeared outwardly in these books it was the greatest nonsense, and at that time it was most difficult to penetrate behind these secrets and arrive at the real meaning. But we must not forget that Goethe from his deep striving for knowledge had developed an intuitive mind. He must have been greatly pleased when on opening the ‘Aurea Catena Homeri’ he saw on the first page a symbol which had a deep effect on his soul; two triangles interlaced; in the corners the signs of the planets, drawn in a wonderful way, a flying dragon wound round in a circle, beneath which another dragon had fixed stiffening itself, and when he read the words on the first page, saying that the flying dragon symbolizes the stream which sends those forces which stream down from out of the Cosmos to the stiffened dragon, showing how heaven and earth hang together, or as it is expressed there: ‘How the spiritual forces of heaven pour into the earth's centre.’ These mysterious signs and words must have made a great impression upon Goethe. For instance, those which depict the whole growth of the earth: ‘From chaos to that which is called the universal quintessence’ — a remarkable sentence, curiously mixed up with signs of a chaotic nature, still undifferentiated right through the mineral, plant and animal kingdoms, right up to man and to that perspective to which man is developing in ever greater refinement. But it was not easy to find a way of penetrating to the deeper meaning. So Goethe left Frankfort in a frame of mind which can be described in the following words: I have found nothing. These seekers into nature can only give me dry, empty ideas; anything that can be squeezed out of them is but life's water. I have busied myself with much that has come down to us from the past from those who declare that they saw into the secrets of life. But the way, the way drives one to despair! This was sometimes the mood in Goethe's soul. He was not to be bewitched by easy speculations or philosophizing, or by confused symbols and explanations from those old books, which worked so wonderfully and forebodingly on him. They looked at him with their mysteries as something to which he could find no way. But anyone who knew Goethe's soul, knew the seed was already sown in his soul which was to germinate later. But he felt himself as one who was rejected and unworthy to unravel the secrets of life. Then he went to Strassburg. There he met people who must have interested him in one way or the other. He got to know Jung-Stilling with his deeply mystical soul, who owing to the development of peculiar forces generally found sleeping in men, had looked deeply into the hidden side of existence. He met Herder at Strassburg, who had gone through similar moods and who in times of desperation had often been at the point of a denial of future life. In Herder he learnt to know a man who suffered from a surfeit of life and who said, I have studied much, discerning sundry things connected with men's works and men's strivings on the earth. But he was unable to say to himself, I have had one moment when my longing after the sources of life has been satisfied. This was when he was ill and inclined to deny everything with bitter irony. Yet it was Herder who pointed out many depths in the riddles of life, and Goethe found in him a truly human Faust. But that side of negation which is not the outcome of mockery and scorn Goethe learnt to know later through his friend Merck. Goethe's mother who disliked criticism of people and all moralizing said of Merck, he can never leave Mephistopheles at home, in him we are quite used to it. In Merck Goethe found a disclaimer of much that is worth striving for in life. Over against all these impressions which Goethe received from the Strassburg people, it was through Nature and his observation of Nature that many of life's puzzles were cleared up for him. At the same time we must think of Goethe as a man possessed of a sharp, penetrating mind; he was not an unpractical man. He was an advocate, but only practised for a short time. Those who knew Goethe's work as an advocate and later as a Minister, were acquainted with his eminently practical mind. As advocate he knew little more than what he had learnt by heart from law books. But he was a man able to decide very quickly on any point laid before him; such a man can also map out clearly life's course. So Goethe comes before us with, on the one side, faculty for the clearest thinking with relation to the world; and on the other, for feeling in the deepest way the sorrow attached to an unsatisfied pursuit of knowledge, seeking for the deepest things and yet defeated by them. And then there came something else. Goethe had learnt to know that frame of mind which we can only characterize as the feeling of guilt! He felt guilty in respect of the simple country girl, Friederike at Sesenheim, in whose soul he had awakened so many hopes and desires and whom he had all the same to forsake later. All this was mixed up in Goethe's soul in the most remarkable way and out of these feelings there grew within him a poetic figure, which had its rise in the perception of a form which at that time followed him step by step. This was the figure of Faust, that remarkable character who had lived in the first half of the sixteenth century. This Faust had been the object of innumerable folk-plays and pantomimes and through Christopher Marlowe had reached a literary significance and had become a living problem for poets, especially for Lessing and Goethe. How did it happen that Goethe connected his own sorrow and his own feelings with this figure of Faust? It is related that Faust lived in the first half of the sixteenth century, at a time when for history much had been decided. If we compare this time with the eleventh and twelfth centuries, when studious lives were led, we find a great difference. In the twelfth century it was possible for those minds to unite the knowledge of what the times offered them with what they could find in their own souls. When they raised their spiritual vision to the creative power of the world, enthroned in the heights, and out of it formed their ideas, they were able to unite them with what they had learnt to know through external Natural Science. What they learnt was like a natural process. On the lowest step they studied what they called physical knowledge, on the next step they learnt to know what was taught of the higher mysteries of life, the hidden mysteries of existence, which could be reached through the spiritual eye and the spiritual ear; and on the highest step they reached to the recognition of the sublime, through ideas which were fine and transparent as crystal, but full of life, and working powerfully on the soul. These were the steps to the divine knowledge and were all connected with each other. Man may shrug his shoulders and look down on the minds of that time, but their way was one which never suffered intermission. If for instance we take up the ‘Way of Knowledge’ by Albertus Magnus, we find it begins with a description of the lowest part of nature and ends in a vision of God. You find here no dry, empty ideas, but ideas which enlighten the heart and warm the soul. When Faust lived this time had passed. Ideas then became dry and empty; though they had the stamp of the theologian, they were abstract or drawn from thought. They were ideas which could be studied by men and into which the reasoning of the understanding could sink, but no connection could be found by reason between these ideas and the living existence lying around us, or any possibility of enlightening the soul or bringing warmth to the heart. And then it came to this, that the science of that time — a mysticism, a magic, a theosophy, treating of things which are only to be perceived through spiritual eyes and spiritual ears — was caught in a complete decline, chiefly because much that was previously hidden in handwriting, was now published in print, and thus read by minds understanding nothing of it and who merely copied it. Humbug and nonsense of all kinds went on in the laboratories. What should have been experienced in a spiritual manner, was understood merely according to the words appearing in the books, although they were really only an outer form, but possessing a very deep meaning. Through formulae and retorts all kinds of stuff was made, with the result that what at that time was called theosophy, magic and the occult, came very near to being what we should now look upon as swindling and imposture. In a certain sense the way to the spiritual is connected with danger. Those whose striving has not been honest, whose understanding and reason has not been purified, who are unable to arrive in thought at ideas freed from the physical, may easily stumble and easily fall into the abyss. Therefore it was possible for those who still knew something or who studied the writings of the mystics with great pains, to miss the way and being unable to find it to be deceived by the swindling and charlatanism then prevalent. But it could also happen that the opposite view was taken by many people. This striving for higher things was denounced as witchcraft, and men such as Sponheim, Agrippa von Nettesheim and many others who sought honourably and blamelessly for the spiritual forces in nature, were branded as black magicians and swindlers, as men who had quitted the right path given them through religion. Faust lived during this time in the sixteenth century, a time when many saw the setting of an old spiritual movement as a rosy evening which at the same time became the rosy dawn of a new time bringing out such stars as Giordano Bruno, Galileo, Copernicus and others. Such times are called periods of transition. But of all these periods, none deserves the name so much as the time of Faust. From what we know of Faust he appears as one who felt very deeply the insufficiency of the knowledge of that time concerning the spiritual world. Theology he had studied and had turned away from it. He sought for the sources of existence from the mediaeval remnants of magic and similar things from the Middle Ages; and because Faust was a brilliant figure oscillating between an honourable striving after knowledge and those limits which passed over into charlatanism, it is better to consider him in this way and not attempt to understand him with sharper outlines. As he really was, the spiritual tendency at that time failed to understand him, and the general popular striving of the time was regarded as the outer garment of this Faust-figure in the sixteenth century. So he meets us as a legendary figure or dramatically as a man fallen away from the old traditions of religion and theology, who had given himself up to an endeavour, which owing to the narrow-minded ideas of that time could not possibly lead to any good in life. The opinion of the world between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries is expressed in the words from a popular book of that time on Faust: ‘He has for a time put the Holy Scriptures behind the door, and laid them under the bench, and wishes to hear no more of Theology, as he has become a man of the world and calls himself a D. Medicinæ.’ What was felt and thought about Faust was expressed in such words. It was felt that he sought in his own breast for the source leading to the depths of life and his own origin, and that he wished to free himself in his own way from the old traditions. Anything in the old folk-plays or pantomimes referring to this figure of Faust was little adapted to give more than his outward appearance. But all that had remained as the tradition of Faust influenced Goethe, and he entrusted to this character his life's striving and his urgent desire for knowledge. So we find him in his 70th year beginning to see himself in the character of Faust. In this character he expressed all the dissatisfaction, and all the sorrow proceeding from the desire for knowledge which remained unsatisfied. And when we look at the first monologue in ‘Faust’ we see clearly what was described at the beginning of to-day's lecture. We see a man who having occupied himself deeply in outer science had reached a state of despair which threatened to shatter his life completely. We see how he seizes on the old book — Goethe called it the Book of Nostradamus, but anyone acquainted with the literature of magic also known to Goethe, will clearly recognize the book to which he referred — in which Faust perceived the sign of (lie macrocosm and of which he says: ‘Like heavenly forces rising and descending, Their golden urns reciprocally lending, With wings that winnow blessing From Heaven through Earth I see them pressing, Filling the All with harmony unceasing.’ Faust , Scene I. and then added to these words a description of feeling, a kind of rapture that passed through him at the sight of this page. Through all this we see what at that time worked on Goethe. It was possible for such moods and ideas to flow into Goethe's soul, that he could truthfully describe them. When he stood before the remarkable sign of the two interlaced triangles and the two dragons — the upper one representing the spiritual and the lower one the physical — with the signs of the planets in the corners of the interlaced triangles, such forces penetrated through them that he really had the shining planets before him as the golden urns, with the forces flowing between them and filling the All with harmony unceasing. When we consider Goethe's soul with its deep and honest striving for knowledge, we begin to doubt whether it is possible to have clear ideas or to speculate much about it. We can only try to place the fact before our souls so that any feeling for such things may be satisfied. But anyone understanding life and the way in which it develops through age, knows that in spite of such battles, Goethe was a man in whose soul a germ had been laid which would ripen and bear fruit very much later, in years to come. We see too how the germs which developed later so wonderfully in Faust were really there, and much can be gained from the study of this life by those who have a distinct leaning to spiritual science. To-day unfortunately such striving is very superficial. We see many people taking it up in a hurry, but they drop it again after having acquired a few ideas. The riddles that exist are only known to one who can look back to a time twenty or thirty years previously when a fluid was poured into his soul and then stored over by the events of the following years and by many experiences, so that only thirty years later he is able to give an approximate answer respecting what was poured in his soul so long before. From this point of view we cannot look too deeply into Goethe's life. We see the echo of his feeling in relation to the ‘Aurea Catena Homeri’ or ‘The Golden Chain of Homer.’ We see it expressed when Faust breaks forth into the words, ‘What a show!’ Yes, a very powerful show, when the soul sinks deeply into these pictures, without even a guess of what they will become in the future. It is a show. But does it stop at mere guessing? Then these words necessarily follow: ... but only a show! ... At that time Goethe did not understand the deep meaning of these words, but a shade of that feeling already lived in his soul, for ‘All that is transient is but a semblance!’ and having these remarkable pictures before him, he could say as if in pain, ‘However artistically these characters are drawn, they are but outer symbols!’ ‘How grand a show! But, ah! a show alone. Thee, boundless Nature, now make thee, my own.’ Each line is deeply felt: — only a show, something which copies the great world. But Goethe had studied the many problems of natural science and had learnt the deep experience given to man, when he has to say to himself: ‘Thou art guilty!’ Having experienced this, he could hope for more depth of feeling on perceiving other signs closely connected with man's life. This feeling is expressed by Faust: — The book is turned over and in place of the sign of the great world, there appears the sign of the little world, the pentagon, and its surroundings. Then the magic word, which if rightly applied can awake certain slumbering forces, appears before Goethe's soul. Goethe certainly had a premonition that there is something, characterized here as slumbering forces in man, and that through gazing at certain symbols and images these forces could be awakened, so as to make it possible for him to look into the spiritual world. He could believe that he came into contact with that which stands very near to man's soul and expresses itself in the signs of the microcosm, the little world. He expresses this through his ‘Faust’ when he says that if man gives himself up to deeper inner meditation certain inner experiences develop and the ‘earth spirit’ appears, that spirit which quickens the earth and which sees to it, that out of the general life and stream of the world man comes to be and increases. Goethe understood in a marvellous way how to compress into a few words what are the secrets of the earth spirit, and in what way he belongs to the whole earth — just as each human soul and human spirit is related to the physical body of man — who is, we might say, the ruler of all the natural development, increase and historical growth of man. This ruler has no visible form, but can appear to a man whose spiritual eyes are opened, so that he can perceive and know that there is such a spirit of the earth. Goethe has characterized Him in a wonderful way: Spirit: ‘In the tides of Life, in Action's storm, A fluctuant wave, A shuttle free, Birth, the Grave, An eternal sea, A weaving, flowing Life, all-glowing.’ ‘Thus at Time's loom 'tis my hand prepares The garment of Life that the Deity wears!’ ‘Thus at Time's loom 'tis my hand prepares The garment of Life that the Deity wears!’ If we could penetrate every word of this formula we should find that what is described by Goethe, can be really experienced by anyone whose development has brought his soul to the requisite stage of existence. But all know what comes to pass: Faust does not feel himself and cannot feel himself as developed to what thus presents itself. He has not found the way to the secret depths of life. What ‘flows in life and lives and weaves in action's storm’ exists for him as a ‘terrible face.’ He turns away and hears the words: Spirit: ‘Thou'rt like the spirit thou comprehendest, Not me!’ Out of the old traditions he gained the belief that he was the exact image of the Divinity, and now he had to say to himself, ‘Not even thee!’ ‘Thou resemblest the mind thou canst grasp.’ If only people could once feel this sentence! That it was felt by Goethe can be seen from the whole situation in the first part of ‘Faust.’ Man can understand nothing beyond that point to which he has developed himself. On another occasion Goethe said, ‘As one is, so is one's God,’ and this resembles a confession on Goethe's part, that he had not, up to that time, found the way to the source of life. A confession which he here connects with Faust. When we consider Faust in this first form, we see what difficulties Goethe had to contend with in order to connect his world with the spiritual world towards which he was striving. We find in this first ‘Faust’ immediately afterwards, and without any real transition, the meeting of Mephistopheles with the student. What is Mephistopheles? Anyone who knows the way into the spiritual world, knows that there really is a Mephistopheles, that he is one of the two tempters who meet man when he desires to enter the road to the spiritual land, when he seeks the way to the spiritual world. There are two potencies or powers whom man meets. One power we call Lucifer. He lays hold of man in a more inward way, in the centre of his soul, seeking to drag him down through his passions, desires, lusts, etc., into the lower scale of the personal and ignoble. All that works on man himself is Luciferic, and because man was once caught in his earthly life by this Luciferic principle, he was delivered up to another principle. If man had never been seized by this Luciferic principle, the outer world would never have appeared to him in its merely material outward form, but would have presented itself in such a way that man could have said from the beginning that all outward things were physiognomic expression of the Spirit. Man would have seen the Spirit behind all physical material things. But because matter became condensed through the influence of the Luciferic power that which was false became mingled with (lie outer appearance, so that its outward form seemed Maya or illusion, as if it were not the outer physiognomic expression of the spirit. This power presenting the outer world to the view of a man in an untrue form was first recognized in its complete depth by Zarathustra. Under the name of Ahriman, Zarathustra first presented this being as the opponent of the God of Light. In everything connected with the teaching of Zarathustra, Ahriman was the deceitful being, who hid everything in mist and smoke which otherwise would have been visible to man as a transparent, spiritual splendour. To express it plainly, this being who caused the ruin of man, because he forced him into the fetters of matter, and also deceived him about its true form, was called Mephistopheles. This figure was called in Hebrew, Mephiz, the spoiler, and Topel, the liar. This being passed over into the West in the Middle Ages in the form of Mephistopheles. In the books on Faust, we see as opposed to Faust this Power, also called the ‘old serpent.’ Goethe learnt to know this Mephistopheles. The later traditions of Faust no longer distinguished properly between the forms of Lucifer and of Mephistopheles. In the age following the sixteenth century there was no longer a clear idea of these forms. Men no longer knew how to distinguish between Lucifer and Ahriman, and they united them in the form of the Devil or Satan; and because nothing was known of the spiritual world, no particular difference was made. But to Goethe, all that he received through the outer senses, and through the human understanding, with its physical instrument the brain, by which he gained perception of the outer world, appeared to him as Mephistopheles. The man appealing to these qualities of the ordinary understanding, was the same to him as one who through the ego strove to enter the spiritual world. So that for Goethe — as also for Merck or Herder — all that appealed merely to the understanding is represented in a wonderful way in the figure of Mephistopheles, who does not believe in a world of the good, or consider it significant or important. In Goethe himself was this second ego, which could be brought to a state of doubt concerning the spiritual world, and sometimes he felt in himself the discord caused by what we may call the Mephistophelian power. He felt himself placed in conflict between this evil power raging in his soul and the truly honourable striving of his soul for the heights. Goethe felt both these forces in his soul. But in what position to place himself with regard to the spiritual world Goethe at that time did not know. He was a long way from that experience which we find in the second part of ‘Faust’ in such a magnificent way. In the scene ‘The way to the Mothers’ we see the man striving inwardly for the spiritual heights but detained by a deceptive picture and captivated by reason of what Mephistopheles has placed before him through trickery. Mephistopheles represents all that can be found in outer physical science which is bound up with the understanding. He stands there with the keys — this knowledge is certainly good, for it leads to the door of the spiritual world. — But within Mephistopheles cannot go. Therefore he describes that into which Faust must go as a ‘nothing,’ And we hear from the words of Mephistopheles, spoken in a classic, grandiose manner, what is thrown by the materialistic minds of men in the face of those who are striving to discover the foundations of life out of spiritual science. He says: ‘Thou art a dreamer and a fantastic. We are not going to be taken in by what such dreamers tell us about the spiritual foundations of things. We care nothing for that!’ And the spiritual enquirer can reply as did Faust to Mephistopheles, ‘In thy nothing I hope to find the all!’ But Goethe was experiencing that boisterous youth out of which he had just brought Faust and was far from possessing at that time such clarity of soul. He did not know then how to bring Mephistopheles into touch with Faust, for Mephistopheles is there in the original Faust as Goethe had experienced him as the power that drags man down, and represented him as a mocker in the ‘student scene.’ Only later did Goethe find the means for Mephistopheles by degrees to approach Faust though his changing forms. We find next that Faust is drawn by Mephistopheles and falls into the abyss of sensuality in the scene in ‘Auerbach's wine cellar’ and the road begins down which Faust is led to evil. The end of the ‘prison scene’ is not given in the fragment which appeared in 1790; Goethe kept it back, but this terribly affecting scene was in the first fragment. It was in what we may call the tragedy of Gretchen that Goethe placed that side of his life which can be expressed by the words ‘I am guilty.’ What Goethe expresses in the first part of ‘Faust’ is the word ‘Personality.’ It was in that Goethe, who travelled to Italy, that a part of the seed sown in his soul first began to develop. He found a wonderful road during his Italian journey; it can be followed step by step. He said when he wrote at last to his friends at Weimar, ‘So much is certain, the old artists had quite as great a knowledge of nature and just as good an idea of that which we see and the manner in which it should be seen, as Homer had. Unfortunately the number of works of art of the first order is much too small. But anyone able to see them, need wish for nothing further than the right to recognize them and then go in peace. These great works of art were produced according to true and natural laws; the arbitrary, the fanciful collapses; here is necessity; here is God!’ — ‘I have an idea that the creators of these works of art acted according to those laws which guide nature, and on whose tracks I am.’ He is no longer the same Goethe who was full of an abstract longing, but is filled with self-denial and resignation, ready to investigate existence step by step along the road by which he hopes to discover the problems of life revealed. It is not surprising if nothing is discovered of the great spiritual aim of mankind, if it is only sought in an abstract way, but which if sought for in the right way leads directly to the highest problems of life. Those who have no inclination to compare one plant with another, one animal with another, one bone with another, or to consider life, step by step, as they go through the world in order to find the spirit in each single being, in such people an abstract longing will lead to nothing. Let us consider Goethe when during his Italian journey, he gradually arrived at the discovery of the primeval plant, he collected stones, prepared himself diligently to take up the work of research, and did not seek to know immediately ‘how one thing strives to enter another’ but said to himself: ‘If you would gain a premonition’ of ‘how one thing works and lives in another’ as heavenly powers rise and fall, offering each the ‘golden urn,’ examine the vertebras of the spinal column and the way in which one bone is connected with the next; and how one faculty helps another. Seek in the smallest thing the picture of the greatest. Goethe became a very diligent student during his travels in Italy, examining everything. He formed the opinion that if an artist acted ‘according to the laws which are followed by nature herself’ and understood by the Greeks, the divine will be present in his works even as it is in the works of creation. For Goethe, art is a ‘manifestation of the secret laws of nature.’ The creations of the artists are works of nature on a higher stage of perfection. Art is man's continuation and conclusion of nature. ‘For since man is the head of nature so he regards himself as a complete nature, but also as one which can call forth a further rise. He strives for this through the acquisition of all accomplishments and virtues which call for choice, order, harmony, and meaning, and at last rises to the production of the work of art.’ We can say that during the Italian journey everything that came before Goethe took on definite forms and through inner soul experiences appeared clearly before him. So once again he took up ‘Faust,’ and we perceive how he endeavoured to bring the separate parts into union. But we also perceive how he interested himself in an objective manner in what Faust could become for the people of the North. In Italy he became particularly conscious of the great difference between people who had been brought up amid classical surroundings and those who had not. He found it strange that so little should be heard in Rome of ghost stories such as were common in the North. In the Villa Borghese he wrote at this time the ‘Witches Kitchen’ scene, as one who had lost touch with all such things, but also as one who recalled to memory the spirit of the earth. When he had previously written about the earth spirit, he represented it in such a way that Faust turned away from it, as from a ‘hideous worm.’ But the fact of turning away from it, even without understanding why, remains in the soul and works on further, as it did in Goethe. But those who become impatient and refuse to wait until after long years the seed grows, are unable to see the way clearly. And when in Italy Goethe knew that a turning away from the terrible countenance would have its effect upon his soul, and now these words arise: ‘Sublime Spirit, thou gavest me, gavest me all For which I begged. It was not without reason That thou didst turn thy face in fire to me And for a kingdom gavest me the glorious nature With strength to feel it and to enjoy it. Not A coldly astonished gaze didst thou grant to me But didst permit me to look into her profound bosom As into that of a friend. Past me didst thou lead the ranks of the living And didst teach me to know, in the quiet bushes, In air, and in water, my brother. And when the storm roared and rattled in the woods And there fell the neighbouring branches of the giant fir Squashing the undergrowth and in their fall Sounding like thunder in the hollow of the hills, Thou didst lead me to a safe Grotto, where Thou didst show me myself and opened my heart To deep and secret wonders.’ Before Goethe, there stands the possibility of the human soul, through its own development expanding to a spiritual universe. Through a patient sacrificial resigned search, the fruits stand before his soul which as germs were planted when he came into touch with the earth spirit. We can see through this monologue in ‘Wald und Höhle’ (wood and grotto) what a forward jerk this was towards the ripening of the fruits in his soul, for it shows us that the seed already sown was not sown in vain. And as a warning to have patience, to wait until such seeds had ripened in his soul, that fragment of ‘Faust’ meets us which appeared with this setting in 1790. And now we see how Goethe finds the way step by step after being led to his ‘safe grotto where the secret deep wonders of his own heart were opened to him,’ he obtains that comprehensive survey which bids him no longer abide with his own sorrow, but teaches him to rise above his sorrow, to send his foreseeing spirit out into the Macrocosmos, watch the fighting of the good and evil spirits and see men on their battle ground. And in ‘Faust’ in 1808 he sent out beforehand the ‘Prologue in Heaven:’ Raphael: ‘The sun-orb sings, in emulation, 'Mid brother-spheres, his ancient round: His path predestined through Creation He ends with step of thunder-sound.’ We next see how the macrocosmic Mights oppose the forces of the great world. We see too from out the experiences of Goethe's soul, what a remarkable light falls on the two dragons with which at one time in his youth he came in touch. ‘Faust’ is such a universal poem because it contains so many warnings. It also gives us that golden saying: ‘Wait in confidence for the development of thy inner forces, even if that means waiting a very long time!’ These words also sound as a warning which stand as an attribute before Faust, when Goethe looks back to those ‘fluctuating figures which in early days had once shown a troubled countenance’ but which now are flooded with light. Now he had waited so long that the friends who had taken such a vivid interest in Faust as he had appeared to them in the first form, had died, and those who had not died were very far away. Goethe had been obliged to wait for the development of the seed already sown in him. Now these striking words meet us: ‘My sorrow speaks to an unknown crowd, Their applause e'en makes my heart feel heavy, And those who once delighted in my song If they still live, in other lands are scattered.’ No longer did it matter to those who in youth had felt with him. He had had to wait, as the last lines of this dedication so beautifully express it — ‘What was once a reality to me, has gone into the unreal: but what has remained for me and appears to outer vision as unreal, that to me is now true, and it is only now that I can give it as truth.’ So we see how this poem, even if only looked at in such an external manner as we have to-day, leads us into the depths of the human soul. ‘Faust’ was begun in a desultory manner, some parts being pushed in between others, and therefore Goethe was unable to show in a continuous way what he had experienced in his soul. But something else led to the fact that Goethe expressed his deepest experiences in ‘Faust.’ The ‘Helena scene’ also belongs to the first part of ‘Faust’ written by Goethe. But we find it was not included even in the ‘Faust’ of 1808. Why not? Because the manner in which Goethe had finished ‘Faust’ at that time would not allow it. What Goethe wished to say through the Helena scene was the expression of such a deep premonition of the deepest riddle of existence, that the first part was not sufficiently prepared to allow of this. Only when Goethe had reached an advanced age, was he able to give a true form to what really was the inner work of his life. We see how his mind had expanded so that he was able to grasp the worlds of the macrocosm, as expressed in the ‘Prologue in Heaven.’ We shall also see the way in which Goethe represents the stages of the soul's experience, leading men from the first stage up to that of imaginative vision, where the soul penetrating ever deeper and deeper, bursts at last the doors of the spiritual world, which Mephistopheles would close. Goethe also represents these inner experiences. For he places in the second part of ‘Faust’ the experiences of a soul through secret scientific study, and we see here one of the deepest riddles of existence, which if recognized, would be found to be an announcement of Western spiritual science given in imposing language. One is tempted to place such a poem as the ‘Bhagavad Gita’ and the second part of ‘Faust’ side by side. For great and powerful wisdom speaks out of such Eastern writings. It seems as if the gods themselves desired in them to speak with men to express the wisdom out of which the world was formed. Indeed it is so. Now let us look at the second part of ‘Faust.’ Here we see a striving human soul which has raised itself to spiritual vision from outer physical perception; we see how it has worked its way up to true clairvoyance when Faust enters the spiritual world and finds the spiritual choir around him ... ‘Hearken! Hark! — The Hours careering Sounding loud to spirit-hearing. See the new-born day appearing! Rocky portals jarring shatter, PhSbus' wheels in rolling clatter, With a crash the Light draws near! Pealing rays and trumpet-blazes — Eye is blinded, ear amazes: The Unheard can no one hear!’ Faust II, Act I. to that passage where Faust is outwardly dazzled, so that the outer world is lost to his perception and he says to himself: ‘Only within shines clear light! ...’ up to that passage in which the soul works itself up to the spheres of world existence, where the spiritual worlds are to be seen in all their purity, and the riddle of the world discloses itself to the soul. This is a way which we must designate as an esoteric one. The way in which we can penetrate from the outer to the inner life of Goethe's world enigma, we shall see tomorrow, and we shall also see from out of what depths Goethe spoke the word which at last gave him the certainty he needed with reference to all the longings, all the sorrows, pains and strivings for knowledge in his life. ‘Whoever zealously strives We can redeem him; And if love from above Feels an interest in him, The blest choir will be there With a friendly greeting.’ We shall consider tomorrow how Goethe solved this riddle of existence, and how that which lives in the soul can rise up to its true home. It will give us the answer to what Goethe placed as the riddle of his existence and about which he gives us such a hopeful answer at the end of the second part of ‘Faust:’ ‘For the spiritual world, That noble member, Is saved from evil. Whoever strives zealously We can redeem him! ...’ This tells us Faust can be saved and those spirits will not conquer who by bringing men into the material bring them also to destruction.

Goethe's Secret Revelation

The Riddle in Faust: Exoteric

https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA057/English/TP1980/19090311p01.html

Berlin

11 Mar 1909

GA057-13

One idea Goethe had for his ‘Faust’ was that at the end of Part II, Act 3, Mephistopheles, who in this Act had worn the mask of Phorkyas, should step in front of the curtain, take off the mask, descend from the Kothurni and deliver a kind of Epilogue. The idea, as the now meaningless stage instruction tells us, was that this Epilogue was to indicate the manner in which the final figure of Faust was to be taken. The words Mephistopheles was to speak as Commentator are not in ‘Faust,’ but they have been preserved on a single sheet among Goethe's literary remains. Through the mouth of Mephistopheles Goethe seeks to tell the public in a not unhumorous way what attitude to adopt towards his Faust. These words are worthy of notice, and in a certain respect to-day's study is to be conducted in their spirit. They refer to Euphorion who was born in some spirit fashion, and jumps and hops about immediately after his birth and utters ‘a tender word.’ In this way these words refer to him: ‘Enough, ye see him, though it is much worse Than on the British stage, where a small child Grows step by step to take heroic shape. Here it is madder still: for, scarce conceived, He's also born: He leaps and dances, speaks a tender word. If many criticize, There are who think this is not to be taken So straight and crudely, that there's more behind. One scents the Mysteries, perhaps withal Mystifications, Indian and may be Egyptian; for the man is right who knows How to squeeze all together, brew it well And twist and turn in etymology. We say it also, and the true disciple Of the newer symbolism will agree.’ Thus all such explanations as rest on a basis of old traditions are to be straightway excluded. On the contrary, an explanation is demanded drawn from the depths of spirit-life. Therefore also Mephistopheles says: ‘We say it also, and the true disciple of the newer symbolism will agree.’ If you read carefully Part II of ‘Faust,’ you will know that Goethe is rich in word-construction in this poem, and that we must not therefore cavil at what appears to be ungrammatical. Here in this sentence is clearly expressed that the man who understands Faust rightly in Goethe's sense, also sees that deeper things lie behind. But everything that rests on study or might lead to a merely symbolic explanation is discouraged. The demand is that the explanation of Faust is to depend on the faithful discipleship which is aware of the spiritual experience which we may call ‘experience in the sense of the new Spiritual Science.’ ‘The true disciple of the newer symbolism’ is the commentator of Faust in Goethe's sense. Thus it is to be done by drawing direct from spirit-life; and Goethe no doubt here betrays that he has put something into it which made it possible for him to get away from old symbols and to coin new and independent symbols out of direct spirit-life. If we want to compare the presentation of the spiritual world in the two parts of ‘Faust,’ we might say that Part I presents to a large extent the fruits of knowledge — the outer influences on one who has dim ideas of the spiritual world, and who tries to enter it through reading all kinds of things and conducting all kinds of experiments. Part I contains this studied view of the supernatural world. Part II contains experience, living experience, and if you understand rightly, you know that it can derive only from a personality which has learnt to know the reality of the spiritual, supernatural worlds behind the physical world. Truly, Goethe was consistent in his presentation, although some things in Part II are so dissimilar from Part I. What he had learnt in Part I, he experienced in Part II, he has seen it. He was in the spiritual, supernatural world: he indicates this, too, clearly enough, where in Part I he makes Faust say: ‘What says the Sage, now first I recognize: “The Spirit-world no closures fasten; Thy sense is shut, thy heart is dead: Disciple, up! untiring, hasten To bathe thy breast in morning-red!”‘ Scene I, p. 15. Goethe can point — from personal knowledge — to what he sees who ‘bathes his breast in morning-red,’ in order to await the rising of the spiritual sun. We find in the whole of Part I — no doubt you realize it from yesterday's discourse — an energetic upward-striving of Faust the student, to this dawn, but we also find clearly indicated that the path is nowhere traversed in a satisfactory way. Now how does Part II begin? Is the advice of the wise man, ‘to bathe the breast in morning-red,’ carried out in one respect? We find Faust ‘bedded on flowery turf, fatigued, restless, endeavouring to sleep,’ surrounded by spiritual beings. We find him withdrawn from all physical vision, veiled in sleep. Beings from the spiritual world are busy with his spirit, which is withdrawn from the physical world. Marvellously and forcefully we are told what direction Faust's soul takes in order to grow into the spiritual world. Then we are shown how his soul really does grow into that world which is described as the spiritual world in the ‘Prologue in Heaven,’ in Part I. Goethe says from deep experience what was always told the pupil in the School of Pythagoras, that he who enters the spiritual world is met by the secret music of the universe: ‘The sun-orb sings, in emulation, 'Mid brother-spheres, his ancient round: His path predestined through Creation He ends with step of thunder-sound.’ This must be the music from the worlds of the spiritual life, if they are to be depicted as they are. What is said here of the ‘music of the spheres’ is not a poetic image, nor a metaphor, but a truth, and Goethe remains consistent to it, in that Faust, withdrawn from the physical world, now proceeds to grow, like an initiate, into that world from which this music comes. Therefore, in the scene where at the beginning of Part II Faust is withdrawn into the spiritual world, it is written again: ‘Hearken! Hark! — The Hours careering Sounding loud to spirit-hearing. See the new-born day appearing! Rocky portals jarring shatter, PhSbus' wheels in rolling clatter, With a crash the Light draws near! Pealing rays and trumpet-blazes — Eye is blinded, ear amazes: The Unheard can no one hear!’ Faust II, Act I. Would that those people who think that they can understand a poem only if they can say ‘Such things must be taken as the poet's images, created by right of poetic licence’ — would that they would cease to call these things realistic. The physical sun makes no sound! It is the spiritual sun behind the physical which sounds in the ears of him who is entering the spiritual life. They are spiritual, not physical sounds. In this passage, again, we hear the sounds of thousands of years harmonizing. Unconsciously he who can follow the course of the human spirit through thousands of years will be reminded in this passage of some great words spoken thousands of years ago; words spoken by one who through his initiation knew that what appears to us as the physical sun is the expression of the sun-spirit and the sun-soul, as the physical human body is the expression of the human spirit and the human soul. He looked up to the spiritual sun and called it ‘Ahura Mazdao,’ ‘The great sun-aura.’ We are reminded of Zarathustra, who, looking thus at the sun, and feeling the world full of spirit, spoke the great and powerful words: ‘I want to speak! Listen to me, all ye who from far or near, desire to listen: Mark well, for He will be revealed. No more shall the False Teacher destroy the world — he who has professed evil faiths with his tongue. I shall speak of what is the highest in the world, what He, the Great, Ahura Mazdao, has taught me. Whosoever will not hear His Words, as I speak them, will suffer misery when the Earth-Cycle is fulfilled!’ Before the spiritual sun rises in the soul, the learner must bathe in the dawn which precedes it. Hence the words of the Wise Man: ‘Disciple, up! untiring hasten to bathe thy breast in morning-red!’ Does Faust, the disciple, do this? After the spiritual beings which surrounded him had been busy with him while his soul was for a time withdrawn from his body, he awakes as a changed man. The soul has entered the body, so that he has a dim idea, or he bathes in the morning-red, of the rising sun of the spirit: ‘Life's pulses now with fresher force awaken To greet the mild ethereal twilight o'er me; This night, thou, Earth! hast also stood unshaken, And now thou breathest new-refreshed before me, And now beginnest, all thy gladness granting, A vigorous resolution to restore me, To see the highest life for which I'm panting. — The world unfolded lies in twilight glimmer, A thousand voices in the grove are chanting; Vale in, vale out, the misty streaks grow dimmer; The deeps with heavenly light are penetrated; The boughs, refreshed, lift up their leafy shimmer From gulfs of air where sleepily they waited; Colour on colour from the background cleareth, Where flower and leaf with trembling pearls are freighted, And all around a Paradise appeareth.’ Faust II, Act I. Faust now feels also that he has awakened in that world, into which he has been translated during his unconsciousness, and he bathes his earthly breast in the morning-red. But it is only the beginning of the journey. He feels that he is at the gate of initiation, and thereupon he cannot yet bear the direct vision of the spiritual sun: ‘But if there burst from those eternal spaces A flood of flame, we stand confounded ever; For Life's pure torch we sought the shining traces, And seas of fire — and what a fire! — surprise us.’ Wherefore he sees at first the world of the spiritual — but still, as we shall see in a moment, as a symbol. ‘Behind me, therefore, let the sun be glowing! The cataract, between the crags deep-riven, I thus behold with rapture ever-growing. From plunge to plunge in thousand streams't is given, And yet a thousand, to the valleys shaded While foam and spray in air are whirled and driven. Yet how superb, across the tumult braided, The painted rainbow's changeful life is bending, Now clearly drawn, dissolving now and faded, And evermore the showers of dew descending! Of human striving there's no symbol fuller: Consider, and 't is easy comprehending — Life is not light, but the refracted colour.’ Faust II, Act I. This is Faust bathing his earthly breast in the morning-red, in order to prepare himself to look straight at the spiritual sun, which rises at initiation. Now Faust is to go into the great world with the gifts he has received as one approaching illumination. It might be thought remarkable that Faust is now transplanted to the Imperial Court, when he is in the midst of all kinds of masques and revels. All the same, these masques and pranks contain deep truths and are everywhere significant. It is not possible to enter upon this significance to-day. It will be in any case the task of this study to bring out only a few moments from the whole content of Part II of ‘Faust’ Many lectures would have to be given, if we wanted to throw light on everything. We shall say only this about the general idea of these Masque scenes: For a man who surveys human life with an enlightened eye, certain words will have a different meaning from what they have in ordinary external life. Such a man, steeping himself in the whole great course of human evolution, knows that such words as ‘Folk spirit’ ( Volksgeist ), ‘Time-spirit’ ( Zeitgeist ), are not mere abstractions. He sees in the spiritual world the true and real beings corresponding to what one ordinarily calls abstractly ‘Folk spirit and Time-spirit.’ 1 See Cycle XIII, Mission of the Folk-Souls , by R. Steiner. Thus, since he has the vision, it is made clear to Faust as he enters the great world where decisions affecting the world are made from a Court, that in all these happenings there are supernatural powers at work. Outside in the physical world one can observe only individual people and the laws they have. In the spiritual world there are beings behind all that. Whereas people are under the impression that what they do is prompted by their own souls, and that they make their own resolutions, human acts and human thoughts are really pervaded and permeated by beings from the supernatural world — national spirits, time-spirits, and so on. People think they are free to make resolves, to think and to form ideas, but they are guided by spiritual beings behind the physical world. What men call their understanding, by which they believe they can control the course of time, is the expression of spiritual beings behind. Thus, the whole Masque, which is to have some meaning, becomes for Faust the expression of the fact that one can realize how in the course of world-events a part is played by powers originating in those beings which Faust met already in Part I, originating, in short, in Mephistopheles. Man is surrounded by such spiritual beings, towering above him. Thus Mephistopheles appears at the turn of the modern age as that being which prompts the human intellect to the discovery of paper money. And Goethe presents the whole affair with a certain humour: how the same spirit, the same intellect which in man is bound to the physical instrument of the brain, when inspired by the related spirit which lets nothing count but the physical, gives rise to such phenomena as can control the world — phenomena however which have an importance only for the physical world. In this way the deeper sense of development is indicated precisely in this Masque and mummery. But we are soon led out of the world which lies before us, where we are shown the part played by supernatural powers, and into the really spiritual world. After it has been made rich, the Court wishes to be amused by the presentation of figures from ancient history. Paris and Helena are to be conjured up from the past. Mephistopheles, who belongs to those powers of the spiritual world which inspired the discovery of paper money, cannot penetrate to the worlds which give rise to the whole deeper development of men. Faust carries in him the soul and spirit which can penetrate these spiritual worlds. For he is the disciple who has bathed the earthly breast in the morning-red, and we are shown how Faust has already experienced something which can be looked upon as the first stage of clairvoyance — the stage completed by the clairvoyant when he has put his soul through the appropriate exercises. There are certain exercises which the student has to perform, in meditation, concentration, and so on, which are set him in occult-scientific symbols, in which he steeps himself, whereby the soul, withdrawing from the physical and etheric body, is transfigured in the night, as it at first becomes clairvoyant in the spiritual world. What is it that the student experiences here, when he has received the effect of those exercises? The first stage of clairvoyance is something which can bring people to a condition of great confusion. We shall see best why this is if we look at what are sometimes called the ‘dangers of initiation.’ Living in the physical world of the senses, one sees the objects round one in sharp contours, outlined in space, and the human soul makes halt at or attaches itself to these firm outlines, which one finds everywhere, filling the soul when it gives itself to sense-phenomena. Now just imagine for a moment all these objects round you becoming misty, losing their contours, merging into each other, becoming like cloud-pictures. It is something like this in the world into which the clairvoyant enters after the first exercises have taken effect. For he arrives at what is behind the whole sense-world, what lies behind all matter, what gives rise to the sense-world. He arrives at the stage where the spiritual world first approaches him. If you think how, in the mountains, crystals form themselves out of their mother-substances into their shapes and lines, so is it, roughly, when the clairvoyant human being comes into the spiritual world. At first it all appears confusing if the student is not sufficiently prepared. But the figures of the physical world grow out of this chaotic world, like the crystal shapes out of their mother-substance. At first the spiritual world is experienced like the mother-substances of the physical world. Into this realm man enters by the gates of death. The images, indeed, will take on other, fixed shapes, when the clairvoyant is further developed, shapes which are interwoven with those outlines which exist in the spiritual world, and which resound with what we have called in the spiritual sense, the music of the spheres. The clairvoyant experiences this after a time, but at first it is all confusing. Still, into this realm enters man. Now if the images of Helena and Paris are to be brought up, it must be from this world. Faust alone, who has bathed the earthly breast in the morning-red, and found the entrance to the spiritual world, can step into this world, Mephistopheles cannot. He can achieve only what the world of reason can achieve. He can go as far as the key that opens the spiritual realm. But Faust has the confidence and certainty that he will find there what he seeks: the everlasting, the permanent residue when the physical form of man is dissolved at death into its elements. Now it is wonderful how we are told the way in which Faust is to descend into the spiritual realm. The introduction already shows us that the man who depicts it is well acquainted with the facts — as well as with the perceptions and feeling which come over anyone who really knows these things and does not merely play at them. It all stood in grand manner before Goethe's soul — all that exists of this world of feeling when the seed for initiation, described yesterday, was opened by a particular event. He read a passage in Plutarch, where is described how the city of Engyium seeks an alliance with Carthage. Nicias, the friend of the Romans, is to be arrested. But he poses as a man possessed. The pro-Carthaginians want to seize him, but they hear these words from his mouth: ‘The Mothers, the Mothers press hard on me!’ That was a cry which in old times one heard only from a man who was in a condition of clairvoyance and withdrawn from the physical world. Nicias could be regarded either as a fool, as one possessed, or as a clairvoyant. But how could this be known? Because he said what those who had some knowledge of the spiritual world recognized. At the utterance of: ‘It is the Mothers who press hard on me!’ the citizens realize that he is not possessed, but inspired; that he can say something as a real witness which can be learnt in the spiritual world — and so he remains unmolested. On reading this scene, there is released in Goethe's soul something which had been sown as the kernel of initiation already during his Frankfort period. He knew what it meant to penetrate into the spiritual world. Hence also the words put into the mouth of Faust, when Mephistopheles speaks of the ‘Mothers,’ Faust shudders. He knows what it means — that lie touches on a holy but forbidden kingdom, forbidden, that is, for him who is not sufficiently prepared. Mephistopheles, indeed knows also of this realm, that he may not enter it unprepared. Hence the words: ‘Unwilling I reveal a loftier mystery.’ Still, Faust must descend into this kingdom in order to bring to pass what has to be brought to pass — into this kingdom where one sees what is otherwise firm and solid in transfigurations of eternal being. Here the spiritual sense catches sight behind the physical forms of the sense-world of what penetrates into this sense-world to maintain in it its sharp outlines. And then Mephistopheles says, describing this realm as it appears to all who step into it: ‘Escape from the Created To shapeless forms in liberated spaces! Enjoy what long ere this was dissipated! There whirls the press like clouds on clouds unfolding.’ One cannot depict more vividly a real experience of a man truly initiated. The things ‘long ere this dissipated’ will be found in this world, when it is presented thus. ‘To shapeless forms of liberated spheres,’ i.e., into that realm where the forms of the sense-world are no more, where they do not exist, which is ‘liberated’ from them — there where ‘what long ere this was dissipated’ does exist — into this realm Faust is to betake himself. And when one reads ‘There whirls the press, like clouds on clouds unfolding,’ one recognizes again something which is characteristic in the highest degree. Let us think of the entry into the supernatural world as a gate. Before one enters, the soul has to be prepared by means of worthy symbols. One of these is taken from the appearance of the rising sun, and completes the image of bathing the earthly breast in the morning-red: the sun making a particular triangle round itself. The soul goes through this symbol and experiences its after-effects when it has passed through the gate, when it is within, in the spiritual world. Hence these effects: ‘There whirls the press, like clouds on clouds unfolding.’ Every word would be a living proof of what this scene is meant to be: Faust's penetration to the first stages of the supernatural world, which you find called the ‘imaginative world.’ When Goethe presented this, he was not obliged to compound a picture of the spiritual world from old Indian or Egyptian descriptions; he was able to put down quite realistically what he himself had experienced; and this he did. Now Faust brings up the ‘glowing tripod,’ round which the Mothers sit, the sources of existence in the spiritual world. With its help Faust is able to conjure up Paris and Helena before men, and to present pictures from the spiritual world. It would lead too far to explain in detail the important symbol of the glowing tripod. We are concerned to show how a kind of initiation is really depicted in Part II of ‘Faust.’ But we see how carefully and correctly Goethe proceeds by the fact that he shows us the way into the spiritual world which he only who is worthy can tread slowly and with resignation. He shows us that Faust is not even yet worthy enough. Only he is worthy to enter the spiritual world who has put off everything that is connected with narrow personality so that no wishes or desires, arising from it, any longer exist. This is apparently to say little, but in truth it is saying a great deal. For usually between what is sought and what is to be achieved by the cancellation of all personal wishes and desires, there lies not only one human life, but many. Goethe shows with the certainty of knowledge that Faust is not yet worthy. Desire awakes in him; he wants to embrace Helena from a personal desire. Whereupon the whole thing collapses — it vanishes. He has committed a sin against the spiritual world. He cannot hold her. He must penetrate further into the spiritual world. And so we see him in the course of Part II going further on his way. We see him after being ‘paralysed by Helena’ again in another state of consciousness, withdrawn from the physical body and fallen into sleep; and how something happens around him which as it were clambers from the sense-world into the supersense-world. What this is shows us nothing other than that Faust, once again withdrawn from the physical world, experiences something which can only with full consciousness be experienced in the supersense-world. What he has now to go through is the complete growth of man. He must go through those mighty events which take place behind the scenes of the stage of the physical world, so that he really can behold what he wants to behold. Helena must be brought back again into the physical world, she must be reincarnated into a new body. When he brings back the merely imaginative image from the spiritual world the whole thing breaks down. He must go deeper. We see him now overcoming a second stage. In this state in which he is put we now see how the consciousness gradually lives upward from the sense-world into the supersense-world. This is done in a poetically masterly way. It is not a case of marvelling at the reality of it, for that is explained simply by the fact that Goethe depicts Part II of ‘Faust’ from his own experience. But the way is masterly in which Goethe represents the secret of Helena's becoming mortal, it is also poetic. Whoever is acquainted with the elementary truths of Spiritual Science, knows that man, in assuming life on our earth, brings with him an eternal, spiritual part from quite other realms, that this spiritual part is combined below with the physical hereditary line, taken from the physical-sense-world and bequeathed finally by father and mother. On the whole — taking the various parts of man altogether without entering more precisely upon human nature — we may say that in man are combined something eternal and something earthly. The eternal part, going on from life to life, which descends from the spiritual world to be embodied in a physical form — this we call ‘spirit.’ And in order that this spirit can combine with physical matter, there must be an intermediate part, and this in terms of Spiritual Science is the soul. Thus spirit, soul and body are combined in the formation of a human being. Now Faust with his increased consciousness is to experience how these parts of human nature combine. The spirit descends from spiritual spheres, gradually surrounds itself with the soul which is derived from the psychic world, and then draws the physical covering round itself in accordance with the laws of the physical world. If one knows the principle which attaches itself as ‘soul’ around the spirit, and often called by us the ‘astral body,’ if one knows what is between spirit and body, one has that intermediate member, which as it were binds together spirit and body. The spirit Faust finds in the realm of the Mothers. He knows already where to look for it, whence it comes, when it betakes itself into a new embodiment. But he has yet to learn how the tie is formed, when the spirit comes into the physical world. And now we are shown in that remarkable scene, how, starting from the sense-world and touching the boundary of the supersense-world, the ‘Homunculus’ is produced in Wagner's laboratory. Mephistopheles himself has a hand in it, and we are told in spirited words that only the conditions of his creation are provided by Wagner. Thus this remarkable figure, the Homunculus comes into being, assisted as it were by the spiritual world. Much thought has been spent on this Homunculus. But thinking and speculating on such things lead nowhere. The problem who he is can be solved only by real creation out of Spiritual Science. To those who spoke of him in the Middle Ages he was no other than a definite form of the astral body. This scene is not to be pictured in the sphere of sense — but in such a way that it must be thought of as quite removed into the spiritual world. You must follow all the events in Faust's condition of consciousness. The way in which the Homunculus is described in the subsequent scenes shows him to be really the representative of the astral body. ‘He has no lack of qualities ideal But far too much of palpable and real.’ That is the characteristic of the astral body, and he says of himself: ‘Since I exist, then I must active be.’ an astral figure, which cannot stay still, compelled to live in continuous activity. He must be taken away to those spheres, where he can actually combine spirit and body. And now we see the creation of man, which Faust experiences, represented to us in the ‘Classical Walpurgis-Night.’ There we are shown the sum of all the powers and beings which are active behind the physical-sense-world, and spirits from the physical world are continually being interspersed, which have trained their souls so far that they have grown together with the spiritual world, and that they are at the same time conscious in the spiritual world. The two great philosophers Anaxagoras and Thales are figures of this kind. The Homunculus wishes to find out from them how one can come to be, how one can proceed to a physical form, when one is spiritual. All the figures which we see in this ‘Classical Walpurgis-Night’ are there to assist — figures of the realization of the astral body which is ready to enter the material, physical world. If one could follow it all exactly, every detail would be a proof of its meaning. The Homunculus seeks information from Proteus and Nereus as to how he can enter the physical world. He is shown how he can wrap himself in the elements of matter, and how the spiritual qualities are in him — viz., how the soul gradually betakes itself into the physical-sense elements — through that which has played its part in the realms of nature kingdoms. We are shown how the soul has to traverse again the states of the mineral, the plant and the animal realms, in order to rise to human shape: ‘On the broad ocean's breast must thou begin!’ that is, in the mineral realm; then you must go through the plant realm. Goethe, indeed, invents an expression for it, which does not otherwise exist. He makes the Homunculus say: ‘Es grunelt so:’ 2 Dictionary : grows green . – Ed. ‘Here breathes and blows a tender air; And I delight me in the fragrance rare.’ It is pointed out to him what road he has to take till a physical body is formed by degrees round him. Finally comes the moment of love. Eros will complete the whole. Thales gives the advice: ‘Yield to the wish so wisely stated, And at the source be thou created! Be ready for the rapid plan! There, by eternal canons wending, Through thousand, myriad forms ascending, Thou shalt attain, in time, to Man.’ Then, when the Homunculus has entered upon the physical world, he loses his qualities, the ego becomes his master! ‘But struggle not to higher orders: Once Man, within the human borders, Then all is at an end with thee.’ So says Proteus — i.e., at an end with the astral body which has not yet penetrated into the human realm. Goethe's whole theory of nature, with its relationship between all life, and its metamorphosic development from the incomplete to the complete appears here in the picture. The spirit can at first be only like a seed in the world. It must pour itself into matter, into the elements, and dive below in them, in order to assume from them a higher form. The Homunculus is shattered on Galatea's shell-chariot. He dissolves into the elements. It is a marvellous presentation of the moment when the astral body has enwrapped itself in a body of physical matter — and can now live as man. These are experiences Faust goes through while he is in another state of consciousness, a condition outside the body. He is becoming gradually ready to behold the secrets lying behind physical-material existence. And now he is able to behold the spirit of Helena, from the realm of things ‘long ere this dissipated’ appearing in bodily shape before him. We have in Act 3 of Part II the re-embodiment of Helena. Goethe represents the idea of re-incarnation cryptically — as he had to in his day; how spirit, soul and body unite from the three realms, to form a human being — and before us stands the re-incarnated Helena. We must of course remember that, since he is a poet, Goethe presents in pictorial form the experience of the clairvoyant consciousness. Wherefore we must not rush in with heavy-fisted criticism and ask: ‘Is Helena now really re-incarnated?’ We must keep in mind that a poet is speaking of what he has himself experienced in spiritual worlds. In this way Faust, after having conquered a new stage of life, is able to experience harmony with what is ‘long ere this dissipated,’ the union with Helena. We see now how a being springs from the union of the human soul with the spiritual when the soul has raised itself up into higher worlds; a child of the spirit, subject not to the laws of the sense-world, but to the laws of the spiritual world: Euphorion. We shall understand what springs from the union of the raised spirit with the sense-world if we remember the previously-quoted passage from the proposed Epilogue of Mephistopheles-Phorkyas at the end of Act III, and if we realize that Goethe has in ‘Euphorion’ put in traits which belong to Byron, whom he much honoured. In doing so he may, after all, apply the laws of the spiritual world to it, since he is concerned with events in the spiritual world. And so Euphorion, though scarce conceived, may be already born and at once jump about and stir himself and say spirited things. Once more we see how strictly and conscientiously Goethe takes the entry into the spiritual world. In his aspiration for supernatural worlds, Faust is far beyond his present experiences. But even so he is not free from those powers from which he must liberate himself, if his soul is to unite completely with the spiritual world. He is not free from what Mephistopheles mixes into these spiritual experiences. Faust is what one calls a mystic, who — in the Helena-Euphorion scene — lives and moves completely in the spiritual world. But because he has not yet scaled the necessary step which makes him capable of being absorbed entirely by the spiritual world, so, once more, what he can experience in it escapes him: viz., Helena and Euphorion. What he had brought by his experience from the spiritual world eludes him yet again. He has become capable of living in the spiritual world, of experiencing Euphorion, the child of the spirit, who springs from the marriage between the human soul and the world-spirit — but it escapes him again and vanishes. Now there sounds from the depths a remarkable call. He is now like a mystic, stumbling for a time, one who has had a glimpse into the spiritual world and knows what it is like, but could not remain, and sees himself suddenly cast out again into the material world: he feels his soul to be the mother of what was born from the spiritual world, but what he has born sinks again into the spiritual world, and it is as if it were to call out to the soul itself: ‘Leave me here, in the gloomy Void, Mother, not thus alone!’ as if the human soul had to follow into the realm which has once more disappeared. Faust retains nothing more than Helena's robe and veil. The man who goes deeper into the meaning of such things, knows what Goethe meant with the ‘robe and veil;’ it is so exactly what remains when one has once peeped into the spiritual world and has then had to withdraw. There remains with one what is nothing else but the abstraction, the ideas, which stretch from epoch to epoch — nothing else but robe and veil of spiritual powers which endure from age to age. So the mystic is again thrust out for a time and confined to his thoughts, like the intelligent historian, with everywhere robe and veil which carry him from age to age. These ideas are not unfruitful; for him who is limited to the sense-world, they are very much of a necessity. For him, who has already a feeling and an experience of the spiritual world, they contain another importance. They stand out dry and abstract for the man who in any case is an abstractionist, but the man who has once been touched by the spiritual world — even if he grasps only these abstract ideas — is carried by them through the world into quite another age, in which he can again experience something of the effect of the powers throughout the great world. Faust is transplanted again into the world he once before experienced at the Court. He sees again how the beings, in whose deeds man is only embedded, play the chief part. He sees again how supernatural threads are spun, and how the same power which he knows as Mephistopheles helps to spin them. So his life passes once more from the sense-world into the super-sense — he learns how powers worm themselves into our sense-world which we see out there in the world of nature, how Mephistopheles leads, as it were, the spirits behind the forces of nature on to the battlefield: ‘Hill-folk,’ he calls them. The powers behind the material world are represented as if the hills themselves bring their people into the war. But here is a life that stands on a subordinate plane. This participation of a world that lies below the realm of man, though directed by spiritual forces, is here plainly depicted. There follows, grandly shown, the description of the part played by the historical forces, which are real forces for the spiritual spectator. Out of the old armouries and storerooms where lie the old helmets, come those beings of whom the abstractionist would say they are ‘historical ideas’ — of whom, however, he who can look into it knows that they live in the spiritual world. And we see how Faust in his higher state of consciousness is led to the great powers in history, we see these powers of history arise and being led into the field. Faust's consciousness is to be raised still higher. The whole world must appear to him spiritualized — all the events we see around us, which the ordinary abstractionist describes only with his understanding, for being limited to a physical brain, he imagines he has done everything when he describes the externals. But all this is connected, and is guided and directed by supernatural beings and forces. When man's life is carried in this way to spiritual heights, he discovers the whole might of that which is to drag him down again into the material world. He gets to know in a remarkable manner him whom he has not quite got to know before. So it is now with Faust. He stands now at an important point in his inner development: he has to complete the journey: Mephistopheles is involved in everything he has seen up to now. He can be free from Mephistopheles — from those spiritual forces which bind man to the sense-world, and try to prevent his liberation — only when he accosts Mephistopheles as the Tempter. There where the world with its realms, nature and history with its spirituality confront Faust, he experiences something in which the man who understands these things can without difficulty recognize from what depths Goethe spoke. The ‘Tempter,’ who would drag man down when he has risen a certain way into the spiritual world, comes to man and tries to give him false feelings and sensations concerning what he sees in the supernatural world. The approach of the Tempter to man is presented in the grand manner. He is the same who came to the Christ and promised him all the kingdoms of the world and their glories. Something like this happens to the man who has entered into the spiritual world. He is promised by the Tempter the world with all its glories. What does this mean? Nothing else than that he may not believe that anything of this world could still belong to his narrow egoism. That all personality with its egoistic wishes and desires must be thrust away, that the ‘Tempter’ must be overcome, Goethe points out through Mephistopheles in such a way that it may be a touchstone for us of what his meaning is: ‘Yet now, with sober season to address thee, Did nothing on our outside shell impress thee? From this exceeding height thou saw'st unfurled The glory of the Kingdoms of the World.’ (Matt. 4.) One might say that Goethe points out with these words, more than clearly enough for those who refuse to understand, what he really intends, in order to represent also this important stage in the spiritual growth of man. Then Faust succeeds in so far overcoming the egoism of persona! wish and desire, that he dedicates all his activity to that piece of land with which he has been enfeoffed. He does not desire possession of this land — he does not desire fame — nothing of all that — he wants only to devote himself to work for other people: ‘Stand on free soil among a people free!’ We must take these words to mean that personal egoism gradually departs from the human soul. For no one who has not overcome this personal egoism, can really reach the last stage, which Goethe still wants to depict. So he shows Faust at the point where the garments of human personal egoism fall away like scales, where Faust gives himself absolutely to the spiritual, where in fact all the frippery of fame and external honours in the world are nothing more to him. But one thing Faust has not even yet overcome. And again we see from a spiritual point of view deep, deep into Goethe's heart, as he now describes what happens next. Faust has become a selfless man up to a point. He has learnt what it means to say: ‘The act is all, the glory is nothing.’ He has learnt to say: ‘I desire to be active. My activity must flow out into the world — I will have nothing as reward for this activity!’ But in one small incident it is revealed that his egoism has not completely disappeared. On his wide territories there stands an old cottage on rising ground, in which lives an old couple, Philemon and Baucis. In all things Faust's egoism has disappeared, except with regard to this cottage. Here there is a last remnant of egoism which speaks in his soul. What he could do with this rising ground! He could stand up there and survey at a glance the fruits of his labour — and rejoice at what he had accomplished! That is a last bit of egoism, the enjoyment in a physical survey. Gratification in a commanding material view, that remains to him still. He must get beyond. Nothing of desire and comfort, i.e., of direct surrender to the outer world, with which egoism is connected, may remain in his soul. And once more we see Faust in touch with spiritual forces. In the ‘Midnight’ scene, enter four Grey Women. They come up near to him. Three of them, Want, Guilt and Necessity cannot do anything to him, but now something emerges which belongs to the experiences of the Way of Initiation. Along the Way of Initiation there is a secret connection between all that a man's egoism can make him do and that attitude of soul which is expressed by the word ‘Care.’ In that man who is far enough to look selflessly into the spiritual world, there is no care. Care is the companion of egoisms. And as little as some can perhaps believe that when Care is present, egoism has not disappeared, so true is it that on the long, self-denying path into the spiritual world, egoism must completely vanish. If man steps into the spiritual world and brings with him into it any trace of egoism, Care comes and reveals itself as a disturbing power. Here we have something of the dangers of initiation. In the material world, the kindly powers of the spiritual world take care to see that the power of Care cannot thus come near human beings. But the moment they grow together with the spiritual world, and learn to know powers which are at play there, such things as Care become disturbing forces. Some things may have been overcome by means of the keys which lead into the spiritual world, but Care slips through all key-holes. To be sure, if man is far enough, and faces Care bravely, Care becomes a power that can remove from him this last remnant of egoism. Faust goes blind. Why? He goes blind because the power of the last bit of egoism remaining in him is cancelled by the power of Care. The last possibility of personal enjoyment is removed. It gets darker and darker all round. Now his soul feels the last remnant of egoism when he has ordered the cottage to be pulled down, from whose site the selfish pleasure of satisfaction in his work could have been derived. ‘But in my inmost spirit all is light!’ Now Faust's soul belongs to that world over which Care and all the disturbing elements which vex the body have no power, and he experiences what those about to be initiated into the spiritual world experience. He takes part as an outside observer, in events which he does not experience in the physical world, his own death and burial. He looks down from the spiritual world upon the physical world and upon all that happens to him as if it were another. The events concern now only those powers which are in the physical world. It would take us far to explain how Goethe now makes the ‘Lemures’ appear, which consist only of sinews and bones, so that they have no soul; they represent man at the stage before he has received a soul. But Faust himself is carried into the spiritual world. We see Mephistopheles fighting a last battle for Faust's soul — a significant and remarkable battle. If one were to divide this battle up into its details one would see what a deep knowledge of the spiritual world Goethe had. There lies the dying Faust. Mephistopheles fights for the soul. He knows that this soul can leave the body at several places. Here there is much to be learnt by those who read in one or other handbook how the soul leaves the body. Goethe is further. He knows that it is not always the same place, but that the soul's departure from the body in death depends entirely on the state of development of the person. He knows that the soul, while in the body, receives a shape corresponding to the body only because of the elastic power of love. Mephistopheles believes Faust's soul to be ready for the Kingdom of darkness. In that case it could have only the shape he describes as a ‘hideous worm.’ When a soul has given itself to its own powers, it can have only a shape expressing its virtues or vices. If Faust's soul were ripe for the Kingdom of darkness, its shape would have been as Mephistopheles thought. But now it is developed and is carried away, because its virtues are such as correspond to the spiritual world and spiritual worlds take possession of it. Next we meet those people who are, so to speak, the connecting units between the physical and the spiritual world, who stand as initiates in the physical world and range with their spirit into the spiritual world: supernatural men of experience and observers — so they are introduced to us. Goethe tells in his poem that he has inscribed as ‘Symbolum’ how two voices resound out of the spiritual world: ‘Still call from beyond The voices of spirits, The voices of masters: To exercise fail not The powers of goodness.’ Here also Goethe is consistent with his knowledge. He represents the spirits which are not incarnate in the material world. But first he represents those to whom the name ‘Masters’ is often applied, who are incarnate in the material world. He represents them in the garb which was the handiest in his day, as ‘Pater Ecstaticus,’ ‘Pater Seraphicus,’ and ‘Pater Profundus.’ Concerning this he said to Eckermann: ‘In any case you will allow that the ending, where the rescued soul rises to heaven, was very difficult to do, and that I might have easily lost myself in vagueness with such supernatural, scarcely guessable things, unless I gave my poetic intentions a delimiting form and firmness by means of the sharply-outlined, ecclesiastical figures and ideas.’ Whoever heard here the lectures on ‘Christian Initiation’ will recognize again to what extent Goethe was initiated into those things. Thus Faust's soul rises through the regions, through which those souls have passed which have grown accustomed to the spiritual world and are active in it, and assist in bringing other souls into it. And then we see how Goethe lays down, so to speak, his ‘credo’ — that ‘credo’ which marks him as a member of that spiritual-scientific stream, which has also so often been spoken of here, especially in the lecture ‘Where and how does one find the Spirit’ 3 15th October, 1908, Berlin. in which an example was given of how man ‘lives’ himself into the spiritual world. There was mentioned the ‘black Cross with the red roses.’ Powers are awakened in the soul when man yields himself to this ‘Cross of roses,’ which represents in the black cross the sinking down of the sense world and in the red roses the blossoming up of the spiritual world. It represents what the abstract words say: ‘And until thou this thing hast, This death and birth, Thou art but a sorry guest On the dark earth.’ What man attains through spiritual understanding, through the power of the red roses, Goethe was well aware, and he confesses it: the red roses fall down from the spiritual world, as the immortal part of Faust is taken up. And so we see how Goethe really shows us the path of the human soul into the spiritual world. Some things could be presented only sketchily. For there is something peculiar about this ‘Faust’ of Goethe: it becomes deeper and even deeper, the more one grows into it, and only then one learns what Goethe can become for humanity. One learns to recognize what he will one day become, if Spiritual Science or Anthroposophy will illuminate Goethe's esoteric poetry, where he speaks of the spiritual world from his own experiences. Goethe depicts realistically what he knows to be facts of the spiritual world. This second Part of Faust is a realistic Poem — closed of course to those who do not know that the spiritual worlds are realities. 4 See Rudolf Steiner's Spiritual Scientific Elucidation of Goethe's Faust , Vols. I and II, in course of translation (1933). What we have are not ‘symbols,’ but only a poetic clothing up of quite realistic, albeit supernatural events, such as the soul experiences when it becomes one with the world that is its original home; when it feels itself possessed, not of knowledge which is only an abstraction, a growing together with sense observation or abstract understanding, but of knowledge which is a real fact of the spiritual world. Certainly one will for a long time yet be far from an understanding of Goethe's ‘Faust;’ for one will first have to learn the language of ‘Faust’ if one wants to get inside it. One can take up commentary after commentary: not only once are the words explained by otherwise quite clever people. As Wagner sees the ‘Homunculus’ sprouting in the retort, he says — (you can read in commentaries what his words are supposed to mean): ‘'Twill be! the mass is working clearer! Conviction 5 Uberzeugung. gathers, truer, nearer!’ I say it as wrongly as all those since Goethe have said, who make it mean that Wagner has the conviction that the Homunculus will come into being: ‘The conviction in Wagner is working clearer!’ And the explainers of ‘Faust’ imagine they can ladle out the whole of its depth with such trivialities! Certainly our age, which has also another word coined by Goethe in its mouth, viz. ‘superman,’ without grasping its deeper meaning, could not explain these words otherwise. Their true meaning, however, is this: that which is conceived in the physical world is a ‘conception’ (‘ Zeugung ‘); that which is conceived here in the astral world is a ‘super-conception,’ ( Uberzeugung — conviction). One has first to learn how to read Goethe, when like all great minds, he makes his own words. Then one will be able to measure the whole earnestness, out of which the Faust arose. Then one will, above all, not commit the triviality of understanding the final words of Faust to mean by ‘eternal-feminine,’ something which has to do with the feminine in the sense-world. The ‘eternal-feminine’ is that power in the soul which lets itself be fertilized by the spiritual world, and thereby grows together in its clairvoyant and magical deeds with the spiritual world. What can be fertilized there is this ‘eternal-feminine’ in every human being, which draws him up to the spheres of the eternal; and Goethe has depicted in Faust this course of growth of the eternal feminine into spiritual worlds. Look round in the physical world: we really see everything properly for the first time, when we see in it, not the true reality, but a symbol of eternity. This eternity is experienced by the soul when it passes the gates into the spiritual world. There it experiences what can be explained in matter-of-fact sense terms, if they are used in a quite special way. On this point Goethe has also expressed himself — and as a great warning for all who of set opinion insist in abstractions concerning something or other. In two successive poems Goethe has expressed, like a great exhortation to mankind, that when someone speaks of a thing in the spiritual world, he can express it in diametrically opposite views. In the first poem he says: ‘The eternal must persist through all: For into nothing all must fall If it insists in being.’ While he here gives utterance to the thought of his ‘eternal flux’ philosophy, he says immediately afterwards in the next poem: ‘No being can to nothing fall, Eternity persists in all, Rejoice in that thou art.’ While the opposite thoughts of the sense-world are used as the contrasted reflexions of the super-sense world, the latter cannot be described in terms of the former. Material words are always insufficient when used in a special sense. So we see how Goethe, while representing the ‘indescribable’ from the most diverse sides, causes it to be done before the eyes of the spirit. What is ‘unattainable’ for the material world is within the reach of spiritual vision, if the soul schools itself in that part which can be developed by means of the powers which Spiritual Science can give it. It is not for nothing that Goethe makes that work in which he has exposed the most exquisite and richest of his experiences, ring forth in a ‘Chorus Mysticus,’ which of course must contain nothing trivial. For in this Chorus Mysticus he points out to us how that which is indescribable in material words is done, when the language of imagery is used: how the soul, by means of the eternal womanhood in it is drawn into the spiritual world. ‘All things transitory But as symbols are sent: Earth's insufficiency There grows to Event: The Indescribable, Here it is done: The Woman-Soul 6 Ewig-Weibliche ; the Eternal Feminine. leadeth us Upward and on!’ In such words could Goethe speak of the way to the spiritual world. In such words could he speak of the powers of the soul, which when developed, lead mankind step by step into the spiritual world.

Goethe's Secret Revelation

The Riddle in Faust: Esoteric

https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA057/English/TP1980/19090312p01.html

Berlin

12 Mar 1909

GA057-14

The only meeting with Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900, German philosopher) belongs to the experiences I do not forget again. At that time, he was quite mad. The sight was very important. Imagine a human being, a man who has dealt with the question the whole morning which immediately suggests itself, and who has the wish to rest some time after dinner and to let go on the thoughts sounding in himself: he lay there this way. I had the impression of a healthy man, and, besides, he was already completely mad; he recognised nobody. His forehead was moulded like that of an artist and a thinker, and, nevertheless, it was the forehead of a maniac. A riddle faced me. Human beings of his kind of insanity would have had to look completely different. Only by means of spiritual science, one can explain this unusual. The etheric body, the carrier of memory, is connected with the physical body during the whole life, but it is connected different with the different human beings. With some, the relation is not very solid, with others very close. Now Nietzsche's etheric body was very movable from the start. Such human beings can have two qualities: the one is an ingenious, easily movable mental force and imagination, the ability to connect widely separated concepts and to get a synopsis of widely divergent perspectives. Such persons are not as easily restrained as others are by the gravity of the physical body in the conditions given by life. Before Friedrich Nietzsche had done his doctorate, he was appointed professor of Classics in Basel. From his teacher, Professor Ritschl (Friedrich Wilhelm R., 1806–1876), information was gathered. This answered: Nietzsche is able to do everything he wants. Thus, it happened that he did his doctorate when he already held a chair. Nietzsche had an agile mind. Such a human being does not live in ideas, which are palpable. He lives, so to speak, separated like by a wall from the everyday life. However, something else is connected with such a mental disposition: he is condemned to a certain life tragedy. He hard finds the way to the immediate things of existence, he easily lives in that which cannot be seen by the eyes, be seized by the hands what can be observed in the everyday life but in that which humanity has acquired as spiritual goods. He lives in certain ways like separated by walls from the sufferings and joys of life. His look wanders into the vast, more in that which humanity has gained and created for itself, than in the everyday. Hence, it could occur that Nietzsche was in a special situation towards the civilisation of the nineteenth century. Someone who surveys the civilisation of the second half of the nineteenth century sees that an immense jerk forward is done in the conquest of the physical world. We take the year 1858/59. It was the year, which brought the work of Darwin (Charles D., 1809–1882, English naturalist) of the origin of species by which the look of the human beings was banished completely in the physical concerning the evolution idea. This year also brought the work by which the matters of our fixed stars and the most distant sky space were conquered: the spectral analysis by Kirchhoff (Gustav Robert K., 1824–1887, physicist) and Bunsen (Robert Wilhelm B., 1811–1899, German chemist). Only since that time, it was possible to say, the substances, which are found on earth, are also found on the other planets. Then appeared the book about aesthetics by Friedrich Theodor Vischer (1807–1887, 1846–1857: Aesthetics or the Science of Beauty ) which wanted to found the science of beauty bottom up, while one had once explained beauty top down, from the idea. To complete the picture: that work appeared which wanted to force the social life into the only sensuous world, A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy by Karl Marx (1818–1883). Briefly, the time in which Nietzsche grew up was the time in which the human beings directed their look completely to the physical world. Now imagine which forms all that has accepted in the course of the second half of the nineteenth century: think of Haeckel (Ernst H., 1834–1919, German naturalist) and other researchers who only targeted what presented itself to their sensuous eyes; think of everything that natural sciences and technology have performed in the nineteenth century. It appears to us compared with these currents like an escape of humanity to spirituality if at that time wide circles are seized by the philosophy of Schopenhauer (Arthur Sch., 1788–1860). At that time, the mere interest in Schopenhauer's philosophy shows that the human souls escaped to something that should grant spiritual satisfaction. We see one of the great spirits of the nineteenth century, Richard Wagner (1813–1883, composer), attempting to let spirituality flow again into civilisation. In this cultural trend, Nietzsche positioned himself. How did he do this? The just mentioned persons positioned themselves creatively in it, and creating is something blissful. Working makes the human being young and fresh. This becomes apparent with Haeckel. Somebody who works on the microscope and other instruments and does research can make himself happy and rejuvenate in this work, he is able to do all that also light-heartedly, and he forgets the need for a spiritual world; in him something lives that can animate the human being, creative enthusiasm, which has something divine-spiritual. Nietzsche's destiny was this cultural trend. He was destined to take joy and sorrow from this cultural trend because he was not directly connected with the everyday life. He had the nagging feeling, how can one live with that which the modern civilisation offers? Nietzsche's heart was involved in everything with joy or sorrow. He lived through everything with his soul that happened in the nineteenth century. We see two spirits intervening early in Nietzsche's life: Schopenhauer whom he got to know not personally who had a deep effect on him by his writings, and Richard Wagner with whom he was tied together by the most tender bond of friendship. Both spirits induced Nietzsche to become engrossed in the riddle of ancient Greece in the beginning of our culture. He had done deep looks in the Greek world, from the oldest time up to those periods which history illumines brighter. The Greek of the oldest time seems to be much closer to divinity than later, when he tries to show pictures of the gods in his pieces of art: he makes them human-like, raises the form of the human being to the ideal image. The Greek was not that way in primeval times. He felt everything vividly flowing into himself what was outdoors what blows in the storm and grumbles with the thunder, what streaks in the flash what as harmonising wisdom has set up the world outdoors. At that time, in his original music the Greek expressed this harmony and created it in his temple dances. Nietzsche called the ancient Greek the Dionysian human being. The later Greek, the Apollonian human being, reproduced what the original Greek was. He stood there considering and expressed it in his pieces of art. At this development Nietzsche looked like at a riddle, because he had no knowledge of that primeval culture which was the basis of the Greek and even earlier cultures from which it had taken its force. An expression of that primeval culture was also, what was expressed as wisdom in the Orphic and Eleusinian mysteries as myth creation and art. Nietzsche did not know this. He thought that everything was instinct, basic instinct with the ancient Greek. He knew nothing about that wisdom which was fostered by initiates originally in the mysteries, which then flowed into the world, illustrated in pieces of art and mystery plays. Nietzsche was not able to look into these mysteries, but he had a premonition of them. Hence, he felt worried, because he could not find the correct answer to his questions. In that primeval wisdom of the human being to which spiritual science goes back, he would have had to search the answer to his Dionysian human being and his Apollonian human being. He would have to get the solution of the riddle from the Eleusinian and Orphic mysteries. Then he could have seen how art fosters the beholding, and how science and religion look for that which can penetrate the human heart with devoutness. Religion, art, and science were not yet separated in the old mysteries from each other. They originated from one root. The ancient mysteries are this root. With the leading peoples of antiquity, they were fostered in secret sites efficiently and were developed to ritual acts. The descent of the primeval wisdom was represented to the neophyte in pictures. This remained concealed to Nietzsche; therefore, he could not find the coherence, which he searched. Only tragically, the development of the Greek spiritual life could present itself to him. He stills sees Aeschylus (525–456 BC ), who was close to the mysteries, creating his drama penetrated with inner wisdom. However, he also sees Sophocles (497–406 BC ) and in particular Euripides (480–406 BC ) already creating their dramas which only show the exterior. He recognises that the Socratics find concepts that are far from the world sources and that they place themselves like considering beyond the world content in the universe. It seemed to him in such a way that in Socrates the world itself does no longer pulsate, but only the concepts of it, that he leads the Greek pulsating life to dry, sober abstraction. Nietzsche was painfully affected by the fact that Socrates put up the sentence that virtue is teachable. He understood it in such a way that the old Greek felt what he should do; he did not ask whether it is right or wrong. Only a time estranged to divinity could ask, can one learn what is good? Hence, Nietzsche considered Socrates as the person of the decline of Greek culture. Schopenhauer appeared to Nietzsche as a human being who had an idea of that what led to the sources of existence. He built the bridge from the abstract world of human mental pictures to the deeper sources of existence pulsating in the will. This satisfied Nietzsche's pursuit of truth. Richard Wagner appeared to him as a person risen from the old Hellenism. It was blissful for Nietzsche to develop according to such an exceptional person who walked along beside him in flesh and blood. A substitute of that which the external world is to the other human beings was this friendship with Richard Wagner. As a deposit of his world of thought in this time we have the writing The Birth of Tragedy out of the Spirit of Music , appeared in 1872, in which already the whole Nietzsche is included. There is already found the Apollonian and the Dionysian. Further Schopenhauer as Educator . Nietzsche writes empathically about Schopenhauer like someone who writes about his father. Then Richard Wagner in Bayreuth , it is regarded by everybody as the best writing about Richard Wagner. No time is so closely related to philistines as the time of materialism. In no book, David Friedrich Strauss (1808–1874, German theologian) expresses this connection so strongly as in the book The Life of Jesus, Critically Examined (1835/36). Nietzsche named and shamed this philistine attitude in his writing about David Friedrich Strauss. Nietzsche who longed for the re-erection of the Dionysian human being could be outraged against the philistine attitude of David Friedrich Strauss. David Friedrich Strauss, the Confessor and the Writer is a redeeming essay. Then he did something as an academician. He had experienced the time without fire and enthusiasm of the academics. If anybody said, there can be new ideas, one can do this or that, then the others came who said: however, history shows us that nothing can develop by leaps and bounds, everything goes on quietly. One was afraid of what one called a leap in history. Nietzsche wrote a book in which he said, pluck up courage, be a human being, do not only look for history, have the courage to be independent and to act independently! Again a releasing book, of a comprising radicalism in its demand for emancipation from history. He expressed that historical mood is an obstacle of everything original in the impulses of the human beings. Nietzsche lived up to 1876 in such a way. His development was in such a way that he stood far from the events in the world. The easy mobility of his etheric body caused this. In 1876, when Wagner was at the peak of his creating and had realised in the outside world what lived in his soul, Nietzsche discovered, what faces you does not correspond to the picture, which has lived in you. — This was the case simply because he had built something like a wall against the demands of the external realities. He could not recognise in the outside what he had formed inside as mental pictures. There Nietzsche became confused. What made him confused? Wagner? Not really. Richard Wagner never made him confused, because he did not know the objective Richard Wagner at all. He was confused by his idea, which he had got of Wagner. Now Nietzsche became confused by the whole perspective, which had led him to Wagner. He was confused by any idealism. With the idealistic Wagner, he lost all ideals which humanity can generally spin out. Thus, the feeling originated in him: idealism and all contemplation about the spiritual is a lie, is untruthfulness, illusion. The human beings have deluded themselves about that what is real, while they have made pictures of the real to themselves. Nietzsche began to suffer from himself. Now he is engrossed in opposite currents of the spiritual life, in the positive natural sciences and the branches, which are built up on these. He becomes acquainted with an interesting spirit, with Paul Rée (1849–1901, German philosopher) who had written a book about moral sensations and the origin of conscience. This work The Origin of the Moral Sensations , 1877) is typical for the last third of the nineteenth century in which is searched and worked according to the methods of natural sciences. It completely gets the origin of moral sensations and conscience out of the impulses and instincts of the human being. Paul Rée makes this wittily. Nietzsche is delighted by this worldview about which he says to himself, there any illusion is overcome, and one can understand human life only from that which is palpable. Now I feel all ideals like masks of desires and instincts. In Human, All Too Human , a book which appears in aphoristic form, he tries to show how basically all ideals do not lead beyond the human being, but are something that is rooted in the all too human, in the feeling and in the everyday. Nietzsche could never find the way to the everyday immediately. He did not know the general-human from practice. He wanted to experience it now from theory with all joys and sufferings. In addition, life praxis became theory to him. This was wonderfully expressed in Daybreak (1881). Everything appears to him not only disproved, but got cold, as put on ice. With particular satisfaction, Nietzsche now studies Eugen Dühring's (1833–1921) Philosophy of Reality (1878). In it, he delights himself; however, he is not a parroter of it. He writes many, partly extremely disparaging remarks in his personal copy. However, he tries to experience emotionally what is brought forward there as positive science. The French morality authors who aim at assessing moral of life not by standards, but by events become a stimulating reading for him. This becomes his tragedy or also his bliss. These are the essentials that he lives through all that. It works different on him from those who had created these works. He must always ask himself, how does one live with these things? Now, however, we see significant ideas originating to him from such conditions, ideas from which we must say that Nietzsche knocked at the gate of spiritual science, just as he had once stood before it with his Dionysian human being, guessing the mysteries. The gates were not opened to him. With one of these ideas, one can prove almost how it has originated. In Dühring's book A Course of Philosophy as a Strictly Scientific Worldview and Way of Life you find a strange passage. There Dühring tries to put the question whether it is possible that the same combination of atoms and molecules, which has been there once, returns one day in the same way. During three weeks in which I have ordered Nietzsche's library, I myself have seen that he had marked this passage in this book and had added remarks. From then on, at first in the subconsciousness, the idea of the so-called everlasting return worked in him. This idea, which he developed more and more, has imprinted itself on Nietzsche's soul in such a way that it became a creed to him; he has familiarised himself with it that it became his tragedy. It expresses that everything that was there once returns in the same combination and with all details repeatedly, even if after long intervals. As well as we are sitting here now, we would come again heaps of times. This was a feeling, which belonged to the tragedy of his soul, the feeling: with all grief which now you experience you will always return. — Thus, we realise that Nietzsche has become the materialistic thinker by Dühring's idea of return — which Dühring rejects. For him there was only this return of the same a consequence of a materialistic idea. We see Nietzsche's ideas crystallising from the cultural trend of the nineteenth century. Darwinism shows how the evolution of the imperfect to the perfect takes place how evolution advances from the simple living being to the developed human being. As for Nietzsche, it is not speculation; this becomes a source of bliss for him. It is a satisfaction for him to see the world in its development. However, he cannot stop. He says to himself, the human being has become; should he not develop further? Should the development be concluded with the human being if we see that imperfect beings have developed up to the human being? There we must look at the human being as a transition to a super-human. — Thus, the human being became to him a bridge between worm and super-human. Nietzsche stood with his idea of the everlasting return with his whole feeling and thinking before the gate of the spiritual-scientific truth of reincarnation. He stood also with the idea of the super-human before the gate of spiritual science, which shows us that in every human being something lives that we have to understand as a divine essence of the human being. This essence is a kind of super-human if we are allowed to use the expression. When the human being has gone through many incarnations and has become more and more perfect, he will ascend to even higher degrees of existence. Nietzsche knew nothing about all these concrete secrets of spiritual science. He knew nothing about that what we know if we look behind the sensuous, palpable. He could only emotionally grasp what lived in his soul, not with his ego. Instead of the portrayals of the spiritual facts that can fulfil us with bliss, instead of the portrayal of that world of facts which shows us how within the planetary development the human being ascends from stage to stage, all that lived with Nietzsche in the feeling, and sounds lyrically from Thus Spoke Zarathustra (1885). It is an enthusiastic portrayal of the guessed that he could not behold. Like a question appears to us his hymn on the super-human. How could this thirsty soul have been satisfied? Only if it had got to know spiritual science as contents. Nietzsche had to bleed out emotionally in his longing for it. Only spiritual science could have brought him what he strove for without being able to grasp it. In the last book, which he wanted to call Will to Power , it is especially clear how he could come to no fulfilment of his soul with the desired spiritual contents. Compare everything that spiritual science says about the higher human being and his affiliation to spiritual worlds with the abstract will to power, which has, actually, no contents. Power is something quite abstract if it is not said what should have power. Just this posthumous work Will to Power shows Nietzsche's vain and fateful striving that is so great in its notions. Again, you can observe the tragedy, how this striving for an unknown land grows into insanity. Just at the example of Nietzsche, you can see where the civilisation of the nineteenth century had to lead the deeper feeling personalities. Therefore, many people who guessed something beyond the material, the palpable and could not find it because they stopped with this civilisation had to bleed out. That is why Nietzsche's tragedy also shows a big piece of the tragedy of the nineteenth century. This tragedy appears in particular, if we realise how Nietzsche with a boldness which only a human being can have who is not firmly connected with his etheric body, with the inhibitions of the physical body, how Nietzsche criticises Christianity in his Antichrist (1895). For Christianity is that what he says a harsh but comprehensible and extremely urgent criticism. A lot of that which this Antichrist contains is exceptionally worth reading. Nevertheless, the whole standpoint of Nietzsche shows us how a mind must behave to whom all philosophy appears as nihilism, who wants to search the spirit from reality and cannot find this spirit in the modern form of Christianity. It will turn out more and more that humanity recognises the big impulses and the whole deepness of Christianity only by spiritual science, so that one can say, Christianity has been recognised up to now only to a lesser extent. Nietzsche did not have this consciousness; he did not recognise Christianity properly. Why could he not recognise it? Because he could not anticipate the course of development — in the sense of spiritual science. I want to show it with an example. About 600 years before Christ, Buddha appeared whom one cannot admire and revere enough if one recognises him really. He grows up as a king's son, surrounded by all joys of life. Any grief is kept away from him. It is ensured that he never leaves the gardens of his palace. Nevertheless, once he comes out of the sanctified area of the palaces and temples. He meets an old man, a sick person, a dead person. He sees: age is suffering, illness is suffering, and death is suffering. He recognises that in every rebirth the sufferings must come again. The great truth of the spiritual life reveals itself to Buddha. Therefore, he teaches that one should give up his longing for re-embodiment to be merged in the peace of the spiritual world. We look at Christ now. We reincarnate in the substances of the earth. Our task is to purify, to internalise and to spiritualise this substance gradually. We carry the fruits of our pilgrimage on earth up to the spirit, and connect them thereby with the spiritual existence. May the earth then be only a vale of tears, which one should leave? No, the earth was blessed, because Christ walked about it, because his body was built from the substances of the earth, and because He permeated the earth with his forces. — The first Christians spoke that way. The human being absorbs something of the Christ principle in every life, purifies himself thereby gradually. Rebirth is not suffering, because only thereby we become able to recognise illness, age, evil as tests, as a means of education of our soul to become good and strong. The soul, which soars this knowledge, is healthy and fosters its surroundings. Today the fear of hereditary predisposition penetrates humanity. If the human being opened himself or herself to the Christ impulse again, the illnesses would be overcome. On Golgotha, the symbol of death became the symbol of redemption. Being separated from that what one loves is suffering. However, one can be connected with those whom one loves if one is inspired by the Christ principle. One learns bit by bit to experience this union as reality. The Christ principle transforms the sufferings described by Buddha. Overcoming the sufferings one can reach not only by turning away from life, but also by the transformation of the soul. At the sight of the corpse of the crucified, we realise the riddle of the everlasting life going through death. Nietzsche regards Christianity just as the opposite of that, what lies in its concealed deepness and what should be brought to light by spiritual science. He bleeds out because he could not recognise this. Nietzsche's grief is the deepest, most painful longing for the sources of life. Because his spirit was not firmly tied to his physical body, he does not come to the right solution of the world riddles tormenting him. Thus, it could happen that he did not find the right answer to his question to life which spiritual science could have given him, that he passed by. When the tools of the physical body could no longer serve him, he cast it off, so to speak, he divests himself of the physical body that has become useless for the thinker, and he hovers over it as it were. Thus, he appears to the viewer looking at him as healthy, as someone who only wants to rest from intensive work of thought. In such a way, he lay there like a picture of the tragedy of modern materialistic science, which cannot recognise the spiritual.

Nietzsche in the Light of Spiritual Science

https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA057/English/eLib2014/19090320p01.html

Berlin

20 Mar 1909

GA057-15

Goethe has repeatedly pointed out how a man who draws near the secrets of nature yearns for the worthiest exponent of her secrets, namely, for art. And all through life Goethe showed in his creations how art was to him the interpreter of truth. It may be said that in this conception Goethe lit on something that has been a basic conviction, a basic theme, throughout all ages and epochs of human evolution. In the different arts more or less consciously we are presented with different languages that give expression to certain truths living in the human soul. They are often the most secret truths, the most secret knowledge, which cannot readily be reduced to rigid concepts nor clothed in abstract formula but seek artistic expression. Today our attention is to be drawn to a secret truth of this kind which for centuries has endeavored to find expression in art; it is true this has always found its scientific formulation in certain narrow circles, but for a wider public it will only become a matter of popular knowledge in the future through spiritual science. Goethe himself was able in his soul to approach this truth from very many angles. In one of my lectures here on Goethe I pointed to the significant moment in his life that was an instance of this kind of experience. In the second of the lectures on Faust I told you how Goethe on reading the Roman writer Plutarch came across the remarkable story of Nikias, who wanted to make subject again to the Romans a certain town in Sicily belonging to the Carthaginians, and on that account was being pursued. In his flight he feigned insanity, and by his strange cry: “The Mothers, the Mothers are pursuing me!” it was recognized that this insanity was of no ordinary kind. For in that region there existed a so-called “Temple of the Mothers,” set up in connection with ancient Mysteries; hence it was known what was signified by the expression “the Mothers.” When Goethe was able to let the full significance of the expression “the Mothers” sink into his soul, he realized that if he wanted to reach the highest point of awe-inspiring beauty in one of the scenes in the second part of his Faust , he could not express this better than by sending Faust himself to the Mothers. Now what does this journey to the Mothers signify for Faust? We have made brief mention of this in the lecture referred to. Mephistopheles himself cannot enter the realm where the Mothers are enthroned although he gives Faust the key. Mephistopheles is the spirit of materialism, the spirit contained in the forces and powers of man's material existence. To him the realm of the Mothers is the realm of nothingness. Faust, the spiritual human being, with his bent towards the spirit is able to answer: “In thy nothingness I hope to find the All.” Then follows the highly remarkable and significant description of the realm of the Mothers, and we are told how they weave and live in a sphere out of which the forms of the visible world are fashioned; how man, if he would penetrate to the Mothers, must rise above all that lives in space and time. Formation, transformation, this is the essence of their realm. They are mysterious Goddesses holding sway in a spiritual realm behind the reality of the senses. Faust must penetrate to them if he is to obtain knowledge of all that transcends the sensory and physical. Only by widening his soul to this realm of the Mothers can Faust worthily unite in Helen the eternal with the temporal. In that lecture on Faust it was possible to indicate that Goethe fully understood how in this realm of the Mothers one has to do with a sphere into which man is able to penetrate when he awakens slumbering spiritual forces in his soul. This is for him the great moment in which are revealed to him the spiritual beings and facts which are always around us, but which with the eyes of the senses we see as little as the blind man sees color and light. It is the moment when the spiritual eyes and ears are opened to a world lying behind the physical world. Entrance into this realm is portrayed by the journey to the Mothers. In these lectures it was repeatedly indicated that when man practices certain inner exercises on his soul, certain minutely-prescribed methods for sinking deeply into the world of his conceptions, feelings and will, then his spiritual eyes and ears actually become open and new realms are unfolded around him. It was also shown that whoever enters this realm is confused by all the impressions that work upon him. Whereas in the physical world we perceive objects in sharp outline from which we take our bearings, in the spiritual world we have a confused feeling of inter-weaving, hovering form, just as Goethe describes it in the second part of Faust . But it is out of this realm of the Mothers that there is born all that is given to our senses, just as in the mountains metal is born out of the mother-ore. And because this mysterious realm, the Mother-realm of everything earthly and physical, the realm containing, so to say, the divine substance of all things — because this mysterious realm is resounding in Goethe, the expression “the Mothers” works with such fascination and awesome beauty. Thus, when he read in Plutarch that someone cried “The Mothers, the Mothers,” he recognized that this was not a mad vision into an insane and unreal world, but a vision into a world of spiritual reality. The Mother problem of the world stood before Goethe while he was reading Plutarch, and in the way he did with much else he inserted this Mother problem as a mystery into the second part of his Faust . Now anyone wishing to enter this realm of the Mothers, the realm of the spiritual world, has had at all times to undertake, besides other exercises that may be found in Knowledge of the Higher Worlds , what has invariably been called preparatory purification, catharsis of the soul. He must so prepare himself that his soul, out of which the higher spiritual forces are to be derived is free of all urge and passion for the ordinary world of the senses. The soul must be purified from all those things which have sensuous attraction and provide food for the senses and which hold the understanding captive in the physical body. The soul must be free, then it can awaken within itself the spiritual eye and penetrate into the spiritual realm. The so-called purified soul, the soul that has passed through catharsis and is no longer turned towards the physical world of the senses, wherever knowledge of this mystery has existed has always been called the higher being of man, that inner being of which it has been said that it does not originate in anything the outer eyes can investigate, but in sources of a higher soul and spiritual nature; it has not an earthly but a heavenly home. It was thought that the ennobled, purified soul was connected with this true origin of man, for what has been spiritual science through the ages has never been able to speak of a purely material evolution, of a perfection or imperfection in accordance with the senses. Spiritual science does not condemn as erroneous what today is called evolution, the ascent from the lowest to the most perfect physical being wandering on the face of the earth, namely, physical man. As I have often emphasized, that is fully recognized. The scientific theory of evolution and descent is fully recognized by spiritual science, but at the same time it is pointed out that the whole being we call man is not included in this evolution, which evolution only applies to the external side of man's development. Now when we trace man back through all the changes of time we find that the further we go back to ever more imperfect physical forms the more we meet with man's origin as a soul spiritual being. We have often gone back to an age of human evolution when the being we now call man had as yet no kind of physical existence and was securely sheltered within an existence of spirit and soul. Attention has repeatedly been drawn to how, in the sense of spiritual science we look upon the material form, man's physical body, as a densification of a being who was once only spirit and soul. This being of spirit and soul has been densified, as it were, to present-day man, as water is solidified into ice. This picture has often been made use of, when it is said: Let us imagine a quantity of water condensed to ice so that finally we are left with a certain amount of water together with the part that is changed into ice. Here we have an image of man's origin. In the man who was once just soul and spirit there existed as yet nothing of the physical, material bodily nature today perceptible to the eyes and tangible for the hands. Man becomes gradually ever more physical, until he comes to his present physical form. The age to which orthodox science can look back reveals indeed man in the physical form we see today. But spiritual science looks back into a primordial past when man was born out of the spiritual world and was still of a spirit and soul nature. When we contemplate the soul of man today we can say that the soul element in him is the last remnant, so to speak, of the spiritual and soul nature that once was his. We look at the inner nature of man, learning to know his spiritual and soul being, and come to realize that as he is in his inner being, so he was once long ago when he was born out of the womb of the spiritual world. This being of soul is sheathed from outside in the lower elements of the sense world, but he can be purified and cleansed, can raise himself to a perception free of the senses, thereby regaining the spirituality out of which he was born. This is the process of spiritual knowledge that passes through purification. Thus in spirit we gaze into man's being of soul, and speaking not merely in imagery but with reality say: Knowing this soul being in its truth, we perceive that the being is not of this world. In the background of this soul being we see a divine spiritual world out of which he was born. Now let us try to turn what has been said into a physical picture. Let us ask ourselves: Do we not possess a physical picture of what has been described, where the spiritual world is represented by cloud formations out of which the spiritual is born in the form of angels' heads portraying the human soul? Have we not in the Virgin's figure in Raphael's Sistine Madonna a picture born out of the divine spiritual world? Let us go on to ask: What becomes of a man whose soul has been cleansed and purified, who has ascended to higher knowledge and has unfolded in his soul those spiritual images that give life within him to the divine, living and weaving through the world? This human being who gives birth in man to the higher man, to a man who represents a little world in the great world, who out of his purified soul brings forth the true higher man — what is he? He cannot be otherwise described than by the word clairvoyant. If we try to make a picture of the soul that gives birth to the higher man out of himself, out of the spiritual universe, we need only call to mind the picture of the Sistine Madonna , the Madonna with the wonderful Child in her arms. Thus in the Sistine Madonna we have a picture of the human soul born of the spiritual universe, and springing from this soul the highest that a human being can bring forth — man's own spiritual birth, what within him is a new begetting of cosmic creative activity. Let us try to experience in our feeling what clairvoyant consciousness does. There was once a time when the structure of the world was founded on divine spirituality; for it would be senseless to seek in the world for spirit if this spirit had not originally built the world. All that surrounds us in the world has sprung from the spirit we seek in the soul. Thus the soul has sprung from the divine Father-spirit living and weaving throughout the universe, bearing the Son of wisdom Who is like unto this Father-spirit, of Whom He is a repetition. We understand now the way in which Goethe approached this problem in all its mystical significance when he tried to gather the whole content of Faust together in the “Chorus Mysticus”, where he speaks of the human soul as the “eternal feminine” that draws us onward to the universal spirit of the world. This was Goethe's attitude to his Madonna problem at the very end of Faust . From the figure which the portrayal of the Madonna has assumed, even today it is hardly possible to recognize fully what is here expressed as in a picture which is nevertheless founded on profound truth. If, however, we trace this Madonna problem back to its origin, we shall realize that in very truth the mightiest human problem, though closely veiled, confronts us in the figure of the Madonna. These Madonnas are, it is true, greatly changed from the simple figure of the catacombs in the first Christian centuries, where we find Madonnas with the Child groping for the mother's breast. From this first simple figure, having little to do with art, it is a long way to the fifteenth century, to Michaelangelo and Raphael, where after many transformations the Child and the Madonna have become in the modern sense much more in accordance with art — in accordance with the art of painting. It is, however, as if these supreme artists proceeded from no very full knowledge but a definite feeling of the deeper truth of the Madonna problem. Very beautiful experiences arise in us when we stand before the so-called Pieta of Michaelangelo in St. Peter's in Rome, where the Madonna is sitting with the corpse across her knees — thus the Madonna is at the age when Christ had already passed through death but is portrayed with all the beauty of youth. In Michaelangelo's day it was a much discussed question why at her age he had given the Madonna this youthful beauty. When asked about it he replied how it was well known that virgins long preserve the freshness of youth — and this is no mere belief but spiritually derived knowledge. Thus why should he not be right in representing the Mother of God at this age still with all the freshness of youth? It is a remarkable conception here expressed by Michaelangelo! Although it is not openly expressed by Raphael, nevertheless we feel it to be there in his pictures. We can, however, understand this conception only by going far back into the times when what meets us in the Madonnas as unconscious art was still outwardly living. We might go very far back, and actually we should find the Madonna problem all over the world. We might go to old India and there find the Goddess with the Krishna child at her breast; in a Chinese cult we might find similar pictures. We will not, however, go back into these far-off regions, but keep the representations repeated so impressively in olden times and which is given us again with such beauty in the Madonna. We will turn to the representations of Isis with the child Horus. These representations which have grown entirely out of Egyptian wisdom may in a certain sense be the key for the correct understanding of the portrayal of the Madonna. Here, it is true, we must direct our attention to the nature of the wisdom that led to this remarkable figure of the Egyptian Goddess, fix our attention on what this wisdom, expressed in the Isis Osiris saga, means to us. For when we understand it aright, this saga leads us deep into the actual problem of humanity. Wherever we look in the religion of Egypt, the saga of Osiris is still what is most significant and full of content — this King who in primordial times ruled as if in a golden age among men, and married his sister, Isis, who brought happiness and blessing to mankind. He stood before the eyes of ancient Egypt as a human King of divine power and divine virtue; and he ruled until he was killed by Set, his evil brother. He was killed in a strange way. At a banquet the evil brother Set, in later times called Typhon, caused a chest to be made, and craftily induced Osiris to lie down in it, when the lid was quickly closed. The chest was then thrown into the water and swept away to the unknown. His sorrowing spouse Isis seeks everywhere for her husband, after long searching finally discovering him in Asia. She brings him back to Egypt where he is dismembered by his evil brother Set, his fragments being interred in many graves. Hence the great number of tombs of Osiris in Egypt. Osiris now becomes King of the Dead, as previously he was King of living men on earth. From that other world a ray pierces the head of Isis and she gives birth to Horus who becomes the ruler of this world. According to the Egyptian legend Horus is the posthumous son of Osiris. Horus, who has come into existence as the result of impregnation from the world beyond, is ruler of the earthly world of the senses; Osiris is ruler of the realm of the dead. Whereas the soul while enclosed in a body is subject to the rulership of Horus, when it abandons the body — so the Egyptian Book of the Dead testifies it enters the realm of Osiris, itself becomes an Osiris. The Egyptian Book of the Dead describes in what a deeply impressive way the soul is arraigned before the tribunal in these words: “And thou, O Osiris, what hast thou done?” Thus the soul by passing through the gate of death itself becomes an Osiris. According to the old Egyptians, then, we look towards two realms, the realm perceived by the senses, the realm of Horus, and the realm into which the soul enters after death where Osiris holds sway. But at the same time we know that according to the old Egyptian initiates, the initiate who had acquired the faculty of clairvoyance already in his lifetime entered the same region which otherwise can be entered only after death — that he could be united with Osiris. The initiate therefore himself became an Osiris. He tore himself from the physical, renounced all habits of the physical plane, all passions and desires, cleansed himself of the physical, became a purified soul and as such was united with Osiris. Now what does this legend tell us? It is a childish idea to maintain that this legend is supposed to represent the yearly course of the sun round the earth. The learned ones of the earth in council have created the legend that Osiris is the sun, whose disappearance signifies his conquest by nature's wintry powers said to be Set, the evil brother Typhon. And in Isis we have the representation of the moon who seeks the sun in order to be irradiated by his light. Only those who spin theoretical myths about nature out of their own minds can make such statements. The truth is that this is the external, pictorial expression of a most profound truth. What is this age when Osiris ruled over men? It was the time when men were still beings of soul and spirit dwelling in the world of soul and spirit among beings who also had their being in soul and spirit. When, therefore, the realm of Osiris is spoken of, it is not the physical realm that is meant, but a realm of the past in which man held sway as a being of soul and spirit. And the brother, the enemy of Osiris, is that being who enveloped man in a physical body, who densified part of this spirit and soul being into the physical body. Now we see how the once purely spiritual Osiris was laid in a chest. This chest is simply the human physical body. But because Osiris is a being who in accordance with his whole nature cannot descend so far as the physical world, who is meant to remain in the divine spiritual world, the laying in the chest, the human body, has for him the same meaning as death. Here, then, is represented in a wider sense the passage from the realm of soul and spirit to the physical evolutionary epochs of humanity. Osiris could not enter this physical realm; he died to the external physical world and became King in the realm the soul enters on leaving the physical world of the senses, or on developing clairvoyant powers. Hence the initiate is in his soul united with Osiris. What has remained to man from that realm of soul and spirit, to man who did not withdraw like Osiris from the physical sense world but entered into it? What has remained to him? It is his soul, his being of spirit and soul that will always draw him onwards to the original source of spirit and soul — to Osiris. This is the human soul dwelling within us, Isis, in a certain sense the eternal feminine who draws us onward to the realm out of which we are born. Isis, when she is purified and has laid aside all that she has received from the physical, is impregnated from the spiritual world and gives birth to Horus, the higher man, who is to be victorious over the lower human being. Thus we see Isis as the representative of the human soul, as that in us which as the divine spiritual is born of the universal Father and has remained within us, seeking Osiris and only finding him through initiation or death. By conjuring this Osiris and Isis saga in a picture before our soul we are looking into the realm that lies behind the physical world of the senses, into a time when man was still among the Mothers, the primordial grounds of existence, when Isis was not yet enclosed in the physical body but still united in the golden age with her spouse Osiris. Then there is revealed to us the most beautiful flower of mankind, the highest human ideal, which is born out of the human body impregnated by the eternal world-Spirit. Hence how could it be other than the most sublime ideal, the highest peak of humanity, the Christ Himself — for He is the ideal of what they represent — Who would naturally enter the realm of the Mothers. In Goethe's Faust we meet with three Mothers seated on golden tripods — three Mothers. The human soul has passed through its evolution during the ages when it was not as yet in a human body. What we today have as human conception and human birth appears to us only as final emblem and symbol of the earlier form of the same thing. In the physical Mother we see the ultimate physical form of a spiritual Mother who is behind her; and we see the impregnation of this spiritual Mother taking place not in the way happening on earth today but out of the cosmos itself, just as in higher knowledge our souls are fructified from out the cosmos. We look back to ever more spiritual forms of fructification and reproduction. Therefore in the true sense of spiritual science we do not speak only of one Mother but of the Mothers , realizing that what we have today as the physical Mother is the last development of the soul-spiritual figure out of the spiritual realm. There are in fact images of Isis representing not one Mother but Mothers , three Mothers. In front we have a figure, Isis with the Horus child at her breast, resembling the oldest representations of the Madonna. But behind this figure in certain Egyptian representations we have another figure, an Isis, bearing on her head the two familiar cow horns and the wings of the hawk, offering the “crux ansata” (see Figure left) to the child. We see that what is physical, human, in the foremost figure is here more spiritualized. Behind there is yet a third figure, bearing a lion's head and representing the third stage of the human soul. This is how these three Isis figures appear, one behind the other. It is an actual fact that our human soul bears in it three natures — a will nature, found in the inmost depths of the being, a feeling nature and a wisdom nature. These are the three soul Mothers; we meet them in the three figures of the Egyptian Isis. That behind the physical Mother we have the superphysical Mother, the spiritual Mother, the Isis of spiritual antiquity, with the hawk's wings, the cowhorns, with the globe of the world between them on the head of Isis — this is profound symbolism. Those who understand something of the ancient so-called theory of numbers have always said — and this corresponds with a deep truth — that the sacred number three represents the divine masculine in the cosmos. This sacred number three is pictorially expressed by the globe of the world and two cowhorns which are, if you like, a kind of image of the Madonna's crescent, but actually represents the fruitful working of the forces of nature. The globe represents the creative activity of the cosmos. I should have to speak for hours were I to give a picture of the masculine element in the world. Thus behind the physical Isis stands her representative the superphysical Isis, who is not impregnated by one of her own kind but by the divine masculine living and weaving throughout the world. The process of fructification is still portrayed as being akin to the process of cognition. The consciousness that the process of cognition is a kind of fructification was still living in ancient times. You may read in the Bible: “Adam knew his wife and she brought forth ...” What today we receive as spiritual gives birth to the spiritual in the soul; it is something that represents a last remnant of the ancient mode of fructification. What comes to expression here shows us how today we are fructified by the spirit of the world receiving this spirit into the human soul as spirit of the world in order to acquire human knowledge, human feeling, human will. This is what is represented in Isis. She is fructified by the divine male element, so that the head is fructified; and it is not material substance that is offered the child, as in the case of the physical Isis, but the “crux ansata” which is the sign of life. Whereas here from the physical Isis physical substance of life is offered, there is offered the spirit of life in its symbol. Behind the physical Mother of life there appears the spiritual Mother of life; behind her again the primal force of all life, represented with the life force, just as the will dwells behind everything in the still spiritual, far distant past. Here we have the three Mothers, and also the way in which out of the cosmos these three Mothers impart vitalizing force to the sun. Here we have what is not an artistic expression, nevertheless a symbolic expression of a profound cosmic truth. What lasted throughout the Egyptian evolution as the Isis symbol was received in more recent times and transformed in accordance with the progress made by humanity as a result of the appearance of Christ Jesus on earth; for in Christ Jesus we have the great prototype of everything that the human soul is destined to bring forth out of itself. The human soul in its fructification out of the spirit of the world is given tangible form in the Madonna. In the Madonna we meet, as it were, with Isis reborn and in an appropriate way enhanced, transfigured. What could be portrayed in pictures at the beginning of the lecture now comes before our souls as bound up with the evolution of humanity, streaming forth from hoary antiquity, artistically transfigured and given new form in the modern pictures presented throughout the world to the human souls thirsting for art. Here we see how in very truth art, as in Goethe's words, becomes the exponent of truth. We see how in reality when our gaze falls on the Madonna, when this gaze is permeated with deep feeling, the soul partakes in certain knowledge of the mighty riddle of the world. We realize that in such surrender our soul, seeking in itself for the eternal feminine, is yearning for the divine Father-Spirit born out of the cosmos, to Whom as the Sun we give birth in our own soul. What we are as man, and how as man we are related to the universe, this is what meets us in the pictures of the Madonna. That is why the pictures of the Madonna are such holy things, apart altogether from any religious stream, from any religious dogma. Hence we can feel it as something born out of the cosmos when the hazy masses of cloud form themselves into the heads of angels, and out of the whole the representative of the human soul comes into being. The Madonna also includes what can be born out of the human soul, the true higher man slumbering in every human being, all that is best in man, what as spirit flows and weaves through the world. Goethe too felt this when he gave final form to his Faust when he had led him on through the different stages up to higher knowledge and the higher life. This is why he makes Faust go to the Mothers and why the name “Mothers” sounds to Faust so awe-inspiring and so beautiful, instilling in him a feeling for the wisdom echoing down from ancient times. Thus Goethe felt that he must send Faust to the Mothers, that only there could Faust seek and find the eternal through which Euphorion can come into being. Because the human soul appeared to him to be represented by the Madonna Goethe gave expression to the riddle of the soul in the words of the Chorus Mysticus: “The eternal feminine draws us upwards.” Whatever modern times may have to say, this is the reason why Raphael in his wonderful picture of the Madonna, succeeded so well in leading us back to the realms to which the old figures of Isis belong. From what is spiritual, from what can no longer be expressed in a human figure because it would be too material, from that Isis whose force can be represented symbolically only by the lion's head, we descend to the human Isis who transmits her force to Horus through physical substance. Raphael unconsciously expressed this in his Sistine Madonna. But spiritual science will lead man consciously back to the spiritual realm out of which he has descended. Two lectures that I shall be giving here will furnish examples of how man has descended out of spiritual heights and will ascend again to this higher existence. Both lectures (5/1/1909 not translated. 5/6/1909, see Anthroposophical Quarterly , IV, 3.), that of 1st May and that of 6th May, 1909, will show us in a strictly scientific sense how these Madonna pictures and representations of Isis are indeed dearly and definitely artistic exponents of the very deepest secrets of Nature and of the spirit, and how in reality they are just a transcription of Plato's sublime words: “Once man was a spiritual being; he descended to earth only because he was robbed of his spiritual wings, and was enveloped in a physical body. He will struggle out of this physical body again and re-ascend to the world of spirit and soul.” This was proclaimed by the philosopher Plato. Pictures of the Madonna proclaim the same, for in the most beautiful sense they are what Goethe wished to express in the words: “Art is the worthiest exponent of the recognized mysteries of the world.” Man need not fear that art will become abstract or wholly allegorical if it is once again compelled, I repeat compelled, to recognize the higher spiritual realities; nor need he fear that it will become stiff and lifeless when it finds itself unable to continue using outer, crude physical models. Because man has forgotten the spiritual, art has become bound up with the outer senses. But when men find the way back to spiritual heights and spiritual knowledge, they will then realize that true reality lies in the spiritual world, and that those who perceive this reality will create livingly, without being slavishly bound to physical models. Goethe will be understood only when it is more widely recognized that art and wisdom go hand in hand, when art again becomes a representation of the spiritual. Science and art will then again be one; in their union they will become religion, for the spiritual will work in this form as divinity once again in the heart of man, and give birth to what Goethe called the true, genuine piety. “A man who has both science and art also has religion,” says Goethe. “If anyone does not possess these two then let him have religion.” In truth, whoever has knowledge of the spiritual secrets of the world and knows what speaks through Isis and Madonna sees in them something of primeval life, something much more living than all it is possible to express in any slavish imitation of a physical human model. A man of this kind whose gaze penetrates as through a veil through the living quality these Madonnas portray, and beholds the spiritual behind it, can, free from all dogma and prejudice, again feel piety in complete spiritual freedom. He will unite in his soul science or wisdom with art and give new birth to genuine free religious feeling — to genuine piety.

Isis and Madonna

https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA057/English/Singles/19090429p01.html

Berlin

29 Apr 1909

GA057-16

First appeared in the Golden Blade 1977. 1 This lecture is the second of three public lectures (Berlin, April-May, 1906), which in 1955 were published in book form, in German, by the Rudolf Steiner Nachlassverwaltung, Dornach, under the title of Isis und Madonna: Alteuropäisches Hellsehen, die Europäischen Mysterien und Ihre Eingeweihten . A typescript translation of the first lecture is in the Library at Rudolf Steiner house, London; a translation of the third appeared in the quarterly, Anthroposophy, vol. iv, no. 3, 1929. Translated by Dorothy Lenn In the course of these winter lectures I have repeatedly said that there is such a thing as knowledge of supersensible worlds. We have discussed bow the human being can attain to such knowledge, and we have many times spoken of its fruits. I want now to give two lectures which will serve to illustrate what we mean by knowledge of the higher worlds. With the help of two examples, out of many that might have been selected, I propose to show how clairvoyant knowledge developed in a certain region — the kind of clairvoyant knowledge that has been, or ought to have been, left behind by present-day humanity. Clairvoyant knowledge given by natural forces, by natural capacities, will be my subject to-day. Next time I will discuss, again by means of examples, how clairvoyant knowledge can be acquired through strict training, by specific methods. To-day we will speak of the knowledge that led our ancestors to a form of spiritual perception which has now been superseded; next time I will deal with the kind of clairvoyance which has existed in all ages, but which has to undergo a different training from epoch to epoch. I have already pointed out that Spiritual Science speaks of an evolution of human consciousness. What we call our consciousness to-day, the consciousness whereby we recreate the outer world within us in thoughts, in mental images, in ideas, is only one stage of evolution. Another stage preceded it, and yet another stage will follow it. When anyone speaks to-day of the theory of evolution, he usually means the evolution of outer form, of the forms of material existence. Spiritual Science speaks of an evolution of the soul, of the spirit, and therefore of consciousness. We can look back to an earlier form of consciousness which has been superseded by the present form, and we can look forward to a future form of consciousness which will develop only gradually. The earlier state of consciousness we may call subconsciousness, and the consciousness to which our present consciousness can be developed, by spiritual-scientific methods, we may call superconsciousness. Thus we can differentiate three consecutive stages — subconsciousness, consciousness, superconsciousness. In a certain sense all consciousness to-day is a stage of development of consciousness in general, just as the forms of the higher animals are developments of the universal animal form. Present-day consciousness has evolved from a lower stage. It is surrounded by external objects, which it perceives through the senses — hearing, sight, taste and so on. From what was first perception it makes concepts, mental images, ideas. Thus an external world of objects which work upon us is mirrored in our consciousness. Subconsciousness was not like that. It was of a far more direct nature. We may call it a lower clairvoyant consciousness, because whoever possessed it did not approach objects with sense-organs and straightway seek to make concepts of them, but the concepts were there directly. Pictures arose and faded away. Let us suppose that the clairvoyant consciousness encountered an external object which was dangerous to it. To-day we see the object, and the mental image called forth by the sight of it brings about the consciousness of danger. It was not like that in the earlier clairvoyant consciousness. The external object was not perceived in clear outline, especially in the earliest times. Something like a dream-picture arose and revealed whether the object was sympathetic or unsympathetic. The fluctuating pictures in dreams to-day will serve to illustrate this for us. The dreams of a normal person to-day have no real connection with any outer world. But suppose something quite definite were to correspond to every picture which arose in us like a dream-picture, one picture occurring in case of dangers another in the presence of a useful object, then we could say that it was immaterial whether we were awake or dreaming, for we could direct our lives according to these pictures! Our present consciousness has developed out of such a dream-life, which allowed the inner nature of things, their inner soul-quality, to rise up before us. And this dream-consciousness has passed through manifold forms before reaching its present form. If we look back in history as it is revealed to us by Spiritual Science, we reach at last, in the far-distant past, a state of soul in which the external was not perceptible, but in which the surrounding world, possessed inwardly by the soul, was perceived by an old clairvoyant consciousness. But this consciousness had in consequence one attribute which, contrasted with the fundamental attribute of the soul to-day, must be designated as imperfect. It was not self-conscious; the soul could not say “I” to itself, could not distinguish itself properly from its environment. Only because external objects with sharp contours confront the soul can it distinguish itself from them. Thus man has had to purchase his self-consciousness by the surrender of his old clairvoyance. All evolution is an advance which at the same time involves the renunciation of certain advantages of the earlier stage. Now at each stage something from the earlier stage lingers on into later times, and in certain circumstances we can, from such legacies of the past, see the earlier conditions projected into the present where they rank as abnormalities. We find traces of such atavisms even in the human body, as for example in the muscles round the ear, which in an earlier stage moved the ear. In animals these muscles still have a purpose; in human beings they still exist, but few men are able to move their ears voluntarily. At one time human beings had a form of body in which such muscles were needed. To-day they are just relics of the past — vestiges of an earlier stage of evolution. Just as we find certain organic survivals in these outer structures, so, too, we find remains of other early evolutionary conditions. Thus we see traces of the old clairvoyance projected right into our own time, but clouded and changed by our present stage of development, and hence abnormal. This throws light upon the old European clairvoyance, which differs in a certain way from the clairvoyance of the East. To-day I want to go into these differences. What are these survivals of the old clairvoyant state of mankind? We can distinguish two kinds. One of them speaks for itself and is a true legacy of the past. I am referring to the dream and to dream experiences. The other vestiges of the past are in quite a different category. They are very much coloured and altered by present-day development, whereas the dream has not been changed by man, but by advancing evolution. The other remnants of the past are vision, premonition, and deuteroscopy, or second sight. Let us first take the dream. It is something left behind from the old picture-consciousness But into that ancient consciousness the nature of the object really penetrated, whereas the dream to-day, although it still shows certain characteristics of the old picture-consciousness, has lost its real value, its reality. Let us take an example. Someone dreams that he sees a tree-frog, snatches at it and catches it Then he wakes up and finds a corner of the bedcover in his band. The dream symbolised the external event. Had the man met the dream with objective consciousness, he would have seen that he had the bedcover in his hand. But this is how the dream symbolises. It can become very dramatic. For example, a student dreams that on leaving the lecture-room he is jostled by another student. It comes to a duel. The seconds are chosen, they go to the agreed place, the distance is measured, the pistols are loaded, the first shot is fired. But in that moment the student wakes up, and knocks over the chair by his bedside. There we have the same thing. If the student concerned had seen the event with his objective consciousness, had he been awake, he would have seen that the chair had been knocked over, or possibly it would not have been knocked over. Now, however, the dream gives a more or less symbolic expression to what happened. There are all kinds of such dreams; they may even have some element of reality. But in typical cases we have to do with an arbitrary connection between what is pictured and the outer event. The dream itself shows that one is dealing with a picture; but it does not show any direct connection between the picture and the inner qualities of the outer world. In direct consciousness a man would not have been obliged to touch salt with his tongue in order to recognise it, but a quite definite dream-picture would have arisen before him, and there would have been one for vinegar, another for sugar, and yet another for a dangerous being, and so on. With every being in nature there went a specific picture. Something of this survives in dream-consciousness. But because present-day man has contracted his whole being into self-consciousness, because he has cut himself off from the outer world, differentiated himself from it, his dream-pictures no longer have any connection with it. Through having made the normal transition from dream-consciousness to self-consciousness, he has lost connection with the outer world. It is different as regards the other three survivals — vision, premonition, and deuteroscopy, or second sight. We have often described the course of human evolution somewhat as follows. The human being, as he is to-day, consists of four members: physical body, etheric body, astral body, and ego. The ego is the last member to develop, and it is through the attainment of the ego that man has become a self-conscious being; he has thereby wrested his being from the life in his lower members. When the ego was not so far developed as it is to-day, when man still lived in his astral body, when the astral body was the bearer of his consciousness, this consciousness was pre-eminently a dream-consciousness. It was the astral body which caused these pictures to come and go. Hence it is easy to understand that man was then more closely united with his lower members. Thus it is as if man had become free in his astral body, as if he had disengaged himself from it and had thereby acquired his present objective consciousness. As man was once submerged in his astral body, so in still earlier times he was submerged in his etheric and physical bodies. Then he had still lower forms of consciousness. Thus we have three states of subconsciousness below the present objective consciousness. Imagine that a man is swimming below the surface of the sea. It is then possible for him to see what is in the sea. He sees what happens at the bottom of the sea, what swims and moves there, and so on. What he encounters there is quite different from what confronts him if he rises to the surface and looks up at the star-strewn heavens. Similarly, man has been lifted out of that stage of consciousness in which he was aware of what was conveyed to him by astral, etheric and physical bodies; he has risen to self-consciousness. In certain abnormal cases, however, he can revert to the sea of subconsciousness. In dreams this happens involuntarily. What he has won by rising out of this sea he can take back again into it. Imagine a man plunging back into this sea and able to compare all that he perceives below with what he has learnt above. That is what it is like to-day. The man takes with him what he has experienced here above. It is not as it is with a diver who takes nothing but his memory with him, who can make comparisons only with the help of his memory. Whoever plunges into the sea of subconsciousness after having become a modern man colours everything below with his experiences above. What has been experienced above is carried as a sheath into the subconscious, and man receives no clear picture of that world, but a picture clouded by the world above. When a man plunges into his astral body, he transplants himself artificially into the sphere occupied by his consciousness when he himself still lived in his astral body. This is how what to-day we call visions come about. Were man to descend into his astral body without knowing anything of the modern world, he would really experience the inwardness of objects; they would appear to him in their true guise. To-day, however, they appear to him as a distorted reflection of what can be experienced only in the upper world of consciousness. Therein lies both the truth and the deceptiveness of visions. Anyone who descends into the world of vision may always be sure that the cause of what he sees lies in the soul-environment; but it is also certain that the vision confronting him will be distorted, that it will not show him things in their true guise, but will imitate what occurs in the world above. Hence a man’s visions usually indicate what the men of his own day are experiencing. This can be checked in full detail, from decade to decade. Let us suppose that a man plunged into that world at a time when there were no telegrams and no telephone. Then he would have seen no telegrams and no telephone in the world below, whereas in our own day the incidence of telegrams and telephones in visions becomes more and more frequent. That, too, is why the pious Catholic, who in his objective consciousness has so often seen the figure of the Madonna, takes this figure with him, and she appears to him down there too. It is not an expression of the reality, but something which the person has taken down with him, and in which he clothes the reality. In such a case he has carried down into the world below what he has experienced in the world above. Thus when a man returns in vision into the world from which he has emerged, he gives an abnormal colouring to what he experiences. If he plunges back again into the etheric body, he experiences what we may call premonition. But this is even more dangerous, because his state of consciousness has gone still further back. There man becomes involved in all the tangled threads of existence out of which he had raised himself into ego-consciousness; but in that case, too, he carries below all that he has acquired above. He is unable to see the threads in their true form. Just think how little of what is all around man comes within his range. The thoughts which he makes (about cause and effect for example) are limited to a small section of the world. But the whole world in its entire circumference hangs together, and there are other relationships involved. Man is, as it were, standing upon an island of existence, and the island is all he sees. But this island is related to the whole cosmos. In his etheric body man is much more closely connected with the cosmos than he is in his present consciousness. If he were able to receive in its purity what his ether body tells him, he would see future events, because down in his etheric body things converge. He would see that an event, which might not emerge into reality for perhaps ten years, was already there in germ. But man takes down with him his little intellect, his narrow little mind soul. Hence what emerges as premonition is falsified; that is why so little reliance can usually be placed upon premonitions, just as generally there is no objective truth in visions which occur by way of nature. When man plunges into his physical body, premonition can pass over into penetration of space. Whereas in premonition he sees other times, in deuteroscopy he can see what happens in the far distance, beyond the range of the physical eye. These pictures are like a Fata Morgana. Abnormal phenomena such as those reported by Swedenborg come into this category. 2 See also the following lectures by Dr. Steiner: Swedenborg's Power of Vision (Dornach, 12/9/15), printed in the Goetheanum English News-Sheet 1939; Die Geschichte des Spiritismus (Berlin. 30/5/04), published in English as the first of two lectures in the booklet, The History of Spiritism, Hypnotism and Somnambulism (Anthroposophic Press, 1943); and Menschlich und Menschheitliche Entwicklungwahrheiten (Cycle 46, Berlin, 1917: not translated). But here the deceptions are even greater, and nothing ought to be accepted which has not been tested by a trained, disciplined seer. Such conditions, which to-day are morbid, are survivals of an ancient clairvoyance which was once thoroughly healthy, was once something which placed the man in a relationship of complete understanding with his environment. In the evolution of European peoples, in particular, we find everywhere a picture-consciousness of varying antiquity which saw the world in its inner, soul-spiritual nature. But the ego-consciousness of these peoples was still quite undeveloped. Have we anything left of what was seen and related by these people of olden times, who had not yet got the mature ego-consciousness, who had a transitional consciousness between the old picture-consciousness and the objective consciousness? We have indeed a beautiful and precious survival of it in myths and sagas, in the whole range of mythology. The content of mythology is so often described to-day as folk-poetry. Clouds will be described as flocks of sheep, and thunder and lightning as something else. There is nothing more arbitrary than such interpretations. Sagas, myths and fairy tales, too, tell us about what we experienced in the subconscious. All sagas and myths were experienced, not composed — experienced not in our present-day consciousness, but in the ancient, clairvoyant state. We can penetrate deeply into this consciousness and into the origin of myths and sagas if we turn to an important passage of the Scriptures. You will remember the significant verse in the Old Testament which reads. “And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul” (Gen. II, 7). A certain formation of the breathing process is here associated with human evolution. We shall see later that this is a reference to the fact that man owes his present-day ego-consciousness, his capacity for living with and in his blood, to the peculiar structure of the breathing process which he has acquired in course of time and still has to-day. Only through having learnt to breathe as an upright being did man raise himself above the picture-consciousness. Animals still have picture-consciousness to-day, either directly or indirectly, because their lungs have not the upright position. It has quite rightly been observed that the dog is much more intelligent than the parrot, and yet it is only the parrot which has learnt to speak. Much depends on the direction in which an organ is placed. The parrot has a larynx in the vertical position, and that is why it learns to speak. It is because of the special configuration of his organs that man has been able to advance to his present objective consciousness. If we have understood the words of the Bible just quoted we shall say: “Man has been so formed in conformity with the laws of the cosmos that his present breathing process has developed.” Those who understood this process from its spiritual aspect, who knew that a spiritual element lives in all things, said to themselves: “The spiritual element of the air has to penetrate us in the way that this process makes possible; then the free ego-consciousness will evolve.” When this process takes place in us in an irregular way, when the spirits of the air are unable to work into our blood in a way which corresponds to our present state of consciousness, then consciousness is forced back into an earlier stage. That is why the ancient European experienced every irregularity of the breathing process as a suppression of consciousness and an inner experience. The physical expression of irregular breathing is the nightmare ( Alpdruck ). The word comes from Alb or Elf , so that it signifies the spiritual which enters into the human being even though it cannot unfold itself fully. When the breathing process becomes irregular, when the ego has to descend into a lower kingdom, the host of lower spirits, which can make an appearance in the astral realm, have access to man. And though you may say this is a kind of illness, that is not the point; the important thing is what the conditions bring about. From our higher standpoint to-day, the condition must of course be called unhealthy. Although to-day it is a reversion to an earlier condition, it was once a transitional state between the normal and the abnormal. Our present-day breathing has arisen from a breathing process which is found as a survival in the nightmare; the nightmare is the last vestige of it. At one time man needed less oxygen and more carbon dioxide. When that was the normal condition, when man was nearer the state of the plant, he had a different form of consciousness, he was plunged into the ancient clairvoyant consciousness. Then he emerged from this condition, and what was formerly healthy became unhealthy, and during the transition period, when he oscillated between the one form of consciousness and the other, the ancient European experienced all that we find in the elves and sprites, which came to his consciousness before he had acquired consciousness of the self. Thus we look back by way of nature into conditions which were once normal; the nightmare represents a survival of the picture-consciousness which created myths and sagas. But the change in the breathing has involved many other changes. The seeing of external objects has come about. Picture-consciousness did not involve seeing external contours, seeing the outer surface of things. Then came the time when pictures gradually vanished and were replaced by the world of external objects. And once again there was an intermediate stage when man had already developed sight, but when his external sight might in abnormal circumstances withdraw and he might revert to a state of clairvoyance. There is a popular expression in German, an expression of ancient origin, for looking at something without seeing it. It is Spannung , Staunen , Spahnen , and the last word has the same derivation as the German word Gespenst (ghost), so that here you have the ghost before you, so to say; you have before you something which is seen by means of inner, astral forces. To-day that is abnormal. In the transitional period, whenever it occurred, the man was admonished to say to himself, “But I will see, I do not wish to be stared at, I wish to see.” Thus what he saw in this way seemed to him to be something which he had to overcome. All the stories about blinding whatever stares at one, so that it can no longer stare, derive from this. In all these stories, from the story of the blinding of the giant Polyphemus right down to the wonderful story in which Dietrich of Berne overcomes the giant Grim, we have this stage of consciousness. The very strangeness of the phenomenon, however, could have an attraction for the soul. Hence there were beings, beings who belonged to the inwardness of things, who could have a seductive influence on men, who could lead them astray. The key word in German for this enticement is Lur or Lore . And wherever you meet this word, you have the ghost in its “alluring” form. If men were specially liable to meet it at a special place, they said that this place was its home. The word Lei is connected with this, hence the Lorelei rocks. It is there that the alluring form is to be found which withdraws into the Lei , as into its native country. We can find this word Lei in various associations with the word Lure. Thus we have the subconscious experience of seeing, with its Lore or Lure , which emerges as the specific seeing of external objects develops. The Alpe , or elves, have to do with the fact that man retains his ego-consciousness within him. We have yet another survival, still to be found in certain Slav regions. It is the saga of the Midday Woman. 3 See the fourth, lecture in the cycle, The inner Nature of Man between Death and Rebirth (Vienna, 1914), published by Anthroposophical Publishing Company, 1928; out of print. When men go out into the fields, and, instead of returning home at mid-day, remain there, the Midday Woman appears to them, clothed in white. She questions them until the clock strikes. If they are able to answer all the time, she says, “Good, you have redeemed me.” Here once again an ancient clairvoyant experience is expressed. Just as we breathe in with the air the spirit of the ego, so we have gathered together our entire being, our entire microcosm, out of the macrocosm. Everything within us has come from without. Our inner intelligence is a product of the outer intelligence. There is a transitional period between the time when men saw the spiritual beings who directed the structure of the world, the beings who directed the formation of the flowers and of the crystals, and the time when the outer intelligence was formed. This intelligence has taken possession of man; he has become conscious of it. The midday sun, the midday demon, obliterates the ego-consciousness through a partial, undeveloped sunstroke. Then what has entered into man to make him intelligent, the external cause of his intelligence, appears before the man, and in such a way that he has to exercise his intelligence. It is through his having to make a mental effort that the phenomenon occurs. The man is, so to say, confronted objectively by what the cosmos has made of him. He must overcome it. If he can exercise his intelligence so as to be able to answer the Midday Woman until the clock strikes, he can unite himself again with his ego. We meet the best expression of this in ancient Greece and sculpturally in ancient Egypt, in the great questioner, the Sphinx. The Sphinx is nothing but the highest expression of the Midday Woman. It asks the ultimate question, the question to which the answer is “man.” Whoever is able to solve the riddle redeems the Sphinx. It falls into the abyss — that is, it unites with human nature. Man has acquired his present clear day-consciousness, which has brought with it self-consciousness, as a victory over the ancient picture-consciousness. In earlier times, although he was unable to see into himself, did not find a self within him, yet when he looked outside himself he saw spiritual beings everywhere — in the waves, in the air, in the trees — all was indwelt by spiritual beings. How could he himself not be so indwelt also? When he felt, “With the air I breathe in. I receive the actual imprint of the ego,” how could he do otherwise than see in the air the embodiment of the god to whom he owed his objective consciousness? When he breathed in the air, he knew, “The air moves my ego.” When the wind blustered without in the stormy winter nights he knew that Wotan was roaming about, the same Wotan who was breathed in by him. We could go through all the myths and sagas in this way. We should doubtless find that literary composition has brought about modifications, but they can all be traced back to the old clairvoyant consciousness. European clairvoyance, however, differs essentially from that of the East; for every people has a special mission, a special task to fulfil in the course of evolution. Whereas in the time when the Oriental was going through the transition from the old clairvoyance to the formation of the ego, he possessed only a mere rudiment of the ego, so that it very easily surrendered itself to the higher beings, the consciousness of personality developed early in European life. It was a particular characteristic of the European peoples that during the transition period the ego made tremendous inroads. The human being was able to see into the inwardness of things, but he asserted his ego very strongly, felt himself from the outset as a strong opponent of the beings who were trying to entangle him in the threads of the spiritual world around him. Therefore the beings who are man’s helpers are those who work towards the acquisition of self-consciousness, towards the liberation of the ego. The victory over the astral Spirits, which is the aim of those Spirits who bestow personal self-consciousness, plays a great part in Germanic literature, in European literature. The Alp-spirit, who ensnares man, is present everywhere for European consciousness in the Midgard Snake, or in the forms of the giants. Everywhere we see how the gods ally themselves with men in the formation of personal self-consciousness. We see how the god Wotan, who lives in the breathing, becomes man’s ally in his fight against all the lower spirits; he stands beside man in his struggle to overcome the lower consciousness. It is Donar or Thor, with his hammer, who conquers the giants and the Midgard Snake; he it is who expresses man’s emergence into reality. This conquest over the astral powers, who prevent men from becoming free, played a great part in preparing the way for Christianity. There was something more impersonal in the Oriental, whereas the warm-hearted European had to experience something unknown to less advanced Eastern peoples. In Europe the urge to emerge from subconsciousness was the dominant motive. Therefore the European felt intensely: “I with my ego have emerged from the spiritual world into the physical-sensible world, in primeval times my soul was in the spiritual world, the world of light. What I have acquired here has made me blind to the old astral world.” This found its strongest expression where the victory over the astral world was most strongly felt. The ancient European consciousness felt Baldur to be the leader of souls in so far as they belong to the land of their birth, to the astral world of light. The leader of the sense-world is Hodur, who slays Baldur. 4 See the lectures, The Balder Myth and the Good Friday Mystery (Dornach, 2-3/4/15); published in Festivals and the Seasons (Anthroposophical Publishing Company, 1928: out of print). Thus tragically the ancient Europeans experienced the fading out of the clairvoyant soul, the provisional death of the soul. But they experienced it as a transition; they felt that something new had to follow. Hence the “Twilight of the Gods,” the downfall of the spiritual world. And because in ancient times personal consciousness was strongly marked in the European peoples, the appearance of the personal God, Christ Jesus, could be most deeply understood by the Europeans. The germ for the reception of the personal God was laid down long beforehand. We have seen how in Europe the present-day consciousness has developed out of the earlier one. It was only a small section of the spiritual world that people could see in this way. But the initiates had their consciousness in still higher worlds. We shall show how the knowledge of the initiates was raised above the clairvoyant consciousness of the masses, what impression the appearance of the Christ made on the Mysteries, and how the Mysteries have evolved right up to the present day. What men saw at lower levels in the past they will see in the future at a higher level; for they will see into the spiritual world in full consciousness. Man has indeed passed through this process. While still leading a subconscious form of existence, he descended in order to acquire self-consciousness. And with his self-consciousness he will rise again. His earlier clairvoyance was not his own, but a clairvoyance which other beings had instilled into him. What he will acquire for himself will be a free self-conscious possession, best described by a saying of Christ-Jesus. On the occasion (John VIII, 32) when the Christ was emphasising the relationship between truth and freedom, he spoke of the far-distant future in these terms: “And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.”

Ancient European Clairvoyance

https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA057/English/Singles/19090501p02.html

Berlin

1 May 1909

GA057-17

From ANTHROPOSOPHY: A Quarterly Review — Michaelmas 1929 No 3 Vol. 4. From GA# 57. In ancient times a kind of natural clairvoyance was a common heritage of the European peoples. Indeed man's consciousness as it is to-day has evolved from that earlier state of clairvoyant consciousness. With these ancient clairvoyant faculties, man was able to perceive certain connections of his life, and what he so perceived was then expressed in the legends and myths which speak of goblins, elfin-beings, dwarfs and the like. Now these legends and myths are very different in character. They were based on what man was able to see with his clairvoyant faculties, but when we study them we find on the one hand certain resemblances and on the other outstanding differences, simply because the clairvoyant powers of men were by no means the same. There is a much greater similarity in the more important mythological figures — the figures of Gods and Heroes in the sagas. These sagas, too, were the outcome of clairvoyance, but in a different sense. The great mythological figures lead us back to the experiences of those who were Initiates in the ancient Mysteries. It is not easy for our present consciousness to form a true conception of these ancient Mysteries and their Initiates, for the nature of our education and the knowledge resulting therefrom does not conduce to an understanding of the nature of Initiation — far from it! If we were to speak of the nature of the Mysteries and their Initiates in the language of current thought, we should say that the Mysteries are schools for the training of those faculties which enable the soul of man to have actual vision of the spiritual worlds. They are schools, where in a methodical and systematic way, man's soul is so guided and trained that he can finally perceive the higher worlds with spiritual eyes and ears. Although modern scholarship knows little of the Mysteries, they are nevertheless still in existence to-day and are the means whereby man can be led consciously to the spiritual worlds. — And the whole content of Spiritual Science, everything that is communicated in Spiritual Science, is, in its essence, Mystery-wisdom. The man who so trains his soul that he can perceive in higher worlds, is an Initiate. Through all the ages there have been centres for developing the faculty of fully conscious clairvoyance and the aim of the present lecture is to give a cursory survey of the European Mysteries. For this purpose we must go back to ancient pre-Christian times and try to visualise what went on in the occult schools of Initiation and how they influenced civilisation and culture in general. You have often heard how man to-day can be led to the Initiates, how his thinking, feeling and willing can be so trained that he can set out on the path leading to the “Mothers.” This is the path which the pupils of all the Mysteries have had to tread in quest of fully conscious clairvoyance. There were Mysteries of great significance, deeply influencing ancient European civilisation, in various regions of France, Germany and Britain. In all these regions the Mysteries were of a definite and unique kind, and were instituted on the basis of knowledge such as I indicated in my lecture “Isis and Madonna,” namely, that man has a spiritual origin, that his home was once in spiritual worlds whence his spirit and soul have come forth. When a man penetrates more deeply into his soul and rises to a level higher than that of ordinary sense-perception, he still feels, even to-day, that there is within him something that is a last remnant of his being as it was in the spiritual world. To-day, this last remnant — the human soul — is enclosed within the physical body, which in its turn is a densification of the primordial spiritual being. When he has conscious realisation of the spirit and soul within him, man says: ‘Now I know what I once was in my whole being; now I know that I was born out of the womb of worlds, out of the great universe.’ To-day the universe is revealed to human intelligence in everything that is spread out before the senses. But behind all that can be perceived by the senses and grasped by the intellect there is the spiritual universe — the Primordial Father and Mother from whom the soul is born. The body too is born from them but at first in spiritual form. This true form of man is now hidden. It was known in the ancient European Mysteries that the true being of man is hidden and must be sought in its concealment. The saying went: “Isis is seeking for the Being from whom she proceeded.” To be initiated was to live through all those processes which enable the soul of man once again to behold its true origin and to unfold the faculty which will unite it again with its spiritual origin. Whether in the depths of the sacred oak-groves, or in places adapted for the Mysteries, it was always the same. — The candidate was subjected to certain processes whereby he might be united with his spiritual origin. All that lies hidden behind the sense-world, as the sun behind the clouds, the hidden spirit, was known in these Mysteries by the name of “Hu.” “Ceridwen” was the seeking soul. And all the rites of Initiation were a means of revealing to the pupil that death is only one of the many processes in life. Death changes nothing at all in the innermost kernel of man's being. — In the Druidic Mysteries ( Druid denotes an Initiate of the third degree), the neophyte was put into a condition resembling death; his senses could not function as organs of perception. A man whose only instrument of perception is the physical body or the physical brain has no consciousness in a condition where his senses cease to function. But in Initiation, the senses — feeling, hearing and so on — cease to function, and yet the neophyte is able to experience and observe. The principle which observes was called “Ceridwen” — the soul. And that which comes to meet the soul, as light and sound come to our outer eyes and ears, was called “Hu” — the spiritual world. The Initiate experienced the union between Ceridwen and Hu. Such experiences are described in the myths. When we are told to-day that the ancients paid homage to a God Hu and a Goddess Ceridwen, this is simply another way of describing Initiation. The true myths are always concerned with Initiation. It is empty chatter to say that these myths have an astronomical meaning, that Ceridwen is the moon and Hu the sun, and so on. These myths originated because their creators were conscious of an inner union between the aspiring soul and the spirit of the sun, not the physical sun. The Mysteries of Hu and Ceridwen, then, were those into which men were initiated in the regions of which we are speaking. More to the North, in Scandinavia and Northern Russia, we find the Trottic Mysteries, founded by the Initiate who is known as Sieg, or Siegfried: Sikke. All the Siegfried myths are to be traced back to this being. These Northern Mysteries are characterised by a principle that is really common to all the Mysteries, but which here for the first time is clearly emphasised. Let me explain this principle by means of a comparison. — Think of the human being as he stands before us in life, with his head, hands, feet and other members. And now, if we imagine him without one of these members, he is no longer a whole man. Think of the most important organs, the heart, the stomach and others. Each one of these organs contributes to human life and serves its needs. The fact that these organs work together makes it possible for a soul to live and develop in the body of man. The soul lives in a physical body which is a unit composed of many members. This suggests that wherever a dwelling place has to be found for a human soul, or for a higher being, single members must be working together, each one of them carrying out their particular functions. And so even in the ancient Northern Mysteries it was realised that something can be accomplished if a number of men are gathered together and each individual is allotted a special and definite task. One man, for instance, may resolve to develop principally the thinking faculty, another the power of feeling, a third the power of will. Sub-divisions are of course also possible. The Northern Mysteries were based upon the idea that when a number of men, each of whom has his particular task, are gathered together into a whole, an invisible influence will work in them, just as the soul works in a human body. When men come together in this way, each playing his own part, they form a kind of higher organism or body, and thus make it possible for a higher spiritual being to dwell among them. Thus Sieg gathered together a circle of twelve men, each of whom set out to develop the powers of his soul in a particular direction. And then, when they gathered together in their holy sanctuaries, they knew that a higher spiritual being was living among them as the soul lives in a human body, that their souls were members of a higher body. This was the sense in which the “Thirteenth” lived and moved among the Twelve who knew: We are twelve and the Thirteenth lives among us. Or else they chose out a Thirteenth whose function was then, within the circle of the Twelve, to be the connecting link enabling the higher influence to descend. And so the Thirteenth was recognised to be the representative of the Godhead in the sanctuaries of Initiation. Everything was related to the sacred number three, and for this reason the one who united in himself all the knowledge was known as the representative of the ‘holy Three’ and around him were the twelve, each one with his definite functions, like members of an organism. And so it was realised that when twelve men united together to develop a power which enabled a higher being to dwell among them, they were rising out of the physical into the spiritual world, rising to their God. They regarded themselves as the twelve attributes, the twelve qualities of the God. This was all reflected in the figures of the twelve Germanic Gods in the Northern sagas. He who desired to become a member of this noble circle was told that he must seek Baldur — in other words, he must seek Initiation. And who is Baldur? Baldur is the Spiritual in man, the principle for which the soul is seeking and which is found in Initiation. Who slew Baldur? Those who killed out the clairvoyant faculties in man, who organised his physical nature, who endowed him with material sight and who could prematurely misuse the forces of physical matter — Loki, the power of Fire, and Hodur the Blind, representing the principle in man's being that is incapable of beholding the spiritual world. This is only a way of describing processes of Initiation. Material existence has made man blind; through Initiation he again finds the path leading to the higher worlds. The trained clairvoyance of the old Initiates was a higher faculty than the innate, natural clairvoyance possessed by all human beings in those days. The Druidic and Trottic Mysteries were the inspiring source of European civilisation and culture in pre-Christian times. Now the essential feature of European culture, namely, the development of a consciousness of personality , is likewise a danger — a danger likely to be far greater here than in other regions of the earth. Consciousness of personality is a keynote of all European culture. It was present in all Germanic lands, in a much stronger form than in the East where men loved to surrender themselves to Brahman. But this consciousness of personality brought with it the danger that those who were initiated could readily misuse what they learnt in Initiation and turn it into caricature. Initiation gives man control of spiritual forces and those who have learnt to use them can also misuse them. So it came about that the Mysteries of ancient Europe began to degenerate, the unripeness of the Initiates began to give rise to all kinds of atrocities and in many regions they were dreaded by the people. Much that we hear of the Mysteries to-day, although not everything, refers to the period of their decline. In this age we need not, after all, be so very astonished that the Mysteries are so often misunderstood. For if Spiritual Science does not help a man to realise what went on in the Mysteries and he has to rely merely on the tittle-tattle of history written down much later on, his ideas on the subject will be utterly barren. Just think what happens when people are content to draw their information about Spiritual Science from what the outside world has to say about it. They get a fine picture! And if what is being said about Spiritual Science to-day were to live on, it would do far more harm than the fragmentary knowledge of the Mysteries has done. It would be an attractive study to trace back many things in the sagas and legends of Europe to the Mysteries. We should find a great deal in the Niebelung and Siegfried legends that points back to the ancient Mysteries. But it is difficult to discriminate in such study. The only thing that can reveal whether a certain feature in the legends is simply an improvisation of fancy or leads back to the Mysteries, is actual knowledge and the capacity to trace it back to its real source. In all these Mysteries, no matter where we look, we find an element of tragedy. Let me put it thus: The Initiate in the ancient Druidic or Trottic Mysteries might indeed be united with Hu or Baldur, but there was something lacking in the spiritual world into which he entered. In more popular parlance, the Initiates would have said: ‘Our Gods are mortal, are doomed to downfall.’ — Hence the myth which tells of the Twilight of the Gods. But then came the news of the great Christ Impulse which could work more strongly in Europe than anywhere else — the news that a sublime Spirit, the Christ, had lived in an earthly body among men. And the Initiates realised that all that had hitherto been experienced in the depths of the Mysteries had become historic fact in the Christ Event. In the ancient Mysteries the Initiate had not fully vanquished death. — But now he learnt of the Mystery of Golgotha. This historic Mystery was received with understanding in the European Mysteries — a much deeper understanding than elsewhere. The attitude of the Initiates may be described somewhat as follows: In our Initiation we rose to a divine-spiritual world, yet it was a world pervaded with the forces of mortality. But he who steeps himself with all that is bound up with the mighty impulse brought by the Christ-Being, he who can link himself with Christ, will realise that just as the sun irradiates and quickens the life of the plants, so the Christ Impulse can flow into the human soul and endow the soul with knowledge of eternity and immortality, with knowledge of victory over death. The soul is quickened by a true understanding of Christ. — And it was also known to the Initiates that besides such outer teaching as can be given, there is an inner knowledge, a quest of the soul (Ceridwen) not only for a Hu or a Baldur but for another ‘Baldur,’ for One Who fulfilled the Mystery of Golgotha. The Initiates knew that the soul who experienced this acquired a bigger kind of clairvoyance than was attained through Initiation into the ancient Mysteries. Here in Europe there was a deep understanding of these things. I have often told you of the great stimulus given to the evolution of man by the Christ Impulse. To understand this, let us think once more of ancient Hebrew consciousness. The ancient Hebrew felt himself one with his “Fathers.” He said to himself: ‘My Ego is enclosed between birth and death, but my blood streams into me from my Father Abraham. The blood in my veins is the expression of my Ego, of my individuality; it is the blood-stream which flows through the generations and is the expression of my God.’ — And so the ancient Hebrew felt himself part of one great whole, secure in the blood-stream which passes down through the generations. Christ says: “Before Abraham was, I AM;” and “I and the Father are One.” The Ego of man is linked to a spiritual world by threads which everyone may discover in his own individuality. The Mystery of Golgotha brought to man a realisation of the Ego that is grounded upon itself, albeit the ties of blood are not ignored — the Ego that understands the physical world. Therefore, in the blood which flowed from the wounds of the Redeemer, men saw the expression of the human Ego-principle, and the saying went: “He who quickens this blood within himself will become a true seer.” But the world was not ripe enough to understand the true essence of the Mystery of Golgotha. It was not ripe in the centuries immediately following the Coming of Christ, nor is it to-day. Paul had a vision of the Living Christ in the spiritual world, but, after all, who understands those profound Epistles of one who was an Initiate or speaks with any truth of Paul's disciple, Dionysos the Areopagite? In the Mysteries of Wales and Britain the teachings of Dionysos were received and the influence of the Christ Mystery so permeated the Druidic and Trottic Mysteries that the Initiates realised in full clarity of consciousness that He whom they had sought as Hu and Baldur, had come to earth as Christ. But they said among themselves that mankind in general was not ripe to understand the mystery of the blood flowing from the Redeemer's wounds, that men were not fit to receive into themselves the blood that runs through all creation. It was only in small circles of Initiates that this sacred Christ Mystery was preserved. A man who was initiated into this Mystery experienced the overcoming of the Ego that functions in the world of sense. This is how he experienced it. — He asked himself: ‘What has been the manner of my life hitherto? In my quest for truth, I have turned to the things of the outer world. The Initiates of the Christ-Mystery, however, demand that I shall not wait until outer things tell me what is true but that in my soul , without being stimulated by the outer world, I shall seek the invisible.’ — This quest of the soul for the highest was called by the outer world in later times: The secret of the Holy Grail . And the Parsifal or Grail legend is simply a form of the Christ Mystery. The Grail is the holy Cup from which Christ drank at the Last Supper and in which Joseph of Arimathea caught the blood as it flowed on Golgotha. The Cup was then taken to a holy place and guarded. So long as a man does not ask about the invisible, his lot is that of Parsifal. Only when he asks, does he become an Initiate of the Christ Mystery. Wolfram von Eschenbach speaks in his poem of the three stages through which the soul of man passes. The first of these is the stage of outer, material perception. The soul is caught up in matter and allows matter to say what is truth. This is the “stupor” (Dumpfheit) of the soul, as Wolfram van Eschenbach expresses it. And then the soul begins to recognise that the outer world offers only illusion. When the soul perceives that the results of science are not answers but only questions, there comes the stage of “doubt” (Zwifel), according to Wolfram von Eschenbach. But then the soul rises to “blessedness” (Saelde, Seligkeit) — to life in the spiritual worlds. — These are the three stages. The Mysteries which were illuminated by the Christ Impulse have one quite definite feature in common whereby they are raised to a higher level than that of the more ancient Mysteries. Initiation always means that a man attains to a higher kind of sight and that his soul undergoes a higher development. Before he sets out on this path, three faculties live within his soul: thinking, feeling and willing. He has these three soul-powers within him. In ordinary life in the modern world, these three soul-powers are intimately bound together. The Ego of man is interwoven with thinking feeling and willing because before he attains Initiation he has not worked with the powers of the Ego at the development of his higher members. The first step is to purify the feelings, impulses and instincts in the astral body. Out of the purified astral body there rises the “Spirit-Self” or “Manas.” Then man begins to permeate every thought with a definite element of feeling so that each thought may be said to have something ‘cold’ or ‘warm’ about it. — He is transforming his “ether-body” or “life-body.” Out of the transformed ether-body (it is a transformation of feeling), arises “Budhi” or “Life-Spirit.” And finally, he transforms his willing and therewith the physical body itself, into “Atma” or “Spirit-Man.” Thus by transforming his thinking, feeling and willing, man changes his astral body into Spirit-Self or Manas, his ether-body into Life-Spirit or Budhi and finally his physical body into Spirit-Man or Atma. This transformation is the result of the Initiates systematic work upon his soul, whereby he rises to the spiritual worlds. But something very definite happens when the path to Initiation is trodden in full earnest and not light-heartedly. In true Initiation it is as if a man's organisation were divided into three parts, and the Ego reigns as king over the three. Whereas in ordinary circumstances the spheres of thinking, feeling and willing are not clearly separated, when a man sets out on the path of higher development thoughts begin to arise in him which are not immediately tinged with feeling but are permeated with the element of sympathy or antipathy according to the free choice of the Ego. Feeling does not immediately attach itself to a thought, but the man divides, as it were, into three: he is a man of feeling, a man of thinking, a man of will, and the Ego, as king, rules over the three. At a definite stage of Initiation he becomes, in this sense, three men. He feels that by way of his astral body he experiences all those thoughts which are related to the spiritual world; through his ether-body he experiences everything that pervades the spiritual world as the element of feeling; through his physical body he experiences all the will-impulses which flow through the spiritual world. And he realises himself as king within the sacred Three. A man who is not able or ripe enough to bear this separation of his being, will not attain the fruits of Initiation. The sufferings that crowd upon him in his immature state will keep him back. A man who approaches the Holy Grail but is not worthy, will suffer as Amfortas suffered. He can only be redeemed by one who brings the forces of good. — He is freed from his sufferings by Parsifal. And now let us return once more to what Initiation brings in its train. The seeking soul finds the spiritual world; the soul finds the Holy Grail which has now become the symbol of the spiritual world. Individual Initiates have experienced what is here described. They have gone the way of Parsifal, have become as kings looking down on the three bodies. The Initiate says to himself: ‘I am king over my purified astral body which can only be purified when I strive to emulate Christ .’ He must not hold to any outer link, to anything in the external world, but unite himself in the innermost depths of his soul with the Christ Principle. Everything that binds him with the world of sense must fall away in that supreme moment. Lohengrin is the representative of an Initiate. It is not permitted to ask his name or rank, in other words, what connects him with the world of sense. He who has neither name nor rank, is called a “homeless” man. Such a man is permeated through and through with the Christ Principle. He too looks down on the ether-body which has become Life-Spirit, as upon something that is now separate from the astral body. By this ether-body he is borne upwards to the higher worlds, where the laws of space and time do not hold sway. The symbol of this ether-body and its organs, is the Swan who bears Lohengrin over the sea in a boat (the physical body), over the material world. The physical body is felt to be an instrument. The soul on earth who experiences a new impulse through Initiation is symbolised in the figure of Elsa von Brabant. This shows us the sense in which the Lohengrin legend — which has many other meanings as well — is a portrayal of Initiation in the Mysteries associated with the Holy Grail. Thus in the eleventh to the thirteenth century, these secrets of the Holy Grail were taught in connection with the Christ Mystery. The Knights of the Grail were the later Initiates. They were confronted in the world with an exoteric Christianity, whereas esoteric Christianity was cultivated in the Mysteries. And in the Mysteries, men sought to find that relation to Christianity whereby, through the outer Christ in the soul, the inner Christ, Who is symbolised by the Dove, was awakened to life. The whole development of the European Mysteries is expressed in yet another cycle of legends and sagas, but it is difficult to speak of them now. We must wait for another occasion. To-day we will consider how this knowledge found its way into the outer world and made its appearance in a remarkable body of legends. Comparatively little notice has been taken of a legend which was given poetic form by Conrad Fleck in 1230. It is one of the legends of Provence and deals with the Initiation of the Knights of the Grail or the Templars. It speaks of an ancient pair, “Flor” and “Blancheflor.” In modern parlance: the flower with red petals (the rose) and the flower with white petals (the lily). In earlier times it was known that a great many mysteries were contained in this legend, of which it is only possible to-day to speak briefly. It was said: Flor and Blancheflor are souls incarnated in human beings who have lived on earth. According to the legend, these two were the grandparents of Charles the Great. But those who studied the legend more deeply, saw in Charles the Great the figure who, in a certain sense, united esoteric and exoteric Christianity. This is expressed in the coronation of the Emperor. But in the grandparents of Charles the Great, Flor and Blancheflor, lived the rose and the lily — typifying souls who were to preserve in its purity the esoteric Christianity which had been taught by Dionysos the Areopagite and others. The rose — Flor or Flos — symbolised the human soul who has received the impulse of the Ego, of personality, who lets the Spiritual work out of his individuality, who has brought the Ego-force down into the red blood. But the lily was the symbol of the soul who can only remain spiritual when the Ego remains outside . Thus there is a contrast between the rose and the lily. The principle of self-consciousness has entered wholly into the rose, whereas it remains outside the lily. But there was a union between the soul that is within and the soul that as the World-Spirit pervades the universe outside. Flor and Blancheflor symbolise the finding of the World-Soul, the World-Ego, by the human soul or the human Ego. The event recorded in the legend of the Holy Grail is also described in the legend of Flor and Blancheflor. Flor and Blancheflor must not be thought of as outer figures — the lily symbolises the soul which finds its higher Egohood. The union of the lily-soul with the rose-soul was taken to express that principle in man which can link him with the Mystery of Golgotha. Therefore it was said: Over against the forces of European Initiation inaugurated by Charles the Great which were to fuse exoteric and esoteric Christianity, pure esoteric Christianity must be kept alive and continued. But among the Initiates it was said: The same soul who lived in Flos or Flor and of whom the legend tells, was reincarnated in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries as the founder of Rosicrucianism, a Mystery-School having as its aim the cultivation of an understanding of the Christ Mystery in a way suited to the new era. Thus esoteric Christianity found refuge in Rosicrucianism. Since the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries the Rosicrucian Schools have trained the Initiates who are the successors of the ancient European Mysteries and of the School of the Holy Grail. Many things have trickled through into outer life in regard to the Rosicrucian Mysteries, but much that is told is a caricature of the truth. Profound achievements of spiritual life were influenced by the mysterious threads of Rosicrucianism which found their way into civilisation. — So, for instance, there is a connection between Bacon of Verulam's New Atlantis and Rosicrucianism. This work is more than a Utopia. Bacon there tries to lead those who would revive the dim clairvoyant faculties of the old Atlanteans, to higher levels. But associated with the outer Brotherhood of the Rosicrucians is all the charlatanism, quackery and caricature that is unavoidable in our age since the discovery in the art of printing. Since printing was discovered it has been no longer possible, as it was in olden times, to let secrets remain secret. Everything comes out, caricatured and distorted! And the same terrible thing happens to the teachings given in the Anthroposophical Movement. If the Anthroposophical Movement were what it is said to be in entirely ignorant circles, it would be something to be avoided at all costs. But in reality, anthroposophical teachings are nourished to a greater extent than has yet ever been the case, from the wellsprings of the Mysteries. Goethe's greatest poetic achievements were nourished from Rosicrucian sources. It is not without significance that in his poem Die Geheimnisse he speaks of a man who was led to a house and found on its door the sign of the Rose Cross. “Who brought the roses to the Cross?” — Who were these Initiates of the European Mysteries who linked the mysteries of the rose to the mystery of the Cross? How deeply Goethe had penetrated these things is apparent, for instance when he speaks of the twelve gathered around the table — twelve as in the ancient Trottic Mysteries. Oh! Goethe knew all these things. But those who study him to-day, study only the Goethe they are capable of understanding. But although he was only able to speak a mysterious language, the time has now come to speak openly about Initiation. More and more it will become apparent that Spiritual Science does not produce dreamers who are remote from the affairs of the world, but men who are practical and active in life. It brings a new hope and confidence. To modern thinking we shall more and more be able to apply the words spoken by Faust of Wagner, the representative of materialistic thinking: “How ardently be grubs for treasures, and is happy when he finds rain-worms!” Truly, materialism is happy when it finds rain-worms and can prove that in a certain sense they are necessary to the re-organisation of everything that lives and moves upon the earth. But the spirit that flows from the Mysteries makes human thinking so supple and flexible that it can really cope with life. It could not be otherwise, for the meaning of world-evolution itself is contained in the mystery-teachings of Spiritual Science. The world and “all that therein is” is born out of the spirit; man is born and called to rise to the spirit. Spiritual Science shows us more and more that the spirit lies exhausted in matter, that physical substance is the magic robe of the Spiritual. It is for man living in the material world, to charm the spirit out of this magic robe. The Spiritual finds its resurrection in man, in the human soul that rises above itself. — To enable the soul to find this path is the task of Spiritual Science. Thus does spirit find spirit. And man will realise and understand the spirit more and more as he fashions himself in its image.

The European Mysteries and Their Initiates

https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA057/English/Singles/19090506p01.html

Berlin

6 May 1909

GA057-18

This year I shall again be giving a series of lectures on subjects related to Spiritual Science, as I have done now for several years past. Those of my audience who attended those previous lectures will know what is meant here by the term, Spiritual Science (Geisteswissenschaft). For others, let me say that it will not be my task to discuss some abstract branch of science, but a discipline which treats the spirit as something actual and real. It starts from the premise that human experience is not unavoidably restricted to sense-perceptible reality or to the findings of human reason and other cognitive faculties in so far as they are bound up with the sense-perceptible. Spiritual Science says that it is possible for human beings to penetrate behind the realm of the sense-perceptible and to make observations which are beyond the range of the ordinary intellect. This introductory lecture will describe the role of Spiritual Science in present-day life, and will show how in the past this Spiritual Science — which is as old as humanity — appeared in a form very different from the form it must take today. In speaking of the present, I naturally do not mean the immediate here and now, but the relatively long period during which spiritual life has had the particular character which has come to full development in our own time. Anyone who looks back over the spiritual life of mankind will see that “a time of transition” is a phrase to be used with care, for every period can be so described. Yet there are times when spiritual life takes a leap forward, so to speak. From the 16th century onwards, the relationship between the soul and spiritual life of human beings and the outer world has been different from what it was in earlier times. And the further back we go in human evolution, the more we find that men had different needs, different longings, and gave different answers from within themselves to questions concerning the great riddles of existence. We can gain a clear impression of these transition periods through individuals who lived in those days and had retained certain qualities of feeling, knowing and willing from earlier periods, but were impelled to meet the demands of a new age. Let us take an interesting personality and see what he makes of questions concerning the being of man and other such questions that must closely engage human minds — a personality who lived at the dawn of modern spiritual life and was endowed with the inner characteristics I have just described. I will not choose anyone familiar, but a sixteenth century thinker who was unknown outside a small circle. In his time there were many persons who retained, as he did, mediaeval habits of thinking and feeling and wished to gain knowledge in the way that had been followed for centuries, and yet were moving on towards the outlook of the coming age. I shall be naming an individual of whose external life almost nothing is historically known. From the point of view of Spiritual Science, this is thoroughly congenial. Anyone who has sojourned in the realm of Spiritual Science will know how distracting it is to find attached to a personality all the petty details of everyday life that are collected by modern biographers. On this account, we ought to be thankful that history has preserved so little about Shakespeare, for instance; the true picture is not spoilt — as it is with Goethe — by all the trivia the biographers are so fond of dragging in. I will therefore designate an individual of whom even less is known than is known about Shakespeare, a seventeenth century thinker who is of great significance for anyone who can see into the history of human thinking. In Francis Joseph Philipp, Count von Hoditz and Wolframitz, who led the life of a solitary thinker during the second half of the seventeenth century in Bohemia, we have a personality of outstanding importance from this historical point of view. In a little work entitled Libellus de nominis convenientia 1 The “Libellus de hominis convenienta” by Francis Joseph Philipp Count von Hoditz and Wolframitz is a manuscript which was discovered in the Fürstenberg Library in Prague and which was written approximately between 1696 and 1700. — I have not inquired if it has since been published in full — he set down the questions which occupied his soul. If we immerse ourselves in his soul, these questions can lead us into the issues that a reflecting man would concern himself with in those days. This lonely thinker discusses the great central problem of the being of man. With a forcefulness that springs from a deep need for knowledge, he says that nothing so disfigures a man as not to know what his being really is. Count von Hoditz turns to important figures in the history of thought, for instance to Aristotle in the fourth century B.C., and asks what Aristotle says in answer to this question — what the essential being of man really is. 2 Aristotle, 384–322 B.C. Cf. the Parva Naturalia . He says: Aristotle's answer is that man is a rational animal. Then he turns to a later thinker, Descartes, and puts the same question, and here the answer is that man is a thinking being. 3 René Descartes, 1596–1650. Cf. for example the work “Meditationes de prima Philosophia”, 1641/42. But on reflection he comes to feel that these two representative thinkers can give no answer to his question; for — as he says — in the answers of Aristotle and Descartes he wanted to learn what man is and what he ought to do. When Aristotle says that man is a rational animal, that is no answer to the question of what man is, for it throws no light on the nature of rationality. Nor does Descartes in the seventeenth century tell us what man ought to do in accordance with his nature as a thinking being. For although we may know that man is a thinking being, we do not know what he must think in order to take hold of life in the right way, in order to relate his thought to life. Thus our philosopher sought in vain for an answer to this vital question, a question that must be answered if a man is not to lose his bearings. At last he came upon something which will seem strange to a modern reader, especially if he is given to scientific ways of thought, but for our solitary thinker it was the only answer appropriate to the particular constitution of his soul. It was no help for him to know that man is a rational animal or a thinking being. At last he found his question answered by another thinker who had it from an old tradition. And he framed the answer he had thus discovered in the following words: Man in his essence is an image of the Divine. 4 With this answer Hoditz goes back to the Neo-Platonist Philo of Alexandria (see Rudolf Steiner's comments on him in Christianity as Mystical Fact , Rudolf Steiner Press, London 1972) who in turn revives the Old Testament tradition; I Moses 1, 26/27 Today we should say that man in his essence is what his whole origin in the spiritual world makes him to be. The remaining remarks by Count von Hoditz need not occupy us today. All that concerns us is that the needs of his soul drove him to an answer which went beyond anything man can see in his environment or comprehend by means of his reason. If we examine the book more closely, we find that its author had no knowledge gained direct from the spiritual world. Now if he had been troubled by the question of the relation between sun and earth, he could, even if he were not an observer himself, have found the answer somewhere among the observations collected by the new forms of scientific thought. With regard to external questions of the sense-world he could have used answers given by people who had themselves investigated the questions through their own observations and experiences. But the experiences available to him at that time gave no answer to the questions concerning man's spiritual life, his real being in so far as it is spiritual. Clearly, he had no means of finding persons who themselves had had experiences in the spiritual world and so could communicate to him the properties of the spiritual world in the same way as the scientists could impart to him their knowledge about the external world. So he turned to religious tradition and its records. He certainly assimilated his findings — this is characteristic of his quality of soul — but one can see from the way he worked that he was only able to use his intellect to give a new form to what he had found emerging from the course of history or from recorded tradition. Many people will now be inclined to ask: Are there — can there be — any persons who from their own observation and experience are able to answer questions related to the riddles of spiritual life? This is precisely what Spiritual Science will make people aware of once more: the fact that — just as research can be carried out in the sense-perceptible world — it is possible to carry out research in the spiritual world, where no physical eyes, no telescopes or microscopes are available, and that answers can thus be given from direct experience as to conditions in such a world beyond the range of the senses. We shall then recognise that there was an epoch, conditioned by the whole evolutionary progress of humanity, when other means were used to make known the findings of spiritual research, and that we now have an epoch when these findings can once more be spoken of and understanding for them can again be found. In between lay the twilight time of our solitary thinker, when human evolution took a rest, so to speak, from ascending towards the spiritual world, and preferred to rely on traditions passed down through ancient records or by word of mouth. In certain circles it began to be doubted whether it was possible for human beings to enter a spiritual world through their own powers by developing the cognitive faculties that lie hidden or slumbering within them. Are there, then, any rational grounds for saying that it is nonsensical to speak of a spiritual world that lies beyond the sense-perceptible? A glance at the progress of ordinary science should be enough to justify this question. Precisely a consideration of the wonderful advances that have been made in unraveling the secrets of external nature should indicate to anyone that a higher, super-sensible knowledge must exist. How so? If we study human evolution impartially, we cannot fail to be impressed by the exceptional progress made in recent times by the sciences concerned with the outer world. With what pride — and in a certain sense the pride is justified — do people remark that the vast, ever-increasing advance of modern science has brought to light many facts that were unknown a few centuries ago. For example, thousands of years ago the sun rose in the morning and passed across the heavens, just as it does today. That which could be seen in the surroundings of the earth and in connection with the course of the sun was the same then, for external observation, as it was in the days of Galileo, Newton, Kepler, Copernicus, and so on. But what could men say in those earlier ages about the external world? Can we suppose that the modern knowledge of which we are so justly proud has been gained by merely contemplating the external world? If the external world could itself, just as it is, give us this knowledge, there would be no need to look further: all the knowledge we have about the sense-perceptible world would have been acquired centuries ago. How is it that we know so much more and have a different view of the position of the sun and so on? It is because human understanding, human cognition concerning the external world, has developed and changed in the course of hundreds or thousands of years. Yes, these faculties were by no means the same in ancient Greece as they have come to be with us since the 16th century. Anyone who studies these changes without prejudice must say to himself: Men have acquired something new. They have learnt to see the outer world differently because of something added to those faculties which apply to the external sense-world. Hence it became clear that the sun does not revolve round the earth; these new faculties compelled men to think of the earth as going round the sun. No-one who is proud of the achievements of physical science can have any doubt that in his inner being man is capable of development, and that his powers have been remodeled from stage to stage until he has become what he is today. But he is called upon to develop more than outer powers; he has in his inner life something which enables him to recreate the world in the light of his inward capacity for knowledge. Among the finest words of Goethe are the following (in his book about Winckelmann) 5 Goethe: Winkelmann, “Antikes” and “Schönheit”; in: Goethe, Werke, Weimar Edition, vol.46 (Weimar, 1891). “if the healthy nature of man works as a unity, if he feels himself within the world as in a great, beautiful, noble and worthy whole, if harmonious ease offers him a pure and free delight: then the universe, if it could become conscious of itself, would rise in exultation at having reached its goal and would stand in wonder at the climax of its own being and becoming.” And again: “Man, placed at the summit of Nature, is again a whole new nature, which must in turn achieve a summit of its own. He ascends towards that height when he permeates himself with all perfections and virtues, summons forth order, selection, harmony and meaning, and attains in the end to the creation of a work of art.” So man can feel that he has been born out of the forces he can see with his eyes and grasp with his reason. But if he applies the unbiased observation we have mentioned, he will see that not only external Nature has forces which develop until they are observed by the human eye, heard by the human ear, grasped by the human reason. In the same way a study of human evolution will show that something evolves within man; the faculties for gaining exact knowledge of nature were at first asleep within him, and have awakened by stages in the course of time. Now they are fully awake, and it is these faculties which have made possible the great progress of physical science. Is it then inevitable that these inner faculties should remain as they are now, equipped only to reflect the outer world? Is it not perfectly reasonable to ask whether the human soul may not possess other hidden powers that can be awakened? May it not be that if he develops further the powers that lie hidden and slumbering within him, they will be spiritually illuminated, so that his spiritual eye and spiritual ear — as Goethe calls them 6 Cf. for example Goethe's essay “Wenige Bemerkungen” in Goethes Naturwissenschaftliche Schriften , edited by Rudolf Steiner, Dornach, 1975, vol. 1, p.107 or in “Entwurf einer Einleitung in die vergleichende Anatomie”, op. cit., p.262: “We learn to see with the eyes of the spirit, without which we grope around blindly as everywhere so also in natural science”. Also Faust II , sc. 1, 1 1.4667. — will be opened and will enable him to perceive a spiritual world behind the sense-world? To anyone who follows this thought through without prejudice, it will not seem nonsensical that hidden forces should be developed to open the way into the super-sensible world and to answer the questions: What is man in his real being? If he is an image of the spiritual world, what, then, is this spiritual world? If we describe man in external terms and call to mind his gestures, instincts and so forth, we shall find all these characteristics represented imperfectly in lower beings. We shall see his external semblance as an integration of instincts, gestures and forces which are divided up among a number of lower creatures. We can comprehend this because we see around us the elements from which man has evolved into man. Might it not be possible then, to use these developed forces to penetrate similarly into a spiritual external world and to see there beings, forces and objects, just as we see stones, plants and animals in the physical world? Might it not be possible to observe spiritual processes which would throw light on man's inner life, just as it is possible to clarify his relationship to the outer world? There has been, however, an interval between the old and the modern way of communicating Spiritual Science. This was a time of rest for the greater part of mankind. Nothing new was discovered; the old sources and traditions were worked over again and again. For the period in question this was quite right; every period has a characteristic way of meeting its fundamental needs. So this interlude occurred, and we must realise that while it lasted men were in a special situation, different both from what had been in the past and from what would be in the future. In a certain sense they became unaccustomed to looking for the soul's hidden faculties, which could have given insight into the spiritual world. So a time drew on when men could no longer believe or understand that the inner development of hidden faculties leads to super-sensible knowledge. Even then, one fact could hardly be denied: that in human beings there is something invisible. For how could it be thought that human reason, for example, is a visible entity? What sort of impartial thinking could fail to admit that human cognition is by its nature a super-sensible faculty? Knowledge of this fact was never quite lost, even in the time when men had ceased to believe that super-sensible faculties within the soul could be developed so as to give access to the super-sensible. One particular thinker reduced this faculty to its smallest limit: it was impossible, he said, for men to penetrate by super-sensible vision into a world that comes objectively before us as a spiritual world, just as animals, plants and minerals and other people are encountered in the physical world. Yet even he had to recognise impartially that something super-sensible does exist and cannot be denied. This thinker was Kant, 7 Immanuel Kant, 1724–1804. Cf. the chapter “The time of Kant and Goethe” in Rudolf Steiner's The Riddles of Philosophy , Anthroposophic Press, New York 1973. who thus brought an earlier phase of human evolution to a certain conclusion. For what does he think about man's relationship to a super-sensible, spiritual world? He does not deny that a man observes something super-sensible when he looks into himself, and that for this purpose he employs faculties of knowledge which cannot be perceived by physical eyes, however far the refinement of our physical instruments may be carried. Kant, then, does point to something super-sensible; the faculties used by the soul to make for itself a picture of the outer world. But he goes on to say that this is all that can be known concerning a super-sensible world. His opinion is that wherever a man may turn his gaze, he sees only this one thing he can call super-sensible: the super-sensible element contained in his senses in order that he may perceive and grasp and understand the existence of the sense-world. In the Kantian philosophy, accordingly, there is no path that can lead to observation or experience of the spiritual world. The one thing Kant admits is the possibility of recognising that knowledge of the external world cannot be attained by the senses, but only by super-sensible means. This is the sole experience of the super-sensible that man can have. That is the historically important feature of Kant's philosophy. But in Kant's argument it cannot be denied that when man uses his thinking in connection with his actions and deeds, he has the means to affect the sense-perceptible world. Thus, Kant had to recognise that a human being does not follow only instinctive impulses, as lower animals do; he also follows impulses from within his soul, and these can raise him far above subservience to mere instinct. There are countless examples of people who are tempted by a seductive impulse to do something, but they resist the temptation and take as their guide to action something that cannot come from an external stimulus. We need only think of the great martyrs, who gave up everything the sense-world could offer for something that was to lead them beyond the sense-world. Or we need only point to the experience of conscience in the human soul, even in the Kantian sense. When a man encounters something ever so charming and tempting, conscience can tell him not to be lured away by it, but to follow the voice that speaks to him from spiritual depths, an indomitable voice within his soul. And so for Kant it was certain that in man's inner being there is such a voice, and that what it says cannot be compared with any message from the outer world. Kant called it the categorical imperatives significant phrase. But he goes on to say that man can get no further than this voice from the soul as a means of acting on the world from out of the super-sensible, for he cannot rise beyond the world of the senses. He feels that duty, the categorical imperative, conscience, speak from within him, but he cannot penetrate into the realm from which they come. Kant's philosophy allows man to go no further than the boundary of the super-sensible world. Everything else that resides in the realm from which duty, conscience and the categorical imperative emanate is shut off from observation, although it is of the same super-sensible nature as the soul. Man cannot enter that realm; at most he can draw conclusions about it. He can say to himself: Duty speaks to me, but I am weak; in the ordinary world I cannot carry out fully the injunctions of duty and conscience. Therefore I must accept the fact that my being is not confined to the world of the senses, but has a significance beyond that world. I can hold this before me as a belief, but it is not possible for me to penetrate into the world beyond the senses; the world from which come the voices of moral consciousness, duty and conscience, the categorical imperative. We will now turn to someone who in this context was the exact antithesis of Kant: I mean Goethe. Anyone who truly compares the souls of these two men will see that they are diametrically opposed in their attitudes towards the most important problems of knowledge. Goethe, after absorbing all that Kant had to say about these problems, maintained on the ground of his own inner experience that Kant was wrong. Kant, says Goethe, claims that man has the power to form intellectual, conceptual judgments, but is not endowed with any contemplative faculty which could give direct experience of the spiritual world. But — Goethe continues — anyone who has exercised himself with the whole force of his personality to wrest his way from the sense-world to the super-sensible, as I have done, will know that we are not limited to drawing conclusions, but through a contemplative power of judgement we are able actually to raise ourselves into the spiritual world. Such was Goethe's personal reply to Kant. He emphasises that anyone who asserts the existence of this contemplative judgement is embarking on an adventure of reason, but he adds that from his own experience he has courageously gone through this adventure! 8 Goethe, “Anschauende Urteilskraft” in: Goethes Naturwissenschaftliche Schriften , edited by Rudolf Steiner, Dornach, 1975, vol. 1, p.1 15/116. Yet in the recognition of what Goethe calls “contemplative judgement” lies the essence of Spiritual Science, for it leads, as Goethe knew, into a spiritual world; and it can be developed, raised to ever higher levels, so as to bring about direct vision, immediate experience, of that world, The fruits of this enhanced intuition are the content of true Spiritual Science. In coming lectures we shall be concerned with these fruits: with the results of a science which has its source in the development of hidden faculties in the human soul, for they enable man to gaze into a spiritual world, just as through the external instruments of the senses he is able to gaze into the realms of chemistry and physics. It could now be asked: Does this possibility of developing hidden faculties that slumber in the soul belong only to our time, or has it always existed? A study of the course of human history from a spiritual-scientific point of view teaches us that there existed ancient stores of wisdom, parts of which were condensed into those writings and traditions which survived during the intermediate period I described earlier. This same Spiritual Science also shows us that today it is again possible not merely to proclaim the old, but to speak of what the human soul can itself achieve by development of the forces and faculties slumbering within it; so that a healthy judgment, even where human beings cannot themselves see into the spiritual world, can understand the findings of the spiritual researcher. The contemplative judgment that Goethe had in mind when he spoke out against Kant, is in a certain sense the beginning of the upward path of knowledge which today is by no means unexplored. Spiritual Science is therefore able to show, as we shall see, that there are hidden faculties of knowledge which by ascending order penetrate ever further into the spiritual world. When we speak of knowledge, we generally mean knowledge of the ordinary world, “material knowledge”; but we can also speak of “imaginative knowledge”, “inspired knowledge” and finally “intuitive knowledge”. 9 Cf. fundamental account of the stages of knowledge in Rudolf Steiner, Occult Science, An Outline , Rudolf Steiner Press, London 1979, in the chapter “Knowledge of the Higher Worlds”. These are stages of the soul's progress into the super-sensible world which are also experienced by the individual spiritual researcher in accord with the constitution of the soul today. Similar paths were followed by the spiritual researcher in times gone by. But spiritual research has no meaning if it is to remain the possession of a few; it cannot limit itself to a small circle. Certainly, anything an ordinary scientist has to say about the nature of plants or about processes in the animal world can be of service to all mankind, even though this knowledge is actually possessed by a small circle of botanists, zoologists and so on. But spiritual research is not like that. It has to do with the needs of every human soul; with questions related to the inmost joys and sorrows of the soul; with knowledge that enables the human being to endure his destiny, and in such a way that he experiences inner contentment and bliss even if destiny brings him sorrow and suffering. If certain questions remain unanswered, men are left desolate and empty, and precisely they are the concern of Spiritual Science. They are not questions that can be dealt with only in restricted circles; they concern us all, at whatever stage of development and culture we may be, for the answering of them is spiritual food for each and every Soul. This has always been so, at all times. And if Spiritual Science is to speak to mankind in this way, it must find means of making itself understood by all who wish to understand it. This entails that it must direct itself to those powers which are most fully developed during a given period, so that they can respond to what the spiritual researcher has to impart. Since human nature changes from epoch to epoch and the soul is always acquiring new aptitudes, it is natural that in the past Spiritual Science should have spoken differently about the most burning questions that concern the soul. In remote antiquity it spoke to a humanity which would never have understood the way it speaks today, for the soul-forces which have now developed were non-existent then. If Spiritual Science had been presented in the way appropriate for the present day, it would have been as though one were talking to plants. In ancient times, accordingly, the spiritual researcher had to use other means. And if we look back into remote antiquity, Spiritual Science itself tells us that in order to give answers in a form adapted to the soul-powers of mankind in those times, a different preparation was necessary for those who were training themselves to gaze into the spiritual world; they had to cultivate powers other than those needed for speaking to present-day mankind. Men who develop the forces that slumber in the soul in order to gaze into the spiritual world and to see spiritual beings there, as we see stones, plants and animals in the physical world — these men are and always have been called by Spiritual Science, Initiates, and the experiences that the soul has to undergo in order to achieve this faculty is called Initiation. But in the past the way to it was different from what it is today, for the mission of Spiritual Science is always changing. The old Initiation, which had to be gone through by those who had to speak to the people in ancient times, led them to an immediate experience of the spiritual world. They could see into surrounding realms which are higher than those perceived through the senses. But they had to transform what they saw into symbolic pictures, so that people could understand it. Indeed, it was only in pictures that the old Initiates could express what they had seen, but these pictures embraced everything that could interest people in those days. These pictures, drawn from real experience, are preserved for us in myths and legends which have come down from the most diverse periods and peoples. In academic circles these myths and legends are attributed to the popular imagination. Those who are cognisant of the facts know that myths and legends derive from super-sensible vision, and that in every genuine myth and legend we must see an externalised picture of something a spiritual researcher has experienced, or, in Goethe's words, what he has seen with the spiritual eye or heard with the spiritual ear. We come to understand legends and myths only when we take them as images expressing a real knowledge of the spiritual world. They are pictures through which the widest circles of people could be reached. It is a mistake to assume — as it so often is nowadays — that the human soul has always been just as it is in our century. The soul has changed; its receptivity was quite different in the past. A person was satisfied then if he received the picture given in the myth, for he was inspired by the picture to bring an intuitive vision of the outer world much more directly before his soul. Today myths are regarded as fantasy; but when in former times the myth sank into a person's soul, secrets of human nature were shown to him. When he looked at the clouds or the sun and so forth, he understood as a matter of course what the myth had set before him. In this way something we could call higher knowledge was given to a minority in symbolic form. While today we talk and must talk in straightforward language, it would be impossible to express in our terms what the souls of the old sages or initiates received, for neither the initiates nor their hearers had the soul-forces we have now developed. In those early times the only valid forms of expression were pictorial. These pictures are preserved in a literature which strikes a modern reader as very strange. Now and then, especially if one is prompted by curiosity as well as by a desire for knowledge, one comes across an old book containing remarkable pictures which show, for example, the interconnections between the planets, together with all sorts of geometrical figures, triangles, polygons and so on. Anyone who applies a modern intellect to these pictures, without having acquired a special taste for them, will say: What can one do with all this stuff, the so-called Key of Solomon 10 The symbol of two intertwined triangles, the one pointing upwards, the other downwards. as a traditional symbol, these triangles and polygons and such-like? Certainly, the spiritual researcher will agree that from the standpoint of modern culture nothing can be made of all this. But when the pictures were first given to students, something in their souls really was aroused. Today the human soul is different. It has had to develop in such a way as to give modern answers to questions about nature and life, and so it cannot respond in the old way to such things as two interlocked triangles, one pointing upwards, the other downwards. In former times, this picture could kindle an active response; the soul gazed into it and something emerging from within it was perceived. Just as nowadays the eye can look through a microscope and see, for example, plant-cells that cannot be seen without it, so did these symbolic figures serve as instruments for the soul. A man who held the Key of Solomon as a picture before his soul could gain a glimpse of the spiritual world. With our modern souls this is not possible, and so the secrets of the spiritual world which are handed down in these old writings can no longer be knowledge in the original sense, and those who give them out as knowledge, or who did so in the 19th century, are doing something out of line with the facts. That is why one cannot do anything with writings such as those of Eliphas Levi, 11 Eliphas Levi, 1810–1875, occultist. Pseudonym for the originally catholic deacon Alphonse Louis Constant from Paris. Dogme et Rituel de la haute Magie , 2 vols, 1854 and 1856. for instance, for in our time it is antiquated to present these symbols as purporting to throw light on the spiritual world. In earlier times, however, it was proper for Spiritual Science to speak to the human soul through the powerful pictures of myth and legend, or alternatively through symbols of the kind I have just described. Then came the intermediate period, when knowledge of the spiritual world was handed down from one generation to the next in writing or by oral tradition. Even if we study only external history, we can readily see how it was handed down. In the very early days of Christianity there was a sect in North Africa called the Therapeutae 12 Philo of Alexandria (25 B.C. –50 A.D. ) describes the life and thought of the Therapeutae in his work “De vital contemplative”. Cf. also Rudolf Steiner, Christianity as Mystical Fact , Rudolf Steiner Press, London 1972, p.137. a man who had been initiated into their knowledge said that they possessed the ancient writings of their founders, who could still see into the spiritual world. Their successors could receive only what these writings had to say, or at most what could be discerned in them by those who had achieved some degree of spiritual development. If we pass on to the Middle Ages, we find certain outstanding persons saying: we have certain cognitive faculties, we have reason; then, beyond ordinary reason we have faculties which can rise to a comprehension of certain secrets of existence; but there are other secrets and mysteries of existence which are only accessible by revelation. They are beyond the range of faculties which can be developed, they can be searched for only in ancient writings. Hence arose the great mediaeval split between those things that can be known by reason and those that must be believed because they are passed down by tradition, are revelation. 13 Decisive in this respect are the writings of Thomas Aquinas, especially the four books of the Summa philosophica . Cf. also Rudolf Steiner, The Riddles of Philosophy and The Redemption of Thinking . And it was quite in keeping with the outlook of those times that the frontier between reason and faith should be clearly marked. This was justified for that period, for the time had passed when certain mathematical signs could be used to call forth faculties of cognition in the human soul. Right up to modern times, a person had only one means of grasping the super-sensible: looking into his own soul, as Augustine, 14 St. Augustine, 354–430 A.D.. Had the greatest influence of the Church Fathers on theology and philosophy. for example, did to some extent. It was no longer possible to see in the outer world anything that revealed deep inner secrets. Symbols had come to be regarded as mere fantasies. One thing only survived: a recognition that the super-sensible world corresponded to the super-sensible in man, so that a man could say to himself: You are able to think, but your thought is limited by space and time, while in the spiritual world there is a Being who is pure thought. You have a limited capacity for love, whereas in the spiritual world there is a Being who is perfect love. When the spiritual world was represented for a human being in terms of his own inner experience, his inner life could extend to a vision of nature permeated by the Divine; then he had consciousness of God. But for particular facts he could turn only to information given in ancient writings, for in himself he had nothing that could lead him into the spiritual world. Then came the later times which brought the proud achievements of natural science. These are the times when faculties which could go beyond the sense-perceptible emerged not only in those who achieved scientific knowledge, but in all men. Something in the soul came to understand that the picture given to the senses is not the real thing, and to realise that truth and appearance are contraries. This new faculty, which is able to discern outward nature in a form not given to the senses, will be increasingly understood by those who today penetrate as researchers into the spiritual world and are then able to report that one can see a spiritual world and spiritual beings, just as down here in the sense-perceptible world one sees animals, plants and minerals. Hence the spiritual researcher has to speak of realms which are not far removed from present-day understanding. And we shall see how the symbols which were once a means for gaining knowledge of the spiritual world have become an aid to spiritual development. The Key of Solomon, for instance, which once called forth in the soul a real spiritual perception, does so no longer. But if today the soul allows itself to be acted on by what the spiritual researcher can explain concerning this symbol, something in the soul is aroused, and this can lead a person on by stages into the spiritual world. Then, when he has gained vision of the spiritual world, he can express what he has seen in the same logical terms that apply to external science. Spiritual Science or occultism must therefore speak in a way that can be grasped by anyone who has a broad enough understanding. Whatever the spiritual researcher has to impart must be clothed in the conceptual terms which are customary in other sciences, or due regard would not be paid to the needs of the times. Not everyone can see immediately into the spiritual world, but since the appropriate forces of reason and feeling are now existent in every soul, Spiritual Science, if rightly presented, can be grasped by every normal person with his ordinary reason. The spiritual researcher is now again in a position to present what our solitary thinker said to himself: Man in his essence is an image of the Godhead. If we want to understand the physical nature of man, we look to the relevant findings of physical research. If we want to understand his inner spiritual being, we look to the realm which the spiritual researcher is able to investigate. Then we see that man does not come into existence at birth or at conception, only to pass out of existence at death, but that besides the physical part of his organism he has super-sensible members. If we understand the nature of these members, we penetrate into the realm where faith passes over into knowledge. And when Kant, in the evening of an older period, said that we can recognise the categorical imperative, but that no-one can penetrate with conscious vision into the realm of freedom, of divine being and immortality, he was expressing only the experience natural to his time. Spiritual Science will show that we can penetrate into a spiritual world; that just as the eye equipped with a microscope can penetrate into realms beyond the range of the naked eye, so can the soul equipped with the means of Spiritual Science penetrate into an otherwise inaccessible spiritual world, where love, conscience, freedom and immortality can be known, even as we know animals, plants and minerals in the physical world. In subsequent lectures we will go further into this. If once more we look now at the relationship between the spiritual researcher and his public, and at the difference between the past and present of Spiritual Science, we can say: The symbolic pictures used by spiritual researchers in the past acted directly on the human soul, because what today we call the faculties of reason and understanding were not yet present. The pictures gave direct vision of the spiritual world, and the ordinary man could not test with his reason what the spiritual researcher communicated to him through them. The pictures acted with the force of suggestion, of inspiration; a man subjected to them was carried away and could not resist them. Anyone who was given a false picture was thus delivered over to those who gave it to him. Therefore, in those early times it was of the utmost importance that those who rose into the spiritual world should be able to inspire absolute confidence and firm belief in their trustworthiness; for if they misused their power they had in their hands an instrument which they could exploit in the worst possible way. Hence in the history of Spiritual Science there are periods of degeneration as well as times of brilliance; times in which the power of untrustworthy initiates was misused. How the initiate in those early times behaved towards his public depended to the utmost degree on himself alone. At the present time — and one might say, thank God for it! — all this is somewhat different. Since the change does not come about all at once, it is still necessary that the initiate should be a trustworthy person, and it will then be justified to feel every confidence in him. But people are already in a different relationship to the spiritual researcher; if he is to speak in accordance with the demands of his time he must speak in such a way that every unbiased mind can understand him, if the willingness to understand him is there. This is, of course, far removed from saying that everyone who could understand must now understand. But reason can now be the judge of what an individual can understand, and therefore everyone who devotes himself to Spiritual Science should bring his unbiased judgment to bear on it. From now onwards this will be the mission of Spiritual Science: to rise into a spiritual world, through the development of hidden powers, just as the physiologist penetrates through the microscope into a realm of the smallest entities, invisible to the naked eye. And ordinary intelligence will be able to test the findings of spiritual research, as it can test the findings of the physiologist, the botanist, and so on. A healthy intelligence will be able to say of the spiritual researcher's findings: they are all consistent with one another. Modern man will come to the point of saying to himself: My reason tells me that it can be so, and by using my reason I can grasp clearly what the spiritual researcher has to tell. And that is how the spiritual researcher, for his part, should speak if he feels himself to be truly at one with the mission of Spiritual Science at the present time. But there will be a time of transition also today. For since the means to achieve spiritual development are available and can be used wrongly, many people whose purpose is not pure, whose sense of duty is not sacred and whose conscience is not infallible, will find their way into a spiritual world. But then, instead of behaving like a spiritual researcher who can know from his own experience whether the things he sees are in accord with the facts, these pretended researchers will impart information that goes against the facts. Moreover, since people can come only by slow degrees to apply their reasoning powers to understanding what the spiritual researcher says, we must expect that charlatanry, humbug and superstition will flourish preeminently in this realm. But the situation is changing. Man now has himself to blame if, without wishing to use his intellect, he is led by a certain curiosity to believe blindly in those who pass themselves off as spiritual investigators, so-called. Because men are too comfort-loving to apply their reason, and prefer a blind faith to thinking for themselves, it is possible that nowadays we may have, instead of the old initiate who misused his power, the modern charlatan who imposes on people not the truth, but something he perhaps takes for truth. This is possible because today we are at the beginning of an evolutionary phase. There is nothing to which a man should apply his reason more rigorously than the communications that can come to him from Spiritual Science. People can lay part of the blame on themselves if they fall victim to charlatanry and humbug; for these falsities will bear abundant fruit, as indeed they have done already in our time. This is something that must not go unnoticed when we are speaking of the mission of Spiritual science today. Anyone who listens now to a spiritual researcher — not in a willful, negative way that casts immediate doubt on everything, but with a readiness to test everything in the light of healthy reason — will soon feel how Spiritual Science can bring hope and consolation in difficult hours, and can throw light on the great riddles of existence. He will come to feel that these riddles and the great questions of destiny can be resolved through Spiritual Science; he will come to know what part of him is subject to birth and death, and what is the eternal core of his being. In brief, it will be possible — as we shall show in later lectures — that, given good will and the wish to strengthen himself by taking in and working over inwardly the communications of Spiritual Science, he will be able to say with deepest feeling: What Goethe divined and said in his youth is true, and so are the lines he wrote in his maturity and gave to Faust to speak: The spirit world is ever open, Dead is thy heart, thy sense-veil closely drawn! Up, scholar, let thy breast unwearied Bathe in the roseate hues of dawn! 15 Faust I , sc.1,11.443–446. In the dawn-lines of the Spirit! ˂˂ Previous Table of Contents Next ˃˃ Yet in the recognition of what Goethe calls “contemplative judgement” lies the essence of Spiritual Science, for it leads, as Goethe knew, into a spiritual world; and it can be developed, raised to ever higher levels, so as to bring about direct vision, immediate experience, of that world, The fruits of this enhanced intuition are the content of true Spiritual Science. In coming lectures we shall be concerned with these fruits: with the results of a science which has its source in the development of hidden faculties in the human soul, for they enable man to gaze into a spiritual world, just as through the external instruments of the senses he is able to gaze into the realms of chemistry and physics. It could now be asked: Does this possibility of developing hidden faculties that slumber in the soul belong only to our time, or has it always existed? A study of the course of human history from a spiritual-scientific point of view teaches us that there existed ancient stores of wisdom, parts of which were condensed into those writings and traditions which survived during the intermediate period I described earlier. This same Spiritual Science also shows us that today it is again possible not merely to proclaim the old, but to speak of what the human soul can itself achieve by development of the forces and faculties slumbering within it; so that a healthy judgment, even where human beings cannot themselves see into the spiritual world, can understand the findings of the spiritual researcher. The contemplative judgment that Goethe had in mind when he spoke out against Kant, is in a certain sense the beginning of the upward path of knowledge which today is by no means unexplored. Spiritual Science is therefore able to show, as we shall see, that there are hidden faculties of knowledge which by ascending order penetrate ever further into the spiritual world. When we speak of knowledge, we generally mean knowledge of the ordinary world, “material knowledge”; but we can also speak of “imaginative knowledge”, “inspired knowledge” and finally “intuitive knowledge”. 9 Cf. fundamental account of the stages of knowledge in Rudolf Steiner, Occult Science, An Outline , Rudolf Steiner Press, London 1979, in the chapter “Knowledge of the Higher Worlds”. These are stages of the soul's progress into the super-sensible world which are also experienced by the individual spiritual researcher in accord with the constitution of the soul today. Similar paths were followed by the spiritual researcher in times gone by. But spiritual research has no meaning if it is to remain the possession of a few; it cannot limit itself to a small circle. Certainly, anything an ordinary scientist has to say about the nature of plants or about processes in the animal world can be of service to all mankind, even though this knowledge is actually possessed by a small circle of botanists, zoologists and so on. But spiritual research is not like that. It has to do with the needs of every human soul; with questions related to the inmost joys and sorrows of the soul; with knowledge that enables the human being to endure his destiny, and in such a way that he experiences inner contentment and bliss even if destiny brings him sorrow and suffering. If certain questions remain unanswered, men are left desolate and empty, and precisely they are the concern of Spiritual Science. They are not questions that can be dealt with only in restricted circles; they concern us all, at whatever stage of development and culture we may be, for the answering of them is spiritual food for each and every Soul. This has always been so, at all times. And if Spiritual Science is to speak to mankind in this way, it must find means of making itself understood by all who wish to understand it. This entails that it must direct itself to those powers which are most fully developed during a given period, so that they can respond to what the spiritual researcher has to impart. Since human nature changes from epoch to epoch and the soul is always acquiring new aptitudes, it is natural that in the past Spiritual Science should have spoken differently about the most burning questions that concern the soul. In remote antiquity it spoke to a humanity which would never have understood the way it speaks today, for the soul-forces which have now developed were non-existent then. If Spiritual Science had been presented in the way appropriate for the present day, it would have been as though one were talking to plants. In ancient times, accordingly, the spiritual researcher had to use other means. And if we look back into remote antiquity, Spiritual Science itself tells us that in order to give answers in a form adapted to the soul-powers of mankind in those times, a different preparation was necessary for those who were training themselves to gaze into the spiritual world; they had to cultivate powers other than those needed for speaking to present-day mankind. Men who develop the forces that slumber in the soul in order to gaze into the spiritual world and to see spiritual beings there, as we see stones, plants and animals in the physical world — these men are and always have been called by Spiritual Science, Initiates, and the experiences that the soul has to undergo in order to achieve this faculty is called Initiation. But in the past the way to it was different from what it is today, for the mission of Spiritual Science is always changing. The old Initiation, which had to be gone through by those who had to speak to the people in ancient times, led them to an immediate experience of the spiritual world. They could see into surrounding realms which are higher than those perceived through the senses. But they had to transform what they saw into symbolic pictures, so that people could understand it. Indeed, it was only in pictures that the old Initiates could express what they had seen, but these pictures embraced everything that could interest people in those days. These pictures, drawn from real experience, are preserved for us in myths and legends which have come down from the most diverse periods and peoples. In academic circles these myths and legends are attributed to the popular imagination. Those who are cognisant of the facts know that myths and legends derive from super-sensible vision, and that in every genuine myth and legend we must see an externalised picture of something a spiritual researcher has experienced, or, in Goethe's words, what he has seen with the spiritual eye or heard with the spiritual ear. We come to understand legends and myths only when we take them as images expressing a real knowledge of the spiritual world. They are pictures through which the widest circles of people could be reached. It is a mistake to assume — as it so often is nowadays — that the human soul has always been just as it is in our century. The soul has changed; its receptivity was quite different in the past. A person was satisfied then if he received the picture given in the myth, for he was inspired by the picture to bring an intuitive vision of the outer world much more directly before his soul. Today myths are regarded as fantasy; but when in former times the myth sank into a person's soul, secrets of human nature were shown to him. When he looked at the clouds or the sun and so forth, he understood as a matter of course what the myth had set before him. In this way something we could call higher knowledge was given to a minority in symbolic form. While today we talk and must talk in straightforward language, it would be impossible to express in our terms what the souls of the old sages or initiates received, for neither the initiates nor their hearers had the soul-forces we have now developed. In those early times the only valid forms of expression were pictorial. These pictures are preserved in a literature which strikes a modern reader as very strange. Now and then, especially if one is prompted by curiosity as well as by a desire for knowledge, one comes across an old book containing remarkable pictures which show, for example, the interconnections between the planets, together with all sorts of geometrical figures, triangles, polygons and so on. Anyone who applies a modern intellect to these pictures, without having acquired a special taste for them, will say: What can one do with all this stuff, the so-called Key of Solomon 10 The symbol of two intertwined triangles, the one pointing upwards, the other downwards. as a traditional symbol, these triangles and polygons and such-like? Certainly, the spiritual researcher will agree that from the standpoint of modern culture nothing can be made of all this. But when the pictures were first given to students, something in their souls really was aroused. Today the human soul is different. It has had to develop in such a way as to give modern answers to questions about nature and life, and so it cannot respond in the old way to such things as two interlocked triangles, one pointing upwards, the other downwards. In former times, this picture could kindle an active response; the soul gazed into it and something emerging from within it was perceived. Just as nowadays the eye can look through a microscope and see, for example, plant-cells that cannot be seen without it, so did these symbolic figures serve as instruments for the soul. A man who held the Key of Solomon as a picture before his soul could gain a glimpse of the spiritual world. With our modern souls this is not possible, and so the secrets of the spiritual world which are handed down in these old writings can no longer be knowledge in the original sense, and those who give them out as knowledge, or who did so in the 19th century, are doing something out of line with the facts. That is why one cannot do anything with writings such as those of Eliphas Levi, 11 Eliphas Levi, 1810–1875, occultist. Pseudonym for the originally catholic deacon Alphonse Louis Constant from Paris. Dogme et Rituel de la haute Magie , 2 vols, 1854 and 1856. for instance, for in our time it is antiquated to present these symbols as purporting to throw light on the spiritual world. In earlier times, however, it was proper for Spiritual Science to speak to the human soul through the powerful pictures of myth and legend, or alternatively through symbols of the kind I have just described. Then came the intermediate period, when knowledge of the spiritual world was handed down from one generation to the next in writing or by oral tradition. Even if we study only external history, we can readily see how it was handed down. In the very early days of Christianity there was a sect in North Africa called the Therapeutae 12 Philo of Alexandria (25 B.C. –50 A.D. ) describes the life and thought of the Therapeutae in his work “De vital contemplative”. Cf. also Rudolf Steiner, Christianity as Mystical Fact , Rudolf Steiner Press, London 1972, p.137. a man who had been initiated into their knowledge said that they possessed the ancient writings of their founders, who could still see into the spiritual world. Their successors could receive only what these writings had to say, or at most what could be discerned in them by those who had achieved some degree of spiritual development. If we pass on to the Middle Ages, we find certain outstanding persons saying: we have certain cognitive faculties, we have reason; then, beyond ordinary reason we have faculties which can rise to a comprehension of certain secrets of existence; but there are other secrets and mysteries of existence which are only accessible by revelation. They are beyond the range of faculties which can be developed, they can be searched for only in ancient writings. Hence arose the great mediaeval split between those things that can be known by reason and those that must be believed because they are passed down by tradition, are revelation. 13 Decisive in this respect are the writings of Thomas Aquinas, especially the four books of the Summa philosophica . Cf. also Rudolf Steiner, The Riddles of Philosophy and The Redemption of Thinking . And it was quite in keeping with the outlook of those times that the frontier between reason and faith should be clearly marked. This was justified for that period, for the time had passed when certain mathematical signs could be used to call forth faculties of cognition in the human soul. Right up to modern times, a person had only one means of grasping the super-sensible: looking into his own soul, as Augustine, 14 St. Augustine, 354–430 A.D.. Had the greatest influence of the Church Fathers on theology and philosophy. for example, did to some extent. It was no longer possible to see in the outer world anything that revealed deep inner secrets. Symbols had come to be regarded as mere fantasies. One thing only survived: a recognition that the super-sensible world corresponded to the super-sensible in man, so that a man could say to himself: You are able to think, but your thought is limited by space and time, while in the spiritual world there is a Being who is pure thought. You have a limited capacity for love, whereas in the spiritual world there is a Being who is perfect love. When the spiritual world was represented for a human being in terms of his own inner experience, his inner life could extend to a vision of nature permeated by the Divine; then he had consciousness of God. But for particular facts he could turn only to information given in ancient writings, for in himself he had nothing that could lead him into the spiritual world. Then came the later times which brought the proud achievements of natural science. These are the times when faculties which could go beyond the sense-perceptible emerged not only in those who achieved scientific knowledge, but in all men. Something in the soul came to understand that the picture given to the senses is not the real thing, and to realise that truth and appearance are contraries. This new faculty, which is able to discern outward nature in a form not given to the senses, will be increasingly understood by those who today penetrate as researchers into the spiritual world and are then able to report that one can see a spiritual world and spiritual beings, just as down here in the sense-perceptible world one sees animals, plants and minerals. Hence the spiritual researcher has to speak of realms which are not far removed from present-day understanding. And we shall see how the symbols which were once a means for gaining knowledge of the spiritual world have become an aid to spiritual development. The Key of Solomon, for instance, which once called forth in the soul a real spiritual perception, does so no longer. But if today the soul allows itself to be acted on by what the spiritual researcher can explain concerning this symbol, something in the soul is aroused, and this can lead a person on by stages into the spiritual world. Then, when he has gained vision of the spiritual world, he can express what he has seen in the same logical terms that apply to external science. Spiritual Science or occultism must therefore speak in a way that can be grasped by anyone who has a broad enough understanding. Whatever the spiritual researcher has to impart must be clothed in the conceptual terms which are customary in other sciences, or due regard would not be paid to the needs of the times. Not everyone can see immediately into the spiritual world, but since the appropriate forces of reason and feeling are now existent in every soul, Spiritual Science, if rightly presented, can be grasped by every normal person with his ordinary reason. The spiritual researcher is now again in a position to present what our solitary thinker said to himself: Man in his essence is an image of the Godhead. If we want to understand the physical nature of man, we look to the relevant findings of physical research. If we want to understand his inner spiritual being, we look to the realm which the spiritual researcher is able to investigate. Then we see that man does not come into existence at birth or at conception, only to pass out of existence at death, but that besides the physical part of his organism he has super-sensible members. If we understand the nature of these members, we penetrate into the realm where faith passes over into knowledge. And when Kant, in the evening of an older period, said that we can recognise the categorical imperative, but that no-one can penetrate with conscious vision into the realm of freedom, of divine being and immortality, he was expressing only the experience natural to his time. Spiritual Science will show that we can penetrate into a spiritual world; that just as the eye equipped with a microscope can penetrate into realms beyond the range of the naked eye, so can the soul equipped with the means of Spiritual Science penetrate into an otherwise inaccessible spiritual world, where love, conscience, freedom and immortality can be known, even as we know animals, plants and minerals in the physical world. In subsequent lectures we will go further into this. If once more we look now at the relationship between the spiritual researcher and his public, and at the difference between the past and present of Spiritual Science, we can say: The symbolic pictures used by spiritual researchers in the past acted directly on the human soul, because what today we call the faculties of reason and understanding were not yet present. The pictures gave direct vision of the spiritual world, and the ordinary man could not test with his reason what the spiritual researcher communicated to him through them. The pictures acted with the force of suggestion, of inspiration; a man subjected to them was carried away and could not resist them. Anyone who was given a false picture was thus delivered over to those who gave it to him. Therefore, in those early times it was of the utmost importance that those who rose into the spiritual world should be able to inspire absolute confidence and firm belief in their trustworthiness; for if they misused their power they had in their hands an instrument which they could exploit in the worst possible way. Hence in the history of Spiritual Science there are periods of degeneration as well as times of brilliance; times in which the power of untrustworthy initiates was misused. How the initiate in those early times behaved towards his public depended to the utmost degree on himself alone. At the present time — and one might say, thank God for it! — all this is somewhat different. Since the change does not come about all at once, it is still necessary that the initiate should be a trustworthy person, and it will then be justified to feel every confidence in him. But people are already in a different relationship to the spiritual researcher; if he is to speak in accordance with the demands of his time he must speak in such a way that every unbiased mind can understand him, if the willingness to understand him is there. This is, of course, far removed from saying that everyone who could understand must now understand. But reason can now be the judge of what an individual can understand, and therefore everyone who devotes himself to Spiritual Science should bring his unbiased judgment to bear on it. From now onwards this will be the mission of Spiritual Science: to rise into a spiritual world, through the development of hidden powers, just as the physiologist penetrates through the microscope into a realm of the smallest entities, invisible to the naked eye. And ordinary intelligence will be able to test the findings of spiritual research, as it can test the findings of the physiologist, the botanist, and so on. A healthy intelligence will be able to say of the spiritual researcher's findings: they are all consistent with one another. Modern man will come to the point of saying to himself: My reason tells me that it can be so, and by using my reason I can grasp clearly what the spiritual researcher has to tell. And that is how the spiritual researcher, for his part, should speak if he feels himself to be truly at one with the mission of Spiritual Science at the present time. But there will be a time of transition also today. For since the means to achieve spiritual development are available and can be used wrongly, many people whose purpose is not pure, whose sense of duty is not sacred and whose conscience is not infallible, will find their way into a spiritual world. But then, instead of behaving like a spiritual researcher who can know from his own experience whether the things he sees are in accord with the facts, these pretended researchers will impart information that goes against the facts. Moreover, since people can come only by slow degrees to apply their reasoning powers to understanding what the spiritual researcher says, we must expect that charlatanry, humbug and superstition will flourish preeminently in this realm. But the situation is changing. Man now has himself to blame if, without wishing to use his intellect, he is led by a certain curiosity to believe blindly in those who pass themselves off as spiritual investigators, so-called. Because men are too comfort-loving to apply their reason, and prefer a blind faith to thinking for themselves, it is possible that nowadays we may have, instead of the old initiate who misused his power, the modern charlatan who imposes on people not the truth, but something he perhaps takes for truth. This is possible because today we are at the beginning of an evolutionary phase. There is nothing to which a man should apply his reason more rigorously than the communications that can come to him from Spiritual Science. People can lay part of the blame on themselves if they fall victim to charlatanry and humbug; for these falsities will bear abundant fruit, as indeed they have done already in our time. This is something that must not go unnoticed when we are speaking of the mission of Spiritual science today. Anyone who listens now to a spiritual researcher — not in a willful, negative way that casts immediate doubt on everything, but with a readiness to test everything in the light of healthy reason — will soon feel how Spiritual Science can bring hope and consolation in difficult hours, and can throw light on the great riddles of existence. He will come to feel that these riddles and the great questions of destiny can be resolved through Spiritual Science; he will come to know what part of him is subject to birth and death, and what is the eternal core of his being. In brief, it will be possible — as we shall show in later lectures — that, given good will and the wish to strengthen himself by taking in and working over inwardly the communications of Spiritual Science, he will be able to say with deepest feeling: What Goethe divined and said in his youth is true, and so are the lines he wrote in his maturity and gave to Faust to speak: The spirit world is ever open, Dead is thy heart, thy sense-veil closely drawn! Up, scholar, let thy breast unwearied Bathe in the roseate hues of dawn! 15 Faust I , sc.1,11.443–446. In the dawn-lines of the Spirit!

Metamorphoses of the Soul: Paths of Experience I

The Mission of Spiritual Science

https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA058/English/RSP1983/19091014p01.html

Berlin

14 Oct 1909

GA058-1

When we penetrate more deeply into the human soul and consider its nature from the point of view here intended, we are repeatedly reminded of the ancient saying by the Greek sage, Heraclitus 16 Cf. Hermann Diels, Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker : Herakleitos aus Ephesus, Nr. 45. Also: The art and thought of Heraclitus. “Never will you find the boundaries of the soul, by whatever paths you search; so all-embracing is the soul's being.” We shall be speaking here of the soul and its life, not from the standpoint of contemporary psychology, but from that of Spiritual Science. Spiritual Science stands firmly for the real existence of a spiritual world behind all that is revealed to the senses and through them to the mind. It regards this spiritual world as the source and foundation of external existence and holds that the investigation of it lies within the reach of man. In lectures given here, the difference between Spiritual Science and the many other standpoints of the present day has often been brought out; and need be mentioned only briefly now. In ordinary life and in ordinary science it is habitually assumed that human knowledge has certain boundaries and that the human mind cannot know anything beyond them. Spiritual Science holds that these boundaries are no more than temporary. They can be extended; faculties hidden in the soul can be called forth, and then, just as a man born blind who gains his sight through an operation emerges from darkness into a world of light and colour, so it is with a person whose hidden faculties awake. He will break through into a spiritual world which is always around us but cannot be directly known until the appropriate spiritual organs for perceiving it have been developed. Spiritual Science asks: How are we to transform ourselves in order to penetrate into this world and to gain a comprehensive experience of it? And Spiritual Science must ever and again point to the great event which enables a man to become a spiritual investigator and so to direct his gaze into the spiritual worlds, even as a physicist sees into the physical world through his microscope. Goethe's words are certainly valid in their bearing on the spiritual world: Secretly, in the light of day, Nature's veil may not be lifted. What'er to your inquiring spirit She will not freely reveal, You cannot forcibly extract it, Not with levers, not with screws. 17 An edition of the fragments with translation and commentary by Charles H. Kahn. CUP, Cambridge, 1979, No. XXXV. Of course, the investigator in the sense of Spiritual Science has no such instrumental aids. He has to transform his soul into an instrument; then he experiences that great moment when his soul is awakened and the spiritual world around him reveals itself to his perception. Again, it has often been emphasised here that not everyone needs to be a spiritual investigator in order to appreciate what the awakened man has to impart. When knowledge resulting from spiritual research is communicated, no more is required of the listener than ordinary logic and an unbiased sense of truth. Investigation calls for the opened eye of the clairvoyant; recognition of what is communicated calls for a healthy sense of truth; natural feeling unclouded by prejudice; natural good sense. The point is that teachings and observations concerning the soul should be understood in the light of this spiritual research when in later lectures we come to speak of some of the humanly interesting characteristics of the soul. Just as anyone who wants to study hydrogen or oxygen or any other chemical substance has to acquire certain capabilities, so is observation of the life of the soul possible only for someone whose spiritual eye has been opened. The investigator of the soul must be in a position to make observations in soul-substance, so to speak. We must certainly not think of the soul as something vague and nebulous in which feelings, thoughts and volitions are whirling about. Let us rather remind ourselves of what has been said on this subject in previous lectures. Man, as he stands before us, is a far more complicated being than he is held to be by exoteric science. For Spiritual Science, the knowledge drawn from external physical observation covers only a part of man — the external physical body which he has in common with all his mineral surroundings. Here, the same laws apply as in the external physical-mineral world, and the same substances function. As a result of observation, however, and not on the strength merely of logical inference, Spiritual Science recognises, beyond the physical body, a second member of man's being: we call it the etheric body or life-body. Only a brief reference can here be made to the etheric body — our task today is quite different — but knowledge of the underlying members of the human organism is the foundation on which we have to build. Man has an etheric body in common with everything that lives. As I said, only the spiritual investigator, who has transformed his soul into an instrument for seeing into the spiritual world, can directly observe the etheric body. But its existence can be acknowledged by a healthy sense of truth, unclouded by contemporary prejudices. Take the physical body: it harbours the same physical and chemical laws that prevail in the external physical-mineral world. When are these physical laws revealed to us? When we have before us a lifeless human being. When a human being has passed through the gate of death, we see what the laws that govern the physical body really are. They are the laws that lead to the decomposition of the physical body; their effect on it is now quite different from their action during life. They are always present in the physical body; the reason why the living body does not obey them is that during life an antagonist of dissolution, the etheric or life-body, is also present and active there. A third member of the human organism can now be distinguished: the vehicle of pleasure and pain, of urges, desires and passions — of everything we associate with the emotional activities of the soul. Man has this vehicle in common with all beings who possess a certain form of consciousness: with the animals. Astral body, or body of consciousness, is the name we give to this third member of the human organism. This completes what we may call the bodily nature of man, with its three components: physical body, etheric body or life-body, astral or consciousness-body. Within these three members we recognise something else; something unique to man, through which he has risen to the summit of creation. It has often been remarked that our language has one little word which guides us directly to man's inner being, whereby he ranks as the crown of earthly creation. These flowers here, the desk, the clock — anyone can name these objects; but there is one word we can never hear spoken by another with reference to ourselves; it must spring from our own inner being. This is the little name ‘I’. If you are to call yourself ‘I’, this ‘I’ must sound forth from within yourself and must designate your inmost being. Hence the great religions and philosophies have always regarded this name as the ‘unspeakable name’ of that which cannot be designated from outside. Indeed, with this designation ‘I’, we stand before that innermost being of man which can be called the divine element in him. We do not thereby make man a god. If we say that a drop of water from the sea is of like substance with the ocean, we are not making the drop into a sea. Similarly, we are not making the ‘I’ a god when we say it is of like substance with the divine being that permeates and pulses through the world. Through his inner essence, man is subject to a certain phenomenon which Spiritual Science treats as real and serious in the full sense of the words. Its very name fascinates people today, but in its application to man it is given full rank and worth only by Spiritual Science. It is the fact of existence that we call ‘evolution’. How fascinating is the effect of this word on modern man, who can point to lower forms of life which evolve gradually into higher stages; how enchanting when it can be said that man himself has evolved from those lower forms to his present height! Spiritual Science takes evolution seriously in relation, above all, to man. It calls attention to the fact that man, since he is a self-conscious being with an inner activity springing from the centre of his being, should not limit his idea of evolution to a mere observation of the imperfect developing towards the more nearly perfect. As an active being he must himself take hold of his own evolution. He must raise himself to higher stages than the stage he has already reached; he must develop ever-new forces, so that he may approach continually towards perfection. Spiritual Science takes a sentence, first formulated not very long ago, and now recognised as valid in another realm, and applies it on a higher level to human evolution. Most people today are not aware that as late as the beginning of the 17th century the learned as well as the laity believed that the lower animals were born simply out of river-mud. This belief arose from imprecise observation, and it was the great natural scientist, Francesco Redi, 18 Francesco Redi, 1626–98. Italian doctor, scientist and poet. Cf. his work Osservazione intorno agfi animafi viventi che si trovano negli animali viventi , 1684. who in the 17th century first championed the statement: Life can arise only from the living. Naturally, this statement is quoted here in the modern sense, with all necessary qualifications. No-one, of course, now believes that any lower animal — say an earth-worm — can grow out of river-mud. For an earth-worm to come into existence, the germ of an earth-worm must first be there. And yet, in the 17th century, Francesco Redi narrowly escaped the fate of Giordano Bruno, 19 Giordano Bruno, born 1548, was burnt in 1600 in Rome as a heretic. for his statement had made him a terrible heretic. This sort of treatment is not usually inflicted on heretics today, at least not in all parts of the world, but there is a modern substitute for it. If anyone upholds something which contradicts the belief of those who, in their arrogance, suppose they have reached the summit of earthly wisdom, he is looked on as a visionary, a dreamer, if nothing worse. That is the contemporary form of inquisition in our parts of the world. Be it so. Nevertheless, what Spiritual Science says concerning phenomena on higher levels will come to be accepted equally with Francesco Redi's statement regarding the lower levels. Even as he asserted that “life can issue only from the living”, so does Spiritual Science state that “soul and spirit can issue only from soul and spirit”. And the law of reincarnation, so often ridiculed today as the outcome of crazy fantasy, is in fact a consequence of this statement. Nowadays, when people see, from the first day of a child's birth, the soul and spirit developing out of the bodily element; when they see increasingly definite facial traits emerging from an undifferentiated physiognomy, movements becoming more and more individual, talents and abilities showing forth — many people still believe that all this springs from the physical existence of father, mother, grandparents; in short, from physical ancestry. This belief derives from inexact observation, just as did the belief that earth-worms originate from mud. Present-day sense-observation is incapable of tracing back to its soul-spiritual origin the soul and spirit that are manifest before our eyes today. Hence the laws of physical heredity are made to account for phenomena which apparently emerge from the obscure depths of the physical. Spiritual Science looks back to previous lives on earth, when the talents and characteristics that are evident in the present life were foreshadowed. And we regard the present life as the source of new formative influences that will bear fruit in future earthly lives. Francesco Redi's statement has now become an obvious truth, and the time is not far distant when the corresponding statement by Spiritual Science will be regarded as equally self-evident — with the difference that Francesco Redi's statement is of restricted interest, while the statement by Spiritual Science concerns everyone: “Soul and spirit develop from soul and spirit; man does not live once only but passes through repeated lives on earth; every life is the result of earlier lives and the starting point of numerous subsequent lives.” All confidence in life, all certainty in our work, the solution of all the riddles facing us — it all depends on this knowledge. From this knowledge man will draw ever-increasing strength for his existence, together with confidence and hope when he looks towards the future. Now what is it that originates in earlier lives, works on from life to life, and maintains itself through all its sojourns on earth? It is the Ego, the ‘I’, designated by the name which a person can bestow on no-one but himself. The human Ego goes from life to life, and in so doing fulfils its evolution. But how is this evolution brought about? By the Ego working on the three lower members of the human being. We have first the astral body, the vehicle of pleasure and pain, of joy and sorrow, of instinct, desire and passion. Let us look at a person on a low level, whose Ego has done little, as yet, to cleanse his astral body and so is still its slave. In a person who stands higher we find that his Ego has worked upon his astral body in such a way that his lower instincts, desires and passions have been transmuted into moral ideals, ethical judgments. From this contrast we can gain a first impression of how the Ego works upon the astral body. In every human being it is possible to distinguish the part of the astral body on which the Ego has not yet worked from the part which the Ego has consciously transformed. The transmuted part is called Spirit-Self, or Manas. The Ego may grow stronger and stronger and will then transmute the etheric body or life-body. Life-spirit is the name we give to the transformed etheric body. Finally, when the Ego acquires such strength that it is able to extend its transforming power into the physical body, we call the transmuted part Atma, or the real Spirit-man. So far we have been speaking of conscious work by the Ego. In the far-distant past, long before the Ego was capable of this conscious work, it worked unconsciously — or rather sub-consciously — on the three bodies or sheaths of man. The astral body was the first to be worked on in this way, and its transmuted part we call the Sentient Soul, the first of man's soul-members. So it was that the Ego, working from the inner being of man, created the Sentient Soul at a time when man lacked the requisite degree of consciousness for transmuting his instincts, desires and so forth. In the etheric body the Ego created unconsciously the Mind-Soul or Intellectual Soul. Again, working unconsciously on the physical body, the Ego created the inner soul-organ that we call the Consciousness Soul. For Spiritual Science, the human soul is not a vague, nebulous something, but an essential part of man's being, consisting of three distinct soul-members — Sentient Soul, Mind-Soul, Consciousness Soul — within which the Ego is actively engaged. Let us try to form an idea of these three soul-members. The spiritual investigator knows them by direct observation, but we can approach them also by means of rational thinking. For example, suppose we have a rose before us. We perceive it, and as long as we perceive it we are receiving an impression from outside. We call this a perception of the rose. If we turn our eyes away, an inner image of the rose remains with us. We must carefully distinguish these two moments: the moment when we are looking at the rose and the moment when we are able to retain an image of it as an inner possession, although we are no longer perceiving it. This point must be emphasised because of the incredible notions brought forward in this connection by 19th century philosophy. We need think only of Schopenhauer, 20 Arthur Schopenhauer, 1788–1860. Cf. his work The World as Will and Representation , Book 1, par. 1. whose philosophy begins with the words: The world is my idea. Hence we must be clear as to the difference between percepts and concepts, or mental images. Every sane man knows the difference between the concept of white-hot steel, which cannot burn him, and white-hot steel itself, which can. Perceptions bring us into communication with the external world; concepts are a possession of the soul. The boundary between inner experience and the outer world can be precisely drawn. Directly we begin to experience something inwardly, we owe it to the Sentient Soul — as distinct from the sentient body, which brings us our percepts and enables us to perceive, for example, the rose and its colour. Thus our concepts are formed in the Sentient Soul, and the Sentient Soul is the bearer also of our sympathies and antipathies, of the feelings that things arouse in us. When we call the rose beautiful, this inward experience is a property of the Sentient Soul. Anyone who is unwilling to distinguish percepts from concepts should remember the white-hot steel that burns and the concept of it, which does not. Once, when I had said this, someone objected that a man might be able to suggest to himself the thought of lemonade so vividly that he would experience its taste on his tongue. I replied: Certainly this might be possible, but whether the imaginary lemonade would quench his thirst is another question. The boundary between external reality and inner experience can indeed always be determined. Directly inner experience begins, the Sentient Soul, as distinct from the sentient body, comes into play. A higher principle is brought into being by the work of the Ego on the etheric body: we call it the Mind-Soul, or Intellectual Soul. We shall have more to say about it in the lecture on the Mission of Truth; today we are concerned especially with the Sentient Soul. Through the Intellectual Soul man is enabled to do more than carry about with him the experiences aroused in him by his perceptions of the outer world. He takes these experiences a stage further. Instead of merely keeping his perceptions alive as images in the Sentient Soul, he reflects on them and devotes himself to them; they form themselves into thoughts and judgments, into the whole content of his mind. This continued cultivation of impressions received from the outer world is the work of what we call the Intellectual Soul or Mind-soul. A third principle is brought into being when the Ego has created in the physical body the organs whereby it is enabled to go out from itself and to connect its judgments, ideas and feelings with the external world. This principle we call the Consciousness Soul, because the Ego is then able to transform its inner experiences into conscious knowledge of the outer world. When we give form to the feelings we experience, so that they enlighten us concerning the outer world, our thoughts, judgments and feelings become knowledge of the outer world. Through the Consciousness Soul we explore the secrets of the outer world as human beings endowed with knowledge and cognition. So does the Ego work continually in the Sentient Soul, in the Intellectual or Mind-Soul, and in the Consciousness Soul, releasing the forces inwardly bound up there and enabling man to advance in his evolution by enriching his capacities. The Ego is the actor, the active being through whose agency man himself takes control of his evolution and progresses from life to life, remedying the defects of former lives and widening the faculties of his soul. Such is human evolution from life to life; it consists first of all in the Ego's work on the soul in its threefold aspect. We must, however, recognise clearly that in its work the Ego has the character of a “two-edged sword”. Yes, this human Ego is, on the one hand, the element in man's being through which alone he can be truly man. If we lacked this central point, we should be merged passively with the outer world. Our concepts and ideas have to be taken hold of in this centre; more and more of them must be experienced; and our inner life must be increasingly enriched by impressions from the outer world. Man is truly man to the degree in which his Ego becomes richer and more comprehensive. Hence the Ego must seek to enrich itself in the course of succeeding lives; it must become a centre whereby man is not simply part of the outer world but acts as a stimulating force upon it. The richer the fund of his impulses, the more he has absorbed and the more he radiates from the centre of his individual self, the nearer he approaches to being truly man. That is one aspect of the Ego; and we are in duty bound to endeavour to make the Ego as rich and as many-sided as we can. But the reverse side of this progress is manifest in what we call selfishness or egoism. If these words were taken as catchwords and it were said that human beings must become selfless, that of course would be bad, as any use of catchwords always is. It is indeed man's task to enrich himself inwardly, but this does not imply a selfish hardening of the Ego and a shutting off of itself with its riches from the world. In that event a man would indeed become richer and richer, but he would lose his connection with the world. His enrichment would signify that the world had no more to give him, nor he the world. In the course of time he would perish, for while striving to enrich his Ego he would keep it all for himself and would become isolated from the world. This caricature of development would impoverish a man's Ego to an increasing extent, for selfishness lays a man inwardly waste. So is it that the Ego, as it works in the three members of the soul, acts as a two-edged sword. On the one hand, it must work to become always richer, a powerful centre from which much can stream forth; but on the other hand it must bring everything it absorbs back into harmony with the outer world. To the same degree that it develops its own resources, it must go out from itself and relate itself to the whole of existence. It must become simultaneously an independent being and a selfless one. Only when the Ego works in these two apparently contradictory directions — when on one side it enriches itself increasingly and on the other side becomes selfless — can human evolution go forward so as to be satisfying for man and health-giving for the whole of existence. The Ego has to work on each of three soul-members in such a way that both sides of human development are kept in balance. Now the work of the Ego in the soul leads to its own gradual awakening. Development occurs in all forms of life, and we find that the three members of the human soul are today at very different stages of evolution. The Sentient Soul, the bearer of our emotions and impulses and of all the feelings that are aroused by direct stimuli from the outer world, is the most strongly developed of the three. But at certain lower stages of evolution the content of the Sentient Soul is experienced in a dull, dim way, for the Ego is not yet fully awake. When a man works inwardly on himself and his soul-life progresses, the Ego becomes more and more clearly conscious of itself. But as far as the Sentient Soul is awake, the Ego is hardly more than a brooding presence within it. The Ego gains in clarity when man advances to a richer life in the Intellectual Soul, and achieves full clarity in the Consciousness Soul. Man then comes to be aware of himself as an individual who stands apart from his environment and is active in gaining objective knowledge of it. This is possible only when the Ego is awake in the Consciousness Soul. Thus we have the Ego only dimly awake in the Sentient Soul. It is swept along by waves of pleasure and pain, joy and sorrow, and can scarcely be perceived as an entity. In the Intellectual Soul, when clearly defined ideas and judgments are developed, the Ego first gains clarity, and achieves full clarity in the Consciousness Soul. Hence we can say: Man has a duty to educate himself through his Ego and so to further his own inner progress. But at the time of its awakening the Ego is still given over to the waves of emotion that surge through the Sentient Soul. Is there anything in the Sentient Soul which can contribute to the education of the Ego at a time when the Ego is still incapable of educating itself? We shall see how in the Intellectual Soul there is something which enables the Ego to take its own education in hand. In the Sentient Soul this is not yet possible; the Ego must be guided by something which arises independently within the Sentient Soul. We will single out this one element in the Sentient Soul and consider its two-sided mission for educating the Ego, This element is one to which the strongest objection may perhaps be taken — the emotion we call anger. Anger arises in the Sentient Soul when the Ego is still dormant there. Or can it be said that we stand in a self-conscious relation to anyone if their behaviour causes us to flare up in anger? Let us picture the difference between two persons: two teachers, let us say. One of them has achieved the clarity which makes for enlightened inner judgments. He sees what his pupil is doing wrong but is not perturbed by it, because his Intellectual Soul is mature. With his Consciousness Soul, also, he is calmly aware of the child's error, and if necessary he can prescribe an appropriate penalty, not impelled by any emotional reaction but in accordance with ethical and pedagogical judgment. It will be otherwise with a teacher whose Ego has not reached the stage that would enable him to remain calm and discerning. Not knowing what to do, he flares up in anger at the child's misdemeanour. Is such anger always inappropriate to the event that calls it forth? No, not always. And this is something we must keep in mind. Before we are capable of judging an event in the light of the Intellectual Soul or the Consciousness Soul, the wisdom of evolution has provided for us to be overcome by emotion because of that event. Something in our Sentient Soul is activated by an event in the outer world. We are not yet capable of making the right response as an act of judgment, but we can react from the emotional centre of the Sentient Soul. Of all things that the Sentient Soul experiences, let us therefore consider anger. It points to what will come about in the future. To begin with, anger expresses a judgment of some event in the outer world; then, having learnt unconsciously through anger to react to something wrong, we advance gradually to enlightened judgments in our higher souls. So in certain respects anger is an educator. It arises in us as an inner experience before we are mature enough to form an enlightened judgment of right and wrong. This is how we should look on the anger which can flare up in a young man, before he is capable of a considered judgment, at the sight of injustice or folly which violates his ideals; and then we can properly speak of a righteous anger. No-one does better at acquiring an inner capacity for sound judgment than a man who has started from a state of soul in which he could be moved to righteous anger by anything ignoble, immoral or crazy. That is how anger has the mission of raising the Ego to higher levels. On the other hand, since man is to become a free being, everything human can degenerate. Anger can degenerate into rage and serve to gratify the worst kind of egoism. This must be so, if man is to advance towards freedom. But we must not fail to realise that the very thing which can lapse into evil may, when it manifests in its true significance, have the mission of furthering the progress of man. It is because man can change good into evil, that good qualities, when they are developed in the right way, can become a possession of the Ego. So is anger to be understood as the harbinger of that which can raise man to calm self-possession. But although anger is on the one hand an educator of the Ego, it also serves strangely enough, to engender selflessness. What is the Ego's response when anger overcomes it at the sight of injustice or folly? Something within us speaks out against the spectacle confronting us. Our anger illustrates the fact that we are up against something in the outer world. The Ego then makes its presence felt and seeks to safeguard itself against this outer event. The whole content of the Ego is involved. If the sight of injustice or folly were not to kindle a noble anger in us, the events in the outer world would carry us along with them as an easy-going spectator; we would not feel the sting of the Ego and we would have no concern for its development. Anger enriches the Ego and summons it to confront the outer world, yet at the same time it induces selflessness. For if anger is such that it can be called noble and does not lapse into blind rage, its effect is to damp down Ego-feeling and to produce something like powerlessness in the soul. If the soul is suffused with anger, its own activity becomes increasingly suppressed. This experience of anger is wonderfully well brought out in the vernacular use of sich giften , to poison oneself, as a phrase meaning “to get angry”. This is an example of how popular imagination arrives at a truth which may often elude the learned. Anger which eats into the soul is a poison; it damps down the Ego's self-awareness and so promotes selflessness. Thus we see how anger serves to teach both independence and selflessness; that is its dual mission as an educator of humanity, before the Ego is ripe to undertake its own education. If we were not enabled by anger to take an independent stand, in cases where the outer world offends our inner feeling, we would not be selfless, but dependent and Ego-less in the worst sense. For the spiritual scientist, anger is also the harbinger of something quite different. Life shows us that a person who is unable to flare up with anger at injustice or folly will never develop true kindness and love. Equally, a person who educates himself through noble anger will have a heart abounding in love, and through love he will do good. Love and kindness are the obverse of noble anger. Anger that is overcome and purified will be transformed into the love that is its counterpart. A loving hand is seldom one that has never been clenched in response to injustice or folly. Anger and love are complementary. A superficial Theosophy might say: Yes, a man must overcome his passions; he must cleanse and purify them. But overcoming something does not mean shirking or shunning it. It is a strange sort of sacrifice that is made by someone who proposes to cast off his passionate self by evading it. We cannot sacrifice something unless we have first possessed it. Anger can be overcome only by someone who has experienced it first within himself. Instead of trying to evade such emotions, we must transmute them in ourselves. By transmuting anger, we rise from the Sentient Soul, where noble anger can flame out, to the Intellectual Soul and the Consciousness Soul, where love and the power to give blessing are born. Transmuted anger is love in action. That is what we learn from reality. Anger in moderation has the mission of leading human beings to love; we can call it the teacher of love. And not in vain do we call the undefined power that flows from the wisdom of the world and shows itself in the righting of wrongs the “wrath of God”, in contrast to God's love. But we know that these two things belong together; without the other, neither can exist. In life they require and determine each other. Now let us see how in art and poetry, when they are great, the primal wisdom of the world is revealed. When we come to speak of the mission of truth, we shall see how Goethe's thoughts on this subject are clearly expressed in his Pandora , one of his finest poems, though small in scale. And in a powerful poem of universal significance, the Prometheus Bound by Aeschylus, we are brought to see, though perhaps less clearly, the role of anger as a phenomenon in world history. Probably you know the legend on which Aeschylus based his drama. Prometheus is a descendant of the ancient race of Titans, who had succeeded the first generation of gods in the evolution of the earth and of humanity. Ouranus and Gaia belong to the first generation of gods. Ouranus is succeeded by Kronos (Saturn). Then the Titans are overthrown by the third generation of gods, led by Zeus. Prometheus, though a descendant of the Titans, was on the side of Zeus in the battle against the Titans and so could be called a friend of Zeus, but he was only half a friend. When Zeus took over the rulership of the earth — so the legend continues — humanity had advanced far enough to enter on a new phase, while the old faculties possessed by men in ancient times were dying out. Zeus wanted to exterminate mankind and install a new race on earth, but Prometheus resolved to give men the means of further progress. He brought them speech and writing, knowledge of the outer world, and, finally, fire, in order that by learning to master these tools humanity might raise itself from the low level to which it had sunk. If we look more deeply into the story, we find that everything bestowed by Prometheus on mankind is connected with the human Ego, while Zeus is portrayed as a divine power which inspires and ensouls men in whom the Ego has not yet come to full expression. If we look back over the evolution of the earth, we find in the far past a humanity in which the Ego was no more than an obscurely brooding presence. It had to acquire certain definite faculties with which to educate itself. The gifts that Zeus could bestow were not adapted to furthering the progress of mankind. In respect of the astral body, and of everything in man apart from his Ego, Zeus is the giver. Because Zeus was not capable of promoting the development of the Ego, he resolved to wipe out mankind. All the gifts brought by Prometheus, on the other hand, enabled the Ego to educate itself. Such is the deeper meaning of the legend. Prometheus, accordingly, is the one who enables the Ego to set to work on enriching and enlarging itself; and that is exactly how the gifts bestowed by Prometheus were understood in ancient Greece. Now we have seen that if the Ego concentrates on this single aim, it finally impoverishes itself, for it will be shutting itself off from the outer world. Enriching itself is one side only of the Ego's task. It has to go out and bring its inner wealth into harmony with the world around it, if it is not to be impoverished in the long run. Prometheus could bestow on men only the gifts whereby the Ego could enrich itself. Thus, inevitably, he challenged the powers which act from out of the entire cosmos to subdue the Ego in the right way, so that it may become self less and thus develop its other aspect. The independence of the Ego, achieved under the sting of anger on the one hand, and on the other the damping down of the Ego when a man consumes his anger, as it were, and his Ego is deadened — this whole process is presented in the historic pictures of the conflict between Prometheus and Zeus. Prometheus endows the Ego with faculties which enable it to become richer and richer. What Zeus has to do is to produce the same effect that anger has in the individual. Thus the wrath of Zeus falls on Prometheus and extinguishes the power of the Ego in him. The legend tells us how Prometheus is punished by Zeus for the untimely stimulus he had given to the advancement of the human Ego. He is chained to a rock. The suffering thus endured by the human Ego and its inner rebellion are magnificently expressed by Aeschylus in this poetic drama. So we see the representative of the human Ego subdued by the wrath of Zeus. Just as the individual human Ego is checked and driven back on itself when it has to swallow its anger, so is Prometheus chained by the wrath of Zeus, meaning that his activity is reduced to its proper level. When a flood of anger sweeps through the soul of an individual, his Ego, striving for self-expression, finds itself enchained; so was the Promethean Ego chained to a rock. That is the peculiar merit of this legend: it presents in powerful pictures far-reaching truths which are valid both for individuals and for humanity at large. People could see in these pictures what had to be experienced in the individual soul. Thus in Prometheus chained to the Caucasian rock we can see a representative of the human Ego at a time when the Ego, striving to advance from its brooding somnolence in the Sentient Soul, is restrained by its fetters from indulging in wild extravagance. We are then told how Prometheus knows that the wrath of Zeus will be silenced when he is overthrown by the son of a mortal. He will be succeeded in his rulership by someone born of mortal man. The Ego is released by the mission of anger on a lower plane, and the immortal Ego, the immortal human soul, will be born from mortal man on a higher plane. Prometheus looks forward to the time when Zeus will be succeeded by Christ Jesus, and the individual Ego will itself be transformed into the loving Ego when the noble anger that fettered it is transformed into love. We behold the birth from the Ego enchained by anger of that other Ego, whose action in the outer world will be that of love and blessing. So, too, we behold the birth of a God of love who tends and cherishes the Ego; the very Ego that in earlier times was fettered by the anger of Zeus, so that it should not transgress its proper bounds. Hence we see in the continuation of this legend an external picture of human evolution. We must ourselves take hold of this myth in such a way that it gives us a living picture, universally relevant, of how the individual experiences the transformation of the Ego, educated by the mission of anger, into the liberated Ego imbued with love. Then we understand what the legend does and what Aeschylus made of his material. We feel the soul's life-blood pulsing through us; we feel it in the continuation of the legend and in the dramatic form given to it by Aeschylus. So we find in this Greek drama something like a practical application of processes we can experience in our own souls. This is true of all great poems and other works of art: they spring from typical great experiences of the human soul. We have seen today how the Ego is educated through the purification of a passion. In the next lecture we shall see how the Ego becomes ripe to educate itself in the Intellectual Soul by learning to grasp the mission of truth on a higher plane. We have seen also how in our considerations today the saying of Heraclitus is borne out: “You will never find the boundaries of the soul, by whatever paths you search for them; so wide and deep is the being of the soul.” Yes, it is true that the soul's being is so far-reaching that we cannot directly sound its depths. But Spiritual Science, with the opened eye of the seer, leads into the substance of the soul, and we can progress further and further into fathoming the mysterious being that the human soul is when we contemplate it through the eyes of the spiritual scientist. On the one hand we can truly say: The soul has unfathomable depths, but if we take this saying in full earnest we can add: The boundaries of the soul are indeed so wide that we have to search for them by all possible paths, but we can hope that by extending these boundaries ourselves, we shall progress further and further in our knowledge of the soul. This ray of hope will illumine our search for knowledge if we accept the true words of Heraclitus not with resignation but with confidence: The boundaries of the soul are so wide that you may search along every path and not reach them, so comprehensive is the being of the soul. Let us try to grasp this comprehensive being; it will lead us on further and further towards a solution of the riddles of existence.

Metamorphoses of the Soul: Paths of Experience I

The Mission of Anger

https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA058/English/RSP1983/19091205p01.html

Munich

5 Dec 1909

GA058-2

We were able to close our lecture on the Mission of Anger (illustrated in Prometheus Bound ) with the saying of Heraclitus: “Never will you find the boundaries of the soul, by whatever paths you search for them; so all-embracing is the soul's being.” We came to know this depth in the working and interplay of the powers of the soul; and the truth of the saying came home to us especially when we turned our attention to the most deeply inward part of man's being. Man is most spiritual in his Ego, and that was our starting-point. The Ego complements those other elements of man's being which he has in common with minerals, plants and animals. He has his physical body in common with minerals, plants and animals; his etheric body in common with animals and plants; his astral body in common with animals. Through his Ego he first becomes man in the true sense and is able to progress from stage to stage. It is the Ego that works upon the other members of his being; it cleanses and purifies the instincts, inclinations, desires and passions of the astral body, and will lead the etheric and physical bodies on to ever-higher stages. But if we look at the Ego, we find that this high member of man's being is imprisoned, as it were, between two extremes. Through his Ego, man is intended to become increasingly a being who has a firm centre in himself. His thoughts, feelings and will-impulses should spring from this centre. The more he has a firm and well-endowed centre in himself, the more will he have to give to the world; the stronger and richer will be his activities and everything that goes out from him. If he is unable to find this central point in himself, he will be in danger of losing himself through a misconceived activity of his Ego. He would lose himself in the world and go ineffectually through life. Or he may lapse into the other extreme. Just as he may lose himself if he fails to strengthen and enrich his Ego, so, if he thinks of nothing but developing his Ego, he may fall into the other extreme of selfish isolation from all human community. Here, on this other side, we find egoism, with its hardening and secluding influence, which can divert the Ego from its proper path. The Ego is confined within these two extremes. In considering the human soul, we called three of its members the Sentient Soul, the Intellectual Soul and the Consciousness Soul. We also came to recognise — surprisingly, perhaps, for many people — that anger acts as a kind of educator of the Sentient Soul. A one-sided view of the lecture on the mission of anger could give scope for many objections. But if we go into the underlying significance of this view of anger, we shall find in it an answer to many important riddles of life. In what sense is anger an educator of the soul — especially the Sentient Soul — and a forerunner of love? Is it not true that anger tends to make a man lose control of himself and engage in wild, immoral and loveless behaviour? If we are thinking only of wild, unjustified outbursts of anger, we shall get a false idea of what the mission of anger is. It is not through unjustified outbreaks of anger that anger educates the soul, but through its inward action on the soul. Let us again imagine two teachers faced with children who have done something wrong. One teacher will burst into anger and hastily impose a penalty. The other teacher, though unable to break out into anger, is also incapable of acting rightly, with perfect tranquility, out of his Ego, in the sense described yesterday. How will the behaviour of two such teachers differ? An outburst of anger by one of them involves more than the penalty imposed on the child. Anger agitates the soul and works upon it in such a way as to destroy selfishness. Anger acts like a poison on selfishness, and we find that in time it gradually transforms the powers of the soul and makes it capable of love. On the other hand, if a teacher has not yet attained inner tranquility and yet inflicts a coldly calculated penalty, he will — since anger will not work in him as a counteracting poison — become increasingly a cold egoist. Anger works inwardly and can be regarded as a regulator for unjustified outbursts of selfishness. Anger must be there or it could not be fought against. In overcoming anger the soul continually improves itself. If a man insists on getting something done that he considers right and loses his temper over it, his anger will dampen the egoistic forces in his soul; it reduces their effective power. Just because anger is overcome and a man frees himself from it and rises above it, his selflessness will be enhanced and the selflessness of his Ego continually strengthened. The scene of this interplay between anger and the Ego is the Sentient Soul. A different interplay between the soul and other experiences takes its course in the Intellectual Soul. Although the soul has attributes which it must overcome in order to rise above them, it must also develop inwardly certain forces which it should love and cherish, however spontaneously they may arise. They are forces to which the soul may initially yield, so that, when it finally asserts itself, it is not weakened, but strengthened, by the experience. If a man were incapable of anger when called upon to assert himself in action, he would be the weaker for it. It is just when a man lovingly immerses himself in his own soul that his soul is strengthened and an ascent to higher stages of the Ego comes within reach. The outstanding element that the soul may love within itself, leading not to egoism but to selflessness, is truth. Truth educates the Intellectual Soul. While anger is an attribute of the soul that must be overcome if a man is to rise to higher stages, truth should be loved and valued from the start. An inward cultivation of truth is essential for the progress of the soul. How is it that devotion to truth leads man upwards from stage to stage? The opposites of truth are falsehood and error. We shall see how man progresses in so far as he overcomes falsehood and error and pursues truth as his great ideal. A higher truth must be the aim of man's endeavour, while he treats anger as an enemy to be increasingly abolished. He must love truth and feel himself most intimately united with it. Nevertheless, eminent poets and thinkers have rightly claimed that full possession of truth is beyond human reach. Lessing, 21 Cf. for example the polemic “Eine Duplik” (1778), part 1. for example, says that pure truth is not for men, but only a perpetual striving towards it. He speaks of truth as a distant goddess whom men may approach but never reach. When the nature of truth stirs the soul to strive for it, the soul can be impelled to rise from stage to stage. Since there is this everlasting search for truth, and since truth is so manifold in meaning, all we can reasonably say is that man must set out to grasp truth and to kindle in himself a genuine sense of truth. Hence we cannot speak of a single, all-embracing truth. In this lecture we will consider the idea of truth in its right sense, and it will become clear that by cultivating a sense of truth in his inner life man will be imbued with a progressive power that leads him to selflessness. Man strives towards truth; but when people try to form views concerning one thing or another, we find that in the most varied realms of life conflicting opinions are advanced. When we see what different people take for truth, we might think that the striving for truth leads inevitably to the most contradictory views and standpoints. However, if we look impartially at the facts, we shall find guidelines which show how it is that men who are all seeking truth, arrive at such a diversity of opinions. Let us take an example. The American multimillionaire, Harriman, 22 Edward Henry Harriman, 1848–1909. North American railway magnate. who died recently, was a rarity among millionaires in concerning himself with thoughts of general human interest. His aphorisms, found after his death, include a remarkable statement. He wrote: No man in this world is indispensable. When one goes, another is there to take his place. When I lay down my work, another will come and take it up. The railways will continue running, dividends will be paid; and so, strictly speaking, it is with all men. This millionaire, accordingly, rose to the point of declaring as a generally valid truth — no man is indispensable! Let us compare this statement with a remark by a man who worked for many years in Berlin and gained great distinction through his lecture courses on the lives of Michelangelo, Raphael and Goethe — I mean the art-historian Herman Grimm. 23 Herman Grimm, 1828–1901, in his essay “Ernst Curtius, Heinrich von Treitschke, Leopold von Ranke”, in: Fragmente , vol 1, Berlin & Stuttgart, 1900, p.246. When Treitschke 24 Heinrich von Treitschke, 1834–96. German historian. died, Herman Grimm wrote of him roughly as follows: Now Treitschke is gone, and people only now realise what he accomplished. No-one can take his place and continue his work in the same way. A feeling prevails that in the circle where he taught, everything is changed. Note that Herman Grimm did not add the words, so it is with all men. Here we have two men, the American millionaire and Herman Grimm, who arrive at exactly opposite truths. How does this come about? If we carefully compare the two statements, we shall find a clue. Bear in mind that Harriman says pointedly: When I lay down my work, someone else will continue it. He does not get away from himself. The other thinker, Herman Grimm, leaves himself entirely out of account. He does not speak about himself, or ask what sort of opinions or truths others might gain from him. He merges himself in his subject. Anyone with a feeling for the matter will have no doubt as to which of the two spoke truth. We need only ask — who carried on Goethe's work when he laid it down? We can feel that Harriman's reflections suffer from the fact that he fails to get away from himself. Up to a point we may conclude that it is prejudicial to truth if someone in search of truth cannot get away from himself. Truth is best served when the seeker leaves himself out of the reckoning. Would it be true to say, then, that truth is already something that gives us a view ( Ansicht ) of things? A view, in the sense of an opinion, is a thought which reflects the outer world. When we form a thought or reach a decision about something, does it follow that we have a true picture of it? Suppose you take a photograph of a remarkable tree. Does the photograph give a true picture of the tree? It shows the tree from one side only, not the whole reality of the tree. No-one could form a true image of the tree from this one photograph. How could anyone who has not seen the tree be brought nearer to the truth of it? If the tree were photographed from four sides, he could collate the photographs and arrive finally at a true picture of the tree, not dependent on a particular standpoint. Now let us apply this example to human beings. A man who leaves himself out of account when forming a view of something is doing much the same as the photographer who goes all round the tree. He eliminates himself by conscious action. When we form an opinion or take a certain view, we must realise that all such opinions depend on our personal standpoint, our habits of mind and our individuality. If we then try to eliminate these influences from our search for truth, we shall be acting as the photographer did in our example. The first condition for acquiring a genuine sense of truth is that we should get away from ourselves and see clearly how much depends on our personal point of view. If the American multimillionaire had got away from himself he would have known that there was a difference between him and other men. An example from everyday life has shown us, that if a man fails to realise how much his personal standpoint or point of departure influences his views, he will arrive at narrow opinions, not at the truth. This is apparent also on a wider scale. Anyone who looks at the true spiritual evolution of mankind, and compares all the various “truths” that have arisen in the course of time, will find — if he looks deeply enough — that when people pronounce a “truth” they ought first of all to get away from their individual outlooks. It will then become clear that the most varied opinions concerning truth are advanced because men have not recognised to what extent their views are restricted by their personal standpoints. A less familiar example may lead to a deeper understanding of this matter. If we want to learn more about beauty, we turn to aesthetics, which deals with the forms of beauty. Beauty is something we encounter in the outer world. How can we learn the truth about it? Here again we must free ourselves from the restrictions imposed by our personal characteristics. Take for example the 19th century German thinker, Solger. 25 Karl Friedrich Solger, 1780–1819, from 1811 Professor of Philosophy in Berlin. Cf. Erwin. Vier Gespräche über das Schöne und die Kunst , 1815, and Vorlesungen uber Asthetik , ed. Heyse, 1829. He wished to investigate the nature of beauty in accordance with his idea of truth. He could not deny that we meet with beauty in the external world; but he was a man with a one-sided theosophical outlook, and this was reflected in his theory of aesthetics. His interest in a beautiful picture was confined to the shining through it of the only kind of spirituality he recognised. For him, an object was beautiful only in so far as the spiritual was manifest through it. Solger was a one-sided theosophist; he sought to explain sense-perceptible phenomena in terms of the super-sensible; but he forgot that sense-perceptible reality has a justified existence on its own account. Unable to escape from his preconceptions, he sought to attain to the spiritual by way of a misconceived theosophy. Another writer on aesthetics, Robert Zimmermann, 26 Robert Zimmermann, 1824–98. Professor in Vienna. Member of the school of Herbart. Cf. his Asthetik , 1858–65. came to an exactly opposite conclusion. As against Solger's misconceived theosophical aesthetics, Zimmermann based his aesthetics on a misconceived anti-theosophical outlook. His sole concern was with symmetry and anti-symmetry, harmony and discord. He had no interest in going beyond the beautiful to that which manifests through it. So his aesthetics were as one-sided as Solger’s. Every striving for truth can be vitiated if the seeker fails to recognise that he must first endeavour to get away from himself. This can be achieved only gradually; but the primary, inexorable demand is, that if we are to advance towards truth we must leave ourselves out of account and quite forget ourselves. Truth has a unique characteristic: a man can strive for it while remaining entirely within himself and yet — while living in his Ego — he can acquire something which, fundamentally speaking, has nothing to do with the egoistic ego. Whenever a man tries in life to get his own way in some matter, this is an expression of his egoism. Whenever he wants to force on others something he thinks right and loses his temper over it, that is an expression of his self-seeking. This self-seeking must be subdued before he can attain to truth. Truth is something we experience in our most inward being — and yet it liberates us increasingly from ourselves. Of course, it is essential that nothing save the love of truth should enter into our striving for it. If passions, instincts and desires, from which the Sentient Soul must be cleansed before the Intellectual Soul can strive for truth, come into it, they will prevent a man from getting away from himself and will keep his Ego tied to a fixed viewpoint. In the search for truth, the only passion that must not be discarded is love. Truth is a lofty goal. This is shown by the fact that truth, in the sense intended here, is recognised today in one limited realm only. It is only in the realm of mathematics that humanity in general has reached the goal of truth, for here men have curbed their passions and desires and kept them out of the way. Why are all men agreed that three times three makes nine and not ten? Because no emotion comes into it, Men would agree on the highest truths if they had gone as far with them as they have with mathematics. The truths of mathematics are grasped in the inmost soul, and because they are grasped in this way, we possess them. We would still possess them if a hundred or a thousand people were to contradict us; we would still know that three times three makes nine because we have grasped this fact inwardly. If the hundred or thousand people who take a different view were to get away from themselves, they would come to the same truth. What, then, is the way to mutual understanding and unity for mankind? We understand one another in the field of reckoning and counting because here we have met the conditions required. Peace, concord and harmony will prevail among men to the extent that they find truth. That is the essential thing: that we should seek for truth as something to be found only in our own deepest being; and should know that truth ever and again draws men together, because from the innermost depth of every human soul its light shines forth. So is truth the leader of mankind towards unity and mutual understanding, and also the precursor of justice and love. Truth is a precursor we must cherish, while the other precursor, anger, that we came to know yesterday, must be overcome if we are to be led by it away from selfishness. That is the mission of truth: to become the object of increasing love and care and devotion on our part. Inasmuch as we devote ourselves inwardly to truth, our true self gains in strength and will enable us to cast off self-interest. Anger weakens us; truth strengthens us. Truth is a stern goddess; she demands to be at the centre of a unique love in our souls. If man fails to get away from himself and his desires and prefers something else to her, she takes immediate revenge. The English poet Coleridge has rightly indicated how a man should stand towards truth. If, he says, a man loves Christianity more than truth, he will soon find that he loves his own Christian sect more than Christianity, and then he will find that he loves himself more than his sect. Very much is implicit in these words. Above all, they signify that to strive against truth leads to humanly degrading egoism. Love of truth is the only love that sets the Ego free. And directly man gives priority to anything else, he falls inevitably into self-seeking. Herein lies the great and most serious importance of truth for the education of the human soul. Truth conforms to no man, and only by devotion to truth can truth be found. Directly man prefers himself and his own opinions to the truth, he becomes anti-social and alienates himself from the human community. Look at people who make no attempt to love truth for its own sake but parade their own opinions as the truth: they care for nothing but the content of their own souls and are the most intolerant. Those who love truth in terms of their own views and opinions will not suffer anyone to reach truth along a quite different path. They put every obstacle in the way of anyone with different abilities, who comes to opinions unlike their own. Hence the conflicts that so often arise in life. An honest striving for truth leads to human understanding, but the love of truth for the sake of one's own personality leads to intolerance and the destruction of other people's freedom. Truth is experienced in the Intellectual Soul. It can be sought for and attained through personal effort only by beings capable of thought. Inasmuch as truth is acquired by thinking, we must realise very clearly that there are two kinds of truth. First we have the truth that comes from observing the world of Nature around us and investigating it bit by bit in order to discover its truths, laws and wisdom. When we contemplate the whole range of our experience of the world in this way, we come to the kind of truth that can be called the truth derived from “reflective” thinking — we first observe the world and then think about our findings. We saw yesterday that the entire realm of Nature is permeated with wisdom, and that wisdom lives in all natural things. In a plant there lives the idea of the plant, and this we can arrive at by reflective thought. Similarly, we can discern the wisdom that lives in the plant. By thus looking out on the world we can infer that the world is born of wisdom, and that through the activity of our thinking we can rediscover the element that enters into the creation of the world. That is the kind of truth to be gained by reflective thought. There are also other truths. These cannot be gained by reflective thought, but only by going beyond everything that can be learnt from the outer world. In ordinary life we can see at once that when a man constructs a tool or some other instrument, he has to formulate laws that are not part of the outer world. For example, no-one could learn from the outer world how to construct a clock, for the laws of Nature are not so arranged as to provide for the appearance of clocks as a natural product. That is a second kind of truth: we come to it by thinking out something not given to us by observation or experience of the outer world. Hence there are these two kinds of truth, and they must be kept strictly apart, one derived from reflective thought and the other from “creative” thought. How can a truth of this second kind be verified? The inventor of a clock can easily prove that he had thought it out correctly. He has to show that the clock does what he expects. Anything we think out in advance must prove itself in practice: it must yield results that can be recognised in the external world. The truths of Spiritual Science or Anthroposophy are of this kind. They cannot be found by observing external experience. For example, no findings in the realm of outer Nature can establish the truth we have often dwelt on in connection with the immortal kernel of man's being: the truth that the human Ego appears again and again on earth in successive incarnations. Anyone who wishes to acquire this truth must raise himself above ordinary experience. He must grasp in his soul a truth that has then to be made real in outer life. A truth of this kind cannot be proved in the same way as truths of the first kind, gained by what we have called reflective thought. It can be proven only by showing how it applies to life and is reflected there. If we look at life with the knowledge that the soul repeatedly returns and ever and again goes through a series of events and experiences between birth and death, we shall find how much satisfaction, how much strength and fruitfulness, these thoughts can bring. Or again, if we ask how the soul of a child can be helped to develop and grow stronger, if we presuppose that an eternally existent soul is here working its way into a new life, then this truth will shine in on us and give proof of its fruitfulness in daily experience. Any other proofs are false. The only way in which a truth of this kind can be confirmed is by giving proof of its validity in daily life. Hence there is a vast difference between these two kinds of truth. Those of the second kind are grasped in the spirit and then verified by observing their influence on outer life. What then is the educational effect of these two kinds of truth on the human soul? It makes a great difference whether a man devotes himself to truths that come from reflective thought or to those that come from creative thought. If we steep ourselves in the wisdom of Nature and create in ourselves a true reflection of it, we can rightly say that we have in ourselves something of the creative activity from which the life of Nature springs. But here a distinction must be made. The wisdom of Nature is directly creative and gives rise to the reality of Nature in all its fullness, but the truth we derive from thinking about Nature is only a passive image; in our thinking it has lost its power. We may indeed acquire a wide, open-minded picture of natural truth, but the creative, productive element is absent from it. Hence the immediate effect of this picture of truth on the development of the human Ego is desolating. The creative power of the Ego is crippled and devitalised; the Self loses strength and can no longer stand up to the world, if it is concerned only with reflective thoughts. Nothing else does so much to isolate the Ego, to make it withdraw into itself and look with hostility on the world. A man can become a cold egoist if he is intent only on investigating the outer world. Why does he want this knowledge? Does he mean to place it at the service of the Gods? If a man desires only this kind of truth, he wants it for himself, and he will be on the way to becoming a cold egoist and misogynist in later life. He will become a recluse or will sever himself from mankind in some other way, for he wants to possess the content of the world as his own truth. All forms of seclusion and hostility towards humanity can be found on this path. The soul becomes increasingly dried up and loses its sense of human fellowship. It becomes ever more impoverished, although the truth should enrich it. Whether a man turns into a recluse or a one-sided eccentric makes no difference; in both cases a hardening process will overtake his soul. Hence we see that the more a man confines himself to this kind of reflective thought, the less fruitful his soul will be. Let us try to understand why this is so. Consider the realms of nature and suppose that we have before us an array of plants. They have been formed by the living wisdom which calls forth their inherent productive power. Now an artist comes along. His soul receives the picture that Nature sets before him. He does not merely think about it; he opens himself to Nature's productive power and lets it work upon him. He creates a work of art which does not embody merely an act of thinking; it is imbued with productive power. Then comes someone who tries to get behind the picture and to extract a thought from it. He ponders over it. In this way its reality is filtered and impoverished. Now try to carry this process further. Once the soul has extracted a thought from the picture, it has finished with it. Nothing more can be done except to formulate thoughts about the thought — an absurd procedure which soon dries up. It is quite different with creative thinking. Here a man is himself productive. His thoughts take form as realities in outer life; here he is working after the example of Nature herself. That is how it is with a man who goes beyond mere observation and reflective thinking and allows something not to be gained from observation to arise in his soul. All spiritual-scientific truths require a productive disposition in the soul. In the case of these truths all mere reflective thinking is bad and leads to deception. But the truths attainable by creative thought are limited, for man is weak in the face of the creative wisdom of the world. There is no end to the things from which we can derive truths by reflective thought; but creative thought, although the field open to it is restricted, brings about a heightening of productive power; the soul is refreshed and its scope extended. Indeed, the soul becomes more and more inwardly divine, in so far as it reflects in itself an essential element of the divine creative activity in the world. So we have these two distinct kinds of truth, one reached by creative thought, the other by reflective thought. This latter kind, derived from the investigation of existent things or current experience, will always lead to abstractions; under its influence the soul is deprived of nourishment and tends to dry up. The truth that is not gained from immediate experience is creative; its strength helps man to find a place in the world where he can co-operate in shaping the future. The past can be approached only by reflective thought, while creative thought opens a way into the future. Man thus becomes a responsible creator of the future. He extends the power of his Ego into the future, in so far as he comes to possess not merely the truths derived from the past by reflective thinking, but also those that are gained by creative thinking and point towards the future. Herein lies the liberating influence of creative thinking. Anyone who is active in the striving for truth will soon find how he is impoverished by mere reflective thinking. He will come to understand how the devotee of reflective thinking fills his mind with phantom ideas and bloodless abstractions. Such a man may feel like an outcast, condemned to a mere savouring of truth and may come to doubt whether his spirit can play any part in shaping the world. On the other hand, a man who experiences a truth gained by creative thinking will find that it nourishes and warms his soul and gives it new strength for every stage in life. It fills him with joy when he is able to grasp truths of this kind and discovers that in bringing them to bear on the phenomena of life he can say to himself: Now I not only understand what is going on there, but I can explain it in the light of having known something of it previously. With the aid of spiritual-scientific truths we can now approach man himself. He cannot be understood merely by reflective thinking, but now we can comprehend him better and better, while our feeling of unity with the world and our interest in it are continually enhanced. We experience joy and satisfaction at every confirmation of spiritual-scientific truths that we encounter. This is what makes these truths so satisfying: we have first to grasp them before we can find them corroborated in actual life, and all the while they enrich us inwardly. We are drawn gradually into unity with the phenomena we experience. We get away more and more from ourselves, whereas reflective thinking leads to subtle forms of egoism. In order to find confirmation of truths gained by creative thinking we have to go out from ourselves and look for their application in all realms of life. It is these truths that liberate us from ourselves and imbue us in the highest degree with a sense of truth and a feeling for it. Feelings of this kind have been alive in every genuine seeker after truth. They were deeply present in the soul of Goethe when he declared: “Only that which is fruitful is true” — a magnificent, luminous saying of far — reaching import. But Goethe was also well aware that men must be closely united with truth if they are to understand one another. Nothing does more to estrange men from one another than a lack of concern for truth and the search for truth. Goethe also said: “A false doctrine cannot be refuted, for it rests on a conviction that the false is true.” 27 The first quotation is from the poem “Vermächtnis”, 1829; the second is from the “Sprüche in Prosa” in vol V, p.402 of Goethes Naturwissenschaftliche Schriften , edited with a commentary by Rudolf Steiner, 5 vols, Dornach, 1975. Obviously there are falsities that can be logically disproved, but that is not what Goethe means. He is convinced that a false viewpoint cannot be refuted by logical conclusions, and that the fruitful application of truth in practical life should be our sole guide-line in our search for truth. It was because Goethe was so wonderfully united with truth that he was able to sketch the beautiful poetic drama, Pandora , which he began to write in 1807. Though only a fragment, Pandora is a ripe product of his creative genius — so powerful in every line, that anyone who responds to it must feel it to be an example of the purest, grandest art. We see in it how Goethe was able to make a start towards the greatest truths — but then lacked the strength to go further. The task was too arduous for him to carry through; but we have enough of it to get some idea of how deeply he had penetrated into the problems of spiritual education. He had a clear vision of everything that the soul has to overcome in order to rise higher; he understood everything we learnt yesterday about anger and the fettered Prometheus, and have learnt today about that other educator of the soul, the sense of truth. How closely related these two things are in their effects on the soul can be seen also in the facial expressions they call forth. Let us picture a man under the influence of anger, and another man upon whom truth is acting as an inward light. The first man is frowning — why? In such cases the brow is knitted because an excessive force is working inwardly, like a poison, to hold down a surplus of egoism which would like to destroy everything that exists alongside and separate from the man himself. In the clenched fist of anger we see the wrathful self closed up in itself and refusing to go forth into the outer world. Now compare this with the facial expression of someone who is discovering truth. When he perceives the light of truth, he too may frown, but in his case the wrinkled brow is a means whereby the soul expands, as though it would like to grasp and absorb the whole world with devoted love. Observe, too, the eyes of a man who is trying to overhear the world's secrets. His eyes are shining, as though to encompass everything around him in the outer world. He is released from himself; his hand is not clenched, but held out with a gesture that seeks to absorb the being of the world. The whole difference between anger and truth is thus expressed in human physiognomy and gesture. Anger thrusts the human being deeper into himself. If he strives for truth, his being expands into the outer world; and the more united he becomes with the outer world, the more he turns away from the truths gained by reflective thinking to those gained by creative thinking. Therefore, Goethe in his Pandora brings into opposition with each other certain characters who can be taken to represent forces at work in the human soul. They are intended to express symbolically the relationships between the characteristics and capacities of the soul. When you open Pandora , you come upon something remarkable and highly significant at the very start. On the side of Prometheus, the stage is loaded with tools and implements constructed by man. In all these, human energies have been at work, but in a certain sense it is all rough and ready. On the side of Epimetheus, the other Titan, there is a complete contrast. Here everything is perfectly finished; we see not so much what man creates, but a bringing together of what Nature has already produced. It is all the result of reflective thinking. Here we have combination and shaping, a symmetrical ordering of Nature's work. On the side of Prometheus, unsymmetry and roughness; on the side of Epimetheus, elegant and harmonious products of Nature, culminating in a view of a wonderful landscape. What does all this signify? We need only consider the two contrasted characters: Prometheus the creative thinker, Epimetheus the reflective thinker. With Prometheus we find the products mainly of creative thinking. Here, although man's powers are limited and clumsy, he is productive. He cannot yet shape his creations as perfectly as Nature shapes her own; but they are all the outcome of his own powers and tools. He is also deficient in feeling for scenes of natural beauty. On the side of Epimetheus, the reflective thinker, we see the heritage of the past, brought into symmetrical order by himself. And because he is a reflective thinker, we see in the background a beautiful landscape which gives its own special pleasure to the human eye. Epimetheus now comes forward and discloses his individual character. He explains that he is there to experience the past, and to reflect upon past occurrences and the visible world. But in his speech he reveals the dissatisfaction that this kind of attitude can at times call forth in the soul. He feels hardly any difference between day and night. In brief, the figure of Epimetheus shows us reflective thinking in its most extreme form. Then Prometheus comes forward carrying a torch and emerging from the darkness of night. Among his followers are smiths; they set to work on the man-made objects that are lying around, while Prometheus makes a remarkable statement that will not be misunderstood if we are alive to Goethe's meaning. The smiths extol productivity and welcome the fact that in the course of production many things have to be destroyed. In a one-sided way they extol fire. A man who is an all-round reflective thinker will not praise one thing at the expense of another. He casts his eye over the whole. Prometheus, however, says at once: In partiality let the active man Find his pleasure He extols precisely the fact that to be active entails the acceptance of limitations. In Nature, the right is established when the wrong destroys itself. But to the smiths Prometheus says: Carry on doing whatever can be done. He is the creative man; he emerges with his torch from the darkness of night in order to show how from the depths of his soul the truth gained by his creative thinking comes forth. Unlike Epimetheus, he is far from a dreamlike feeling that night and day are all one. Nor does he experience the world as a dream. For his soul has been at work, and in its own dark night it has grasped the thoughts which now emerge from it. They are no dreams, but truths for which the soul has bled. By this means the soul advances into the world and gains release from itself; but at the same time it incurs the danger of losing itself. This does not yet apply to Prometheus himself, but when a man introduces one-sidedness into the world, the danger appears among his descendants. Phileros, the son of Prometheus, is already inclined to love and cherish and enjoy the products of creative work, while his father Prometheus is still immersed in the stream of life's creative power. In Phileros we are shown the power of creative thinking developed in a one-sided way. He rushes out into life, not knowing where to search for enjoyment. Prometheus cannot pass on to his son his own fruitfully creative strength, and so Phileros appears incomprehensible to Epimetheus, who out of his own rich experience would like to counsel him on his headlong career. We are then magnificently shown what mere reflective thinking involves. This is connected with the myth that Zeus, having fettered Prometheus to the rock, imposes Pandora, the all-gifted, on mankind. Most beautiful and gifted she approached The amazed watcher, moving with noble grace, Her gracious look inquiring whether I, Like to my sterner brother, would repel her, But all too strongly were my heart-beats stirred, With sense bemused my charming bride I welcomed. Towards the mysterious dowry then I turned, The earthen vessel, tall and shapely, stood Close-sealed ... Prometheus had warned his brother against this gift from the gods. But Epimetheus, with his different character, accepts the gift, and when the earthen vessel is opened, all the afflictions that can befall mankind come pouring out. Only one thing is left in the vessel — Hope. Who, then, is Pandora and what does she signify? Truly a mystery of the soul is concealed in her. The fruits of reflective thinking are dead products, an abstract reflection of the mechanical thoughts forged by Hephaestus. This wisdom is powerless in the face of the universally creative wisdom from which the world has been born. What can this abstract reflection give to mankind? We have seen how this kind of truth can be sterile and can lay waste the soul, and we can understand how all the afflictions that fall on mankind come pouring out of Pandora's vessel. In Pandora we have to see truth without the powers of creativity, the truth of reflective thinking, a truth which builds up a mechanised thought-picture in the midst of the world's creative life. For the mere reflective thinker only one thing remains. While the creative thinker unites his Ego with the future and gets free from himself, the reflective thinker can look to the future only with hope, for he has no part in shaping it. He can only hope that things will happen. Goethe shows his deep comprehension of the myth by endowing the marriage of Epimetheus and Pandora with two children: Elpore (Hope) and Epimeleia (Care), who safeguards existing things. In fact, man has in his soul two offspring of dead, abstract, mechanically conceived truth. This kind of truth is unfruitful and cannot influence the future; it can only reflect what is already there. It leaves a man with nothing but the hope that what is true will duly come to pass. This is represented by Goethe with splendid realism in the figure of Elpore, who, if someone asks her whether this or that is going to happen, always gives the same answer, yes, yes. If a Promethean man were to stand before the world and speak of the future, he would say: “I hope for nothing. With my own forces I will shape the future.” But a reflective thinker can only reflect on the past and hope for the future; thus Elpore, when asked whether this or that will happen, replies always, yes, yes. We hear it again and again. In this way a daughter of reflective thinking is admirably characterised and her sterility is indicated. The other daughter of this reflective thinking, Epimeleia, is she who cares for existing things. She sets them all in symmetrical order and can add nothing from her own resources. But all things which fail to develop are increasingly liable to destruction; hence we see how anxiety about them continually mounts, and how through mere reflective thinking a destructive element finds its way into the world. This is wonderfully well indicated by Goethe when he makes Phileros fall in love with Epimeleia. We see him, burnt up with jealousy, pursuing Epimeleia, until she takes refuge from him with the Titan brothers. Strife and dissension come simultaneously on to the scene. Epimeleia complains that the person she loves is the very one to seek her life. Everything that Goethe goes on to say shows how deeply he had penetrated into the effects of creative thinking and reflective thinking on the soul. The creative thinking of the smiths is set in wonderful contrast to the outlook of the shepherds; whilst the latter take what Nature offers, the former work on the products of Nature and transform them. Therefore Prometheus says of the shepherds: they are seeking peace, but they will not find a peace that satisfies their souls: Go your ways in peace; but peace You will not find. For a wish merely to preserve things as they are leads only to the unproductive side of Nature. The truths which belong to creative thinking and reflective thinking respectively are thus set before us in the figures of Prometheus and Epimetheus, and in all the characters connected with them. They represent those soul-forces which can spring from an excessive, one-sided predilection for one or other way of striving after truth. And after we have seen how disastrous are the consequences of these extremes, we are shown finally the one and only remedy — the co-operation of the Titan brothers. The drama leads on to an outbreak of fire in a property owned by Epimetheus. Prometheus, who is prepared to demolish a building if it no longer serves its purpose, advises his brother to make all speed to the spot and do all he can to halt the destruction. But Epimetheus no longer cares for that; he is thinking about Pandora and is lost in his recollection of her. Interesting also is a dialogue between the brothers about her: Prometheus: Epimetheus: Prometheus: In every sentence spoken by Prometheus we see how mechanised, abstract limitations obsess his mind. Then Eos, the Dawn, appears. She is an unlit being who precedes and heralds the sun, but also contains its light within herself already. She does not simply emerge from the darkness of night; she represents a transition to something which has overcome night. Prometheus appears with his torch because he has just come out of the night. The artificial light he carries indicates how his creative work proceeds from the night's darkness. Epimetheus can indeed admire the sunlight and its gifts, but he experiences everything as in a dream. He is an example of pure reflective thinking. The way in which light can escape the attention of a soul absorbed in creative activity is shown by what Prometheus says in the light of day. His people, he says, are called upon not merely to observe the sun and the light, but to be themselves a source of illumination. Now Eos, Aurora, comes forward. She calls upon men to be active everywhere in doing right. Phileros, already having sought death, should unite with the forces which will make it possible for him to rescue himself. The smiths, who are working within the limits of their creative thinking, and the shepherds, who accept things as they are, are now joined by the fishermen. And we see how Eos gives them advice: Morning of youth, dawning of day, More beautiful than ever, From the unfathomed ocean I bring you now. Awake, shake off your sleep, You dwellers in the bay By cliffs encircled, You fishermen, arise, And ply your craft. With speed spread out your nets Around the well-known waters, A splendid catch is certain When my voice cheers you on. Swim, you swimmers! Dive, you divers! Watch, you watchers on the heights! May the shores and seas together Swarm with swift abounding life! Then we are shown in a wonderful way how Phileros is rescued on the surging flood and unites his own strength with the strength of the waves. The active creative power in him is thus united with the creative power in Nature. So the elements of Prometheus and Epimetheus are reconciled. Thus Goethe offers a solution rich in promise, by showing how knowledge gained from nature by reflective thinking can be fired with productive energy by the creative thinking element. This latter acquires its rightful strength by receiving, in loyalty to truth, what the gods “up there” bestow: Take note of this: What is desirable, you feel down here; What is to be given, they know up there. You Titans make a great beginning, But the way to the eternal good, the forever beautiful, That is the work of the gods; they ensure it. The union of Prometheus and Epimetheus in the human soul will bring salvation for them and for mankind. The whole drama is intended to indicate that through an all-round grasping of truth the entire human race, and not only individuals, will find satisfaction. Goethe wished to show that an understanding of the real nature of truth will unite humanity and foster love and peace among men. Then Hope, also, is transformed in the soul — Hope who says yes to everything but is powerless to bring anything about. The poem was to have ended with the transformed Elpore, Elpore thraseia, coming forward to tell us that she is no longer a prophetess but is to be incorporated into the human soul, so that human beings would not merely cherish hopes for the future but would have the strength to co-operate in bringing about whatever their own productive power could create. To believe in the transformation wrought by truth upon the soul — that is the whole perfected truth which reconciles Prometheus and Epimetheus. Naturally, these sketchy indications can bring out only a little of all that can be drawn from the poem. The deep wisdom that called forth this fragment from Goethe will disclose itself first to those who approach it with the support of a spiritual-scientific way of thinking. They can experience a satisfying, redeeming power which flows out from the poem and quickens them. We must not fail to mention a remarkably beautiful phrase that Goethe included in his Pandora . He says that the divine wisdom which flows into the world must work in harmony with all that we are able to achieve through our own Promethean power of creative thinking. The element that comes to meet us in the world and teaches us what wisdom is, Goethe called the Word. That, which lives in the soul and must unite itself with the reflective thinking of Epimetheus, is the Deed of Prometheus. So the union of the Logos or Word with the Deed gives rise to the ideal that Goethe wished to set before us in his Pandora as the fruit of a life rich in experiences. Towards the end of the poem, Prometheus makes a remarkable statement: “A real man truly celebrates the deed.” This is the truth that remains hidden from the reflective thinking element in the soul. If we open ourselves to this whole poem, we can come to realise the heroic yearning for development felt by men such as Goethe, and the great modesty which prevents them from supposing that by reaching a certain stage they have done enough and need not try to go further. Goethe was an apprentice of life up to his last day, and always recognised that when a man has been enriched by an experience he must overcome what he has previously held to be true. When as a young man, Goethe was beginning to work on Faust , and had occasion to introduce some translations from the Bible, he decided that the words “In the beginning was the Word”, should be rendered as “in the beginning was the Deed”. At this same time he wrote a fragment on Prometheus. 28 Faust 1, 11.1224 and “Prometheus”, a dramatic fragment, 1773. There we see the young Goethe as altogether active and Promethean, confident that simply by developing his own forces, not fructified by cosmic wisdom, he could progress. In his maturity, with a long experience of life behind him, he realised that it was wrong to underestimate the Word, and that Word and Deed must be united. In fact, Goethe revised parts of his Faust while he was writing his Pandora . We can understand how Goethe came by degrees to maturity only if we realise the nature of truth in all its forms. It will always be good for man if he wrestles his way to realising that truth can be apprehended only by degrees. Or take a genuine, honest, all-round seeker after truth who is called upon to bring forcibly before the world some truth he has discovered. It will be very good if he reminds himself that he has no grounds for pluming himself on this one account. There are no grounds at any time for remaining content with something already known. On the contrary, such knowledge as we have gained from our considerations yesterday and today should lead us to feel that, although the human being must stand firmly on the ground of the truth he has acquired and must be ready to defend it, he must from time to time withdraw into himself, as Goethe did. When he does this, the forces arising from the consciousness of the truth he has gained will endow him with a feeling for the right standards and for the standpoint he should make his own. From the enhanced consciousness of truth we should ever and again withdraw into ourselves and say, with Goethe: Much that we once discovered and took for truth is now only a dream, a dreamlike memory; and what we think today, will not survive when we put it to a deeper test. The words often spoken by Goethe to himself in relation to his own honest search for truth may well be echoed by every man in his solitary hours: A poor wight am I Through and through. My thoughts miss the mark, My dreams, they are not true. 29 From the poem “Sprichtwörtlich”. If we can feel this, we shall be in the right relationship to our high ideal, Truth.

Metamorphoses of the Soul: Paths of Experience I

The Mission of Truth

https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA058/English/RSP1983/19091022p01.html

Berlin

22 Oct 1909

GA058-3

You all know the words with which Goethe concluded his life's masterpiece, Faust : All things transient Are but a parable; Earth's insufficiency Here finds fulfilment; The indescribable Here becomes deed; The eternal-feminine Draws us on high. It goes without saying that in this context the “eternal-feminine” has nothing to do with man and woman. Goethe is making use of an ancient turn of speech. In all forms of mysticism — and Goethe gives these closing lines to a Chorus mysticus — we find an urge in the soul, at first quite indefinite, towards something which the soul has not yet come to know and to unite itself with, but must strive towards. This goal, at first only dimly surmised by the aspiring soul, is called by Goethe, in accord with the mystics of diverse times, the eternal-feminine, and the whole sense of the second part of Faust confirms this way of taking the concluding lines. This Chorus mysticus , with its succinct words, can be set against the Unio mystical the name given by true mystical thinkers to union with the eternal-feminine, far off spiritually but within human reach. When the soul has risen to this height and feels itself to be at one with the eternal-feminine, then we can speak of mystical union, and this is the highest summit that we shall be considering today. In the last two lectures, on the mission of anger and the mission of truth, we saw that the soul is involved in a process of evolution. On the one hand, we indicated certain attributes which the soul must strive to overcome, whereby anger, for example, can become an educator of the soul; and we saw on the other, how truth can educate the soul in its own special way. The end and goal of this process of development cannot always be foreseen by the soul. We can place some object before us and say that it has developed from an earlier form to its present stage. We cannot say this of the human soul, for the soul is progressing through a continuing evolution in which it is itself the active agent. The soul must feel that, having developed to a certain point, it has to go further. And as a self-conscious soul it must say to itself: How is it that I am able to think not only about my development in the past but also about my development in the future? Now we have often explained how the soul, with all its inner life, is composed of three members. We cannot go over this in detail again today, but it will be better to mention, it, so that this lecture can be studied on its own account. We call these three members of the soul the Sentient Soul, the Intellectual Soul and the Consciousness Soul. The Sentient Soul can live without being much permeated by thinking. Its primary role is to receive impressions from the outer world and to pass them on inwardly. It is also the vehicle of such feelings of pleasure and pain, joy and grief, as come from these outer impressions. All human emotions, all desires, instincts and passions arise from within the Sentient Soul. Man has progressed from this stage to higher levels; he has permeated the Sentient Soul with his thinking and with feelings induced by thinking. In the Intellectual Soul, accordingly, we do not find indefinite feelings arising from the depths, but feelings gradually penetrated by the inner-light of thought. At the same time it is from the Intellectual Soul that we find emerging by degrees the human Ego, that central point of the soul which can lead to the real Self and makes it possible for us to purify, cleanse and refine the qualities of our soul from within, so that we can become the master, leader and guide of our volitions, feelings and thoughts. This Ego, as we have seen already, has two aspects. One possibility of development for it is through the endeavours that man must make to strengthen this inner centre more and more, so that an increasingly powerful influence can radiate out from it into his environment and into all the life around him. To enhance the value of the soul for the surrounding world and at the same time to strengthen its independence — that is one aspect of Ego development. The reverse side of this is egoism. A self that is too weak will lose itself in the flood of the world. But if a man likes to keep his pleasures and desires, his thinking and his brooding, all within himself, his Ego will be hardened and given over to self-seeking and egoism. Now we have briefly described the content of the Intellectual Soul. We have seen how wild impulses, of which anger is an example, can educate the soul if they are overcome and conquered. We have seen also that the Intellectual Soul is positively educated by truth, when truth is understood as something that a man possesses inwardly and takes account of at all times; when it leads us out of ourselves and enlarges the Ego, while at the same time it strengthens the Ego and makes it more selfless. Thus we have become acquainted with the means of self-education that are provided for the Sentient Soul and the Intellectual Soul. Now we have to ask: Is there a similar means provided for the Consciousness Soul, the highest member of the human soul? We can also ask: What is there in the Consciousness Soul which develops of its own accord, corresponding to the instincts and desires in the Sentient Soul? Is there something that belongs by nature to the Consciousness Soul, such that man could acquire very little of it if he were not already endowed with it? There is something which reaches out from the Intellectual Soul to the Consciousness Soul — the strength and sagacity of thinking. The Consciousness Soul can come to expression only because man is a thinking being, for its task is to acquire knowledge of the world and of itself, and for this it requires the highest instrument of knowledge—thinking. We learn about the external world through perceptions; they stimulate us to gain knowledge of our surroundings. To this end, we need only devote our attention to the outer world and not stand blankly in front of it, for then the outer world itself draws us on to satisfy our thirst for knowledge by observing it. With regard to gaining knowledge of the super-sensible world, we are in a quite different situation. First of all, the super-sensible world is not there in front of us. If a man wishes to gain a knowledge of it, so that this knowledge will permeate his Consciousness Soul, the impulse to do so must come from within and must penetrate his thinking through and through. This impulse can come only from the other powers of his soul, feeling and willing. Unless his thinking is stimulated by both these powers, it will never be impelled to approach the super-sensible world. This does not mean that the super-sensible is merely a feeling, but that feeling and willing must act as inner guides towards its unknown realm. What qualities, then, must feeling and willing acquire towards its unknown realm. What qualities, then, must feeling and willing acquire in order to do this? First of all, someone might object to the use of a feeling as a guide to knowledge. But a simple consideration will show that in fact this is what feeling does. Anyone who takes knowledge seriously, will admit that in acquiring knowledge we must proceed logically. We use logic as an instrument for testing the knowledge we acquire. How, then, if logic is this instrument, can logic itself be proved? One might say: Logic can prove itself. Yes, but before we begin proving logic by logic, it must be at least possible to grasp logic with our feeling. Logical thought cannot be proved primarily by logical thought, but only by feeling. Indeed, everything that constitutes logic is first proved through feeling, by the infallible feeling for truth that dwells in the human soul. From this classical example we can see how feeling is the foundation of logic and of thinking. Feeling must give the impulse for the verification of thought. What must feeling become if it is to provide an impulse not only for thinking in general, but for thinking about worlds with which we are at first unacquainted and cannot survey? Feeling of this kind must be a force which strives from within towards an object yet unknown. When the human soul seeks to encompass with feeling some other thing, we call this feeling love. Love can of course be felt for something known, and there are many things in the world for us to love. But as love is a feeling, and a feeling is the foundation of thinking in the widest sense, we must be clear that the unknown super-sensible can be grasped by feeling before thinking comes in. Unprejudiced observation, accordingly, shows that it must be possible for human beings to come to love the unknown super-sensible before they are able to conceive it in terms of thought. This love is indeed indispensable before the super-sensible can be penetrated by the light of thought. At this stage, also, the will can be permeated by a force which goes out towards the super-sensible unknown. This quality of the will, which enables a man to wish to carry out his aims and intentions with regard to the unknown, is devotion. So can the will inspire devotion towards the unknown, while feeling becomes love of the unknown; and when these two emotions are united they together give rise to reverence in the true sense of the word. Then this devotion becomes the impulse that will lead us into the unknown, so that the unknown can be taken hold of by our thinking. Thus it is that reverence becomes the educator of the Consciousness Soul. For in ordinary life, also, we can say that when a man endeavours to grasp with his thinking some external reality not yet known to him, he will be approaching it with love and devotion. Never will the Consciousness Soul gain a knowledge of external objects unless love and devotion inspire its quest; otherwise the objects will not be truly observed. This also applies quite specially to all endeavours to gain knowledge of the super-sensible world. In all cases, however, the soul must allow itself to be educated by the Ego, the source of self-consciousness. We have seen how the Ego gains increasing independence and strength by overcoming certain soul qualities, such as anger, and by cultivating others, such as the sense of truth. After that, the self-education of the Ego comes to an end; its education through reverence begins. Anger is to be overcome and discarded; a sense of truth is to permeate the Ego; reverence is to flow from the Ego towards the object of which knowledge is sought. Thus, having raised itself out of the Sentient Soul and the Intellectual Soul by overcoming anger and other passions and by cultivating a sense of truth, the Ego is drawn gradually into the Consciousness Soul by the influence of reverence. If this reverence becomes stronger and stronger, one can speak of it as a powerful impulse towards the realm described by Goethe: All things transient Are but a parable; Earth's insufficiency Here finds fulfilment; The indescribable Here becomes deed; The eternal-feminine Draws us on high. The soul is drawn by the strength of its reverence towards the eternal, with which it longs to unite itself. But the Ego has two sides. It is impelled by necessity to enhance continually its own strength and activity. At the same time it has the task of not allowing itself to fall under the hardening influence of egoism. If the Ego seeks to go further and gain knowledge of the unknown and the super-sensible, and takes reverence as its guide, it is exposed to the immediate danger of losing itself. This is most likely to happen, above all, to a human being if his will is always submissive to the world. If this attitude gains increasingly the upper hand, the result may be that the Ego goes out of itself and loses itself in the other being or thing to which it has submitted. This condition can be likened to fainting by the soul, as distinct from bodily fainting. In bodily fainting the Ego sinks into undefined darkness; in fainting by the soul, the Ego loses itself spiritually while the bodily faculties and perceptions of the outer world are not impaired. This can happen if the Ego is not strong enough to extend itself fully into the will and to guide it. This self-surrender by the Ego can be the final result of a systematic mortification of the will. A man who pursues this course becomes incapable of willing or acting on his own account; he has surrendered his will to the object of his submissive devotion and has lost his own self. When this condition prevails, it produces an enduring impotence of the soul. Only when a devotional feeling is warmed through by the Ego, so that man can immerse himself in it without losing his Ego, can it be salutary for the human soul. How, then, can reverence always carry the Ego with it? The Ego cannot allow itself to be led in any direction, as a human Self, unless it maintains in its thinking a knowledge of itself. Nothing else can protect the Ego from losing itself when devotion leads it out into the world. The soul can be led out of itself towards something external by the force of will, but when the soul leaves behind the boundary of the external, it must make sure of being illuminated by the light of thought. Thinking itself cannot lead the soul out; this comes about through devotion, but thinking must then immediately exert itself to permeate with the life of thought the object of the soul's devotion. In other words, there must be a resolve to think about this object. Directly the devotional impulse loses the will to think, there is a danger of losing oneself. If anyone makes it a matter of principle not to think about the object of his devotion, this can lead in extreme cases to a lasting debility of the soul. Is love, the other element in reverence, exposed to a similar fate? Something that radiates from the human Self towards the unknown must be poured into love, so that never for a moment does the Ego fail to sustain itself. The Ego must have the will to enter into everything which forms the object of its devotion, and it must maintain itself in face of the external, the unknown, the super-sensible. What becomes of love if the Ego fails to maintain itself at the moment of encountering the unknown, if it is unwilling to bring the light of thinking and of rational judgment to bear on the unknown? Love of that kind becomes more sentimental enthusiasm ( Schwarmerei ). But the Ego can begin to find its way from the Intellectual Soul, where it lives, to the external unknown, and then it can never extinguish itself altogether. Unlike the will, the Ego cannot completely mortify itself. When the soul seeks to embrace the external world with feeling, the Ego is always present in the feeling, but if it is not supported by thinking and willing, it rushes forth without restraint, unconscious of itself. And if this love for the unknown is not accompanied by resolute thinking, the soul can fall into a sentimental extreme, somewhat like sleep-walking, just as the state reached by the soul when submissive devotion leads to loss of the Self is somewhat like a bodily fainting-fit. When a sentimental enthusiast goes forth to encounter the unknown, he leaves behind the strength of the Ego and takes with him only secondary forces. Since the strength of the Ego is absent from his consciousness, he tries to grasp the unknown as one does in the realm of dreams. Under these conditions the soul falls into what may be called an enduring state of dreaming or somnambulism. Again, if the soul is unable to relate itself properly to the world and to other people, if it rushes out into life and shrinks from using the light of thought to illuminate its situation, then the Ego, having fallen into a somnambulistic condition, is bound to go astray and to wander through the world like a will-o-the-wisp. If the soul succumbs to mental laziness and shuns the light of thought when it meets the unknown, then, and only then, will it harbour superstitions in one or other form. The sentimental soul, with its fond dreams, wandering through life as though asleep, and the indolent soul, unwilling to be fully conscious of itself — these are the souls most inclined to believe everything blindly. Their tendency is to avoid the effort of thinking for themselves and to allow truth and knowledge to be prescribed for them. If we are to get to know an external object, we have to bring our own productive thinking to bear on it, and it is the same with the super-sensible, whatever form this may take. Never, in seeking to gain a knowledge of the super-sensible, must we exclude thinking. Directly we rely on merely observing the super-sensible, we are exposed to all possible deceptions and errors. All such errors and superstitions, all the wrong or untruthful ways of entering the super-sensible worlds, can be attributed in the last instance to a refusal to allow consciousness to be illuminated by the light of creative thought. No one can be deceived by information said to come from the spiritual world if he has the will to keep his thinking always active and independent. Nothing else will suffice, and this is something that every spiritual researcher will confirm. The stronger the will is to creative thinking, the greater is the possibility of gaining true, clear and certain knowledge of the spiritual world. Thus we see the need for a means of education which will lead the Ego into the Consciousness Soul and will guide the Consciousness Soul in the face of the unknown, both the physical unknown and the unknown super-sensible. Reverence, consisting of devotion and love, provides the means we seek. When the latter are imbued with the right kind of self-feeling, they become steps which lead to ever-greater heights. True devotion, in whatever form it is experienced by the soul, whether through prayer or otherwise, can never lead anyone astray. The best way of learning to know something is to approach it first of all with love and devotion. A healthy education will consider especially how strength can be given to the development of the soul through the devotional impulse. To a child the world is largely unknown: if we are to guide him towards knowledge and sound judgment of it, the best way is to awaken in him a feeling of reverence towards it; and we can be sure that by so doing we shall lead him to fullness of experience in any walk of life. It is very important for the human soul if it can look back to a childhood in which devotion, leading on to reverence, was often felt. Frequent opportunities to look up to revered persons, and to gaze with heartfelt devotion at things that are still beyond its understanding, provide a good impulse for higher development in later life. A person will always gratefully remember those occasions, when as a child in the family circle, he heard of some outstanding personality of whom everyone spoke with devotion and reverence. A feeling of holy awe, which gives reverence a specially intimate character, will then permeate the soul. Or someone may relate how with trembling hand, later on, he rang the bell and shyly made his way into the room of the revered personality whom he was meeting for the first time, after having heard him spoken of with so much respectful admiration. Simply to have come into his presence and exchanged a few words can confirm a devotion which will be particularly helpful when we are trying to unravel the great riddles of existence and are seeking for the goal which we long to make our own. Here reverence is a force which draws us upward, and by so doing fortifies and invigorates the soul. How can this be? Let us consider the outward expression of reverence in human gestures — what forms does it take? We bend our knees, fold our hands, and incline our heads towards the object of our reverence. These are the organs whereby the Ego, and above all the higher faculties of the soul, can express themselves most intensively. In physical life a man stands upright by firmly extending his legs; his Ego radiates out through his hands in acts of blessing; and by moving his head he can observe the earth or the heavens. But from studying human nature, we learn also that our legs are stretched out at their best in strong, conscious action if they have first learnt to bend the knee where reverence is really strong, conscious action if they have first learnt to bend the knee where reverence is really due. For this genuflection opens the door to a force which seeks to find its way into our organism. Knees which have not learnt to bend in reverence give out only what they have always had; they spread out their own nullity, to which they have added nothing. But legs which have learnt to genuflect receive, when they are extended, a new force, and then it is this, not their own nullity, which they spread around them. Hands which would fain bless and comfort, although they have never been folded in reverence and devotion, cannot bestow much love and blessing from their own nullity. But hands which have learnt to fold themselves in reverence have received a new force and are powerfully penetrated by the Ego. For the path taken by this force leads first through the heart, where it kindles love; and the reverence of the folded hands, having passed through the heart and flowed into the hands, turns into blessing. The head may turn its eyes and strain its ears to survey the world in all directions, but it presents nothing but its own emptiness. If, however, the head has been bent in reverence, it gains a new force; it will bring to meet the outer world the feelings it has acquired through reverence. Anyone who studies the gestures of people, and knows what they signify, will see how reverence is expressed in external physiognomy; he will see how this reverence enhances the strength of the Ego and so makes it possible for the Ego to penetrate into the unknown. Moreover, this self-education through reverence has the effect of raising to the surface our obscure instincts and emotions, our sympathies and antipathies, which otherwise make their way into the soul unconsciously or subconsciously, unchallenged by the light of judgment. Precisely these feelings are cleansed and purified through self-education by reverence and through the penetration by the Ego of the higher members of the soul. The obscure forces of sympathy and antipathy, always prone to error, are permeated by the light of the soul and transformed into judgment, aesthetic taste and rightly guided moral feeling. A soul educated by reverence will convert its dark cravings and aversions into a feeling for the beautiful and a feeling for the good. A soul that has cleansed its obscure instincts and will-impulses through devotion will gradually build up from them what we call moral ideals. Reverence is something that we plant in the soul as a seed; and the seed will bear fruit. Human life offers yet another example. We see everywhere that the course of a man's life goes through ascending and declining stages. Childhood and youth are stages of ascent; then comes a pause, and finally, in the later years, a decline. Now the remarkable thing is, that the qualities acquired in childhood and youth reappear in a different form during the years of decline. If much reverence, rightly guided, has been part of the experience of childhood, it acts as a seed which comes to fruition in old age as strength for active living. A childhood and youth during which devotion and love were not fostered under the right guidance will lead to a weak and powerless old age. Reverence must take hold of every soul that is to make progress in its development. How is it, then, with the corresponding quality in the object of our reverence? If we look with love on another being, then the reciprocated love of the latter will reveal what can perhaps arise. If a man is lovingly devoted to his God, he can be sure that God inclines to him also in love. Reverence is the feeling he develops for whatever he calls his God out there in the universe. Since the reaction to reverence cannot itself be called reverence, we may not speak of a divine reverence towards man. What, then, precisely is the opposite of reverence in this context? What is it that flows out to meet reverence when reverence seeks the divine? It is might , the Almighty power of the Divine. Reverence that we learn to feel in youth returns to us as strength for living in old age, and if we turn in reverence to the divine, our reverence flows back to us as an experience of the Almighty. That is what we feel, whether we look up to the starry heavens in their endless glory and our reverence goes out to all that lies around us, beyond our compass, or whether we look up to our invisible God, in whatever form, who pervades and animates the cosmos. We look up towards the Almighty and we come to feel with certainty that we cannot advance towards union with that which is above us unless we first approach it from below with reverence. We draw nearer to the Almighty when we immerse ourselves in reverence. Thus we can speak of an Almighty in this sense, while a true feeling for the meaning of words prevents us from speaking of an All-loving. Power can be increased or enhanced in proportion to the number of beings over which it extends. It is different with love. If a child is loved by its mother, this does not prevent her from loving equally her second, third or fourth child. It is false for anyone to say: I must divide up my love because it is to cover two objects. It is false to speak either of an “all-knowledge” or of an indefinite “all-love”. Love has no degree and cannot be limited by figures. Love and devotion together make up reverence. We can have a devoted attitude to this or that unknown if we have the right feeling for it. Devotion can be enhanced, but it does not have to be divided up or multiplied when it is felt for a number of beings. Since this is true also of love, the Ego has no need to lose or disperse itself if it turns with love and devotion towards the unknown. Love and devotion are thus the right guides to the unknown, and the best educators of, the soul in its advance from the Intellectual Soul to the Consciousness Soul. Whereas the overcoming of anger educates the Sentient Soul, and the striving for truth educates the Intellectual Soul, reverence educates the Consciousness Soul, bringing more and more knowledge within its reach. But this reverence must be led and guided from a standpoint which never shuts out the light of thought. When love flows forth from us, it ensures by its own worth that our Self can go with it, and this applies also to devotion. We could indeed lose our Self, but we need not. That is the point, and it must be kept especially in mind if an impulse of reverence enters into the education of the young. A blind, unconscious reverence is never right. The cultivation of reverence must go together with the cultivation of a healthy Ego-feeling. Whereas the mystics of all ages, together with Goethe, have spoken of the unknown, undefined element to which the soul is drawn, as the eternal-feminine, we may without misunderstanding, speak of the element which must always animate reverence as the eternal-masculine. For just as the eternal-feminine is present in both man and woman, so is this eternal-masculine, this healthy Ego-feeling, present in all reverence by man or woman. And when Goethe's Chorus mysticus comes before us, we may, having come to know the mission of reverence which leads us towards the unknown, add the element which must permeate all reverence — the Eternal-masculine. Thus we are now able to reach a right understanding of the experience of the human soul when it strives to unite itself with the unknown and attains to the Unio mystica , wherein all reverence is consummated. But this mystical union will harm the soul if the Ego is lost while seeking to unite itself with the unknown in any form. If the Ego has lost itself, it will bring to the unknown nothing of value. Self-sacrifice in the Unio mystica requires that one must have become something, must have something to sacrifice. If a weak Ego, with no strength in itself, is united with what lies above us, the union has no value. The Unio mystica has value only when a strong Ego ascends to the regions of which the Chorus mysticus speaks. When Goethe speaks of the regions to which the higher reverence can lead us, in order to gain there the highest knowledge, and when his Chorus mysticus tells us in beautiful words: All things transient Are but a parable; Earth's insufficiency Here finds fulfilment; The indescribable Here becomes deed; The eternal-feminine Draws us on high — Then, if we rightly understand the Unio mystica , we can reply: Yes — All things transient Are but a parable; Earth's insufficiency Here finds fulfilment; The indescribable Here becomes deed; The eternal-masculine Draws us on high.

Metamorphoses of the Soul: Paths of Experience I

The Mission of Reverence

https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA058/English/RSP1983/19091028a01.html

Berlin

28 Oct 1909

GA058-4

The words written by Goethe after contemplating Schiller's skull can make a deep impression on the human soul. Goethe was present when Schiller's body was removed from its provisional grave and taken to the princely vault at Weimar. Holding Schiller's skull in his hands, Goethe believed he could recognise in the form and cast of this wonderful structure the whole nature of Schiller's spiritual being, and he was inspired to write these beautiful lines: What greater gift can life on man bestow Than that to him God-Nature should disclose How solid to spirit it attenuates, How spirit's work it hardens and preserves. 30 From the poem “Bei Betrachtung von Schillers Schädel”, 1826. Anyone who understands Goethe's feelings on this occasion will easily turn his mind to all those phenomena where something inward is working to reveal itself in material form, in plastic shapes, as drawing, and so on. We have a most eminent example of this shaping, whereby an inner being reveals itself through outward form, in what we call human character. For human character gives the most varied and manifold expression to the direction and purpose of man's life. We think of human character as having a basic consistency. Indeed, we feel that character is inseparable from a person's whole being, and that something has gone wrong if their thinking, feeling and doing do not make up in some way a harmonious unity. We speak of a split in a man's character as evidence of a real fault in his nature. If in private life a man upholds some principle or ideal, and then in public life says something contrary to it or at least discrepant, we speak of a break in his character, of his inner life falling apart. And we know very well that this can bring a man into difficult situations or may even wreck his life. The significance of a divided character is indicated by Goethe in a remarkable saying that he assigns to Faust — a saying that is often wrongly interpreted by people who believe that Goethe's innermost intentions are known to them: Two souls, alas, are pent within my breast, To tear themselves apart, forever striving; One, in pursuit of passions' crude delights, Clings close with avid senses to the world; The other, thrusting earthly dust away, Aspires to rise to longed-for higher realms. 31 Faust I , 11.1112–1117. This divided condition of the soul is often spoken of as though it were a desirable achievement, but Goethe certainly does not say so. On the contrary, the passage shows clearly how unhappy Faust feels in that period under the pressure of these two drives, one aspiring towards ideal heights, the other striving towards the earthly. An unsatisfying state of soul which Faust has to overcome — that is what Goethe is describing. It is wrong to cite this schism in human nature as though it were justified; it is something to be abolished by the unified character that we must always strive to achieve. If now we wish to look more deeply into human character, the facts outlined in previous lectures must be kept in mind. We must remember that the human soul, embracing the inner life of man, is not merely a chaos of intermingled feelings, instincts, concepts, passions and ideals, but has three distinct members — the Sentient Soul, the lowest; in the middle the Intellectual Soul; and finally the highest, the Consciousness Soul. These three soul-members are to be clearly distinguished, but they must not be allowed to fall apart, for the human soul must be a unity. What is it, then that holds them together? It is what we call the Ego in its true sense, the bearer of self-consciousness; the active element within our soul which plays upon its three members as a man plays upon the strings of an instrument. And the harmony or disharmony which the Ego calls forth by playing on the three soul-members is the basis of human character. The Ego is indeed something of an inner musician, who with a powerful stroke calls one or other soul-member into activity; and the effects of their combined influence, resounding from within a human being as harmony or disharmony, make up the real foundation of his character. However, that is no more than an abstract description. If we are to understand how character comes out in people, we must enter somewhat more deeply into human life and the being of man. We must show how the harmonious or disharmonious play of the Ego on the three soul-members sets its stamp on man's entire personality as he stands before us, and how personality is outwardly revealed. Human life — as we all know — alternates between waking and sleeping. At night, when a man falls asleep, his feelings, his pleasure and pain, his joys and griefs, his urges, desires and passions, his perceptions and concepts, his ideas and ideals, all sink down into indefinite darkness; and his inner life passes into an unconscious or subconscious condition. What has happened? As we have often explained, when a man goes to sleep his physical and etheric bodies remain in bed, while his astral body, including the Sentient Soul, Intellectual Soul and Consciousness Soul, withdraw, as does the Ego. During sleep the astral body and Ego are in a spiritual world. Why does a man return every night to this spiritual world? Why does he have to leave behind his physical and etheric bodies? There are good reasons for it. Spiritual Science says that the astral body is the bearer of pleasure and pain, joy and grief, instincts, desires and passions. Yes, but these are precisely the experiences that sink into indefinite darkness on going to sleep. Yet is it asserted that the astral body and the Ego are in spiritual worlds? Is there not a contradiction here? Well, the contradiction is only apparent. The astral body is indeed the bearer of pleasure and pain, of joy and sorrow, of all the inner experiences that surge up and down in the soul during waking hours, but in man as he is today, the astral body cannot perceive these experiences directly. It can perceive them only when they are reflected from outside itself, and for this to be possible the Ego and astral body must come back into the etheric and physical bodies at the time of awakening from sleep. Everything that a man experiences inwardly, his pleasure and pain, joy and sorrow, is reflected by the physical and etheric bodies — especially by the etheric body — as from a mirror. But we must not suppose that this active process, which goes on every day from morning to evening, requires no effort to sustain it. The inner self of man, his Ego and astral body, his Consciousness Soul, Intellectual Soul and Sentient Soul, all have to work on the physical and etheric bodies, so that through the reciprocal interaction of his inner forces and his outer bodies the surging life of the daytime is engendered. This reciprocal interaction involves a continual using up of soul-forces. When in the evening a man feels tired, this means that he is no longer able to draw from his inner life a sufficiency of the forces which enable him to work on his physical and etheric bodies. When he is nearing sleep and the faculty that required the most intensive play of his spirit into the physical, the faculty of speech, begins to weaken; when sight, smell, taste and finally hearing, the most spiritual of the senses, gradually fade away, because he is no longer able to draw on his inner forces to sustain them — then we see how these forces are used up through the day. What is the origin of these forces? They come from the nightly condition of sleep. During the period between going to sleep and waking up the soul absorbs to the full the forces it needs for conjuring up before us all that we live through by day. During waking hours the soul can deploy its powers, but it cannot draw on the forces necessary for recuperation. Naturally, Spiritual Science is familiar with the various theories advanced by external science to account for the replenishment of forces used up by day, but we need not go into that now. Thus we can say that when the soul passes back from sleep into waking life, it brings from its spiritual home the forces which it devotes all day long to building up the soul-life which it conjures before us. Now let us ask: When the soul goes off to sleep in the evening, does it carry anything with it into the spiritual world? Yes; and if we want to understand what this is, we must above all closely observe man's personal development between birth and death. This development is evident when in later years a man shows himself to be riper, richer in experience and wisdom learnt from life, while he may also have acquired certain capabilities and powers that he did not possess in his younger days. A man does indeed receive from the outer world something that he transforms inwardly, as the following consideration clearly shows. Between 1770 and 1815 certain events of great significance for the development of the world took place. They were witnessed by the most diverse contemporaries, some of whom were unaffected by them, while others were so deeply moved that they became imbued with experience and wisdom and their soul-lives progressed to a higher stage. How did this come about? It is best illustrated by a simple event in ordinary human life. Take the process of learning to write. What really happens before the moment when we are able to put pen to paper and express our thoughts in writing? A great deal must have happened — a whole series of experiences, from the first attempt to hold the pen, then to making the first stroke, and so on through all the efforts which lead at last to a grasp of the craft of writing. If we recall everything that must have occurred during months or years, and all we went through, perhaps by way of punishments and reproofs, until at last these experiences were transformed into knowing how to write, then we must say: These experiences were recast and remoulded, so that later on they appear like the essential core of what we call the ability to write. Spiritual Science shows how this transformation comes about. It is possible only because human beings pass repeatedly through the condition of sleep. In daily life we find that when we are at pains to absorb something, the process of imprinting and retentions is considerably aided if we sleep on it; in that way we make it our own. The experiences we go through have to be united with the soul and worked on by the soul if they are to coalesce and be transformed into faculties. This whole process is carried through by the soul during sleep, and thereby our life is enhanced. Present-day consciousness has little inkling of these things, but in times of ancient clairvoyance they were well known. An example will show how a poet once indicated in a remarkable way his knowledge of this transforming process. Homer, who can rightly be called a seer, describes in his Odyssey 32 Cf. 19th Book, 1.137ff. how Penelope, during the absence of her husband, Odysseus, was besieged by a throng of suitors. She promised them that she would give her decision when she had completed a robe she was weaving; but every night she undid the work of the day. If a poet wishes to indicate how a series of experiences, such as those of Penelope with her suitors, are not to merge into a faculty — in this case the faculty of decision — he must show how these experiences have to be unwoven at night, or they would unfailingly coalesce. To anyone imbued with a typical modern consciousness these ideas may sound like hair-splitting, or they may seem to be imposing something arbitrary on the poet; but the only really great men are those, whose work derives from the great world-secrets, and many people today who talk glibly of originality and the like have no inkling of the depths from which the truly great achievements in the arts have been born. If now we look further at the progress of human life between birth and death, we have to recognise that it is confined within certain narrow limits. We can indeed work at and enhance our faculties; in later life we can acquire qualities of soul which were lacking earlier on; but all this is subject to the fact that we can accomplish nothing that would require us to transform our physical and etheric bodies. These bodies, with their particular aptitudes, are there at birth; we find them ready-made. For example, we can reach a certain understanding of music only if we are born with a musical ear. That is a crude example, but it shows how transformation can be frustrated; in such cases the experiences can indeed be united with the soul, but we must renounce any hope of weaving them into our bodily life. If, then, we consider human life from a higher standpoint, the possibility of breaking free from the physical body and laying it aside must be regarded as enormously wholesome and significant for our entire human existence. Our capacity to transform experiences into faculties is limited by the fact that every morning, on returning from sleep, we find our physical and etheric bodies waiting for us. At death we lay them aside and pass through the gate of death into a spiritual world. There, unhampered by these bodies, we can carry to spiritual completion those experiences between birth and death that we could not embody because of our corporeal limitations. When we descend once more from the spiritual world to a new life on earth, then, and only then, can we take the powers we have woven into our spiritual archetype and give them physical existence by impressing them plastically into the initially soft human body. Now for the first time we can weave into our being those fruits of experience that we had indeed garnered in our previous life but could not then carry into physical embodiment. Seen in this light, death provides for the enhancement of life. Moreover, this comparatively crude work that a man can do on his physical body, whereby he moulds into it what he could not impress on it in his previous life, is not the only possibility open to him. He is able also to imprint on his entire being certain finer fruits of foregoing lives. When someone is born, his Ego and astral body, including his Sentient Soul, Intellectual Soul and Consciousness Soul, are by no means featureless; they are endowed with definite attributes and characteristics brought from previous lives. The cruder work, whereby the fruits of past experiences are impressed on the plastic physical body, is accomplished before birth, but a more delicate work — and this distinguishes man from the animals — is performed after birth. Throughout childhood and youth a man works into the finer Organisation of his inner and outer nature certain determining characteristics and motives for action, brought by his Ego from a previous life. While the Ego thus impresses itself from within on its vehicles of expression, the fact of its activity and its way of working combine to form the character which a man presents to the world. Between birth and death the Ego works on the organs of the soul, the Sentient Soul, Intellectual Soul and Consciousness Soul, in such a way that they respond to what it has made of itself. But the Ego does not stand apart from the urges, desires and passions of the Sentient Soul. No, it unites itself with these emotions as though they were its own; and equally unites itself with the cognitions and the knowledge that belong to the Consciousness Soul. So it is, that the harmony or disharmony that a human being has wrought in his soul-members is impressed by his Ego on his exterior being in his next earthly life. Human character, therefore, although it appears to us as determined and inborn, can yet be seen to be developing gradually in the course of his life. With animals, character is determined entirely at birth; an animal cannot work plastically on its exterior nature. Man has the advantage of appearing at birth with no definite character manifest externally, but in the depths of his being he has slumbering powers brought from previous lives; they work into his undeveloped exterior and gradually shape his character, in so far as this is determined by previous lives. Thus we see how in a certain sense man has an inborn character, but one that gradually develops in the course of life. If we keep this in mind, we can understand how even eminent personalities can go wrong in judging character. There are philosophers who argue that character is inwardly determined and cannot change, but that is a mistake. It applies only to attributes which derive from a previous life and appear as inborn character. Man's inward centre, his Ego, sends out its influence and gives a common stamp and character to every member of his organism. This character extends into the soul and even into the external limbs of the body. We see this inner centre pouring itself forth, as it were, shaping everything in accord with itself, and we feel how this centre holds the members of the human organism together. Even in the external parts of his physical body the imprint of a man's inner being can be discerned. In this connection, an artist once gave wonderful expression to something which generally receives only theoretical attention. The work he produced portrays human nature at the moment when the human Ego, the centre which holds the organism together as a unity, is lost, and the limbs, each going its own way, strain apart in different directions. The work I mean seizes precisely this moment, when a man loses the foundation of his character, of his being as a whole. But this work, a great and famous one, has been very often misunderstood. Do not suppose that I am about to level cheap criticism at men for whose work I have the highest respect. But the fact that even great minds can make mistakes in face of certain phenomena, just when they are most earnestly striving for truth, shows how difficult the path to truth really is. One of the greatest German authorities on art, Winckelmann, 33 Johann Joachim Winkelmann, 1717–68. Cf. his “Geschichte der Kunst im Altertum”, part 11. was impelled by his whole disposition to err in interpreting the work of art known as the Laocoon. 34 Agesander, a Rhodian sculptor, is mentioned by Pliny as the creator, together with Polydorus and Athenodorus, of the Laocoon group, which dates from the period 42–21 B.C. Now in the Vatican. His interpretation has been widely admired. In many circles it has been thought that nothing better could be said about this portrayal of Laocoon, the Trojan priest who, with his two sons, was crushed to death by serpents. Winckelmann, filled with enthusiasm for this example of the sculptor's art, said that here we are shown how the priest, Laocoon, whose every limb bespeaks his nobility and greatness, is torn with anguish, above all the anguish of a father. He is placed between his two sons, with the serpents coiled round their bodies. Conscious of the pain inflicted on his sons, he himself, as a father, is so agonised by it that the lower part of his body is contracted, as though pressing out the full degree of pain. He forgets himself, consumed with immeasurable pity for his sons. This is a beautiful explanation of a father's ordeal, but if — just because we honour Winckelmann as a great personality — we look repeatedly and conscientiously at the Laocoon, we are obliged finally to say that Winckelmann must be mistaken, for it is not possible for pity to be the dominating motif in the scene portrayed. The father's head is aligned at such an angle that he cannot see his sons. Winckelmann's view of the group is quite wrong. The immediate impression we get from looking at the figures is that here we are witnessing the quite definite moment when the encircling pressure of the snakes has driven the human Ego out of Laocoon's body, and the separate instincts, deprived of the Ego, make their way into the physical body. Thus we see the head, the lower body and the limbs each taking its own course, not brought into natural harmony with the figure as a whole because the Ego is absent. The Laocoon group shows us, in external bodily terms, how a man loses his unified character when bereft of the Ego, the strong central point which holds together the members of his bodily organism. And if we allow this spectacle to work on our souls, we can come to experience the unifying element which naturally expresses itself in the harmonising of the limbs, and imprints on a man what we call his character. But now we must ask: If it is true that a man's character is to some extent inborn — if the characteristics given by birth cannot by any effort be altered beyond a certain limit, as every glance at human life will tell us — is it then possible for a man to change his character in a certain way? Yes, in so far as character belongs to the life of the soul and is not subject to the bodily limitations we encounter every morning on waking from sleep, and so can help to harmonise and strengthen the Sentient Soul, Intellectual Soul and Consciousness Soul. To this extent there can be a development of character during a person's life between birth and death. Some knowledge of all this is of special importance in education. Essential as it is to understand the temperaments and the differences between them, it is necessary also to know something about human character and what can be done to change it between birth and death, even though it is in some measure determined by the fruits of a previous life. If we are to make good use of this knowledge, we must be clear that personal life goes through four typical periods of development. In my small book, 35 For his concept of asceticism see The World as Will and Representation , Book IV. Particularly from par. 68. you will find further information on these stages; here I can only sketch them in outline. The first period runs from birth up to the beginning of the change of teeth around the age of seven. It is during this period that external influence can do most to develop the physical body. During the next period, from the seventh year up to the onset of puberty at about the thirteenth, fourteenth or fifteenth year, the etheric body, particularly, can be developed. Then comes a third period when the lower astral body, especially, can be developed, until finally, from about the 21st year onwards, the time comes when a human being meets the world as a free, independent being and can himself work on the progress of his soul. The years from 20 to 28 are important for developing the forces of the Sentient Soul. The next seven years up to the age of 35 — these are all only average figures — are important for the development of the Intellectual Soul, especially through intercourse with the outer world. All this may be regarded as nonsense by those who fail to observe the course of human life, but anyone who studies life with open eyes will come to know that certain elements in the human being are most open to development during particular periods. During our early twenties we are particularly well placed to bring our desires, instincts, passions and so on into relation with the impressions and influences received from our dealings with the outer world. We can feel our powers growing through the corresponding interaction between the Intellectual Soul and the world around us, and anyone who knows what true knowledge is, will realise that all earlier acquisitions of knowledge were no more than a preparation for this later stage. The ripeness of experience which enables one to survey and evaluate the knowledge one acquires is not attained, on average, before the thirty-fifth year. These laws exist. Anyone unwilling to recognise them is unwilling to observe the course of human life. If we keep this in mind, we can see how human life between birth and death is structured. The work of the Ego in harmonising the soul-members, and its necessary endeavour to impress the fruits of its work on the physical body, will show you how important it is for an educator to know how the physical body goes through its development up to the seventh year. It is only during this period that influences from the outer world can be brought in to endow the physical body with power and strength. And here we encounter a mysterious connection between the physical body and the Consciousness Soul, a connection which exact observation can thoroughly confirm. If the Ego is to gain strength, so that in later life, after the thirty-fifth year, it can permeate itself with the forces of the Consciousness Soul, and through this permeation can go forth to acquire knowledge of the world, it ought to encounter no boundaries in the physical body. For the physical body can set up the greatest obstacles to the Consciousness Soul and the Ego, if the Ego is not content to remain enclosed in the inner life but wishes to go out and engage in free intercourse with the world. Now since in bringing up a child during his first seven years we are able to strengthen the forces of his physical body, within certain limits, a remarkable connection between two periods of life is apparent. What can be accomplished for a child during these years by those who care for him is not a matter of indifference! People who fail to realise this have not learnt how to observe human life. Anyone who can compare the early years of childhood with the period after the thirty-fifth year will know that if a man is to go out into the world and engage in free intercourse with it, the best thing we can do for him is to bring him the right sort of influence during his early years. Anything we can do to help the child to find joy in immediate physical life, and to feel that love surrounds him, will strengthen the forces of his physical body, making it supple, pliant and open to education. The more joy, love and happiness that we can give the child during his early years, the fewer obstacles and hindrances he will encounter later on, when the work of his Ego on his Consciousness Soul should enable him to become an open character, associating in free give-and-take with the outer world. Anything in the way of unkindness pain or distressing circumstances that we allow the child to suffer up to his seventh year has a hardening effect on his physical body, and this creates obstacles for him in later life. He will tend to become a closed character, a man whose whole being is imprisoned in his soul, so that he is unable to achieve a free and open intercourse with the world and the impressions it yields. Again, there are connections between the etheric body and the second period of life, and therefore with the Intellectual Soul. The play of the Ego on the Intellectual Soul releases forces which can either endow a man with courage and initiative or incline him to cowardice, indecision, sluggishness. Which way it goes depends on the strength of the Ego. But when a man has the best opportunity to use the Intellectual Soul for strengthening his character through intercourse with the world, between the ages of 28 and 35, he may encounter hindrances in his etheric body. If during the period from the seventh to the fourteenth year we supply the etheric body with forces that will prevent it from creating these hindrances in later life, we shall be doing something for his education that should earn his gratitude. If during the period from seven to fourteen in a child's life we can stand towards him as an authority, and as a source of truth whom he can trust, this is particularly health-giving. Through this relationship, we, as parents or teachers, can strengthen his etheric forces so that in later life he will encounter the least possible obstacles in his etheric body. Then he will be able, if his Ego has the disposition for it, to become a man of courage and initiative. If we are aware of these hidden connections, we can have an enormously health-giving influence on human beings while they are growing up. Our chaotic education has lost all knowledge of these connections; they were known instinctively in earlier times. It is always a pleasure to see that some old teachers knew of these things, whether by instinct or by inspiration. Rotteck's old World History , for example: it was to be found in our fathers' libraries and it may now be out of date here and there, but if we approach it with understanding we encounter a quite individual method of presentation which shows that Rotteck, who taught history in Freiburg, had a way of teaching which was the very reverse of dry or insipid. We have only to read the Foreword, which is quite out of the ordinary in spirit, to feel: here is a man who knows that in addressing young people of this age — from 14 to 21, when the astral body is developing — he must bring them into touch with the power of great, beautiful ideals. Rotteck is always at pains to show how we can be inspired by the great thoughts of the heroes and to kindle the enthusiasm that can be felt for all that men and women have striven for and suffered in the course of human evolution. This approach is entirely justified, for the influence thus poured into the astral body during these years is of direct benefit to the Sentient Soul, when the Ego is working to develop a person's character through free intercourse with the world. All that has flowed into the soul from high ideals and enthusiasm is imprinted on the Sentient Soul and embodied accordingly in character. Thus we see that because the physical, etheric and astral bodies are still plastic in young people, this or that influence can be impressed on them through education, and this makes it possible for a man to work on his character in later life. If education has not helped him in this way, he will find it difficult to work on his character and he will have to resort to the strongest measures. He will need to devote himself to deep meditative contemplation of certain qualities and feelings in order to impress them consciously on his soul. He must try, for example, to experience inwardly the content of those religious confessions which can speak to us as more than theories. He must devote himself again and again to contemplation of those great philosophies in the widest sense which in later life can lead through our thoughts and feelings into the great, all-embracing cosmic secrets. If we can immerse ourselves in these secrets, ever and again willingly devoting ourselves to them; if through daily prayer we make them part of ourselves, then through the play of the Ego, we can re-mould our characters in later life. In this connection the essential thing is that the qualities acquired by and embodied in the Ego are imprinted on the Sentient Soul, the Intellectual Soul and the Consciousness Soul. Generally speaking, man has little power over his external body. We have seen how he encounters a boundary in his physical body, with its innate pre-dispositions. Nevertheless, observation shows that in spite of this limitation, man can do some work on his physical body between birth and death. Who has not noticed that a man who devotes himself for a decade to knowledge of a really deep kind — knowledge that does not remain grey learning but is transformed into pleasure and pain, happiness and sorrow, thus becoming real knowledge and uniting itself with the Ego — who has not noticed that such a man's physiognomy, his gestures, his entire behaviour have changed, showing how the working of the Ego has penetrated right into his external physique! However, the extent to which the outer body can be influenced by powers acquired between birth and death is very limited. For the most part man has to resign himself to keeping them for his next earthly life. On the other hand, the various attributes brought over from previous lives can be enhanced by working on them between birth and death, if the faculty for doing so has been acquired. Thus we see how character is not confined to the inner life of the soul, but penetrates into a man's external physique and limbs. It finds expression, first, in his gestures; second, in his physiognomy; and third, in the plastic formation of the skull, the origin of what we call phrenology. How, then, does character achieve this outward expression in gesture, physiognomy and bone-formation? The Ego works formatively first of all in the Sentient Soul, which embraces all the instincts, desires, passions — in short, everything that belongs to the inner impulses of the will. The note sounded by the Ego on this member of the soul is manifest externally as gesture, and this play of gestures, springing from a man's inner being, can tell us a great deal about his character. When the Ego is active chiefly in the Sentient Soul, the note it sounds there resonates in the Intellectual Soul and the Consciousness Soul, and this, too, is evident in gesture. The coarser elements of the Sentient Soul come to expression in gestures connected with the lower part of the body. If, for instance, a man pats his stomach with a feeling of satisfaction, we can see how his character is bound up with his Sentient Soul, and how volitions connected with his higher soul-members come to expression hardly at all. When, however, the activity of the Ego resonates in the intellectual Soul, we can often observe a gesture related to the organ which serves the Intellectual Soul as its chief means of outer expression. Speakers who have the so-called “breast-tone of conviction” are given to striking themselves over the heart. They are men who speak with passion and are not concerned with objective judgment. Here we have the passionate character who lives entirely in the Sentient Soul but has so strong an Ego that his emotions resonate in the Intellectual Soul; we recognise him by his expansive attitudes. For example, there are popular speakers who thrust their thumbs into their waistcoats and swell out their chests when they are facing an audience. Far from being objective, they speak directly out of the Sentient Soul, putting into words their personal egoistic feelings and reinforcing them with this gesture — thumbs in waistcoat. When the note struck by the Ego in the Sentient Soul resonates in the Consciousness Soul, we see a gesture bearing on the organ which gives the Consciousness Soul its chief outer expression. If a person finds it particularly difficult to bring his inner feelings to the point of reaching a decision, he will lay a finger on his nose — a gesture indicating how hard it is for him to fetch up a decision from the depth of his Consciousness Soul. When someone lives chiefly in the Intellectual Soul, this is apparent in his physiognomy and facial expression. The experience of the Intellectual Soul lies closer to man's inner life and is not subject to the outer pressure under which he might sigh like a slave. He feels it to be more his own property, and this is reflected in his face. If a man is indeed capable of living in the Intellectual Soul, but presses down its content into the Sentient Soul, if any judgment he forms gets hold of him so strongly that he glows with enthusiasm for it, we can see this expressed in his sloping forehead and projecting chin. If something is actually experienced in the Intellectual Soul and only resonates in the Sentient Soul, this is expressed in the lower part of the face. If a man achieves the special virtue of the Intellectual Soul, a harmony between inner and outer, so that he neither secludes himself in inward brooding nor depletes his inner life by complete surrender to outer impressions, and if his Ego's work in the shaping of character is accomplished chiefly through the Intellectual Soul, then all this will be manifest in the middle part of his face, the external expression of the Intellectual Soul. Here we can see how fruitful Spiritual Science can be for the study of civilisations: we are shown how successive characteristics are imprinted on successive peoples. Thus the Intellectual Soul made its imprint particularly on the ancient Greeks, among whom we can discern the beautiful harmony between inner and outer that is the characteristic manifestation of the Intellectual Soul. And here, accordingly, we find the Greek nose in its perfection. True it is that we cannot fully understand these things unless we relate them to their spiritual background. Again, when someone carries the content of the Intellectual Soul into the realm of cognition and experiences it in the Consciousness Soul, the outward sign of this is a projecting forehead, as though the working of the Ego in the Intellectual Soul were flowing up into the Consciousness Soul. If, however, someone lives in close unity with his Ego, so that the character of the Ego is impressed on the Consciousness Soul, he can then carry the note sounded by the Ego in his Consciousness Soul down into his Intellectual Soul and his Sentient Soul. This goes with a higher stage of human development. Only the Consciousness Soul can be permeated by high moral and aesthetic ideals and by great, wide-ranging conceptions of the world. All this has to come to life in the Consciousness Soul, but the forces engendered by the Ego in the Consciousness Soul on this account can penetrate down into the Sentient Soul, where they are fired with enthusiasm and passion and with what we may call the inner warmth of the Sentient Soul, This comes about when a man can glow with enthusiasm for some knowledge he has gained. Then the noblest aspiration to which man can rise at present is carried down into the Sentient Soul. And the Sentient Soul itself is enhanced when permeated by forces from the Consciousness Soul. But what the Ego can accomplish for a character — ideal through its work in the Consciousness Soul may encounter obstacles caused by inborn pre-dispositions, so that it cannot be impressed on the physical body. Then we have to practise resignation; the work of the Ego in the Consciousness Soul may give rise to a noble quality of soul, but this cannot come to expression in the physical body during that single life-time. But the ardent passion for high moral ideals that a person has experienced in the Sentient Soul can be taken through the gate of death and carried over into his next life as a most powerful formative force. We can see how this comes to expression in the contours of the skull, showing that what a man has made of himself penetrates into his very bones. A study of the contours of the skull can indeed throw some light on character, but always in a strictly individual context. It is absurd to suppose that phrenology can lay down general schemes and typical principles that will be universally valid. Everyone has a phrenology that applies to himself alone, for his skull is shaped by forces derived from his previous life, and in every individual this must be recognised. Only abstract theorists addicted to diagrams would think of founding a phrenology on general principles. Anyone who knows about the formative forces that work into man's very bones would speak only of recognising their effects in individuals. The formation of the skull is different with everyone and can never be accounted for in terms of a single earthly life. Here we touch on what is called reincarnation, for in the contours of the skull we can discern what a man has made of himself in previous lives. Here reincarnation becomes a palpable fact. We need only know where to read the evidence for it. Thus we see how the effects of human character have to be followed from their origin all the way into the hardest structures, and then human character stands before us as a wonderful riddle. We have begun to describe how the Ego impresses character into the forms of the Sentient Soul, the Intellectual Soul and the Consciousness Soul. Then we saw how this work by the Ego has results which make their mark on man's external physique and are manifest in gesture and physiognomy and even in the bones. And since man is led from birth to death and on again to a new birth, we saw how his inner being works on the outer, impressing character both on the inner life and on the physical body, which is an image of the inner life. Hence we can very well understand the deep impression made on us by the Laocoon, where we see the bodily character failing asunder into the several limbs; we see, as it were, the character, which belongs to the very essence of man, vanishing in the outward gestures of this work of art. Here we have plain evidence of the working of inner forces in the material realm, and of how the dispositions brought from earlier lives are determining factors in any given life; and we see how the spirit, by breaking life asunder, brings to expression in a new life the character acquired as the outcome of a previous one. We can now enter into Goethe's feelings when he held Schiller's skull in his hand and said: In the contours of this skull I see how the spirit sets its stamp on matter. This form, full of character, calls up for me the voice that I heard sounding through Schiller's poems and in the words of friendship he so often spoke to me. Yes, I see here how the spirit has worked in the material realm. And when I contemplate this piece of matter, its noble forms show me how previous lives prepared the radiance that shone out so powerfully for me from Schiller's mind. So we are led to repeat as our own conviction the words written by Goethe after contemplating Schiller's skull: What greater gift can life on man bestow Than that to him God-Nature should disclose How solid to spirit it attenuates, How spirit's work it hardens and preserves.

Metamorphoses of the Soul: Paths of Experience I

Human Character

https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA058/English/RSP1983/19090314p01.html

Munich

14 Mar 1910

GA058-5

Human life swings between work and idleness. The activity we are to discuss today, known as asceticism, is regarded either as work or as idleness according to the preconceptions of one person or another. An objective, unbiased study, such as Spiritual Science demands, is impossible unless we observe how what is called asceticism — in the highest sense excluding misuse of the word — influences human life, and either helps or harms it. It is quite natural that most people today should have a somewhat false idea of what the word asceticism ought to mean. In its original Greek form it could apply as well to an athlete as to an ascetic. But in our time the word has acquired a particular colouring from the form taken by this way of life during the Middle Ages; and for many people the word has the flavour that Schopenhauer gave it in the 19th century. 35 For his concept of asceticism see The World as Will and Representation , Book IV. Particularly from par. 68. Today the word is again acquiring a certain colouring through the manifold influences of oriental philosophy and religion, particularly through what the West usually calls Buddhism. Our task in this lecture is to find the true origin in human nature of asceticism; and Spiritual Science, as characterised in previous lectures, is called upon to bring clarity into this discussion, the more so because its own outlook is connected with the original meaning of the Greek word, askesis . Spiritual Science and spiritual research, as they have been represented here for some years, take a quite definite attitude towards human nature. They start from the postulate that at no stage in the evolution of mankind is it justifiable to say that here or there are the limits of human knowledge. The usual way of putting the question, “What can man know, and what can he not know?”, is for Spiritual Science misdirected. It does not ask what man can know at a certain stage in his evolution; or what the boundaries of knowledge are at that stage; or what remains hidden because at that time human cognition cannot penetrate it. All these matters are not its immediate concern; for Spiritual Science takes its stand on the firm ground of evolution, in particular the evolution of human soul-forces. It says that the human soul can develop. As in the seed of a plant the future plant sleeps and is called forth by the forces within the seed and those which work on it from without, so are hidden forces and capacities always sleeping in the human soul. What we cannot know at one stage of development we may know later, when we have advanced a little in developing our spiritual faculties. Which are the forces that we can develop in ourselves for a deeper understanding of the world and the attainment of an ever-wider horizon? That is the question asked by Spiritual Science. It does not ask where the boundaries of our knowledge are, but how man can surpass the bounds that exist at any given period by developing his capacities. Not through vague talk, but in a quite definite way, it shows how man can surpass the cognitive faculties that have been bestowed on him by an evolutionary process in which his own consciousness has not participated. In the first instance, these faculties are concerned only with the world perceived by our senses and grasped by our reason. But by means of the forces latent in the soul, man is able to penetrate into the worlds which are at first not open to the senses and cannot be reached by a reason bound up with the senses. In order that we may from the beginning avoid the charge of vagueness, I will describe quite briefly what you will find given fully in Knowledge of the Higher Worlds: How is it Achieved ? When we speak of passing beyond the ordinary bounds of knowledge, we must take care not to wander off into the blue, but rather find our way from the solid ground under our feet into a new world. How is it to be done? In the normal human being of today, we have an alternation of the two conditions called “waking” and “sleeping”. 36 Cf. also the chapter “Sleep and Death” in Rudolf Steiner, Occult Science, An Outline . Without going into details, we may say that for ordinary knowledge the difference lies in this, that while man is awake, his senses and the sense-bound intellect are under constant stimulus. It is this stimulus which wakens his external cognition, and during waking hours he is given up to the external sense-world. In sleep we are removed from that world. A simple logical consideration shows that it is not irrational for Spiritual Science to maintain that there is something in human nature which separates itself during sleep from what we usually call the human body. We know that for Spiritual Science the physical body, which can be seen with the eyes and touched with the hand, is only part of man. He has a second part, the so-called etheric or life-body. When we are asleep, the physical and etheric bodies remain in bed, and we separate from them what we call the consciousness body or — don't be put off by the terminology — the astral body, the bearer of desire and pain, pleasure and sorrow, of impulse and passion. In addition we have a fourth part, one which makes man the crown of earthly creation: the ego. These last two parts split off during sleep from the physical and the etheric bodies. A simple consideration, as I said, can teach us that it is not irrational for Spiritual Science to declare that what we have as pleasure and pain, or as the ego's power of judgment, cannot vanish during the night and be reborn anew every morning, but must remain in existence. Think, if you will, of this withdrawal of the astral body and the ego as a mere picture; in any case it is undeniable that the ego and the astral body withdraw from what we call the physical and the etheric bodies. Now the peculiar thing is that these inmost parts of the human being, the astral body and the ego, within which we live through what we call soul-experience, sink down during sleep into an indefinite obscurity. But this means simply that this inmost part of the human being needs the stimulus of the external world if it is to be conscious of itself and of the external world. Hence we can say that at the moment of falling asleep, when this stimulus ceases, man cannot develop consciousness in himself. But if, in the normal course of his existence, a human being were able so to stimulate the inner parts of his being, so to fill them with energy and inner life, that he had a consciousness of them even when there were no sense-impressions and the sense-bound intellect was inactive and free from the stimulus of the external world, he would then be able to perceive other things than those which come through the stimulus of the senses. However strange and paradoxical it may sound, it is true that if a man could reproduce a condition which on the one hand resembles sleep, and yet is essentially different from it on the other, he could reach super-sensible knowledge. His condition would resemble sleep in not depending on any external stimulus; the difference would be that he would not sink into unconsciousness but would unfold a vivid inner life. As may be shown from spiritual-scientific experience, man can come to such a condition: a condition of clairvoyance, if the word is not misused, as it so often is today. I will give you briefly one example of the numerous inner exercises through which this condition can be attained. If we wish to experience this condition safely, we must always start from the external world. The external world gives us mental images, and we call them true if we find that they correspond with external facts. But this kind of truth cannot raise us above external reality. Our task, therefore, is to bridge the gulf between external perception and a perception which is independent of the senses and yet can give us truth. One of the first stages towards this form of knowledge is concerned with pictorial or symbolic concepts. As an example, let us take a symbol which is of use for spiritual development, and expound it in the form of a conversation between a teacher and his pupil. In order to make his pupil understand this kind of symbolic picture, 37 Cf. also the chapter “Knowledge of the Higher Worlds” in Rudolf Steiner, Occult Science, An Outline . the teacher might speak as follows: “Think of the plant, how it is rooted in the earth and grows from it, sends forth green leaf after green leaf and develops to flower and fruit.” (We are not here concerned with ordinary scientific ideas, for, as we shall see, we are not discussing the essential difference between man and plant, but trying to get hold of a useful pictorial idea). The teacher may continue: “And now look at man. He certainly has a great deal that is not present in the plant. He can experience impulses, desires, emotions, a whole range of concepts which can lead him up the ladder from blind sensation and instinct to the highest moral ideals. Only a scientific fantasy could attribute similar consciousness to plants and to men; but on a lower level a plant has certain advantages. It has certainty of growth, without possibility of error, while man can deviate at any moment from his right place in the world. We can see how in his whole structure he is permeated with instincts, desires and passions which may bring him into error, delusion and falsehood. In contrast, the plant is in substance untouched by these things; it is a pure, chaste being. Only when man has purified his whole life of instinct and desire can he hope to be as pure on his higher level as the plant is in its certainty and security on the lower level.” Then we can pass to a further picture. The plant is permeated with the green colouring matter, chlorophyll, which steeps the leaves in green colour. Man is permeated with the vehicle of instincts and emotions, his red blood. That is a sort of evolution upwards, and in its course man has had to accept characteristics not found in the plant. He must hold before his eyes the high ideal of one day attaining on his own level to the inner purity, certainty and self-control of which we have a picture at a lower level in the plant. So we may ask what we must do in order to rise to that level. Man must become lord and master of the instincts, passions and cravings which surge around, unsought, within him. He must grow beyond himself, kill within him all that normally dominates him, and raise to a higher level all that is dominated by the lower. This is how man has developed from the plant, and all that has been added since the plant stage he must look on as something to be conquered, in order to derive from it a higher life. That is the proper direction of man's future, indicated by Goethe in the fine stanza: Whoever cannot say Die and renew thyself! On our dark earth will be A mournful guest! 38 Last verse of the poem “Selige Sehnsucht” from the Westöstliche Divan. This does not mean that man must kill his instincts and emotions, but that he cleanses and purifies them by removing their mastery over him. So, in looking at the plant, he can say: “Something in me is higher than the plant, but I have to conquer and destroy it.” As a picture of what we have to overcome in ourselves, let us take that part of the plant which is no longer capable of life, the dry wood, and set it up in the form of a cross. The next task is to cleanse and purify the red blood, the vehicle of our instincts, impulses and cravings, so that it may be a pure, chaste expression of our higher being, of what Schiller meant when he spoke of “the higher man in man”. The blood will then be, as it were, a copy in man of the pure sap which flows through the plant. “Now” — the teacher will resume — “let us look at a flower in which the sap, rising up continuously, stage by stage, through the leaves, finally merges into the colour of the flower, the red rose. Picture the red rose as an image of your blood when your blood has been cleansed and purified. The sap of the plant pulses through the red rose and leaves it without impulses or desires; but your impulses and desires must come to be the expression of your purified ego.” Thus we supplement our picture of the wood of the cross, which symbolises what we have to overcome, by hanging a garland of red roses upon the cross. Then we have a picture, a symbol, which does not appeal only to dry reasoning, but by stirring our feelings gives us an image of human life raised to the level of a higher ideal. Someone may now say: Your picture is an invention which corresponds to nothing true. All that you conjure up, the black cross and the red rose is mere fancy. Yes, undoubtedly, this picture, as brought before the inner eye of anyone who wishes to rise into spiritual worlds, is an invention. That is just what it has to be! Its purpose is not to portray something that exists in the external world. If that were its function, we would not need it. We would be satisfied with the impressions of the outer world that come to us directly through our sense-perceptions. But the picture we create, though its elements are drawn from the external world, is based on certain feelings and ideas that belong to our own inner being. The essential thing is that we should be fully conscious of each step, so that we keep a firm hold on the threads of our inner processes; otherwise we should be lost in illusion. Anyone who wants to rise to higher worlds through inner meditation and contemplation does not live only in abstract pictures, but in a world of concepts and feelings which flow from these pictures he creates. The pictures call forth a number of activities in his soul, and by excluding every external stimulus he concentrates all his powers on contemplating the pictures. They are not meant to reflect external circumstances, but to awaken forces that slumber within him. If he is patient and perseveres — for progress comes slowly — he will notice that quiet devotion to pictures of this kind will give him something that can be further developed. He will soon find that his inner life is changing: a condition emerges that is in some respects akin to sleep. But while sleep brings a submergence of conscious soul-life, the devotion I have mentioned, and meditation on the symbolic pictures, cause inner forces to awaken. Very soon he feels that a change is going on within him, although he has excluded all impressions of the outer world. So through these quite unrealistic symbols he awakens inner forces, and he soon realises that he can put them to good use. Someone may object again by saying: “That is all very well, but even if we develop these forces and really penetrate into the spiritual world, how can we be sure that what we perceive is reality?” Nothing can prove this except experience, just as the external world can be proved to exist only by experience. Mere concepts can be very strictly distinguished from perceptions and the two categories will be confused only be someone who has lost touch with reality. Especially in philosophical circles today, a certain misunderstanding has been gaining ground. Schopenhauer, 39 See note 20. for instance, in the first part of his philosophy starts with the assumption that the world of man is a concept. Now you can see the difference between a percept and a concept by looking at your watch. As long as you are in contact with your watch, that is percept; if you turn round, you have a picture of the watch in your mind; that is concept. In practical life we very soon learn to distinguish between percept and concept, or we should go badly astray. If you picture a red-hot iron, however hot it is, you will not be burnt, but if you touch it you will soon realise that a percept is something other than a concept. It is the same with an example given by Kant; 40 Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason , Second Division, Book 11, Chapter III, Section 4: “The impossibility of an Ontological Proof of the Existence of God”. from a certain point of view it is justified, but during the last century it has been the source of much error. Kant tried to upset a certain concept of God by showing that there is no difference in content between the idea of a hundred shillings and a hundred real shillings. It is wrong, however, to maintain that there is no difference in the content, for then it is easy to confuse a perception, which gives us direct contact with reality, with the content of a mere concept. Anyone who has to pay a debt of a hundred shillings will soon find out the difference. It is the same with the spiritual world. When we awaken the forces and faculties which are latent within us, and when around us is a world we have not known before, a world which shines out as though from a dark spiritual depth, then someone who enters this realm uninitiated might well say that it is all illusion and auto-suggestion. But anyone who has had real experiences on this level will be well able to distinguish reality from fantasy, just as in ordinary life we can distinguish between an imaginary piece of hot steel and a real one. Thus we can see that it is possible to call forth a different form of consciousness. I have given you only one brief example of how inner exercises can work on the sleeping faculties of the soul. Of course, while we are still practising the exercises, we do not see a spiritual world; we are occupied in awakening the faculties required. In some circumstances this may last not merely for years, but for a whole life or lives. In the end, however, the result of these exercises is that the sleeping forces of cognition are awakened and directed towards a spiritual world, just as we have learnt to adapt the eye with the help of unknown spiritual powers to observing the external world. This work on one's own soul, this development of the soul to the stage of perceiving a world in which we are not yet living but to which we gain access through what we bring to it — this training can be called asceticism in the true sense of the word. For in Greek the word means working on oneself, making oneself capable of accomplishing something, transforming sleeping forces into active ones. This original meaning of the word can still be its meaning today if we refuse to be led astray by the false use of the term which has become common down the centuries. We shall understand the true meaning of asceticism as described here, only if we remember that the purpose of this working on oneself is to develop faculties which will open up a new world. Now, having discussed asceticism in relation to the spiritual world only, it will be helpful to see how the term applies to certain activities in the external world. There it can signify the training of certain forces and capabilities which are not going to be used immediately for their final purpose, but are first to be exercised and made ready for it. An example close at hand will illustrate this, and will also show how an incorrect use of the term can have harmful results. The term can be rightly applied to military manoeuvres; this is quite in keeping with the original Greek usage. The deployment and testing of military forces on these occasions, so that in real war they may be ready and available in the right numbers — that is asceticism exercise. Whenever forces are not used for their final purpose, but are tested in advance for efficiency and reliability, we have asceticism. Manoeuvres bear the same relation to warfare as asceticism does to life in general. Human life, I said earlier, swings between work and idleness. But there are all sorts of intermediate stages: for example, play. Play, when it really is play, is the opposite of asceticism. And from its opposite one can see very well what asceticism is. Play is the active use of energies in the outer world for the sake of immediate gratification. The material of play is not, so to speak, the hard, unyielding substance of the external world that we encounter during hours of work. In relation to our energies it is malleable, amenable to our exertions. Play is play only when we do not knock up against the resistance of outer forces, as we do in work. Play is concerned with a direct release of energies which are transformed into achievement, and therein lies the satisfaction we get from it. Play does not prepare us for anything; it finds fulfillment in and through itself. It is just the opposite with asceticism, if we take the term in its proper sense. In this case no gratification is gained from anything in the outer world. Whenever we combine things in asceticism, if only the cross and the red roses, the combination is not significant in itself, but only in so far as it calls our inner forces into activity, an activity which will find application only when it has ripened fully within ourselves. Renunciation comes in because we work inwardly on ourselves while knowing that at first we are not to be stimulated by the outer world. Our aim is to bring into activity our inner forces, so that they may be applied to the outer world later on. Play and asceticism, accordingly, are opposites. How does asceticism, in our sense of the word, enter practically into human life? Let us keep to a sphere where asceticism can be practised both in a right and in a wrong way. We will take the case of someone who makes it his aim to ascend into spiritual worlds. If, then, a super-sensible world comes by some means or other to his attention, whether through another person or through some historical document, he may say: There are statements and communications concerning the super-sensible worlds, but at present they are beyond my comprehension; I lack the power to understand them. Then there are others who reject these communications, refuse to have anything to do with them. What is the source of this attitude? It arises because a person of this type rejects asceticism in the best sense of the word; he cannot find in his soul the strength to use the means I have described for developing higher faculties. He feels too weak for it. I have repeatedly emphasised that clairvoyance is not necessary for understanding the findings of clairvoyant research. Clairvoyance is indeed necessary for gaining access to spiritual facts, but once the facts have been communicated, anyone can use unprejudiced reason to understand them. Impartial reason and healthy intellect are the best instruments for judging anything communicated from the spiritual worlds. A true spiritual scientist will always say that if he could be afraid of anything, he would be afraid of people who accept communications of this kind without testing them strictly by means of reason. He is never afraid of those who make use of unclouded intelligence, for that is what makes all these communications comprehensible. However, a man may feel too weak to call forth in himself the forces necessary for understanding what he is told concerning the spiritual world. In that case he turns away from all this through an instinct for self-preservation which is right for him. He feels that to accept these communications would throw his mind into confusion. And in all cases where people reject what they hear through Spiritual Science, an instinct of self-preservation is at work; they know that they are incapable of doing the necessary exercises — that is, of practising asceticism in the true sense. A person prompted by the instinct for self-preservation will then say to himself: If these things were to permeate my spiritual life, they would confuse it; I could make nothing of them and therefore I reject them. So it is with a materialistic outlook which refuses to go a step beyond the doctrines of a science it believes to be firmly founded on facts. But there are other possibilities, and here we come to a dangerous side of asceticism. People may have a sort of avidity for information about the spiritual world while lacking the inner urge and conscience to test everything by reason and logic. They may indulge a liking for sensationalism in this field. Then they are not held back by an instinct for self-preservation, but are driven on by its very opposite, a sort of urge for self-annihilation. If anyone takes something into his soul without understanding it, and with no wish to apply his reason to it, he will be swamped by it. This happens in all cases of blind faith, or when communications from the spiritual worlds are accepted merely on authority. This acceptance corresponds to an asceticism which derives not from a healthy instinct for self-preservation, but from a morbid impulse to annihilate the self, to drown in a flood of revelations. This has a significant shadow-side in the human soul: it is a bad form of asceticism when someone gives up all effort and chooses to live in faith and in reliance on others. This attitude has existed in many forms in many epochs. But we must not assume that everything which looks like blind faith is so. For example, we are told that in the old Pythagorean Mystery Schools 41 Pythagoras of Samos, c. 580–495 B.C. Cf. also Rudolf Steiner, Christianity as Mystical Fact and The Riddles of Philosophy . there was a familiar phrase: The Master has said. But this never meant: The Master has said, therefore we believe it! For his students it meant something like this: The Master has said; therefore it demands that we should reflect on it and see how far we can get with it if we bring all our forces to bear upon it. To “believe” need not always imply a blind belief springing from a desire for self-annihilation. It need not be blind belief if you accept communications springing from spiritual research because you trust the researcher. You may have learnt that his statements are in strictly logical form, and that in other realms, where his utterances can be tested, he is logical and does not talk nonsense. On this verifiable ground the student can hold a well-founded belief that the speaker, when he is talking about things not yet known to the student, has an equally sure basis for his statements. Hence the student can say: I will work! I have confidence in what I have been told, and this can be a guiding star for my endeavours to raise myself to the level of the faculties which will make themselves intelligible of their own accord, when I have worked my way up to them. If this healthy foundation of trust is lacking and a person allows himself to be stirred by communications from the invisible worlds without understanding them, he will drift into a very wretched condition that is not compatible with asceticism. Whenever a person accepts something in blind faith without resolving to work his way to an understanding of it, and if therefore he accepts another person's will instead of his own, he will gradually lose those healthy soul-forces which provide the inner life with a sure centre and endow us with a true feeling for what is right. Lies and a proneness to error will beset a person who is unwilling to test inwardly, with his reason, what he is told; he will tend to drown and to lose himself in it. Anyone who does not allow himself to be guided by a healthy sense of truth will soon find how prone he is to lies and deceptions even in the outer world. When we approach the spiritual world we need to reflect very seriously that through this surrender of our judgment we can very easily fall into a life which no longer has any real feeling for truth and reality. If we seriously practise the exercises and wish to train our inner powers, we must never give up bringing before our souls the kind of knowledge I have been describing. We can now penetrate further into what may be called the ascetic training of the soul in a deeper sense. So far we have considered only people who are not capable of developing these inner forces in a healthy way. In one case a sound instinct of self-preservation made a person refuse to develop these forces because he did not want to develop them; in the other case a person did not absolutely refuse to develop them, but he refused to bring his judgment and intelligence to bear on them. In all such cases the impulse is always to remain on the old level, at the old standpoint. But let us suppose a case where a person really does try to develop these inner faculties, and makes use of such forms of training as those we have described. Again there may be a dual result. It may be the result we always aim at, where Spiritual Science is taken seriously and worthily. A person will then be guided to develop his inner forces only in so far as he is capable of using them in a right and orderly way. Here, then, we are concerned with how a person has to work on himself — as is described in greater detail in my book, Knowledge of the Higher Worlds: How is it Achieved ? — in order to awaken the faculties which will open the spiritual world to his inner sight. But at the same time he must be competent to discipline his faculties and to establish the right balance between his work on himself and his dealings with the outer world. The necessity of this has been proved by spiritual researchers down the ages. If a person fails to apply his inner forces properly to his handling of the outer world and gives way to an almost uncontrollable urge to develop his soul-powers more and more to bring about all possible movement in his soul, so that he may thereby open his spirit-eyes and spirit-ears; and if he is too indolent to absorb slowly and in the right way the available facts of Spiritual Science and to work on them with his reason, then his asceticism may do him great harm. A person can develop all sorts of faculties and powers and yet not know what to do with them or how to apply them to the outer world. This, indeed, is the outcome of many forms of training and it applies to those who fail to pursue energetically the methods we have described, whereby the student is continually strengthening himself. There are other methods with a different aim: they may be more comfortable but they can easily cause harm. Such methods aim at doing away with the hindrances imposed on the soul by the bodily nature, in order to enhance the inner life. This was in fact the sole endeavour of mediaeval ascetics, and it survives in part today. Instead of true asceticism, which sets out to give the soul an ever-richer content, false asceticism leaves the soul as it is and sets out to weaken the body and to reduce the activity of its forces. There are indeed ways of damping down these forces, so that the functioning of the body gradually weakens, and the result may then be that the soul, though itself remaining weak, gets the upper hand over the weakened body. A correct asceticism leaves the body as it is and enables the soul to master it; the other asceticism leaves the soul as it is, while all sorts of procedures, fasting, mortifications and so on, are used to weaken the body. The soul is then relatively the stronger and can achieve a kind of consciousness, although its own powers have not increased. That is the way of many ascetics in the Middle Ages: they kill the vigour of the body, lower its activities, leave the soul as it is, and then live in the expectation that the content of the spiritual world will be revealed to them with no contribution on their part. That is the easier method, but it is not a truly strengthening one. The true method requires a person to cleanse and purify his thinking, feeling and willing, so that these faculties will be strengthened and able to prevail over the body. The other method lowers the tone of the body, and the soul is then supposed to wait, without having acquired any new capacities, until the divine world flows into it. You will find plenty of references to this method under the heading of “asceticism” in the Middle Ages. It leads to estrangement from the world and is bound to do so. For at the present stage of human evolution there is a certain relationship between our capabilities of perception and the outer world, and if we are to rise above this stage we can do so only by heightening our capabilities and using them to understand the outer world in its deeper significance. But if we weaken our normal forces, we make ourselves incapable of maintaining a normal relationship with the outer world; and especially if we tone down our thinking, feeling and willing and give our souls over to passive expectation, something will then flow into our souls which has no connection with our present-day world, makes us strangers there, and is useless for working in the world. While the true asceticism makes us more and more capable in our dealings with the world, for we see more and more deeply into it, the other asceticism, associated with the suppression of bodily functions, draws a person out of the world, tends to make him a hermit, a mere settler there. In this isolation he may see all sorts of psychic and spiritual things — this must not be denied — but an asceticism of this kind is of no use for the world. True asceticism is work, training for the world, not a withdrawal of oneself into remoteness from the world. This does not imply that we have to go to the opposite extreme; there can be accommodation on both sides. Even though it is true in general that for our period in human evolution a certain normal relationship exists between the external world and the forces of the soul, yet every period tends to drive the normal to extremes as it were, and if we want to develop higher faculties we need pay no attention to opposition that comes from abnormal trends. And because we find the opposition in ourselves, we can under certain circumstances go rather further than would be necessary if the times were not also at fault. I say this because you have perhaps heard that many followers of Spiritual Science lay great stress on a certain diet. This does not at all imply that such a mode of life can do anything for the attainment or even the understanding of higher worlds and higher relationships. It can be no more than an external aid, and should be seen only in relation to the fact that anyone wishing to gain understanding of the higher worlds may find a certain obstacle in the customs and conventions he has to live with at the present day. Because these conventions have drawn us down too deeply into the material world, we must go beyond the normal in order to make the exercises easier. But it would be quite mistaken to regard this as a form of asceticism which can be a means of leading us to higher worlds. Vegetarianism will never lead anyone to higher worlds; it can be no more than a support for someone who thinks to himself: I wish to open for myself certain ways of understanding the spiritual worlds; I am hindered by the heaviness of my body, which prevents the exercises from having an immediate effect. Hence I will make things easier by lightening my body. Vegetarianism is one way of producing this result, but it should never be presented as a dogma; it is only a means which can help some people to gain understanding of the spiritual worlds. No-one should suppose that a vegetarian way of life will enable him to develop spiritual powers. For it leaves the soul as it is and serves only to weaken the body. But if the soul is strengthened, it will be able though the effects of vegetarianism to strengthen the weakened body from the centre of its own forces. Anyone who develops spiritually with the aid of vegetarianism will be stronger, more efficient and more resistant in daily life; he will be not merely a match for any meat-eater but will be superior in working capacity. That is the very opposite of what is believed by many people when they say of vegetarians within a spiritual movement: How sad for these poor folk who can never enjoy a little bit of meat! So long as a person has this feeling about vegetarianism, it will not bring him the slightest benefit. So long as a desire for meat persists, vegetarianism is useless. It is helpful only when it results from an attitude that I will illustrate with a little story. Not very long ago, someone was asked: “Why don't you eat meat?” He replied with a counter-question: “Why don't you eat dogs or cats?” “One just can't”, was the answer. “Why can't you?” “Because I would find it disgusting.” “Well, that is just what I feel about all meat.” That is the point. When pleasure in eating meat has gone, then to abstain from meat may be of some use in relation to the spiritual worlds. Until then, breaking the meat-eating habit can be helpful only for getting rid of the desire for meat. If the desire persists, it may be better to start eating meat again, for to go on tormenting oneself about it is certainly not the right way to reach an understanding of Spiritual Science. From all this you can see the difference between true and false asceticism. False asceticism often attracts people whose sole desire is to develop the inner forces and faculties of the soul; they are indifferent towards gaining real knowledge of the outer world. Their aim is simply to develop their inner faculties and then to wait and see what comes of it. The best way of doing this is to mortify the body as far as possible, for this weakens it, and then the soul, though itself remaining weak, can see into some kind of spiritual world, however incapable it may be of understanding the real spiritual world. This, however, is a path of deception, for directly a person closes off his means of return to the physical world, he encounters no true spiritual world, but only delusive pictures of his own self. And these are what he is bound to encounter as long as he leaves his soul as it is. Because his ego keeps to its accustomed standpoint, it does not rise to higher powers, and he puts up a barrier between himself and the world by suppressing the functions which relate him to the world. It is not only that this kind of asceticism estranges him from the world; he sees pictures which can deceive him as to the stage his soul has reached, and in place of a true spiritual world he sees a picture clouded over by his own self. There is a further consequence which leads into the realm of morality. Anyone who believes that humility and surrender to the spiritual world will set him on the right course of life fails to see that he is involving himself most strongly in his own self and becoming an egoist in the worst sense, for it means that he is content with himself as he is and has no wish to progress any further. This egoism, which can degenerate into unrestrained ambition and vanity, is the more dangerous because the victim of it cannot see it for himself. Generally he looks on himself as a man who sinks down in deepest humility at the feet of his God, while really he is being played on by the devil of megalomania. A genuine humility would tell him something he refuses to recognise, for it would lead him to say to himself: The powers of the spiritual world are not to be found at the stage where I am standing now: I must climb up to them; I must not rest content with the powers I already have. So we see the results of the false asceticism which relies primarily on killing off external things instead of strengthening the inner life: it conduces to deception, error, vanity and egotism. In our time, especially, it would be a great evil if this course were followed as a means of entering the spiritual world. It serves merely to engross man in himself. Today the only true asceticism must be sought in modern Spiritual Science, founded on the firm ground of reality. Through it a person can develop his own faculties and forces and thus rise to a comprehension of a spiritual world which is itself a real world, not one that a man spins round himself. This false asceticism has yet another shadow-side. If you look at the realms of nature around us, leading up from plants through animals to man, you will find the vital functions changing in character stage by stage. For example, the diseases of plants come only from some external cause, from abnormal conditions of wind and weather, light and sunshine. These external circumstances can produce illness in plants. If we go on to consider animals, we find that they also, if left to themselves are greatly superior to human beings in their fund of natural health. A human being may fall ill not only through the life he leads or through external circumstances, but also as a result of his inner life. If his soul is not well suited to his body, if the spiritual heritage he brings from earlier incarnations cannot adapt itself completely to his bodily constitution, these inner causes may bring about illnesses which are very often wrongly diagnosed. They can be symptoms of a maladjustment between soul and body. We often find that people with these symptoms are inclined to rise to higher worlds by killing off their bodily nature. This is because the illness itself induces them to separate their souls from bodies which the soul has not fully permeated. In such people the body hardens itself in the most varied ways and closes in on itself; and since they have not strengthened the soul, but have used its weakness in order to escape from the influence of the bodily nature, and have thus drawn away from the body the health-giving strengthening forces of the soul, the body is made susceptible to all sorts of ailments. While a true asceticism strengthens the soul, which then works back on the body and makes it resistant to illness coming from outside, a false asceticism makes a person vulnerable to any illness of that kind. That is the dangerous connection between false asceticism and the illnesses of our time. And it is this that gives rise in wide circles, where such things are easily misunderstood, to manifold errors as to the influence a spiritual-scientific outlook can have on those who adopt it. For people who seek to come to a sight of the spiritual world by way of a false asceticism are a fearful spectacle for onlookers. Their false asceticism opens up a wide field of action for harmful influences from the outer world. For these people, far from being strengthened to resist the errors of our time, are well and truly exposed to them. Examples of this can be seen in many theosophical tendencies today. Merely calling oneself a “Theosophist” does not automatically guarantee the ability to act as a spiritual impulse against the adverse currents of the present time. When materialism prevails in the world, it is to some extent in tune with the concepts which are formed in observing the sense-world. Hence we can say that the materialism which applies to the external world and knows nothing of a spiritual world is in a certain sense justified. But in the case of an outlook which sets out to impart something about the spiritual world and takes into itself a caricature of the materialistic prejudices of our day because it is not founded on a real strengthening of spiritual forces, the result is much worse. A theosophical outlook permeated by contemporary errors may in some circumstances be much more harmful than a materialistic outlook; and it should be remarked that thoroughly materialistic concepts have spread widely in theosophical circles. So we hear the spiritual spoken of not as Spirit , but as though the spirit were only an infinitely refined form of nebulous matter. In speaking of the etheric body, these people picture only the physical refined beyond a certain point, and then they speak of etheric “vibrations”. On the astral level the vibrations are still finer; on the mental level they are finer still, and so on. “Vibrations” everywhere! Anyone who relies on these concepts will never attain to the spiritual world; he will remain embedded in the physical world to which these concepts ought to be confined. In this way a materialistic haze can be thrown over the most ordinary occasions in daily life. For instance, if we are at a social gathering which has a pleasant atmosphere, with people in harmony, and someone remarks on it in those terms, that may be a humdrum way of putting it; but it is a true way and leads to a better understanding than if at a gathering of theosophists one of them says how good the vibrations are. To say that, one has to be a theosophical materialist with crude ideas. And for anyone with a feeling for such things, the whole atmosphere goes out of tune when these vibrations are said to be dancing around. In these cases one can see how the introduction of materialistic ideas into a spiritual outlook produces a horrifying impression on outsiders, who may then say: These people talk about a spiritual world, but they are really no different from us. With us, the light waves dance; with them the spiritual waves dance. It is all the same materialism. All this needs to be seen in its true light. Then we shall not get a wrong idea of what the spiritual-scientific movement has to offer in our time. We shall see that asceticism, by strengthening the soul, can itself lead to the spiritual world and so bring new forces into our material existence. These are forces that make for health, not for illness; they carry healthy life-forces into our bodily organism. Of course it is not easy to determine how far a given outlook brings healthy or unhealthy forces with it, for the latter are strongly evident, as a rule, while healthy forces are usually not noticed. However, a close observer will see how persons who stand in the stream of true Spiritual Science are fertilised by it and draw from it health-giving forces which work right down into the physical. He will see also that signs of illness appear only if something alien to a spiritual stream is introduced into it. Then the result can be worse than when the alien influence takes its course in the outer world, where people are shielded by conventions from carrying certain errors to an extreme. If we see things in this light, we shall understand true asceticism as a preparatory training for a higher life, a way of developing our inner forces; and we shall then be taking the good old Greek word in its right sense. For to practise asceticism means training oneself, making oneself strong, even “adorning” oneself ( sich schmucken ), so that the world can see what it means to be human. But if asceticism leads you to leave the soul as it is and to weaken the bodily organism, the effect is that the soul is sundered from the body; the body is then exposed to all sorts of harmful influences and the asceticism is actually the source of all manner of ailments. The good and bad sides of egoism will emerge when we come to consider its nature. Today I have shown how true asceticism can never be an end in itself, but only a means of reaching a higher human goal, the conscious experiencing of higher worlds. Anyone wishing to practise this asceticism must therefore keep his feet firmly planted on solid ground. He must not be a stranger to the world in which he lives, but must always be extending his knowledge of the world. Whatever he can bring back from higher worlds must always be measured and assessed in relation to his work in the world; otherwise those who say that asceticism is not work but idleness could well be right. And idleness can easily give occasion for false asceticism, especially in our time. Anyone, however, who keeps a firm foothold on the earth, will regard asceticism as his highest ideal in relation to so serious a subject as our human faculties. Our ideas can indeed rise high if we have before us an ideal picture of how our faculties should work in the world. Let us look for a moment at the opening of the Old Testament: “And God said, Let there be light.” Then we hear how God caused the physical sense-world to arise day by day from the spiritual, and how at the end of each day God looked at his creation and “saw that it was good.” Similarly we must maintain our healthy thinking, our reliable character, our unerring feelings on the firm ground of reality, in order that we may rise to higher worlds and discover there the facts which give birth to the entire physical world. Then, when as searchers we come to know the spirit, and when we apply to the world around us the forces we have developed and see how well adapted to it they are, we can see that this is good. If we test the forces we have acquired through true asceticism by putting them to work in the world, then we have the right to say: Yes, they are good.

Metamorphoses of the Soul: Paths of Experience I

Asceticism and Illness

https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA058/English/RSP1983/19091111p01.html

Berlin

11 Nov 1909

GA058-6

Once upon a time a Society was founded with a programme announcing as its central aim: “The abolition of egoism”. All its members had to pledge themselves to cultivate selflessness and freedom from egoism in any form. This Society had elected a President, as all societies do, and the thing now, was to gain support for its fundamental principle in the world at large. It was emphatically laid down over and over again and in the most diverse ways that no member at any time or place (and especially within the Society) should cherish the slightest egoistic wish or give utterance to any kind of selfish desire. Now this was certainly a Society with an uncommonly praiseworthy programme and an exalted human goal. But one could not immediately say that the members were seeking to exemplify in themselves the primary point in their programme, for they scarcely allowed themselves to become acquainted with unselfish human wishes. The following scene was often enacted within the Society. A member would say: “Yes, I would like this and that. But if I were to put it to the Chairman, I would be advancing an egoistic wish, and that would never do.” Another member would reply: “Quite simple — I'll go on your behalf. I shall be acting as your representative, and in putting forward your wish I shall be doing something entirely selfless. But listen — there is something I would like. Naturally, it is something quite egoistic, so according to our programme I can't propose it.” The first member would then say: “If you are to be so unselfish on my account, I will do something for you. I will go to the Chairman on your behalf and ask him for what you want.” And so it turned out. One of the two went first to the Chairman and then, two hours later, the other member went. Both had put forward quite unselfish wishes. “Once upon a time”, I said — of course this Society has never existed. But anyone who looks round him in daily life will perhaps agree that a little of this Society is always present everywhere. At all events, my intention was only to indicate how “egoism” is one of those words which most readily become catch-words unless they are used in a direct connection with whatever they designate; otherwise they appear in disguise and deceive us into passing casually over them. Today we will take this catch-word, egoism, and its opposite, altruism or selflessness. We shall not treat them as catch-words, but will try to penetrate a little way into the nature of egoism. When we examine these things from the standpoint of Spiritual Science, we are not so much concerned with whatever sympathy or antipathy may be evoked by this or that human characteristic, or how it may be assessed in accordance with some prevailing judgment — these are not important points. What matters much more, is to show how the relevant characteristic originates in the human soul, and within what limits it is valid; and if it must be fought against, to determine how far it can be combated through human nature or through other existent beings. In its literal sense, egoism is the characteristic which impels a man to give first place to his own advantage and the enhancement of his own personality, while its opposite, altruism, aims at placing human faculties at the service of others, indeed, of the whole world. A simple consideration will show us how precarious our position is if we think only of the word egoism, and fail to enter into the thing itself. Suppose that someone proves himself to be a great benefactor in one way or another. It could well be that he is a benefactor only out of egoism, perhaps out of quite petty forms of egoism, perhaps out of vanity and the like. On the other hand, if a man is dubbed an egoist without more ado, this is by no means the last word on his character. For if a man seeks only to satisfy himself but otherwise has noble qualities, so that he sees the service of others as the best way forward for himself, we might perhaps be well pleased with such an “egoist”. This may sound like a mere play on words, but is more than that, for in fact this playing on words permeates our entire life and shows itself in all realms of existence. For everything we find in man we can find something analogous in the rest of the world. Schiller has a verse which indicates how in the realms of Nature something symbolical of an outstanding human quality can be found: Seek you the highest, the greatest? The plant can teach it to you. What the plant does without willing it, Go you and do by willing it. 42 From the poem “Das Höchste”, 1795. Schiller here brings before us the being of the plant and urges man to develop in his own character something as noble as the plant is on its own level. And the great German mystic, Angelus Silesius, says much the same: Not asking why or wherefore blooms the rose Cares not for herself or whether men behold her. 43 From the “Cherubinischen Wandersmann” by Angelus Silesius (1624–1677), Book 1, Verse 289. Here again we are called to look at the plant world. The plant draws in whatever it needs for growth; it asks no why or wherefore; it flowers because it flowers and cares not whom it may concern. And yet, it is by drawing its life-forces and everything it needs for itself from its environment that the plant acquires whatever worth it can have for its environment and finally for men. Indeed, it attains the highest degree of usefulness that can be imagined for a created being, if it belongs to those realms of the plant world which can be of service to higher beings. And it will now be an idle triviality to repeat here a familiar saying, although it has been quoted so often: When herself the rose adorns, She adorns the garden. 44 End of the poem “Welt und Ich” by Friedrich Rückert (1788–1866). When the rose is as beautiful as it can be, the garden is adorned. We can connect this with the word, egoism, and say: When the rose strives quite egoistically to be as beautiful as she can, and to grace herself with the finest possible form, then through her the garden becomes as beautiful as possible. Can we take this result from a lower level of existence and apply it in some way to man? We have no need to do this, for it has been done already by many others, and by Goethe best of all. When Goethe wishes to express what man is in the most authentic sense, and how he manifests most truly his worth and the entire content of his existence, he says: “When a man's healthy nature works as a whole, when he feels himself to be living in the world as in a great and beautiful and worthy whole, when this harmony brings him a pure, free joy, then the universe, if it could come to be aware of its own self, would cry out in exultation at having reached its goal and would marvel at the height which its own being and becoming had attained.” This passage is from Goethe's splendid book on Winckelmann, 45 See note 5. and elsewhere in the same book he says: “Placed upon the summit of Nature, man sees himself as another complete nature, with the task of achieving another summit in himself. To this end he heightens his powers, imbuing himself with all perfections and virtues, invoking choice, order, harmony and meaning, and finally rising to the creation of a work of art.” Goethe's whole mood shows that he is referring here to the artist only as a specialised example and that he really means: Placed upon the summit of Nature, man gathers together everything that the world can express in him and finally displays to the world its own image, mirrored from within himself; and Nature would rejoice if she could perceive in the human soul this reflected image of herself. What else does this mean than that everything which surrounds us in the world, as Nature and as spirit, concentrates itself in man, rises to a summit, and becomes in individual men, in the individual human Ego, as beautiful, true and perfect as it can? Hence, man will best fulfil his existence if he draws in as much as possible from the outer world and makes his own everything that can blossom and bear fruit in himself. This view of things implies that man can never do enough to combine in himself whatever the surrounding world offers, in order to manifest through himself a kind of supreme achievement of Nature. Anyone who wishes to call that “egoism” may do so. Then one could say: The human ego is there to be an organ for elements in Nature which would otherwise remain forever hidden and which can come to expression only through being concentrated in the spirit of man. But although it is natural for man to gather these elements from the natural world into himself, it also lies in his nature to bring error and confusion into the general law which leads the lower realms in outer existence towards the highest levels. This is bound up with what we call human freedom. Man could never enjoy a free existence if he were not capable of misusing in a one-sided way certain forces within him — forces which can lead to the heights and can also pervert existence and perhaps even make a caricature of it. A simple comparison will make this clear. Let us go back to the plant. It does not generally occur to us to speak of egoism in connection with the plant. It was only in order to bring out clearly the law of egoism that we said: What comes to expression in the plants could be called egoism. Normally, we do not speak of egoism in their case. If we consider the plant world in a spiritual and not a materialistic sense, we can see that the plant is in a certain sense proof against egoism. On the one hand, the conditions of its life require it to make itself as beautiful as it can, without asking who will benefit from its beauty. But when the plant has risen to the highest expression of its individual being, it is on the verge of having to give all this up. The plant world has a peculiar characteristic. Goethe puts this finely in his Prose Sayings: “The law of vegetable growth reaches its highest manifestation in the blossom and of this, in him, the rose is the summit. ... The fruit can never be beautiful, for then the vegetable law retreats and becomes again merely a law.” 46 “Sprüche in Prosa”, vol. V, p.495 of Goethes Naturwissenschaftliche Schriften Thus it was clear to Goethe that the plant gives expression to its own law most vividly when it flowers. At this moment, however, it must be prepared to yield up its beauty to the process of fructification, for it is now called upon to sacrifice its highest self on behalf of its successor in the form of the seed-bud. There is something great in this act of self-sacrifice by the plant at the moment when it is rising to the point of imprinting its Ego, as it were, on its appearance. So on this lower level, we see how in Nature egoism progresses to a certain stage, and how it then destroys and surrenders itself in order that something new may emerge. The highest manifestation of the plant, its individuality — as we may call it — which achieves its summit of beauty in the flower, begins to fade directly the new plant-seed is produced. Now let us ask: Does anything similar occur on the human level? Yes, if we consider Nature and spiritual life in terms of the spirit, we find that something quite similar does occur in man. For man is not intended merely to reproduce his kind and to carry on the human species; he is called upon to transcend the species and to exist as an individual. We shall come to know the true form and nature of egoism in man only if we look at his being in the light of previous lectures. In Spiritual Science, we do not regard man as consisting only of a physical body, which he has in common with the mineral kingdom. We speak of higher members of his being: the etheric body which he has in common with all living things, and the astral body, or consciousness body, the bearer of pleasure and pain, joy and sorrow, which he has in common with the animal kingdom. And we say, that within these three members lives the true kernel of his being, the Ego. We must regard the Ego as the bearer of egoism both when the latter is justified and when it is unjustified. Man's development depends entirely on the work accomplished by the Ego in transforming the other three members of his being. At first, on a primitive level, his Ego is the slave of these other members; he follows all the urges, desires and passions that come from his astral body. But the further his development goes, the more will he be doing to purify his astral body, so that he transforms it into something which is ruled by his higher nature, by his Ego, and his Ego becomes increasingly the ruler and purifier of the other members of his being. As you have heard in previous lectures, man is now in the midst of this development. In so far as he transforms his astral body, he creates what we call Spirit-self, or, in the terminology of oriental philosophy, Manas. In the future it will be possible for him to transform by degrees his etheric body, and so to create what we call Life-spirit, or Buddhi. And when finally he masters the processes in his physical body, the transformed part of it will be what we call Atman, or Spirit-man. So we look towards a future condition in which man will rule consciously, from out of his Ego, over all his activities. These future faculties have been in preparation for a very long time. The Ego has already worked, unconsciously or subconsciously, on the three other members of man's being. In the far distant past the Ego transformed a part of the astral body, also called the sentient body, into the Sentient Soul; a part of the etheric body into the Intellectual Soul, and a part of the physical body into the Consciousness Soul. Today we shall be concerned especially with the relationship of the sentient body to the Sentient Soul. When we observe a human being from the time of his birth and see how his faculties gradually emerge — as though from the hidden depths of his bodily nature, we can say: Here the Sentient Soul is working its way out into the light of day. The Sentient Soul, as we have seen, is fashioned by the Ego out of the sentient body, and the sentient body is built up from the young child's entire environment. We can understand this if we recall Goethe's saying: “The eye is formed by light for light.” 47 See “Entwurf einer Farbenlehre”, vol. III, p.88 of Goethes Naturwissenschaftliche Schriften If we consider any sense-organ whereby man becomes conscious of the external physical world, we must set against Schopenhauer's one-sided statement, 48 Rudolf Steiner is here presumably referring to the sentence from Schopenhauer's introduction to his treatise “On Vision and Colours”: “That the colours which ... appear to clothe the objects are really only in the eye”. that we could not see the light if we had no eyes, the equally valid statement that if there were no light, there would be no eyes. Through endless ages, as Goethe says, the all-pervading light worked on the human organism so as to fashion the sense-organ which is now able to look on the light. We can discern in the world around us the forces which have produced in man the faculties which enable us to become conscious of it. Thus the entire sentient body, the whole fabric whereby we enter into a relationship with the outer world, has been woven from its living forces. We have no share in this achievement. The astral body is a product, a flowering, of the surrounding world. Within the astral body the Sentient Soul emerges, formed by the work of the Ego from the substance of the sentient body. So the Ego lives in the sentient body and draws from it the substance of the Sentient Soul. Now the Ego can work in a twofold way. First, it can develop in the Sentient Soul those faculties which are in harmony with the faculties and characteristics of the sentient body. An example from the field of education will make this clear. It is precisely from the field of education that we can draw the most beautiful and practical examples of what Spiritual Science is. The sentient body is built up from a child's environment. Hence all those concerned with bringing up and educating a child have an influence on the sentient body, from the very beginning of its physical existence. They can help the sentient body to acquire the soul-qualities that are in harmony with its characteristics, as indicated by the Ego; but they can also pass on things which contradict these characteristics. If a child is brought up and educated in such a way that he can feel a living interest in everything that meets his eyes, if he can rightly rejoice in colours and forms, if musical tones give him happiness, if he can gradually bring about harmony between the impressions that come to him from outside and the feelings of joy and pleasure, of sympathetic interest in life, that arise in the Sentient Soul — then the child's inner response will be in consonance with a true picture of existence; then the inner life of his soul will harmonise with outer existence. Then, secondly, we can say that a human being does not live only within himself, capable only of fashioning a Sentient Soul in his sentient body; he can go out beyond himself. Nor is he capable only of seeing and hearing; he can pour himself out into the surrounding world and live in whatever his sentient body transmits to him. Then we have not only harmony between sentient body and Sentient-Soul; we have harmony also between the outer world and the experiences of the Sentient Soul. Then man is truly a kind of mirror of the universe; a kind of microcosm which — as Goethe said — enjoys the feeling of living in the wide expanse of a great and beautiful world. We can take another example. If a child were to grow up on a desert island, far from any human society, some of its faculties would not develop. It would be deprived of speech, of thinking power, and of all those noble qualities which can light up only through living together with other human beings, for these are qualities which belong to man's inner being, to his soul. Now man can develop in such a way that he goes out from himself, with his attributes, and creates harmony between himself and the world around him. Or he can let his endowments harden and dry up within himself. This happens if he fails to respond to the colours, tones and so on that he receives from the outer world, and so is unable to give them back enriched with his own interest and pleasure. A man becomes inwardly hardened if he keeps to himself whatever he acquires from associating with other people, instead of making it contribute to human intercourse. If he secludes himself, choosing to live entirely within himself, a disharmony arises between him and his environment. A cleft opens between his Sentient Soul and his sentient body. If, after enjoying the advantages of human progress, he fails to place at the service of mankind the benefits that can flourish only in a social milieu, a gap arises between himself and his surroundings, whether it be the outer world, to which he can no longer respond, or his human environment, to which he owes his finest interests. The result is that he becomes inwardly dried up, for he cannot be advanced or enlivened by anything that comes to him from outside if it is torn from its roots, and this is what happens if he fails to allow his soul-life to flow out into the world around him. And if he continually reinforces his seclusion from the outer world, the effect is that his soul-life tends to wither and die away. This is precisely the bad side of egoism, and we must now characterise it in greater detail. When egoism takes this form, so that man is not continually nourished and vitalised by the outer world, he is heading for his own extinction. That is the check generally imposed on egoism, and thereby the true nature of egoism is made clear. For whereas man, by absorbing the forces of the surrounding world, enables the world to attain a summit in himself, he then has to do consciously what the plant does unconsciously. At the very moment when the plant is in course of imprinting its inner being on its visible form, the power behind the plant leads its egoistic principle over into a new plant. But man, as a self-conscious being and an Ego-bearer, is required to bring about by his own efforts this development in himself. At a certain stage he must be prepared to surrender whatever he has received from outside and to give birth, within his own Ego, to a higher Ego; and this higher Ego will not become hardened, but will enter into a harmonious relationship with the entire world. The knowledge that a one-sided egoism destroys itself can be verified by ordinary observation of life. One needs only to look at people who are unable to take any active interest in the great and beautiful ordering of nature from which the human organism draws its form and substance. How painful it is for anyone who understands these things to see how some people pass indifferently by the world to which they owe their eyes and ears; how they cut themselves off from the world in which their existence is rooted and wish only to be left alone with their inward brooding. Then we see how this perverted way of living brings its own penalty. Anyone who follows it goes through life in a state of chronic boredom; he pursues one desire after another, not realising that he is seeking satisfaction in vague phantoms, when he should be giving himself out to the world from which his own existence has come about. Anyone who goes through life saying: People are a burden, I have no use for them, they disturb my life, I am too good for this world — anyone who talks like that should merely reflect that he is repudiating the origin of his existence. If he had grown up on a desert island, far from the human society that he regards as not good enough for him, he would have remained dumb and would never have developed the faculties he now has. All that he finds so great and praiseworthy in himself would be absent, were it not for the people he has no use for. He should realise that he has separated himself from his environment by his own willful choice, and that in fact he owes to his environment the very faculties which now repudiate it. If a man pursues this course, he not only kills the interest he might have taken in nature and human life, his own life-force declines and he condemns himself to a desolate, dissatisfied existence. All those people who indulge in world-weariness because they find nothing anywhere to interest them, should for once ask themselves: What is my egoism doing to me? Here a cosmic law is indicated. Wherever egoism takes a perverted form, it has a desolating effect on living. That is the good thing about egoism: if it is carried to an extreme, it destroys the egoist. If now we take the great law that we have gained from studying egoism and apply it to the various faculties of the human soul, we can ask, for example: How does egoism affect the Consciousness Soul, through which man acquires knowledge of the world around him? In other words, when can a piece of knowledge prove fruitful? It will be truly fruitful only if it brings a man into harmony with the rest of the world. This means that the only concepts and ideas that can invigorate the human soul are those drawn from the life of the great outer world, and then only if we are in harmony with the outer world. That is why all ways of knowledge which seek, above all, to reach the great truths of existence, step by step, are so health-giving for the soul, and also, therefore, for the physical body. On the other hand, anything that leads us away from a living connection with the world, as solitary inward brooding does, or anything that brings us into discord with the world, will have a hardening effect. Here is an appropriate occasion to refer once more to the widely misunderstood saying, “Know thyself!”, which has a meaning valid for all epochs. Only when a man realises that he belongs to the whole world, that his Self is not confined within his skin but is spread out over the whole world, over sun and stars, over all earthly creatures, and that this Self has only created an expression of itself within his skin — only if he recognises that he is interwoven with the entire world — only then can he make proper use of the saying, “Know thyself”. For self knowledge is then world-knowledge. A man who fails to realise this is like a finger which imagined it could achieve an individual existence apart from the rest of the organism. Cut it off, and in three weeks it will quite certainly no longer be a finger. The finger has no illusions about that; only man supposes that he could do without any connections with the world. World-knowledge is self-knowledge and self-knowledge is world-knowledge. Any sort of inward brooding is merely a sign that we cannot get away from ourselves. Very great harm is therefore done when in certain theosophical circles today it is said: A solution of the riddle of existence will not be found in the world outside, or in phenomena permeated by the spirit, but in your own self. “Look for God in your own breast” — that is the injunction often heard. “You need not exert yourself to seek for revelations of the cosmic Spirit out there in the universe. You have only to look within yourself; you will find it all there.” This kind of instruction does the student very bad service. It makes him proud and egoistic with regard to knowledge. The result is that certain theosophical directives, instead of training a person in selflessness, instead of freeing him from himself and bringing him into relation with the great riddles of existence, have a hardening effect on him. One can appeal to man's pride and vanity by telling him: “You need learn nothing from the world; you will find it all in yourself.” We appeal to truth when we show that to be in harmony with the great world can enable a man to become greater in himself and therefore greater in the world. This applies also to human feeling and to the entire content of the Intellectual Soul, which gains in strength when a man knows how to achieve harmony between himself and the outer world. Strength and power are not acquired by sitting down and brooding all day long over such questions as — “What shall I think now? What shall I do? What's that pain I feel coming on again?” — but by opening the heart to everything great and beautiful in our surroundings, and by showing interest and understanding for everything that warms the hearts of others, as well as for their wants and privations. In this way we strengthen the life-forces in the realm of feeling within us; we overcome narrow minded egoism and we enhance and enrich our Ego by bringing the true form of egoism into harmony with our environment. This comes out very clearly when we consider the human will and the Consciousness Soul itself. A man who exerts his will only for himself and his own advantage will always feel inwardly dissatisfied. Only when he can see his resolves reflected in the outer world and his will-impulses realised in action — only then can he say that he has brought his willing into harmony with outer events. And here we learn that our inner strength and power are not developed by anything we will for ourselves, but by whatever we will for the outer world and for other people. Our willing becomes reality and its reflection shines back to us. As our eyes are formed by light, so is our strength of soul developed by our actions and activities. Thus we see how man, as a self-conscious being, is able through a right comprehension of his “I”, his Ego, to arrive at harmony between himself and the world around him, until he grows out of himself and accomplishes the birth of what we may call a higher man. In this way he brings forth something in himself, even as a plant on a lower level brings forth out of itself a new being at the moment when it is in danger of becoming hardened in its own existence. That is how we must understand egoism. The human Ego, having been fructified by the surrounding world, brings forth on the heights of existence a new Ego, and will then be ripe to flow out into actions which would otherwise give expression only to worthless demands and useless moral postulates. For only through world-knowledge can the will be fired to act on the world in return. Whatever points may be set out in the programmes of societies, however many societies may have “universal human love” at the head of their programmes, these moral injunctions will have no practical effect. All the ordinary preaching of human love is as though a stove were standing in a cold room and someone says to it: “Dear stove, your moral duty as a stove is to warm the room”. You could go on like that for hours or days — the stove would not be moved to make the room warm. Similarly, men will not be moved by sermons to practise human love, even if you were to preach to them for centuries that men ought to love one another. But bring the human Ego into connection with the content of the whole world, let people participate in the radiance of flowers and in all the beauties of Nature, and you will soon see that this participation is a foundation for the higher participation that can arise between human being and human being. By gaining knowledge of human beings and human nature, man learns to meet the faults and good qualities of others with understanding. Wisdom of this kind, derived from approaching the world with living insight, passes over into the blood, into action and will. And what we call human love is born from it. Just as babbling to the stove is useless, when what we need to do is simply to bring wood and start a fire, so should we bring to human beings the fuel that will kindle, warm and illuminate their souls; and the fuel required is knowledge of the world, so that understanding of human nature and harmonious consonance between the human Ego and the outer world are brought about. Then we shall in fact be kindling human love — a love that can flow from heart to heart and draw human beings together, teaching them that actions performed only for ourselves have a deadly, desolating effect upon us, while actions that have a helpful influence on the lives of others are reflected back to enhance our own strength. Through a right understanding of egoism, accordingly, our Ego is enriched and enabled to develop, if, as far as possible, we realise our own Self in the service of another, and strive to cultivate not only personal feeling, but fellow feeling, as far as we can. That is how the nature of Egoism is seen by Spiritual Science. The subject we have touched on today has deeply interested all the thinkers who have pondered seriously on human existence. The nature of egoism was bound to concern outstanding men during the 18th century, a time when man as an individual had broken free from certain ties with his social environment. One of these outstanding men was Goethe. And he has given us a work, Wilhelm Meister's Years of Apprenticeship and its sequel Wilhelm Meister's Year's of Travel , which we can take as an example, as if drawn from the world, of his thoughts on the nature of egoism. Just as Faust occupied Goethe throughout his life, so did Wilhelm Meister . As early as the seventeen-sixties, Goethe felt that he had the task of depicting, in the peculiar life of Wilhelm Meister, a kind of mirror-image of his own life, and it was in his old age, when he was nearing his death, that he completed the Years of Travel . It would take us too far to go into the details of Wilhelm Meister , but perhaps you will allow me to outline the problem of egoism as we meet it here in Goethe. A thoroughgoing, refined egoist, one might say, is portrayed here. Wilhelm Meister was born into the merchant class, but he is enough of an egoist to abandon this calling, in spite of the claims of duty. What, then, does he really want? We are shown how he wants to develop his own Self to the highest degree and with the utmost freedom. He has a dim presentiment of becoming some kind of perfected man. Thus Goethe leads Wilhelm Meister through the most varied experiences, so as to show how life works upon this individuality in order to raise it to a higher level. Of course, Goethe is well aware that Wilhelm Meister is driven around by all sorts of circumstances and reaches no definite goal. Hence at one point he calls him a “poor wretch”. 49 In the conversation with Chancellor von Müller of 22nd January 1821. But at the same time he knows that although a man may have to work his way through folly and errors, he is led by certain forces to a certain goal, or at least along a certain path. It was Goethe's opinion, which never left him, that human life is never completely at the mercy of chance, but is subject, like all things, to laws — indeed, spiritual laws. Therefore Goethe says that the whole human race can be regarded as a great individual, striving upwards and making itself the master of chance. 50 “Spruche in Prosa”, vol. V, p.482 of Goethes Naturwissenschaftliche Schriften Goethe's intention, accordingly, is to show Wilhelm Meister as intent always on heightening, enriching and perfecting his Ego. At the same time, he leads Wilhelm Meister into a way of life which is, strictly speaking, at one remove from actuality. The whole character of the 18th century can help us to understand why Wilhelm Meister is led away from pursuing a career in the world of real events and brought into the theatre, where he mingles with people who present an appearance, a picture, of life. Art itself is, in a certain sense, an image of life. It is not part of immediate reality but raises itself above this reality. Goethe knew very well that the artist, standing alone with his art, is in danger of losing the firm ground of reality from under his feet. It has been well said that the Muse may accompany a man but cannot lead him through life. To begin with, Wilhelm Meister gives himself over entirely to the forces that belong to art, and especially the art of the theatre, with its beautiful illusions. If we follow the course of his life, we find that he is habitually torn to and fro between dissatisfaction and joy, and these swings of feeling are evident already during his time in the theatre. At last he experiences a kind of model performance of Hamlet , and this gives him a certain satisfaction within the limits of the theatrical world. His Ego is enhanced. Two episodes are particularly important for understanding this first part of the story, the Years of Apprenticeship , and they show clearly that Goethe had the nature of egoism at the back of his mind. The first episode concerns little Mignon, who is found by Wilhelm Meister in somewhat dubious company and accompanies him as a wonderful attendant for a while. Some very significant remarks about Mignon were made to Chancellor von Müller 51 In the conversation of 29th May, 1814. by Goethe in his old age. He referred to Madame von Stael's comment that all the part about Mignon was an episode which did not really belong to the story. Goethe agreed that anyone interested only in the external narrative might say that the Mignon episode could be left out. But it would be quite wrong to suppose, Goethe continued, that the part about Mignon was only an episode; in fact, the whole of Wilhelm Meister had been written on account of this remarkable figure. Goethe was apt to express himself somewhat radically in conversation and to say things that are not to be taken literally. But if we go more deeply into the matter, we can come to see why he spoke in this way to Chancellor von Müller. In the figure of Mignon — this is not a personal name but means simply “the darling” — we are shown a human being who lives just long enough for the germ of anything that can properly be called egoism to develop in her. The whole psychology of Mignon is most remarkable. In her own naive way she expresses everything that could be called participation in the whole world. She never gives any sign of acting from selfish motives. Things that other people do out of self-interest are done by her quite naturally. She is naive in the sense that egoism has not yet awoken in her. Directly Wilhelm Meister embarks on an episode in his life which breaks his bond of union with Mignon, she fades away and dies, just as a plant withers when it has reached a certain stage in its existence. She is not yet a fully human person, not yet an “Ego”; she represents a childlike naiveté in relation to everything in the world around her. She dies as a plant dies, and one could indeed apply to her the lines: Not asking why or wherefore blooms the rose, Cares not for herself or whether men behold her. One might say that two apparently identical actions are different when they are performed by different persons! What other people do out of egoism Mignon does naturally, and directly that there could be a question of an egoistic impulse arising in her soul, she dies. That is the enchantment of her character: we have before us a human being without ego-hood who slips through our fingers at the first stirring of egoism within her. And since Goethe was specially interested in egoism in Wilhelm Meister , it is quite conceivable that he should have said in effect at the time: What you are looking for in Wilhelm Meister, you will find in his counterpart, Mignon. The impulse that shows itself in the little creature, and dies with her at the moment of its appearance, is the same impulse that plagues Wilhelm Meister with so many difficulties when he tries to develop his Ego, and on account of which he has to go through a complete education in the school of life. We then find woven into the story of Wilhelm Meister the apparently unconnected part called Confessions of a Beautiful Soul . It is known that these confessions are taken almost word for word from a diary kept by Goethe's friend, Susanne von Klettenberg. They show, one might say, the nature of egoism at its highest point. This beautiful soul, Susanne von Klettenberg, rose indeed to high levels, but these confessions bring out the danger of egoism, the reverse side of the enrichment of the Ego, for it is her own development that Susanne von Klettenberg describes. First, she relates how, like other people, she delighted in the world around her. Then, one day, something awakens in her soul and tells her: “Living within you is something that will bring you nearer to the God within you.” These inward experiences have the effect of estranging her from the outer world; she no longer feels any interest in it. But she finds continual joy and blessedness and inward happiness in her experience of communion with what she inwardly calls her “God”. She withdraws entirely into her inner life. Yet this beautiful soul cannot escape from the feeling that her chosen way of life is nothing else than a refined form of egoism. The dawning of this type of spiritual element in the soul, where it estranges a person from the outer world, shuts him off from his environment and makes him cold and heartless towards it, may bring him some satisfaction and a certain happiness, but in the long run it does him no good. By alienating him from the world around him it has a desolating effect on his soul. But this beautiful soul is also an energetic, striving soul, and she goes on from stage to stage. She is not able to sever herself entirely from the impressions that come from the outer world and can lead to harmony with it. So she is forever seeking the mysteries that underlie the symbols of the various religions, hoping to see reflected there the divinity that had arisen in her soul. But whatever she can experience in these outer forms is not enough for her; she is resolved to go further. Finally, she is led to a remarkable stage in her life. One day she says to herself: Everything human on our earth was not too mean for God to descend and incarnate himself in a man. And at that moment she feels that the outer world is not debased by being only an expression of the spiritual rather than the spiritual itself, or because it represents a decadence of the spiritual; for now she feels that the outer world is permeated by the spirit and that man has no right to detach himself from his environment. Then another experience comes to her and she says to herself: It was a true event that is said to have taken place in Palestine at the beginning of our era. She enters into this and experiences in herself the whole life of Christ Jesus up to His crucifixion and death. She experiences the divine in herself in such a way that — as she clearly describes — everything which appears to the physical senses as external image recedes and becomes purely spiritual experience; the invisible becomes visible and the inaudible, audible. Now she feels herself united not with an abstract divinity, but with a divine presence belonging to the earthly world. But she has again withdrawn in a certain sense and cannot find her way back into ordinary life. Then something comes to her which enables her to see in every natural object, in every detail and circumstance of daily life, the imprint of the spiritual; and she regards this as a kind of highest stage. And it is characteristic of Goethe that it was for him a kind of confession to be able to communicate the Confessions of a Beautiful Soul . What was it that Goethe wished to indicate here as an important point in Wilhelm Meister's education? Wilhelm Meister was to read the manuscript and be led by it to a higher stage. He was to be shown that a man cannot do enough to develop in himself an active life of soul; he cannot go far and high enough in what may be called intercourse with the spiritual world; but also that to shut himself off from the outer world cannot lead to a satisfying existence, and that he can understand the great world around him only when his own enriched inner being flows out to meet it. Thus Goethe wishes to show that a man can take the surrounding world just as it is; he will then see it as ordinary and trivial and will remain bound to the commonplace. But then he will perhaps say to himself: All that is commonplace: the spiritual can be found only by looking within oneself. And we can indeed find the spiritual there, on a very high level. But we are then all the more in duty bound, for our own sake, to return to the outer world; and now we find that the commonplace has a spiritual dimension. The same world stands before a trivially minded man and a man who has found the spirit within himself. The former accepts the ordinary trivial world of present-day Monism; the latter, having first enriched his spiritual faculties and developed the appropriate organs in himself, is aware of the spiritual behind everything perceived by the senses. Thus, for Goethe, inner development is an indirect way of gaining knowledge of the world. This is evident, above all, in the soul characterised as Wilhelm Meister. He is helped to progress by the influences that work on him from the hidden side of life. Towards the end of the Years of Apprenticeship we are shown that behind Wilhelm Meister there is something like an occult society, which guides a human being while remaining invisible to him. Some critics have complained that this kind of thing belongs to the 18th century and can have no interest for people today. For Goethe, however, something quite different was involved. He wished to show that Wilhelm Meister's Ego really had to find its way through the various labyrinths of life, and that a certain spiritual guidance of mankind does exist. The “Society of the Tower”, by which Wilhelm Meister is guided, was meant to be only the outer garment of spiritual powers and forces by which a man is led, even though the course of his life may lie through “folly and confusion”; and by these invisible powers Wilhelm Meister was guided. In our time, such things are dismissed with a condescending smile. But in our time, also, the Philistines have acquired the sole right to pass judgment on personalities such as Goethe. Anyone who knows the world will concede that no-one can find more in a man than he has in himself. And anyone could say it in relation to Goethe. But that is just what the Philistine does not say; he believes he has found in Goethe everything there is to find. For he possesses the entire range of wisdom and can survey it from his vantage-point! Naturally, he makes Goethe into a Philistine, but that is not Goethe's fault. Wilhelm Meister's life is continued in the Years of Travel . Both Philistines and non-Philistines have been moved to protest at the lack of composition and the inartistic character of this sequel. Yes, indeed, Goethe served up something rather dreadful here. In his prime, out of his life-experience, he had wanted to show a person finding their way through the labyrinths of life, had wanted to present a mirror-image of himself in a certain sense; and he has told us how this was composed. He had taken great pains over the first part of the Years of Travel , but printing began before the later part was finished, and the printer set the type faster than Goethe could write. Goethe then had somehow to sketch out the rest. In earlier years he had written various tales and stories, for example the story of the “Holy Family”, the story of the “Nutbrown Maiden”, the “Tale of the New Melusine”, and others. All these are included in the Years of Travel volume, although never intended for it. Goethe inserted these stories at various points and made quick transitions between them. Obviously, anything like orderly composition was ruled out; but still the work did not go fast enough. Goethe had various other writings left over from earlier years, and these he now gave to his secretary, Eckermann, saying: “Slip in somewhere whatever can be slipped in!” So Eckermann patched in these remnants, and naturally the separate items are often very loosely connected. Hence it can well be said that this is an entirely formless work, and anyone is at liberty to judge it in this way from an artistic standpoint. But, after all, not a line of it was written by Eckermann. It is all by Goethe, and throughout he was giving expression to experiences of his own, with the figure of Wilhelm Meister constantly before him. Thus he was able to bring in events from his own life which had set their mark on his soul. And since Wilhelm Meister is a reflected image of himself, the various episodes meander through the story even as they had meandered through his own life, and the picture we gain from them is by no means irrelevant. It has been said that the narrative lacks tension and is repeatedly interrupted by sagely discourses. Some people criticise the book from the ground up without having read it. They are, of course, right from their own point of view, but it is not the only one. We can learn an immense amount from these Years of Travel if we can muster the interest and the goodwill to raise ourselves to the level of the experiences from which Goethe learnt so much. And that is something. Must every piece of writing be skillfully composed if it can be of service to us in some other way? Is a lack of formal design so fatal? Perhaps the wealth of wisdom in Wilhelm Meister is fatal for those who know everything and have nothing more to learn. It is precisely in this second part of Wilhelm Meister that we find described in a wonderful way how the Ego can rise to ever higher levels and become the peak of existence. We are shown in a particularly beautiful way how Wilhelm Meister takes his son Felix to a remarkable educational establishment. This, too, has been condemned by the Philistines. They have not stopped to think that Goethe had no intention of presenting this establishment as though it existed somewhere or other in the real world. He wished to give a kind of symbolic survey of the nature of education in his “pedagogical province”. People who visit this establishment are surprised to see how the life of the soul is given expression in certain gestures. In one gesture the hands are folded on the breast and the eyes turned upwards. In another, the hands are clasped behind the back while the pupils stand side by side. Especially significant is the gesture which gives an impression of the soul bowing towards the earth. If questions are asked about the meaning of all this, one is told that the boys are taught to kindle in their souls the “three venerations”, whereby the soul's development can be carried to ever higher levels. The three venerations are presented as the most important of all educational principles. First, a man must learn to look up with veneration to what is above him. Then he must learn to venerate what lies beneath him, so that he may realise how he himself has grown up from it. Then he must learn to venerate what stands beside him as equality between man and man, for only thus can he learn to venerate his own Ego in the right way. By these means he will be brought into harmony with the world around him and egoism cannot go astray. We are then shown how the most important religions are to carry their influences into the human soul. The folk or ethnic religions should take the form of gods or spirits standing above man. The philosophical religions, as they could be called, are to inculcate veneration for our equals. And the teaching that leads us down into existence and enables us to look with proper veneration on death, sorrow and the hindrances in the world — this teaching, though it can easily be despised, leads to a right understanding of the Christian religion. For it is emphasised that the Christian religion shows how God came down into a physical body, took on himself all the misery of life and went through everything human. Veneration for what is below us should especially promote a right understanding of the Christian religion. Thus the development of the human being is set before us with precision. Goethe describes how Wilhelm Meister is led to a kind of temple, where deeply significant pictures of the three religions are brought before the souls of the pupils from their earliest youth, and we are shown how everything in this utopian school is intended to produce a harmonious whole. But the school gives expression even more to the wise principle that from his earliest years a human being should grow up in such a way that, on the one hand, he finds harmony with his environment, while, on the other, he finds it possible to lead his Ego to ever-greater heights. This principle is applied to all details. For example, a boy's age is not indicated by the clothes he wears. He is offered a varied range of garments and has to choose those he prefers. In this way the individual characteristics of the pupils are brought out. Moreover, since a kind of esprit de corps is always apt to develop, with the result that a weaker boy will imitate a stronger by choosing the same outfit, to the detriment of his own individuality, the rule is that garments are exchanged for others at frequent intervals. In brief, Goethe wished to show how the growing boy should be educated, even down to his gestures and clothes, in a way that will lead him to a life in harmony with the world around him, while promoting his inner freedom as an individual. It has been said that all this is a fantasy and that nothing like it has ever existed. But Goethe meant to imply only that the plan could be realised somewhere at some time; the thoughts in question would flow out into the “all and everywhere” and would find an embodiment when and where they could. Those who think this impossible might be advised to read Fichte; 52 Johann Gottlieb Fichte, 1762–1814. “Vorbericht” to Einige Vorlesungen über die Bestimmung des Gelehrten . he set a high ideal before his students, but he knew what he was doing, and to those who called themselves realists while knowing little about reality, he said: We know as well as you do: and perhaps better, that ideals cannot be realised immediately in ordinary life, but ideals must be there, in order to act as regulators in life and to be transmuted into living. That must be emphasised ever and again. And of those who reject all ideals, Fichte said that in the reckoning of Providence they were left out; but may a good God — he added — grant them rain and sunshine at the right times, a good digestion and, where possible, good thoughts! This saying could be turned against those who assert that the educational establishment in Goethe's Wilhelm Meister could never exist in reality. It could exist, both in its principles and in its details, if there were people ready to give effect to such principles in a setting of everyday life. A second episode in the Years of Travel introduces a remarkable personality, Makarie, who exemplifies in the highest degree a union of the individual Ego with the great Self of the world. Goethe shows us here a personality who is inwardly awakened and has developed the spirit in herself to such an extent that she lives in the spirit that permeates the world. The liberation of her inner powers gives her the knowledge that an expert astronomer acquires from calculating the courses of the stars. The highest spiritual-scientific researches are indicated by Goethe when he describes how through spiritual science the soul can enter into the life of the universe, and how self-knowledge can become world-knowledge and world-knowledge, self-knowledge. Thus in a series of pictures we are shown how the human self must pursue its development. Rightly understood, Wilhelm Meister is from beginning to end an example of how the development of man is related to the nature of egoism. If we find in a writer an exposition of a problem so important for Spiritual Science, this is for us a further proof — already apparent in our considerations of Faust , the Tale of the Green Snake and the Beautiful Lily , and Pandora 53 Rudolf Steiner is here referring to the lectures on 22nd and 24th October 1908: “Goethe's Secret Revelation, Exoteric and Esoteric” and on 11th and 12th March 1909: “The Riddles in Goethe's Faust, Exoteric and Esoteric”. — that in Goethe we have a genius who is at one with our Spiritual Science in its true sense. Goethe himself speaks in this sense when he says, in effect: We can grasp the nature of egoism only if we know that the wisdom of the cosmos had to lead man out of spiritual existence to the point where he could fall into the temptations of egoism. If this possibility had not been open to him, he could not have become the flower of all that surrounds him in the outer world. But if he succumbs to the temptations of egoism, he incurs a sentence of death on himself. The wisdom of the cosmos has ensured that everything good in the world can be overturned and appear in man as freedom, but directly he misuses his freedom and overturns himself, a measure of self-correction comes in. Here again we have a chapter which shows us how everything bad and sinful in human nature, if we consider it from a higher standpoint, can be transmuted into good — into a pledge of man's eternal, ever ascending progress. And so, if we are not afraid to descend into the depths of pain and evil, all the teachings of spiritual science will lead us eventually to the heights, and will confirm the beautiful words which resound to us from the wisdom and poetry of ancient Greece: Man is the shadow of a dream, but when The sun-ray, Heaven-sent, Shines in upon him, then His day is bright, And all his life transfused with sheer delight. 54 Cf. Pindar (522–C.448 B.C. ) Pythian Odes , 8th Ode, 5th Epode.

Metamorphoses of the Soul: Paths of Experience I

Human Egoism

https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA058/English/RSP1983/19091125p01.html

Berlin

25 Nov 1909

GA058-7

Ever since its foundation, 55 In connection with this lecture cf. also: Gautama Buddha's sayings from the middle Majjhimanikayo collection of the Pali Canon; The Gospel of Buddha according to old Records by Paul Carus, Chicago & London, 1917; Hermann Beckh, Buddha und seine Lehre , Stuttgart, 1958. For a contrast of Buddha and Christ also Rudolf Steiner in Christianity as Mystical Fact the spiritual-scientific movement has suffered from being confused with all sorts of other tendencies and strivings of the present day. Particularly it is accused of trying to transplant certain eastern spiritual currents, especially that of Buddhism, into the culture of the West. Hence our subject today has a special relevance for spiritual research: we are going to consider the significance of the Buddhist religion on the one hand and that of Christianity on the other, from the standpoint of Spiritual Science. Those who have often attended my lectures here will know that we intend a study in the scientific sense, ranging widely over world-events from the point of view of spiritual life. Anyone who has thought at all seriously about Buddhism will know that its founder, Gautama Buddha, always refused to answer questions concerning the evolution of the world and the foundations of our human existence. He wished to speak only about the means whereby a man could come to a way of existence that would be satisfying in itself. This fact alone should be enough to distinguish Buddhism from Spiritual Science, for Spiritual Science never refuses to speak about world origins and the great facts of evolution. And if one particular aspect of Spiritual Science is being more and more confused with Buddhism — namely our treatment of repeated earth-lives and the working of spiritual causes from earlier lives into later ones — it is strange that Spiritual Science should be charged on this account with being a form of Buddhism. By now people should surely have grasped that Spiritual Science is not concerned with names but with ascertainable truth, independently of any name that may be given to it. The fact that the doctrine of reincarnation or repeated earth-lives is to be found among the ideas of Gautama Buddha, though in a quite different form, has no more significance for Theosophy or Spiritual Science than the fact that the elements of geometry are found in Euclid. Just as it would be absurd to accuse a geometry teacher of practising “Euclidism”, so is it absurd to bring a charge of Buddhism against Spiritual Science because it has a doctrine of reincarnation and similar ideas are to be found in the Buddha. At the same time we must make it clear that Spiritual Science provides a means of testing the spiritual sources of every religion — including Christianity, the basis of European culture, on the one hand, and Buddhism on the other. The notion that Spiritual Science wants to be “Buddhism” is not confined to persons who know nothing of Theosophy. Even the great Orientalist, Max Muller, 56 Max Muller, 1823–1900, Orientalist, religious and linguistic researcher. The quotation about the grunting pig attributed to him could not be traced. who has done so much to make oriental religions better known in Europe, cannot rid himself of it. In discussing it with another writer he used the following analogy. If, he says, a man were to be seen somewhere with a pig that was a good grunter, no-one would be surprised; but if a man could mimic the grunting to perfection, people would gather round and look on it as a miracle! By the grunting pig Max Muller means the real Buddhism, which by then had become known in Europe. But its teaching, he continues, was attracting no attention, while false Buddhism, or what he calls “Madame Blavatsky's theosophical swindle”, 57 Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, 1831–1891. She founded the Theosophical Society in New York together with H.S. Olcott in 1875, which soon thereafter transferred its headquarters to India. was gaining wide acceptance. The analogy is not very happy. Even apart from the fact that it is hardly polite to represent the true Buddhist teaching, which came to birth with so much travail, by the grunting of a pig, the analogy implies that Madame Blavatsky succeeded extremely well in producing an exact imitation of Buddhism. Madame Blavatsky deserves credit for having set the ball rolling, but nowadays very few thoughtful theosophists believe that she was successful in reproducing true, genuine Buddhism. Just as a teacher of geometry is not required to produce a replica of Euclid, so a teacher of Theosophy is not required to reproduce Buddhism. If we wish to immerse ourselves in the spirit of Buddhism in the sense of Spiritual Science, so that we may then compare it with the spirit of Christianity, we had better not proceed immediately to its deeper doctrines, which can readily be interpreted in various ways. We will rather try to gain an impression of its significance from its whole way of thinking and forming ideas. Our best course is to start with a document that is very highly regarded in Buddhist circles: the questions put by King Milinda to the Buddhist sage, Nagasena. 58 Milindapanha (Milinda's Questions): Discussion between Menandros (Milinda), king of the Greco-Indian empire (c.110 B.C. ), and the Buddhist saint Nagasena on the central questions of Buddhist dogma. Translated from the Pali by I.B. Horner, Luzac & Co., London, 1963/64. Here we find a conversation which brings out the inner character of the Buddhist way of thinking. Milinda, the mighty and brilliant King who has never been defeated by a sage, being always able to repulse any objections brought against his own ideas, wants to converse with Nagasena about the significance of the immortal, eternal element in human nature which passes from one incarnation to the next. Nagasena asks the King: “How did you come here — on foot or in a chariot?” “In a chariot”, the King replies. “Now”, says Nagasena, “let us inquire into this question of the chariot — what is it? Is the axle the chariot? No. Is it the wheel? No. Is it the yoke? No. And so”, says Nagasena, “we may go through all the parts of the chariot; none of them is the chariot. Yet the chariot we have before us is made up entirely of these separate parts. ‘Chariot’ is only a name for the sum total of these parts. If we set aside the parts, we have nothing left but the name.” Nagasena's aim in all this is to lead the eye away from the physical world. He wants to show that the composite form designated by a “name” does not actually exist as such in the physical world, so that he may thus bring out the worthlessness and meaninglessness of the physical sense-perceptible as the sum of its parts. In order to make the point of this parable quite clear, Nagasena says: “Thus it is also with the composite form that is man, which passes from one earth-life to another. Is it the hands and head and legs that pass from one earth-life to another? No. Is it what you are doing today or will do tomorrow? No. What then is it that constitutes a human being? The name and the form. But just as with the chariot, when we look on the sum of the parts we only have a name. We have nothing more than the parts!” We can bring out the argument even more clearly by turning to another parable that Nagasena sets before King Milinda. The King speaks: “You say, O wise Nagasena, that what passes from one incarnation to another are the name and form of the human being. When they appear again on earth in a new incarnation, are they the name and form of the same being?” Nagasena answers: “Behold, your mango-tree is bearing fruit. Then a thief comes and steals the fruit. The owner of the mango-tree cries: ‘You have stolen my fruit!’ ‘It is not your fruit’, the thief replies. ‘Your fruit was the one you buried in the ground, where it dissolved. The fruit now growing on the tree has the same name, but it is not your fruit.’” Nagasena then continued: “Yes, it is true — the fruit has the same name and form, but it is not the same fruit. Yet the thief can still be punished for his theft. So it is with what re-appears in an earthly life compared with what appeared in previous lives. It is only because the owner of the mango-tree planted a fruit in the earth that fruit now grows on the tree. Hence we must regard the fruit as his property. It is similar with the deeds and destiny of a man's new life on earth: we must look on them as the effects, the fruit, of his previous life. But what appears is something new, as is the fruit on the mango-tree.” In this way Nagasena sought to dissolve everything that makes up an earth-life, in order to show how only its effects pass over into the next life on earth. This approach can give us a much better idea of the whole spirit of Buddhist teaching than we could gain from its general principles, for these — as I said — can be interpreted in various ways. If we allow the spirit of Nagasena's parables to work upon us, we can see clearly enough how the Buddhist teacher wishes to draw his disciples away from everything that stands here before us as a separate human Ego, a definite personality; how he wishes to direct attention above all to the idea that, although what appears in a new incarnation is indeed an effect of the previous personality, we have no right to speak in any true sense of a coherent Ego which passes on from one earth-life to the next. If now we turn from Buddhism to Christianity, we could — though it has never been done — rewrite Nagasena's examples in a Christian sense, somewhat as follows. Let us suppose that King Milinda has arisen from death as a Christian and that the ensuing conversation is permeated, with the spirit of Christianity. Nagasena would then have to say: “Look at your hand! Is the hand a man? No — the hand alone does not make a man. But if you cut off the hand from the man, it will decay, and in two or three weeks it will no longer be a hand. What then is it makes the hand a hand? It is the man who makes the hand a hand! Is the heart a man? No! Is the heart something self-sufficient? No, for if we separate the heart from the man, it will soon cease to be heart — and the man will soon cease to be a man. Hence it is the man who makes the heart a heart and the heart that makes the man a man. The man is a man living on earth only because he has the heart as an instrument. Thus in the living human organism we have parts which in themselves are nothing; they exist only in relation to our entire make-up. And if we reflect on how it is that the separate parts cannot exist on their own, we find that we must look beyond them to some invisible agency which rules over them, holds them together and uses them as instruments to serve its needs.” Nagasena could then return to his parable of the chariot and might say, speaking now in a Christian sense: “True, the axle is not the chariot, for with the axle alone you cannot drive. True, the wheels are not the chariot, for with the wheels alone you cannot drive. True, the yoke is not the chariot, for with the yoke alone you cannot drive. True, the seat is not the chariot, for with the seat alone you cannot drive. And although the chariot is only a name for the assembly of parts, you do not drive with the parts but with something that is not the parts. So the ‘name’ does stand for something specific! It leads us to something that is not in any of the parts.” Thus the spirit of Buddhist teaching aims at diverting attention from the visible in order to get beyond it, and it denies the significance of anything visible. The Christian approach sees the parts of a chariot, or of any other object, in such a way that the mind is directed towards the whole. From this contrast we can see that both the Christian and the Buddhist approach to the outer world have definite consequences. And if now we follow the Buddhist approach to its logical conclusion, its consequences will be plain to see. A man, a Buddhist, stands before us. He plays his part in the world and performs various actions. His Buddhist teaching tells him that everything around him is worthless. The nothingness and non-existence of everything visible is impressed upon him. Then he is told that he ought to free himself from dependence on this nothingness in order to reach a real, higher state of being. With this aim in mind he should avert his gaze from the sense-world and from everything he could learn about it through his human faculties. Turn away from the sense-world! For if we reduce to name and form everything offered by the sense-world, its nothingness is revealed. No truth is to be found in the sense-world displayed before us! What does the Christian way of thinking make of all this? It regards any single part of the human organism not as a separate unit, but as embraced by a real, unified whole. The hand, for example, is a hand only because man uses it as a hand. Here the thing we see points directly to something behind it. This way of thinking thus leads to findings very different from those that derive from the Buddhist way. Hence we can say: A man stands before us. He exists as a man only because behind him stands a spiritual man who activates his constituent parts and is the directing source of whatever he does or accomplishes. That which animates the parts of his organism and lives in them has poured itself into the visible being, where it experiences the fruits of action. From thus experiencing the sense-world it extracts something we may call a “result”, and this is carried over into the next incarnation, the next life on earth. Behind the external man there is this active man, this doer, who does not reject the outer world but handles it in such a way that its fruits are garnered and carried over to the next life. If we look at this question of repeated earth-lives from the standpoint of Spiritual Science, we must say: For Buddhism, the principle that holds a man together during life does not endure; only his actions work on into his next earth-life. For Christianity, the principle that holds a man together is a complete Ego; and this Ego endures. It carries over into the next earth-life all the fruits of the preceding one. Hence we see that what keeps these two world-outlooks decisively apart is the quite definite difference between their respective ways of thinking, and this counts for much more than theories or principles. If in our time people were not so wedded to theories about everything, they would find it easier to recognise the character of a spiritual movement from its typical concepts. All this is connected with a final difference between the Christian and Buddhist outlooks. The core of Buddhist doctrine has been set forth in immensely significant words by the founder of Buddhism himself. Now this lecture is truly not being given in order to promote opposition to the great originator of Buddhist teaching. My intention is to describe the Buddhist world-outlook quite objectively. It is precisely Spiritual Science that is the right instrument for penetrating without sympathy or antipathy into the heart of the various spiritual movements in the world. The Buddha-legend brings out clearly enough, even if in a pictorial form, what the founder of Buddhism was aiming at. We are told that Gautama Buddha, the son of King Suddhodana, was brought up in a royal palace, where everything around him was designed to enhance the quality of life. Throughout his youth he knew nothing of human suffering or sorrow; he was surrounded by nothing but happiness, pleasure and diversions. One day he left the palace, and for the first time the pains and sorrows, all the shadow-side of human life, met him face to face. He saw an old man withering away; he saw a man stricken with disease; above all, he saw a corpse. Hence it came to him that life must be very different from what he had seen of it in the royal palace. He saw now that human life is bound up with pain and suffering. It weighed heavily on the Buddha's great soul that human life entails suffering and death, as he had seen them in the sick man, the aged man and the corpse. For he said to himself: “What is life worth if old age, sickness and death are inescapably part of it?” These reflections gave rise to the Buddha's monumental doctrine of suffering, which he summarised in the words: Birth is suffering, old age is suffering, illness is suffering, death is suffering. All existence is filled with suffering. That we cannot always be united with that which we love — this is how Buddha himself later developed his teaching — is suffering. That we have to be united with that which we do not love, is suffering. That we cannot attain in every sphere of life what we want and desire, is suffering. Thus there is suffering wherever we look. Even though the word “suffering”, as used by the Buddha, does not have quite the meaning it has for us today, it did mean that everywhere man is exposed to things that come against him from outside and against which he can muster no effective strength. Life is suffering, and therefore, said the Buddha, we must ask what the cause of suffering is. Then there came before his soul the phenomenon he called “thirst for existence”. If there is suffering everywhere in the world then man is bound to encounter suffering as soon as he enters this world of suffering. Why does he have to suffer in this way? The reason is that he has an urge, a thirst, for incarnation in this world. The passionate desire to pass from the spiritual world into a physical-corporeal existence and to perceive the physical world — therein lies the basic cause of human existence. Hence there is only one way to gain release from suffering: to fight against the thirst for existence. And this can be done if we learn to follow the eight-fold path, in accordance with the teaching of the great Buddha. This is usually taken to embrace correct views, correct aims, correct speech, correct actions, correct living, correct endeavour, correct thoughts, and correct meditation. This taking hold of life in the correct way and relating oneself correctly to life, will gradually enable a man to kill off the desire for existence, and will finally lead him so far that he no longer needs to descend into a physical incarnation and so is released from existence and the suffering that pervades it. Thus the four noble truths, as the Buddha called them, are: These are the four holy truths that were proclaimed by the Buddha in his great sermon at Benares in the fifth or sixth century, B.C. after his illumination under the Bodhi tree. Release from the sufferings of existence — that is what Buddhism puts in the foreground, above all else. And that is why it can be called a religion of redemption, in the most eminent sense of the word, a religion of release from the sufferings of existence, and therefore — since all existence is bound up with suffering — of release from the cycle of repeated lives on earth. This is quite in keeping with the conceptions described in the first part of this lecture. For if a thought directed to the outer world finds only nothingness, if that which holds together the parts of anything is only name and form, and if nothing carries over the effects of one incarnation into the next, then we can say that “true existence” can be achieved only if a man passes beyond everything he encounters in the outer sense-world. It would obviously not be right to call Christianity a “religion of redemption” in the same sense as Buddhism. If we wish to put Christianity in its right relationship to Buddhism from this standpoint, we could call it a “religion of rebirth”. For Christianity starts from a recognition that everything in an individual life bears fruits which are of importance and value for the innermost being of man and are carried over into a new life, where they are lived out on a higher level of fulfillment. All that we extract from a single life becomes more and more nearly perfect, until at last it appears in a spiritual form. Even the least significant elements in our existence, if they are taken up by the spiritual and given new life on an ever more perfect level, can be woven into the spiritual. Nothing in human existence is null and void, for it goes through a resurrection when the spirit has transformed it in the right way. It is as a religion of rebirth, of the resurrection of the best that we have experienced, that we should look on Christianity — a religion for which nothing we encounter is worthless, but is rather a building-stone for the great edifice that is to arise by a bringing together of everything spiritual in the sense-world around us. Buddhism is a religion of release from existence, while Christianity is a religion of rebirth on a spiritual level. This is evident in their ways of thinking about things great and small and in their final principles. If we look for the causes of this contrast, we shall find them in the quite opposite characteristics of Western and Eastern culture. The fundamental difference between them can be put quite simply. All genuine Eastern culture which has not yet been fertilised by the West is non-historical, whereas all Western culture is historical. And that is ultimately the difference between the Christian and the Buddhist outlooks. The Christian outlook is historical: it recognises not only that repeated earth-lives occur but that they form an historical sequence, so that what is first experienced on an imperfect level can rise in the course of further incarnations to ever higher and more nearly perfect levels. While Buddhism sees release from earth-existence in terms of rising to Nirvana, Christianity sees its aim as a continuing process of development, whereby all the products and achievements of single lives shine forth in ever-higher stages of perfection, until, permeated by the spirit, they experience resurrection at the end of earth-existence. Buddhism is non-historical, quite in the sense of the cultural background out of which it grew. It turns its gaze to earlier and later incarnations of man and sees him in opposition to the external world. It never asks whether in earlier times man may have stood in a different relationship to the external world or whether in the future this relationship may again be different — though these are questions that Christianity does ask. So Buddhism comes to the view that man's relationship to the world in which he incarnates is always the same. Driven into incarnation by his thirst for existence, he enters a world of suffering; it matters not whether the world called forth this same thirst in him in the past or will do so in the future. Suffering, and again suffering, is what he is bound always to experience during life on earth. So earth-lives are repeated, and Buddhism never truly connects them with any idea of historical development. That is why Buddhism can see its Nirvana, its state of bliss, as attainable only by withdrawing from the ever-repeated cycle of lives on earth, and why it has to regard the world itself as the source of human suffering. For it says that if we ever enter the physical world, we are bound to suffer: the sense-world cannot but bring us suffering. That is not Christian, for the Christian outlook is historical through and through. It recognises that man, in being born again and again, faces an external world; but if these encounters bring him suffering, or leave him unsatisfied, deprived of an inwardly harmonious existence, this is not because earthly life is always such that man must suffer, but because he has related himself wrongly to the external world. Christianity and the Old Testament both point to a definite event, as a result of which man has developed his inner life in such a way that he can make his existence in the world around him a source of suffering. Suffering is not inflicted on us by the world we perceive through our eyes and ears, the world in which we are incarnated; humanity once developed something within itself which placed it in a wrong relation to the world. And as this is inherited from generation to generation, it is still the cause of human suffering today. In the Christian sense we can say that from the beginning of the earth-existence human beings have not had a right relation to the outer world. This comparison can be extended to the fundamental doctrines of the two religions. Buddhism emphasises again and again that the outer world is Maya, illusion. Christianity, on the contrary, says: Man may indeed believe that what he sees of the outer world is an illusion, but that is because his organs are so constituted that he cannot see through the external veil to the spiritual world. The outer world is not an illusion; the illusion has its source in the limitations of human seeing. Buddhism says: Look at the rocks around you; look where the lightning flashes and the thunder rolls — it is all Maya, the great illusion. Christian thinking would reply that it is wrong to call the outer world an illusion. No, it is man who has not yet found the way to open the spiritual senses — his spirit-eyes and spirit-ears, in Goethe's words — which could show him how the outer world is to be seen in its true form. Christianity, accordingly, looks for a pre-historical event which has prevented the human heart from forming a true picture of the outer world. And human development through a series of incarnations must be seen as a means whereby man can regain, in a Christian sense, his spirit-eyes and spirit-ears in order to see the external world as it really is. Repeated earth-lives are therefore not meaningless: they are the path which will enable man to look at the outer world — from which Buddhism wishes to liberate him — and to see it irradiated by the spirit. To overcome the physical appearance of the world by acquiring the spiritual vision that man does not yet possess, and to dispel the human error whereby the outer world can seem to be only Maya — that is the innermost impulse of Christianity. In Christianity, therefore, we do not find a great teacher who, as in Buddhism, tells us that the world is a source of suffering and that we must get away from it into another world, the quite different world of Nirvana. Christianity presents a powerful impulse to lead the world forward: the Christ, who has given us the strongest indication of the forces that man can develop out of his inner life-forces that will enable him to make use of every incarnation in such a way that its fruits will be carried into every succeeding incarnation through his own powers. The incarnations are not to cease in order to open the way to Nirvana; but all that we can acquire in them is to be used and developed in order that it may experience resurrection in the spiritual sense. Herein lies the deepest distinction between the non-historical philosophy of Buddhism and the historical outlook of Christianity. Christianity looks back to a Fall of man as the source of pain and suffering and onward to a Resurrection for their healing. We cannot gain freedom from pain and suffering by renouncing existence, but only by making good the error which has placed man in a false relationship with the surrounding world. If we correct this error, we shall indeed see that the sense-perceptible world dissolves like a cloud before the sun, and also that all our actions and experiences within it can be resurrected on the spiritual plane. Christianity is thus a doctrine of reincarnation, of resurrection, and only in that light may we place it beside Buddhism. This, however, involves contrasting the two faiths in the sense of Spiritual Science and entering into the deepest impulses of both. All that I have said in general terms can be substantiated down to the smallest details. For example, we can find in Buddhism something like the Sermon on the Mount in the Matthew Gospel: He that hears the law — that is, the law imparted by the Buddha — is blessed. He who raises himself above the passions is blessed. He who can live in loneliness is blessed. He who can live with the creatures of the world and do them no harm is blessed. And so on. Thus we could regard the Buddhist beatitudes as a counterpart of the beatitudes in the Sermon on the Mount. We have only to understand them in the right way. Let us compare them with the text of the beatitudes of the Sermon on the Mount in St. Matthew's Gospel. 59 Matt. 5, 3 There we hear at the beginning the powerful words: “Blessed are they who are beggars for the spirit, for they will find within themselves the kingdom of heaven.” It is not said only “Blessed are they who hear the law”; there is an addition. We are told: Blessed are the poor in spirit so that they have to beg for it, for “theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” What does that mean? We can understand such a saying only if we keep before our souls the whole historical character of the Christian outlook. First of all, we must remember that all the faculties of the human soul have a history; they have evolved. Spiritual Science takes this word “evolved” very seriously, as meaning that what is there today has not been there always. It tells us that what we call our intellect, our scientific way of thinking, did not exist in primitive times; in place of it there was something we might call a dim, hazy clairvoyance. The way in which we now achieve knowledge of the world was unknown to these early people. But there dwelt in them a kind of primitive wisdom which went far beyond anything we have been able to establish today. Anyone who understands history knows that such a primitive wisdom did exist. In those early times human beings did not know how to build machines or railway engines, or how to dominate their environment with the aid of natural forces, but their vision of the divine-spiritual foundations of the world went far beyond our present knowledge. This vision did not come from thinking things out. Men could not then proceed as modern science does. They were given inspirations, revelations, which arose dimly in their souls. They were not wholly conscious of them, but they could recognise them as true reflections of the spiritual world and of the ancient wisdom. But as in the course of evolution man passed from life to life, he was destined to lose the old hazy clairvoyance and the ancient wisdom and to learn to grasp things with his intellect. In the future he will unite the two faculties: he will be able to look clairvoyantly into the spiritual world while retaining the forms of modern knowledge. Today we are living in a transition stage. The old clairvoyance has been lost, and what we now are has developed in the course of time. How has man reached the point of being able, as a self-conscious being, to get to know the world through his intellect? In particular, when did self-consciousness first come to man? It was at the time — though world-evolution is not usually interpreted so exactly — when Christ Jesus appeared on earth. Men were at a turning-point given for what has produced the finest achievements of our own time. The coming of the Christ into human evolution marked the transition from the old to the new. When John the Baptist proclaimed “The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand”, 60 Matt. 3, 2 he was simply using a technical expression for the experience that would come to men when they began to gain knowledge of the world through their own self-consciousness and no longer through inspirations. The Baptist's call means that knowledge of the world in terms of concepts and ideas is near at hand. Men are no longer dependent on the old clairvoyance, but can now investigate the world for themselves. And the most powerful impulse for this new way of knowledge was given by Christ Jesus. Hence there is a deep meaning in the very first words of the Sermon on the Mount. They might be interpreted: Men are now at the stage where they are beggars for the spirit. In the past they had clairvoyant vision and could look into the spiritual world. That time is over. But a time will come when man, through the inner force of his Ego, will be able to find a substitute for the old clairvoyance through the Word which will reveal itself within him. Blessed, accordingly, are not only those who in ancient times gained the spirit through twilight inspirations, but also those who no longer have clairvoyance because evolution has brought them to that stage. They are indeed not unblest, those who are beggars for the spirit because they have lost the spirit. Blessed are they, for theirs is that which reveals itself through the Ego and can be achieved through their own self-consciousness. Further we read: “Blessed are they who suffer”, for although the outer sense-world is a cause of suffering because of our relationship to it, the time has now come when man, if he will grasp his self-consciousness and unfold the forces which dwell in his Ego, will come to know the remedy for his suffering. Within himself he will find the possibility of consolation, for the time has come when any external consolation loses significance, because the Ego is to have the strength to find within itself the remedy for suffering. Blessed are they who can no longer find in the outer world all that was once found there. That is also the highest meaning of the beatitude, “Blessed are they who thirst after justice, for they shall be filled.” Within the Ego itself will be found a source of justice that will compensate for the injustice in the world. So it is that Christ Jesus points the way to the human Ego, to the divine element in man. Take into your inner being that which lives in the Christ as a prefiguration; then you will find the strength to carry over from one incarnation to another the fruits of your lives on earth. It is important for life in the spiritual world that you should master what can be experienced in earthly existence. Bearing on this is an event which in the first instance is one of suffering for Christianity — the death of Christ Jesus, the Mystery of Golgotha. This death is of greater significance than ordinary death; Christ here establishes death as the starting-point of an immortal, invincible life. This death is not merely as though Christ wished to free himself from life; he suffers it because from it works an ascending power, and because out of this death there is to flow eternal life. This was felt by those who lived in the early centuries of Christianity, and it will be recognised more and more widely when the Christ Impulse is better understood. Then people will understand how it was that six centuries before Christ one of the greatest of men left his palace, saw a dead body and formed the judgment — death is suffering, release from death is salvation — and resolved that he would have no more to do with anything that lay under the dominion of death. Six centuries go by until the Christ comes, and after six more centuries have passed a symbol is raised which will be understood only in the future. What is this symbol? It was not a Buddha, not a chosen person, but simple folk who went and saw the symbol; saw the cross raised and a dead body upon it. For them, death was not suffering, nor did they turn away from it; they saw in the body a pledge of eternal life, a sign of that which conquers death and points away from everything in the sense-world. The noble Buddha saw a corpse; he turned away from the sense-world and decided that death is suffering. The simple folk who looked upon the cross and the body did not turn away from the sight: for them it was testimony that from this earthly death there springs eternal life. So it was that six hundred years before the founding of Christianity the Buddha stood before the corpse, and six hundred years after the coming of Christ simple folk saw the symbol which expressed for them what had come about through the founding of Christianity. At no other time has there been such a turning-point in the evolution of mankind. If we look at these things objectively, we come to see even more clearly wherein lie the greatness and significance of Buddhism. As we have said, man was originally endowed with a primal wisdom, and in the course of successive incarnations this wisdom was gradually lost. The appearance of the great Buddha marks the end of an old epoch of evolution; it provides the strongest historical evidence that men had lost the old wisdom, the old knowledge, and this explains the turning away from life. The Christ is the starting-point of a new evolution, which sees the sources of life eternal in this earthly life. In our time this important fact concerning human evolution is still not clearly understood. That is why it can happen today that men of fine and noble nature, unable to gain from modern viewpoints what they need for their inner life, turn to something different and find release in Buddhism. And Buddhism does show in a certain sense how a man can be lifted up out of sense-existence and through a certain unfolding of his inner forces can rise above himself. But this can occur only because the greatest impulse and innermost source of Christianity is still so little understood. Spiritual Science should be the instrument for penetrating ever more deeply into the concepts and outlook of Christianity. And precisely the idea of evolution, to which Spiritual Science does full justice, will be able to lead men to an intimate grasp of Christianity. Spiritual Science can therefore cherish the hope that a rightly understood Christianity will stand out ever more clearly from all misinterpretations of it, without transplanting Buddhism into our time. Any attempt to do this would indeed be shortsighted, for anyone who understands the circumstances of spiritual life in Europe will know that even those movements which are apparently opposed to Christianity have drawn their whole armoury of weapons from Christianity itself. There could have been no Darwin or Haeckel 61 Cf. Rudolf Steiner, The Riddles of Philosophy — grotesque as this sounds — if a Christian education had not made it possible for them to think as they thought; if the forms of thought had not been ready for those who, after a Christian education, use them to attack, so to speak, their own mother. What these people say, and the tone of voice in which they say it, are often apparently directed against Christianity, but it is Christian education that enables them to think in this way. It would be unpromising, to say the least, for anyone to try to graft something Oriental into our culture, for it would contradict all the conditions of spiritual life in the West. All we need to do is to get a clear grasp of the fundamental teachings of the two religions. A more exact study of contemporary spiritual life will indeed bring out such a lack of clarity within it, that men of the highest philosophical eminence are impelled to reject life and are thus moved to sympathy with the thoughts of Buddhism. We have an example of this in Schopenhauer: 62 See note 35. the whole temper of his life had something Buddhistic about it. For example, he says that the highest type of man is he whom we may call a “saint”; a man who in his life has overcome everything that the outer world can offer. He merely exists in his body, deriving no ideals from the world around him; he has no aim or purpose, but simply waits for the time when his body will be destroyed, so that every trace of his connection with the sense-world will have vanished. By turning away from the sense-world he nullifies his own sense-life, so that nothing may remain of all that leads in life from fear to suffering, from suffering to terror, from passion to pain. This is a projection of Buddhist feeling into the West, and we must recognise that it comes about because the deepest impulse in Christianity is not clearly understood. What have we gained through Christianity? From the purest form of the Christian impulse we have gained precisely what separates Schopenhauer decisively from one of the most significant personalities of recent times. While Schopenhauer's ideal is a man who has overcome everything that external life can give him by way of pleasure and pain, and waits only for the last traces holding his body together to be dissolved, Goethe sets before us in his Faust a striving character who passes from desire to satisfaction and from satisfaction, to desire, until finally he has purified himself and transformed his desires to such a degree that the holiest element that can illuminate our life becomes his passion. He does not stand and wait until the last traces of his earthly existence are extinguished, but speaks the great words: “Not in aeons will the trace of my days on earth pass away.” 63 Faust II , 11. 1 1583/4. The sense and spirit of all this is presented by Goethe in his Faust just as in old age he described it to his secretary, Eckermann: 64 Johann Peter Eckermann, Conversations with Goethe in the Last Years of his Life , conversation of 6th June 1831. “For the rest you will admit, that the closing passage, when the redeemed soul is borne aloft, was very difficult to manage. With such super-sensible, hardly imaginable things I could easily have lost myself in vagueness if I had not made use of clearly outlined figures and images from the Christian Church to give the requisite form and substance to my poetic intentions.” So it is that Faust climbs the ladder of existence, represented in Christian symbols, from mortal to immortal, from death to life. We see in Schopenhauer the unmistakeable projection of Buddhist elements into our western way of thinking, so that his ideal man waits to reach the state of perfection until the last traces of his earth existence have been erased, together with his body. And this vision, Schopenhauer believes, can interpret the figures created by Raphael and Correggio in their paintings. Goethe wished to set before us a man who strives towards a goal, well aware that whatever is achieved in earthly life must be enduring, interwoven with eternity. “Not in aeons will the trace of my days on earth pass away.” That is the true, realistic Christian impulse, which leads to the reawakening of our earthly deeds in a spiritualised form. That is the religion of resurrection. It is also a realistic philosophy in the true sense, for it knows how to draw down from spiritual heights the loftiest elements for our life in the world of the senses. Thus we can see in Goethe, like a dawning glow, the Christianity of the future, which has learnt to understand itself. This Christianity will recognise all the greatness and significance of Buddhism, but, by contrast with the Buddhist turning away from incarnations, it will recognise the value of each existence from one incarnation to the next. Thus Goethe, in a truly modern Christian sense, looks at a past which brought us to birth out of a world, and at present in which whatever we achieve — if only its fruits are rightly grasped — can never pass away. When, therefore, he links man to the universal in the true spiritual-scientific sense, he cannot but join him on the other side to the true content of Christianity. Thus in his Urworte-Orphisch he says: As on the day that lent thee earthly being, The Sun took salutation from the planets, So didst thou start thy course and so hast sped it, According to the law of thy first sending. So must thou be: thyself thou canst not flee from. Thus have the Sibyls, thus the prophets, spoken. Goethe could not write in this way, describing the connection of man with the whole world, without indicating that the human being, born out of the constellations of existence, is in the world as something that can never pass away but must celebrate its resurrection in spiritualised form. Hence to these lines he added two more: No time, no power, can bring to dissolution The form once cast in living evolution. And we can say: No time and no power can destroy what is achieved in time and ripens as fruit for eternity.

Metamorphoses of the Soul: Paths of Experience I

Buddha and Christ

https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA058/English/RSP1983/19091202p02.html

Berlin

2 Dec 1909

GA058-8

The lecture I am to give today puts me in a difficult position. I want to make some remarks which fall outside the way of thinking now called “scientific”. Since the views of most people are largely formed by the ideas generally current in scientific and popular-scientific circles, and since the subject-matter of this lecture will be far removed from any such ideas, the public at large may be inclined to regard my statements as mere fancies, derived from quite arbitrary cogitations, rather than for what they really are: the outcome of spiritual-scientific research. I would ask you, therefore, to take this lecture as a sort of episode in our winter series, intended to point in a direction to which I am not likely to return this year, though it may occupy us further next year. The reason for touching on it now, is to show that what we are dealing with this winter as a science of the soul, branches out in many ways that lead from the immediate realm of human soul-life to the great connections we find in the wide universe, the whole cosmos. Finally, I must ask you to remember that this lecture will deal only with one short chapter from a very large volume. It must be seen in strict relation to its title, “Something about the Moon in the Light of Spiritual Science”. It will not attempt to be in any way exhaustive. In all sorts of popular books you will find this or that said about the moon from the standpoint of science today. But all you can learn from these sources or from the scientific literature will leave you quite unsatisfied as regards the real questions concerning this strange companion of the earth. As the 19th century advanced, the statements of science with regard to the moon became more and more cautious, but also less frequent; but today they will occupy us hardly at all. The picture of the moon's surface given by telescopes and astronomical photography, the descriptions of its surface-markings as crater-like formations, grooves, plains and valleys and suchlike, and the consequent impressions one can gain of the purely spatial countenance of the moon — all this will not concern us. The question for us today is a truly spiritual-scientific one — whether the moon has any special influence on or significance for human life on earth. A significance of this kind has been spoken of from various points of view in the course of past centuries. And since everything that happens on earth, year in and year out, is related to the changing position of the earth relative to the sun, and is subject to the vast influence of the sun's light and heat, it was natural to wonder whether that other heavenly luminary, the moon, might not have some importance for life on earth, and especially for human life. In the comparatively recent past, people were inclined to speak of the moon as having a fairly powerful influence on earthly life. Quite apart from the fact that it has long been customary to attribute to the moon's attraction the so-called ebb and flow of the sea, the moon has always been regarded as affecting weather conditions on earth. Moreover, as late as the first half of the 19th century, serious scientists and doctors collated observations of how the moon in its various phases had a definite effect on certain illnesses, and even on the course of human life as a whole. It was then by no means a mere popular superstition to consider the influence of the moon in relation to the ups and downs of fever, of asthma, of goitre and the like; there were still doctors who recorded such cases because they felt compelled to believe that the phases of the moon had some influence on the course of human life and on health and disease in particular. With the rise of that scientific way of thinking which had its dawn and sunrise in the middle of the 19th century, the inclination to allow the moon any influence on human life diminished continuously. Only the belief that the moon causes the tides of the sea survived. And there was one very important scientist, Schleiden, 65 Matthias Jakob Schleiden, 1804–1881, Professor of Botany at the University of Jena. who poured out the vials of his wrath on those who still believed in the influence of the moon, even if it were only on the weather or on some other terrestrial phenomena. Schleiden, who had done outstanding work in his own sphere by his discovery of the significance of the plant-cell, launched a vehement attack on another German natural scientist, Gustav Theodor Fechner, 66 Gustav Theodor Fechner, 1801–1887, Professor of Physics at the University of Leipzig. See The Riddles of Philosophy , 1973 edition, pp. 279, 375ff., 376, 380, 383. Published by Anthroposophic Press, New York. notable especially for directing attention to certain subtle or frontier aspects of research. Thus in his Zend Avesta Fechner tried to show that the life of plants is endowed with soul, while in his Introduction to Aesthetics and his Elements of Psychophysics he achieved a great deal for the more intimate aspects of natural science. It may be better not to discuss this celebrated controversy about the moon without saying a little more about Fechner himself. Fechner was an investigator who tried, with immense assiduity and great care and precision, to bring together the external facts in various fields of research; but he also used a method of analogies in order to show, for example, that all the phenomena of plant-life, and not only of human life, are ensouled. Starting with the phenomena of human life as it runs its course, he took similar facts and phenomena as they appear to observation in, let us say, the life of the earth, or of a whole solar system, or of the plant-world. When he compared these phenomena with those of human life, he found one analogy after another. Hence he concluded — to put it roughly — that in studying human life, with its ensoulment, we observe the occurrence of certain phenomena; and if in observing other phenomena we can establish certain similarities with human life, why should we not recognise the other phenomena as being also “ensouled”? Anyone who stands on the ground of Spiritual Science, and is used to examining everything related to the spiritual in as strictly scientific a sense as the natural scientist applies to his studies of external phenomena, will feel that a good deal of what Fechner works out so cleverly is merely an ingenious game; and however stimulating a game of this kind may be, the greatest care must be taken in dealing with mere analogies. When a stimulating thinker such as Fechner employs this method, his work may be very interesting. But there are people of whom it can justly be said that they would like to solve the riddles of the world with as little knowledge and as much comfort as possible. And if they lean on Fechner and make his methods their own, we must remember that an imitator or a copyist does not by any means call forth in us the same feelings of satisfaction as does the man who was first in his own field — a man who we recognise as gifted and stimulating, even though we cannot credit him with anything more. We have no need to characterise Schleiden any further than by saying that he discovered the significance of the plant-cell. Clearly such a man, who directed all his perceptive and cognitive faculties towards the immediately real — that is, towards what can be perceived with external instruments — will have little sympathy for analogies or with anything else that Fechner spoke of in his endeavours to show that plants are ensouled; for in Schleiden's view they are made up of single cells, and this fact naturally seemed to him, as its discoverer, a wonderful thing. So for Schleiden it was something of an outrage that speculations, with this brilliant model available as a starting-point, should prefer to deal with some even subtler relationships in nature. It was particularly Fechner's method of analogies that aroused Schleiden's wrath, and in this connection he touched on the question of the moon. With reference not only to Fechner but to all those who clung to the centuries-old tradition of attributing to the moon all sorts of influences on the weather, etc., he said that for these people the moon was like a cat in the house, held responsible for everything that cannot be otherwise explained. Fechner naturally felt challenged as he was the main target of these attacks. He at once embarked on a work which — whether or not we agree with it — is highly stimulating. Although many details in it have since been corrected, Fechner's pamphlet, “Schleiden and the Moon”, published in 1856, is remarkably interesting. He had no need to go into the influence of the moon on the ebb and flow of the tides, for this was admitted even by Schleiden. It was the supposed connection of the moon with weather conditions that made the moon, for him, the cat of scientific research. Fechner therefore set out to investigate the very facts that his opponent brought against him, and from this material he drew some notable conclusions. Anyone who cares to check his procedure will find that in this investigation Fechner was an exceptionally cautious worker with a thoroughly scientific approach. His first conclusion from a mass of facts — which I need not repeat, for anyone can read them for himself — was that the quantity and frequency of rainfall were in many cases shown to be greater with a waxing than with a waning moon: greater when the moon approached the earth, smaller when it receded; and the proportion of rainfall during a waxing moon to that during the wane was 107:100. The recorded observations he used did not cover a few years only; some of them extended over many decades and concerned not a single locality but many parts of Europe. In order to exclude chance effects, Fechner now assumed that some other condition, excluding the moon, might have produced this proportion of 107:100. He then studied weather conditions on the odd and even dates of the moon's phases, for he said that if the waning and waxing were not the cause, the odd and even days of the month would produce similar results. But that was not the case. Quite different figures emerged: the relationship was not constant but variable, so that here it could be attributed to chance. Fechner himself realised that he had not achieved any world-shattering result; he had to recognise that the moon had no very great influence on the weather, but the facts did point to some influence. And he had, as you will have seen, proceeded quite scientifically, taking account only of observations carefully recorded for definite places. He made similar researches in relation to fevers and other bodily phenomena, and here too he obtained small positive results. It could hardly be denied that phenomena of this kind may take a different course under the waxing and under the waning moon. Thus the old view of the moon fought its last fight in the middle of the 19th century through the work of this highly gifted man, Fechner. This example shows very well how wrong it is to accept the increasingly common assertion that science compels us to talk no more about the spiritual background of things, for science — we are assured — is on the verge of learning how to combine simple materials in such a way as to produce living substance. It is agreed that we have far to go before we can make protein from its constituents — carbon, hydrogen, oxygen and so on — but the whole tendency of science is to make us admit that one day it will be done. When it has been done, the only tenable outlook — so we are told by those who make these assertions — will be a monistic one which holds that a living, thinking being is made up of nothing but an assembly of material elements. Anyone who talks in this vein will have drawn on the latest aims and achievements of science to convince himself that we are not justified in postulating something spiritual behind what we perceive with our senses or are told by external science; for happily — he will feel — we are long past the days when it could be claimed that some kind of vague life-wisdom lies behind the sense-perceptible world. At this point we may well ask. Is it really science that compels us to reject spiritual research? Is that a scientific conclusion? I want to remain entirely on the ground of those who believe that in the not too distant future it will be possible to produce living protein out of simple substances. Is there anything in that which compels us to say that life is materially constituted and that we must not look anywhere for the spirit? An ordinary historical observation will show how unnecessary this conclusion is. There was a time when it was believed not only that carbon, hydrogen, etc., could be used to produce living protein, but that a whole man could be built up from the necessary ingredients in a retort. The worth of this belief need not concern us — you can read a poetical treatment of it in the second part of Faust . The point is that there were times when people really believed — however crazy it may seem to us — that Homunculus could be put together out of separate components. Yet in those times no-one doubted that behind the sense-perceptible was the spirit. Hence you can prove historically that no “science” can compel us to reject the spirit, for this depends on something quite different — on whether or not a capacity to discern the spirit is there. Neither the science of today nor the science of tomorrow can ever compel us to reject the spirit. We can take a perfectly scientific standpoint, but whether or not we reject the spirit does not depend on science. It depends on whether or not we are able to discern the spirit, and science cannot determine that. So, without agreeing from the spiritual-scientific point of view either with Schleiden or with Fechner, we can understand that Schleiden, with his eyes fixed on the sense-world, rejected everything that might be sought as soul or spirit behind the phenomena. But it was not on scientific grounds that he took this attitude; he was simply so inured to looking at visible things that he had no sympathy for anything else. Fechner was a quite different sort of man; his outlook embraced the spiritual, and though he made one error after another he was a man of different quality, one who sought the spirit. Hence his tendency was not to reject but to clarify the significance of the subtler influences of the heavenly bodies on one another. He said to himself: When I look at the moon, it is not for me merely the slag-heap it looks like through a telescope; it is ensouled, as are all other bodies. Hence the moon-soul must have effects on the earth-soul, and these come to expression below the surface of ordinary life or in weather phenomena. Now it is noteworthy, and has often been pointed out here, that the method of spiritual-scientific research is directed towards the practical, and that the best proofs of what it has to say can be found in everyday life. And that is just how Fechner set about defending his views. He suggested that the dispute between Schleiden and himself over the moon could perhaps be best settled by their wives. He said: “We both need rainwater for washing, and it could be collected in relation to weather conditions. Since Schleiden and I live under the same roof and can collect water at definite times, I suggest that my wife collects it during the waxing moon and Schleiden's wife during the wane. I am sure she will agree in order not to put her husband's theory to shame, the more so as she sets no great store by it. The result will be that my wife will have an extra can for every fourteen cans collected by Frau Schleiden, but for the sake of overcoming a preconceived opinion she will surely make this sacrifice.” 67 G. Th. Fechner, Professor Schleiden und der Mond , Leipzig, 1856, p.1 56. Here, then, we have drawn on the history of thought to show how the moon and its influence on the earth were regarded not very long ago. Nowadays one might say that people are more advanced in their scientific outlook — as they would call it — and so have gone a step beyond Schleiden in the sense that they would treat as a superstitious dreamer anyone who clung to the belief that the moon could have anything to do with weather conditions and the like. Even among quite sensible people today you will find no other opinion than that the moon has influence only on the tides; all other opinions having been superseded. If we take the standpoint of Spiritual Science, we are of course not obliged to swear to everything that was once part of popular belief. That would be to confuse Spiritual Science with superstition. Quite often today we encounter a piece of superstition — which is really a misunderstood popular belief and are told it is part of Spiritual Science. A superstition about the moon can indeed be seen at every street-corner, for it is well known that an emblem of the moon is attached to our barbers' shops — why? Because it was once generally believed that the sharpness of a razor was connected with a waxing moon. In fact there were times when no-one would have cared to shear a sheep during the wane, for he would have believed that the wool would then not grow again. This is a superstition very easy to disprove, for anyone who shaves knows that the beard grows again during the wane. In this realm it is just as easy to mock as it is hard, on the other side, to see clearly. For we are coming now to a particular question where at last we touch on Spiritual Science. It concerns the ebb and flow of the tides, universally regarded as coming under the influence of the moon. The flood-tide is thought to be obviously connected with the attractive force of the moon, and is looked for when the moon reaches its meridian. When the moon leaves the meridian, the flood is expected to change to ebb. But we need only remark that in many places ebb and flow occur twice, while the moon stands at the meridian only once during the same period. And there are other facts. You can learn from travel-books that in many parts of the earth the flood by no means coincides with the moon's meridian; in some places it occurs up to two and a half hours later. Certainly, science has thought up excuses to account for this: we are told that the flood is retarded. But there are also certain springs which show an indubitable ebb and flow; in some cases the well ebbs when the ocean tide is at flood, and vice versa . We are told that these cases, too, are examples of retarded ebb or flow in some cases so retarded as to run into the other phase. Of course this kind of explanation can explain almost anything. One question has been rightly asked: whence does the moon get this power to attract the sea? The moon is much smaller than the earth and has only about a seventieth of the earth's attractive power, while to set the great masses of the sea into motion would require millions of horse-power. Julius Robert Mayer 68 Julius Robert Mayer, 1814–1878, doctor and physicist, discovered the law of conservation of energy in 1842. made some interesting calculations on this question and it leads on to numerous other problems. Hence we can say: Here is something which is regarded as scientifically irrefutable, and yet, although no objections to it are heard, it is in fact highly vulnerable. One very significant fact, however, remains. Although the position and influence of the moon are such that it is hard to speak of an immediate relation of cause and effect, it holds true that a definite flood occurs every day — in relation to the moon's meridian — about fifty minutes later than on the previous day. The regular sequence of ebb and flow does therefore correspond to the course of the moon, and that is the most significant fact of all. Thus we cannot speak of the moon at its meridian as having an actual influence on flow and ebb, but we can say that the course of the moon's orbit does stand in a certain correspondence with the course of the tides. Now, to go a little way into the spiritual-scientific way of thinking, I would like to refer to a similar fact which gave Goethe a great deal of trouble. Most people know very little about the preoccupations of this great genius of modern times, but anyone who, like myself, has spent many years in the study of Goethe's scientific writings and has seen his manuscripts in the Goethe-Schiller Archives at Weimar, makes some surprising discoveries. He will, for example, come upon the preliminary notes which Goethe later condensed into a few pages as his meteorology. 69 Goethes Naturwissenschaftliche Schriften , as note 27, vol. 11, book 3, Meteorology, pp.323–398. He pursued these inquiries with enormous diligence and assiduity. Again and again he got his friends to collect facts and figures for him to tabulate. The purpose of these extensive studies was to show that the level of barometric pressure at various places is not due to chance but varies in some quite regular way. And Goethe did in fact assemble a great deal of evidence which indicated that in all sorts of places the rise and fall of the barometer were subject to a law which extended all round the globe. He hoped to disprove the assumption that air pressure depends entirely on external influences. He knew, of course, that densification and rarefaction of the air, resulting in pressure changes, were generally attributed to the moon, sun and other cosmic factors. He wanted to prove that whatever the positions of the constellations, whatever the effects of sun and moon on the atmosphere, a constant regularity in the rise and fall of air pressure prevails all round the globe. Hence he wished to show that in the earth itself lay the causes of the rise and fall of the barometer, for he believed that the earth is not the dead body it is usually taken to be, but is permeated by invisible elements from which all life flows, just as man has, in addition to his physical body, invisible elements which permeate him. And just as man has his in-breathing and out-breathing, where he draws in or releases air, so does the earth, as a living being, breathe in and out. And this in-breathing and out-breathing of the earth, as manifestations of its inner life, are registered externally in the rise and fall of the mercury in the barometer. Thus we have in Goethe a man who was convinced that the earth is a being imbued with soul and which behaves in ways that are comparable to the breathing process in human beings. Moreover, Goethe once said to Eckermann that he regarded the ebb and flow of the tides as a further expression of the inner vitality, the life-process, of the earth. 70 Johann Peter Eckermann, Conversations with Goethe in the Last Years of his Life , conversation of 11th April 1827. Goethe was by no means the only great thinker who looked with a spiritual eye on such things from this point of view. Materialistically minded people will of course find all this laughable; but among men who have a feeling for life, be it on such a particular level or more in general, there will always be those with ideas similar to Goethe's — for example, Leonardo da Vinci. In his outstanding book, where he sets out his comprehensive scientific views, the height of achievement for those times, we find him saying — and not meaning it merely as an analogy — that he really regarded the solid rocks as the skeleton of the earth, and that the rivers, streams and watercourses can truly be compared to the blood circulation in man. 71 Leonardo da Vinci, der Denker, Forscher und Poet , from the published manuscripts; selection, translation and introduction by Marie Herzfeld (Jena, 1906), p.61 and following chapters. There you will find it stated also that ebb and flow are connected with a regular rhythm in the inner life of the earth. Kepler, too, spoke in a similar vein when he said that the earth could be regarded in certain respects as a gigantic whale and that ebb and flow were the in-breathing and out-breathing of this huge creature. 72 Johannes Kepler, 1571–1630. Cf. for example in Harmonices Mundi book IV, chapter 7. Let us now compare the facts mentioned earlier with such views as Goethe's on ebb and flow. Let us use the findings of Spiritual Science and our previous conclusions about the phases of the moon and the tides in relation, for example, to Goethe's views on the earth's inner life and breathing. For this we must build on the conclusions of Spiritual Science, which can be established only if researches are pursued by spiritual-scientific methods. Here we enter the highly dangerous realm where those who believe they have a firm foothold in modern science, will talk about the fantasies of Spiritual Science. Well, let them talk. It would be better if they were to take what is given as a stimulus; then they would be able to find proofs through a more intimate consideration of life. In order to approach in the right way what the spiritual scientist has to say, let us consider man himself in relation to the world around him. As far as Spiritual Science is concerned, man has his origins not in the sense-world, but also in the spiritual foundations which lie behind the external physical world. Thus it is only as a being of the senses that man is born, from out of the sense-world. In so far as he is permeated with soul and spirit, he is born from out of the soul and spirit of the cosmos. And it is only when we find the way from man's soul and spirit to the soul and spirit of the cosmos that we are enabled to see something of the connection between the two. In previous lectures we have discussed various phenomena of the inner soul-life of man. We found the soul to be not merely the nebulous something that it is for modern psychology. Among its members we distinguished, first, what we called the Sentient Soul. In this soul the ego, though dimly and scarcely aware of itself, experiences the impulses of pleasure and pain and everything that comes to it from the outer world through the sentient body. The ego is present within the life of the Sentient Soul, but as yet knows nothing of itself. Then the ego develops further and the soul advances to the stage of the Intellectual Soul or Mind Soul. And when the ego has carried still further its work on the soul, the Intellectual Soul gives rise to the Consciousness Soul. Thus in the structure of the human soul we distinguish three members: Sentient Soul, Intellectual Soul and Consciousness Soul. The ego continues to work on these three members and brings man nearer and nearer to the peak of his developments. But these three members, since they carry out their work through man, have to live in his corporeal structure; in that way only can they accomplish their tasks. The Sentient Soul uses as its instrument the sentient body; the Intellectual Soul uses the etheric body. The Consciousness Soul is the first to use the physical body as bearer and instrument. Thus in man's corporeal structure we have first the physical body, which he has in common with the minerals. Next we have in man a higher part which he has in common with the plant world and everything that lives. The functions of growth, nutrition and reproduction in the plant are active also in man, but in man they are connected with the Intellectual Soul. The plant's etheric body is not permeated by the Intellectual Soul, as is the etheric body in man, just as the physical body is permeated by the Consciousness Soul. That which forms crystals in the mineral realm is permeated in man by the Consciousness Soul. In animals the astral body is the bearer of impulses and emotions; in man the astral body is inwardly deepened and is the bearer of the Sentient Soul. Thus the human soul, made up of Sentient Soul, Intellectual Soul and Consciousness Soul, dwells in his threefold corporeality, in the sentient body, etheric body and physical body respectively. That is man's condition while he is awake. During sleep it is different. Then, leaving his physical and etheric bodies behind in bed, he goes out from them with his ego and astral body, together with those parts of his soul which permeate his etheric and physical bodies as Intellectual Soul and Consciousness Soul. Thus during sleep he lives in a spiritual world which he cannot perceive, simply because here on earth he is obliged to use his physical and etheric bodies as instruments for perceiving the surrounding world. When in sleep he lays these instruments aside, he is unable to perceive the spiritual world, since in ordinary life today he lacks the organs for it. Now there is something else to say about these states of waking and sleeping. Our waking life is directly connected with the course of the sun — though indeed this is no longer quite true of people today, especially in towns. But if we look at simple country life, where this relation between outer nature and human living still largely prevails, we find that for most of the time people are awake while the sun is up and asleep while the sun is down. This regular alternation of waking and sleeping corresponds to the regular action of sunlight on the earth and all that springs from it. And it is not merely a picturesque way of speaking but deeply true to say that in the morning the sun recalls into the physical body the astral body and ego, together with the Sentient Soul, the Intellectual Soul and the Consciousness Soul; and while he is awake man sees everything around him by means of the sun and its radiance. And when man has once more united all the members of his being in daylight consciousness, it is the sun which summons him to ordinary life. We shall now easily recognise, if we are not taking a superficial view of these things, how the sun regulates the relationship of man to itself and to the earth. Let us now look more closely at three aspects of this relationship. With regard to his threefold soul-nature, comprising Sentient Soul, Intellectual Soul and Consciousness Soul, man is inwardly independent; but he is not with regard to their bearers, the astral, etheric and physical bodies. These three sheaths are built up from the outer universe, and in order that they may serve man in his waking life, they are built up through the relationship between sun and earth. As we have seen, the Sentient Soul lives in its instrument, the sentient body. The sentient body owes its characteristics to the region which a man calls his home. Everyone has a home somewhere, and it matters whether he is born in Europe or America or Australia. For the physical and etheric bodies it makes no direct difference, but it does matter directly for the sentient body. Although man is gradually becoming more free from these effects on his sentient body, we still have to say: human beings whose roots are in their native soil, human beings in whom a feeling for their homeland is particularly strong, who have not yet overcome by strength of soul the power of the physical and are drawn to their place of birth — if such human beings have to move to another region, they are not only apt to become bad-tempered and morose, but may actually fall ill. Sometimes, then, the mere prospect of returning home is enough to restore them to health, for the source of their illness is not in the physical body or in the etheric body but in their sentient body, whose moods, emotions and desires spring directly from the environment of their native land. Through higher development, which enhances his freedom, man will overcome the influences which bind him to his native soil; but a comprehensive view shows that a man's situation on earth varies in accordance with the relation of the place where he lives to the sun; for the angle at which the sun's rays strike the earth varies from place to place. We can indeed trace in certain instinctive activities, which then become culturally assimilated, that they derive partially from the homeland of the people concerned. Let us take two examples: the use of iron and the milking of animals for food. We shall find that it is only in certain areas of Europe, Asia and Africa that these two practices developed. In other areas they were unknown in early times. And where they came into use later on, they were introduced by emigrants from Europe. We can trace exactly how throughout Siberia the milking of animals dates from remote antiquity, and extends only as far as the Behring Sea; there is no record of it among the original inhabitants of America. It is similar with iron. Thus we can see how certain instincts which exist in the sentient body are connected with a particular region where people live, and how they are therefore dependent in the first place on the relation of sun to earth. A second dependence concerns the etheric body. As the bearer of the Intellectual Soul, the etheric body shows itself to be dependent in its activity on the seasons of the year; hence on the relation of sun to earth expressed in the course of the seasons. A direct proof of this can of course come only through Spiritual Science, but you can convince yourselves by external facts that this statement is correct. For example, it is only in regions where a balanced alternation of seasons occurs that the inner activity of the soul as Intellectual Soul can develop; this means that only in such regions can a necessary bearer or instrument of the Intellectual Soul evolve in the etheric body of man. In the far north we find that when elements of culture are brought in from elsewhere, the soul has great difficulty in struggling with the etheric body, which is having to live under conditions characterised by excessively long winters and short summers. The Intellectual Soul will then find it impossible to forge out of the etheric body an instrument it can easily handle. If we go to the tropics, we find that the lack of regular seasons produces a kind of apathy. Just as the forces of plant life vary in the course of the year, so do the forces in man's etheric body: they find expression in the joy of spring, the longing for summer, the melancholy of autumn, the desolation of winter. These regular changes are necessary if a proper instrument for the Intellectual Soul is to be created in the human etheric body. Thus we see again how the sun affects human beings through its changing relation to the earth. Now let us take the physical body. If the Consciousness Soul is to work right into the physical body, we must follow in ordinary life a rhythm similar to the alternation of day and night. Anyone who never slept would soon notice that he was unable to control effectively his thoughts about the world around him. A regular alternation of waking and sleeping builds up our physical body in a way that can provide an instrument for the Consciousness Soul. Thus we have now seen how man's three bodies, astral, etheric and physical, are built up by the sun. But what external influences play into the human being while he is asleep, while he is living in the spiritual world and has left his physical and etheric bodies behind? While we are asleep we get something from the spiritual world to replace the forces that have been used up by our activities during the preceding day. Is it possible in this case also to point to an external influence as we did with regard to the daytime waking hours? Yes, it is, and what we find is in remarkable accord with the length of the phases of the moon. I am not maintaining that this external influence coincides exactly with the moon's phases, or that the phases themselves produce corresponding effects, but only that the course of these effects is comparable with the course of the phases of the moon. I will give two examples to show what I mean. You will be well aware that people who are given to creative thoughts and the free play of imagination are not equally productive at all times. Poets, for example, if they are honest with themselves, have to admit now and then that they are out of tune, unable to write anything. People who observe this in themselves know that the productive periods, for which a certain imaginative frame of mind and a warmth of feeling are necessary, alternate in a remarkable way with periods when nothing can be accomplished. They know, too, that the soul has a fourteen day period of productivity, after which anyone who has to do with creative thinking goes through an empty period, when the soul is like a squeezed out lemon. During this empty period, however, he can apply himself to working over what he has done. If artists and authors would take note of this, they would soon see how true it is. This alternation of periods is influenced not by daytime conditions, but by the times when the soul and the ego are outside the physical and etheric bodies. And so, for a fourteen-day period, productive forces are, as it were, poured into the human being while he is independent of his physical and etheric bodies, and then, during the next fourteen days, no such forces are poured in. That is the rhythm. It applies to all human beings, but is more clearly evident in the sort of people we have just mentioned. Much clearer still is the evidence from genuine spiritual research. This is not the kind of research that can be undertaken whenever one chooses, but it is dependent on a rhythmical pattern. This point has hardly ever been mentioned anywhere, but it is so. During spiritual research one is not sleeping — the world-spirit does not bestow its gifts in sleep! The physical body is inactive with regard to the outer world, yet one is not asleep, although the physical and etheric bodies have been left behind; Meditation, concentration and so on have strengthened the researcher's faculties to such a degree that consciousness is not blotted out when it goes forth from the physical body. Sleep does not supervene and the spiritual world can be perceived. For the modern spiritual researcher there are two periods: one of fourteen days when he can make observations: he feels particularly strong and communications from the spiritual world press in on him from all sides. Then comes a period during which he is particularly well able, thanks to the forces just received, to penetrate with his thinking the illuminations, the imaginations and inspirations that have come to him from the spiritual world, to work over them so that they may acquire a strictly scientific form. Inspiration and the technique of thinking follow a rhythmical course. The spiritual researcher does not need to bring about a co-ordination with external facts; he simply sees how these periods occur in alternation, as do full moon and new moon, with their intervening quarters. But it is only their rhythmical course that has a parallel in the alternation of full and new moon. The period of inspiration does not coincide with full moon or the working over period with new moon. All we can say is that a comparison is possible between the two periods and full and new moon. Why should this be so? When we study our earth, we find that it has evolved out of an earlier state. Just as each one of us has come in soul and spirit from a former incarnation, so has the earth emerged from a former planetary incarnation. But our earth retains relics of events which occurred under earlier conditions during its previous incarnation. And these relics are to be found in the course of the moon round the earth, as we see it today. From a spiritual-scientific point of view the moon is reckoned as part of the earth. For what is it that keeps the moon circling round the earth? It is the earth itself, and here spiritual science and external science are in complete agreement. External science, too, regards the moon as having been split off from the earth, and having gained the force which keeps it in orbit through having once formed part of the earth. Thus the orbiting moon represents simply an earlier condition of the earth. The earth itself has retained in its satellite these earlier conditions because it needs to have them shining into the present. Can we find any reason for this need? Let us take man himself and observe how he lives as a soul in his body and how he is exposed to the course of the sun. We then must say: For normal consciousness today, everything associated with the sun is restricted to the life between birth and death. This is something you can test — ask yourselves whether what normal consciousness experiences during waking hours, in its threefold dependence on native place, the changing seasons and the alternation of day and night, is not restricted to the life between birth and death. Man would have nothing else in his consciousness, nothing more would illuminate it, if there were only this action of the sun on the earth and only this relation between earth and sun. That which plays over from one incarnation to the next and appears again in a new life, must be sought in the soul-spiritual element which permeates man's outer body and during sleep passes as astral body and ego out of the physical and etheric bodies. At death also it leaves the body, and reappears in a new form at the next incarnation. Here there is a rhythm which directs our attention to a similar rhythm associated with the moon. If now we consider human evolution, we see that the work of the ego on the Sentient Soul, Intellectual Soul and Consciousness Soul has developed only on earth under the conditions that prevail between earth and sun. But the earth's relation to the moon reflects a former condition in its own evolution. Man's present phase of evolution, through Sentient Soul, Intellectual Soul and Consciousness Soul, points to a period during which the bearers of the above soul-members, the astral, etheric and physical bodies, were being prepared. Then, just as the action of the sun is now still necessary for the proper development of these three bearers, the moon forces were at work in preparing them. Today the moon forces were once in harmony with man and prepared him to be what he is today; likewise the earth during its moon condition prepared our present earth. Thus we can say that the lower nature of man, on which are built the Sentient Soul, Intellectual Soul and Consciousness Soul, points back to earlier conditions which the earth has preserved in the orbit of the moon as we see it today. We can see, too, how man's inner being, as he passes from one incarnation to the next, must have a rhythm corresponding to the moon's. During earlier stages of the earth's evolution, it was not the transitory physical that was associated with the moon, but the inner activity which was working on this physical, just as the external physical is today being worked on by the sun. The earth has preserved in the moon something of its earlier conditions, and so has man in his inner, eternal being. In this inner being he is now evolving those higher qualities which were formerly an external influence and which are now to be developed by his own inner capacities. An essential point we must emphasise is that man grows out of these external influences. He becomes more independent all the time — e.g. he can sleep by day and stay awake at night. But he still has to order his waking and sleeping in accordance with the rhythm of the sun; he has to maintain the rhythm within himself. In earlier times, inner day and night corresponded closely to the sun's day and night; man was then more closely bound to his native soil. He becomes free and independent precisely by inwardly liberating the rhythm under which he lives; by retaining it as a rhythm, but no longer dependent on the outer world. It is as if we had a clock marked for 24 hours but set in such a way that it does not correspond with external time; e.g., when the clock says it is 12 o'clock, it is not 12 o'clock by the sun. Thus although the clock follows a 24-hour rhythm, the time it shows is its own, not that of the sun. Thus man frees himself inwardly by making the external rhythm into an inner one. He has long since freed himself from the rhythm which connected his inner being with the moon. Hence we have emphasised that man lives through the phases of the moon inwardly, but these experiences are not caused by the moon in the sky. The course of the moon shows a similar rhythm because man has retained the rhythm inwardly, though outwardly he has made himself free and independent of it. We are led in this way to regard the earth as a living being, but since it shows us only its physical body, with no evident signs of life or feeling or knowledge, its condition is nearer to that of the moon. Now we can understand why it is wrong, even taking only the external facts, to speak of a direct influence of the moon on the tides, and why we can say only that the ebb and flow of the tides corresponds to the phases of the moon. The tides, as well as the course of the moon are caused by deeper spiritual forces in the living earth. Thus we see how Spiritual Science helps us to clarify external facts in a wonderful way. The tides correspond to an inner process in the living earth, which produces them and also the orbit of the moon. 73 The correspondence between the moon's orbit and the tides can be led back to a joint cause, but the former does not cause the latter, just as the hand moving round the clock corresponds to the path of the sun, although no-one would suggest that the sun caused the clock-hand to move round. If you take the findings of Spiritual Science and then go through all the books where the phases of moon and earth and tides are recorded, you will understand the true relations between moon and earth and moon and man. You can easily see that if a man loses his independence and sinks from a fully conscious into a less conscious or unconscious condition, he will regress to earlier stages of evolution. Man advanced from unconsciousness to his present state of consciousness, from his earlier dependence on the moon and its influence to his present independence from the moon and his dependence on the sun. Because man was once directly dependent on the moon, it follows that if his consciousness is damped down, its functioning will be ordered by the course of the moon. This is an atavistic effect which brings out man's old connection with the moon's phases. A characteristic of mediums is that their consciousness is so far lowered that they revert to an earlier stage of evolution, and the old influence of the moon makes itself felt in them. It is similar in certain cases of illness where the consciousness is lowered. If you bear in mind the principles of Spiritual Science, you will be well able to understand these phenomena. The evidence for what Spiritual Science has to say can be found in all aspects of life. One thing more. When someone is to be born again on earth after his sojourn in the spiritual world between death and a new birth, then, during the embryonic period, he passes through conditions which recall an earlier state of the earth. The embryonic period is still reckoned by science as covering ten lunar months; thus we have here a rhythm which runs its course through ten successive moon periods. We find also that each week in the ten-month period — that is, each phase of the moon — corresponds to a particular condition in the development of the embryo. Here, too, man has retained in himself the moon rhythm, as we may call it. We could indeed mention a whole series of other phenomena connected with man's embryonic existence, before he emerges from the depths of nature into the light of day; they are of course not caused by the moon and do not coincide with the moon's phases but reflect the same rhythm, because they go back to primary causes which were present while the earth was passing through earlier conditions of existence. Now I have thrown light on a subject which cannot be further illuminated in public. Thoughtful people will see that here a perspective is opened up into realms of life where Spiritual Science can indeed point the way to a great clarification of much in man that is hidden from external sunlight, that lies behind it. They are realms which have to be explored by a light different from the light of knowledge we have acquired through the light of the sun; namely by faculties which are not dependent on the service rendered by the sentient, etheric and physical bodies under the influence of the sun. A clairvoyant faculty makes itself independent of these three bodies; it can sink itself in inwardness and see into the spiritual world, and thus can open up a capacity for knowledge of what lies behind external sunlight and yet is full of light and clarity. But I must again emphasise that on the question of the moon an even more intimate light is needed if we are to get to the heart of it. In conclusion, I am reminded of some verses by the German lyrical poet Wilhelm Muller: we are here concerned only with the last stanza. The moon is addressed and all sorts of intimate words pass between man and moon; and then, because the soul has spoken to the moon in a wonderful way: This little song, an evening round, A wanderer sings in full moonshine; Those who read it by candlelight Will always fail to get it right, Childishly simple though it is. 74 Wilhelm Müller, 1794–1827, known for the cycles of poems “Die Winterreise” and “Die schöne Müllerin” which were set to music by Franz Schubert. This poem is the last verse from “Mondlied”, from Liederder Griechen , 2nd edition, Leipzig, 1844. That is rather how we should take what Spiritual Science has to say, as shown in our treatment of the moon and its significance for human life. The song of Spiritual Science about the moon can indeed be sung only if we have some understanding of the more intimate ideas of Spiritual Science. People who try to read the song by candlelight, by which I mean the telescope, and employ photographs of the moon, for so-called research — these people will hardly understand our song. But those who are ready to go even a little way into what life can tell us in all its aspects will say to themselves: It is really not so difficult! Anyone who seeks to understand the song that Spiritual Science sings about the moon — not by the candlelight of the telescope, but by the living light of the spirit, which shines even when all sense-impressions are absent — he will find that this song about the moon, and therefore about an important aspect of life, is truly quite easy, even if not childishly easy!

Metamorphoses of the Soul: Paths of Experience I

Something about the Moon in the Light of Spiritual Science

https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA058/English/RSP1983/19091209p01.html

Berlin

9 Dec 1909

GA058-9

It is of some interest to observe from the point of view of spiritual science in the sense that the word is used here, the various ways by which the human being expresses himself. 1 Cf. the lecture “Sprachwissenschaft”, Dornach, 7th April 1921, in: Die Befruchtende Wirkung der Anthroposophie auf die Fachwissenschaften , Rudolf Steiner Verlag, Dornach, Switzerland. (GA 76) For in approaching human life from different sides, as it were, and observing its different aspects as we have done in these lectures, a comprehensive view of it can be gained. Today let us deal with that universal expression of the human spirit which is manifest in language; and next time, under the heading “Laughing and Weeping”, we will then look at a variation, as it were, of human expression which is connected with language but is fundamentally different from it all the same. When we speak of human language, we feel sufficiently how all the significance, dignity and the whole of the human being are connected with that which we call language. Our innermost existence, all our thoughts, feelings and impulses of the will flow outward to our fellow human beings and unite us with them through language. Thus we feel the possibility of expanding our being infinitely, the ability to make our being extend into our environment through language. On the other hand, anyone who can enter into the inner life of significant personalities will be able to feel particularly how language can also become a tyrant, a force which exercises power over our inner life. We can feel how our feelings and thoughts, those things of a special and intimate nature which pass through our soul, can be expressed only poorly and inadequately in the word, in language. And we can also feel how even the language within which we are placed forces us into specific modes of thinking. Everyone must be aware how the human being is dependent on language as far as his thinking is concerned. It is words to which our concepts are generally attached; and in an imperfect stage of development the human being will readily confuse the word or that which the word inculcates in him with the concept. Here lies the cause for the inability of some people to construct for themselves a conceptual framework which reaches beyond what is contained in the words commonly used in their environment. And we are aware how the character of a whole people who speak a common language is in a certain way dependent on that language. The person who observes national character more closely, the character of languages in their context, must realise that the way in which the human being is able to transform the content of his soul into sounds in turn acts back on the strengths and weaknesses of his character, on the way his temperament is expressed, even on his conception of existence as a whole. The configuration of a language can tell much about the character of a people. And since a language is common to a people, the individual is dependent on a common element, an average quantity, as it were, which prevails among that people. He is thus subject to a certain tyranny, to the rule of commonality. But if one realises that language contains on the one hand our individual spiritual life and on the other the spiritual life of the community, then one comes to see what might be called the “secret of language” as something of special significance. A considerable amount can be learnt about the soul-life of the human being if one observes how this being expresses itself in language. The secret of language, its origin and development at different periods, has always been the subject of investigation by certain specialist scientific disciplines. But it cannot be said that these disciplines have been particularly successful in our century in uncovering the secret of language. That is why today we will try to illuminate aphoristically so to speak, in broad outline, language, its development and its connection with the human being from a spiritual-scientific point of view as we have been applying it to man and his development. It is this connection which in the first instance seems so mysterious when we use a word to describe an object, an event, a process. What is the link between a particular combination of sounds which form a word or sentence and that which is within us which the object, expressed as word, means? In this respect outward science has tried to unite a wide range of observations in all kinds of ways. But the unsatisfactory nature of such a method has also been felt. The question is quite simple, and yet it is so difficult to answer: why did the human being, when faced with some object or event in the outside world, produce this or that particular sound from within himself as an echo of that object or event? From a certain point of view the matter was thought to be quite simple. It was thought, for example, that language was originally formed by an inner ability of our speech organs. This imitated those things which were heard outwardly as sound — the sounds of certain animals for example, or something knocking against something else; rather like when the child hears the dog bark “bow-wow” it calls the dog a “bow-wow”. Such word formation is called onomatopoeic, an imitation of the sound. This was held by certain directions of thought to be the original foundation of sound and word formation. Of course the question how the human being came to name beings which did not emit a sound remains unanswered. The great linguistic researcher Max Müller, 2 Max Müller, 1823–1900. Noted Orientalist, religious and linguistic researcher. realising the unsatisfactory nature of such a theory, ridiculed it by calling it the “bow-wow” theory. He set up another theory which his opponents in turn called “mystical” (giving the word a sense in which it should not be used). For Max Müller holds the view that each object contains within itself, as it were, something which is like a sound; everything in a certain sense has a sound, not only the glass which is dropped, not only the bell which is struck, but everything. And the ability of the human being to establish a relationship between his soul and this expressive element, which is like the essential nature of the object, calls forth the ability in the soul to express this inner sound-being of the object. Thus the essence of a bell can be experienced in the sounding of the “bim-bam”. And Max Müller's opponents returned his ridicule and called his theory the “bim-bam” theory. A more detailed examination would show that something unsatisfactory always remains in trying to characterise outwardly in this way the things which the human being experiences of the nature of things like an echo in his soul. A deeper penetration of the inner being of man is required. From the point of view of spiritual science the human being is fundamentally a very complex being. He has his physical body, which is governed by the same laws and has the same constitution as the mineral world. Then, from a spiritual-scientific aspect, the human being has a second, higher member of his being, the ether body or life body. Then there is the astral body, the bearer of pleasure and pain, joy and sorrow, of instincts, desires and passions; this is just as real a member of the human being for spiritual science, if not more real, than the one which one can see with the eyes and touch with the hands. And the fourth member of the human being we called the bearer of the ego. We further saw that at his present stage the development of the human being consists of the ego working on the transformation of the other three members of his being. We also pointed out that at a future time the ego will have transformed these three members in such a way that nothing will remain of what nature, or the spiritual forces which are active in nature, has made of these three human members. For the astral body, the bearer of pain and pleasure, of joy and sorrow, of all the surging power of the imagination, feelings and perceptions, was created initially without our participation, that is, without any contribution by our ego. But now the ego has become active and it works in such a manner that it purifies and cleanses and subordinates all the qualities and activities of the astral body. If the ego has worked only a small amount on the astral body, the human being is dominated by his instincts and desires; but if it purifies the instincts and desires into virtues, if it orders muddled thinking by the thread of logic, then a part of the astral body has become transformed. It has become transformed from a product in which the ego takes no part into a product of the ego. If the ego fulfils this work consciously, of which today only a start has been made in human evolution, we call this part of the astral body which has been consciously transformed by the ego the “spirit-self”, or, using a term from Oriental philosophy, “Manas”. When the ego works not only on the astral body, but in a different and more intensive way on the ether body, we call this part of the ether body transformed by the ego the “life-spirit”, or, with a term from Oriental philosophy, “Budhi”. And when finally the ego has become so strong — and this will happen only in the far distant future — that it transforms the physical body and regulates its laws and permeates it so that it rules over everything which lives in the physical body, we call this part of the physical body “spirit-man”, or also, because this work begins with controlling the breathing processes, with a term from Oriental philosophy, “Atman”. (Cf. German “atmen” — to breathe.) Thus we see the human being initially as a four membered being, consisting of a physical body, an ether body, an astral body and an ego. And similarly to the three members of our being which derive from the past, we are able to speak of three members of the human being developing into the future, created by the work of our ego. We can therefore speak of the seven-membered human being by adding to the physical body, ether body, astral body and ego the spirit-self, life-body and spirit-man. But when we consider these last three members as something distant, belonging to the future evolution of mankind, it must be added that the human being is prepared for such a development in a certain way already in the present. Consciously the human being will work with his ego on the physical, ether and astral bodies only in the far distant future; but in the subconscious, that is, without full consciousness, the ego is already transforming these three members of its being on the basis of a still dulled activity. The results are already in existence. What we described in previous lectures as inner members of the human being were only able to come about because of this work by the ego. From the astral body it fashioned the sentient soul as inner mirror-image, as it were, of the sentient body. Whilst the sentient body transmits gratification (sentient body and astral body are synonymous as regards man; without the sentient body we would have no gratification), this is mirrored internally in the soul as desire — and it is desire which we then ascribe to the soul. Thus the two things belong together: the astral body and the transformed astral body or sentient soul, as gratification and desire belong together. In a similar way the ego was working in the past already on the ether body. This created internally in the soul of the human being the intellectual or mind soul. Thus the intellectual soul, which is also the bearer of memory, is linked with the subconscious transformation of the ether body by the ego. And finally, the ego has been working in the past also on the transformation of the physical body in order to enable the existence of the human being in his present form. The result of that transformation is the consciousness soul, which permits the human being to gain knowledge about the things of the outside world. The seven-membered human being can therefore be characterised as follows: through the preparative, subconscious activity of the ego the three soul members have been created; the sentient soul, the intellectual soul and the consciousness soul. The question may now be asked: are not the physical body, ether body and astral body complex entities? What a miracle of construction is the physical human body! And if we examined it more closely, we would find that this physical body is much more complex than that part alone which the ego has transformed into the consciousness soul and which can be called the physical form of the consciousness soul. Similarly the ether body is much more complex than that which might be called the form of the intellectual or mind soul. And the astral body too is much more complex than the form of the sentient soul. These parts are poor in comparison to what was in existence before the human being had an ego. That is why in spiritual science we speak of the human being as having developed in the distant past from spiritual beings the first predisposition for a physical body. To this was added the ether body, then still later the astral body, and finally the ego. The physical body of the human being has thus passed through four stages of development. First there was a direct correspondence with the spiritual world; then it developed and was interwoven and transfused with the ether body. It therefore became more complex. Then it became interwoven with the astral body which made it more complex again. Then the ego was added. And only the work of the latter on the physical body transformed part of the physical body and made it into the bearer of human consciousness: the ability to gain knowledge of the outer world. But this physical body has more functions than providing us with a knowledge of the outside world by means of our senses and our brain. It has to fulfil a number of activities which form the basis of our consciousness but which take place completely outside the sphere of the brain. The same applies to the ether body and the astral body. If the fact is now quite clear that everything which surrounds us in the outside world is spirit, that there is a spiritual foundation to everything material, etheric and astral, as we have emphasised so often, then we have to say: the ego works as a spiritual being from the inside outwards, as the human being develops the three members of his being; in a similar manner — whether we call them spiritual beings or spiritual actions is not important — must have been working on our physical, ether and astral bodies before the ego emerged, which then took over this development. We are looking back at a time in which the same action on our astral body, ether body and physical body occurred as today is done by the ego outwards into these three members. That is to say, before the ego was ready to establish itself within them, spiritual creation, spiritual actions, worked on our sheaths and gave them form, movement, shape. There are spiritual actions in the human being which occur before the activities of the ego, if we exclude for a moment all that which our ego has transformed in the three members of our being as sentient soul, intellectual soul and consciousness soul, and regard the construction, the inner movement and action of these three sheaths of the human being. That is why in spiritual science we talk of the human being as he is today as being an individual soul, a soul transfused with an ego, which makes every human being into a self-contained individuality. Before the human being became such a self-contained ego-being, he was part of a “group-soul”, part of a quality of soul which we still refer to today in the animal world as group-soul. 3 Cf. the lecture “Die Seele der Tiere im Lichte der Geisteswissenschaft”, Berlin, 23rd January 1908, in: Die Erkenntnis der Seele und, des Geistes , Rudolf Steiner Verlag, Dornach, Switzerland. (GA 56) What occurs in the human being as individual soul in each person, that occurs in the animal world as the basis of the whole species or family. A whole species of animal has a common group-soul. The individual human soul is equivalent to the soul of the species in the animal. Thus before man became an individual soul another soul was working in the three members of his being of which we have knowledge today only through spiritual science, a soul which was the precursor of our individual ego. And this precursor of our ego, which then passed on to the ego the physical body, ether body and astral body in order that the ego might continue to transform them, this group-soul also transformed from within itself the physical body, ether body and astral body and ordered them according to itself. And the final activity of the human being before he was endowed with an ego, the final influence which lies before the birth of the ego, is present today in what we call human language . When we therefore consider what preceded the life of our consciousness soul, our intellectual or mind soul and our sentient soul, we come across an activity of the soul which is not yet transfused by the ego and its result is present today in the expression of language. What is the outward appearance of the four members of the human being? How are they expressed purely outwardly in the physical body? The physical body of a plant looks different from the physical body of a human being. Why? Because in the plant only the physical body and the ether body are present, whereas in the human physical body the astral body and the ego are present as well. This inward activity forms and refashions the physical body correspondingly. How is the physical body affected when it is permeated by an ether or life body? The glandular system is the outward physical expression in man and animal of the ether or life body; that is to say, the ether body is the architect of the glandular system. The astral body formed the nervous system. That is why it is correct to talk of a nervous system only in those beings where an astral body is present. What, now, is the expression in the human being of his ego? It is the circulatory system and specifically what might be called the blood under the special influence of the inner life warmth. All the work which the ego does on the human being when it transforms the physical body is channelled via the blood. That is why the blood is of such special nature. When the ego transforms the sentient soul, the intellectual soul and the consciousness soul, then all the work that the ego achieves only penetrates into the physical body because the ego has the ability to affect the physical body via the blood. Our blood is the mediator for the astral body and the ego and all their activity. There can be no doubt if we look at human life, even on a superficial level only, that the human being transforms the physical body with the ego in the same way as he transforms the consciousness soul, the intellectual soul and the sentient soul. Who would deny that the physiognomy expresses what lives and works inwardly. And who would deny that inward thinking, if it takes hold completely of the soul, transforms the brain even in the course of one life. Our brain is a tool which adapts to the requirements of our thinking. But if we consider the amount which the human being can transform, artistically fashion as it were, his outer being through the ego, it is very small. It is very little which we can do with our blood by setting the blood in motion with what we call our inner warmth . Those spiritual beings which preceded our ego managed to achieve more, for they were able to make use of a more effective means; thus the human form took shape under their influence in such a way that it is an overall expression of what those forces made of the human being. These beings used the substance of air . In the same way that we use the inner warmth to make our blood pulse — thus making the blood active in our own form — the beings working on us previous to our ego made the air serve their purpose. And the work of these beings on us through air created what gives us our form as human beings. It might seem strange that we speak of spiritual forces working on the human being in the far distant past through air. But it is not the first time I have said that it is a misjudgement to think of the soul and spirit life of our inner being only as product of the imagination, and not to realise that it has been taken from the outside world as a whole. Whoever states that concepts and ideas could arise in us without ideas existing in the outside world might just as well say that he can take water from a glass in which there is none. Our concepts would be nothing more than froth if they were anything other than what lives in outside things and what is present in those things as their laws. We fetch that which we allow to develop in our souls from our environment. That is why we can say: everything material which surrounds us is interwoven with spiritual beings. Strange as it may sound, what surrounds us as air is not merely the substance as shown by chemistry, but spiritual beings and spiritual forces are active in it. And in the same way that we can transform our physical body a small amount by the warmth which streams forth from our ego — that is the essential element — in the blood, the beings which preceded the ego formed in a powerful way the outer form of our physical being by means of the air. We are human beings because of our larynx and everything connected with that. The larynx, sculpted from outside into us as this wonderful artistic organ and connected with the other vocal and speech organs, was created from the spiritual element in the air. Goethe said very aptly with reference to the eye: “The eye is fashioned by the light for the light!” 4 Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, “Entwurf einer Farbenlehre”, des ersten Bandes erster, didaktischer Teil, in: Goethes Naturwissenschaftliche Schriften , ed. Rudolf Steiner, reprint Dornach 1975, vol. 111, P.88. If, in the sense of Schopenhauer, 5 Arthur Schopenhauer, 1788–1860, German philosopher. it is now stressed that without an eye sensitive to light there would be no impression of light for us, then this is only half the truth. The other half is that we would have no eye if the light had not sculpted, as it were, our eyes from undefined organs in the far distant past. Light must therefore be seen not only as the abstract entity which is described today as physical light; but in light we have to search for that hidden being which is capable of creating the eye for itself. Similarly we can say in another respect that the air is full of beings which were able at certain times to create in the human being the intricate organ of the larynx and all that is connected with it. And the rest of the human form to the smallest detail has been formed and sculpted in such a manner that man in his present stage is a further development of his speech organs , as it were. The speech organs are something decisive for the human form in the first instance. That is why it is speech that transcends man above the animals. For the spiritual being which we call the spirit of the air also fashioned the animals, but not to such a level where they could develop the facility of speech such as the human being has it. We see that the human being had internally already developed his speech organs by the time that he developed his present thinking, his feelings and his will, that is to say, everything connected with his ego. Now it can be understood why these spiritual forces could only work on the physical body in such a manner that the human being finally became like an appendix to his speech organs, because they developed the astral body, ether body and physical body through the influence, the configuration of the air. After the human being had become capable of having within him an organ which corresponded to what we have called the spiritual beings of the air, in the same way that the eye corresponds to the spiritual beings of the light, he could fashion into this what the ego developed in itself as reason, as consciousness, feeling, emotion. Thus there is a threefold activity in the subconscious; activity on the physical body, the ether body and the astral body which existed previous to the ego. We can recognise this if we know that it was the group-soul and that the group-soul worked in an imperfect manner in the animal. This has to be taken into consideration if we regard the work of the spiritual forces occurring before the ego in the astral body. We have to exclude everything concerning the self and observe the work done by the group-self from dark foundations. Desire and gratification face each other in the astral body on a level of imperfection. Desire was able to become a soul quality, an inner faculty, because it already had a precursor in the astral body of the human being. Similar to desire and gratification in the astral body, imagery , symbolism, and outer stimulus face each other in the ether body. It is most important to distinguish the activity of our ether body preceding the ego from the activity of the ego in the ether body. When the ego is active as intellectual or mind soul, then, at the present stage of development of the human being, it seeks a truth which is as nearly as possible a true picture of the outer world. Those things which do not exactly correspond to outward things are not called “true”. The spiritual activities which lie before the advent of our ego do not work in this manner; they work more symbolically, in the image, rather like a dream works. A dream works in the following manner, for example, that someone dreams of a shot being fired; and when he wakes up he sees that the chair next to the bed has fallen over. What is outer happening and outer impression — the falling over of the chair — is transformed into an image in the dream, into the shot. In this way the spiritual beings preceding the ego work symbolically in the same way that we will work again when we achieve a higher spiritual activity by initiation; here we try — but this time with full consciousness — to work towards a symbolic view, an imaginative conception, away from the purely abstract outside world. Then the spiritual beings working in the human physical body transformed it into what might be called a correspondence of outer events , outer facts, and imitation . Imitation is something which we find in the child, for example, when the other soul members are still hardly developed. Imitation is something that belongs to the subconscious human nature. That is why education should start with imitation, because before the ego begins to create order in the human being, the drive to imitate is present as a natural drive. The drive to imitate in the physical body in contrast to outer activities, symbolising in the ether body in contrast to outer stimulus, and the correspondence of desire and gratification in the astral body all have to be considered as having been created with the aid of the tool of air — and having been created in such a manner that a sculpted, an artistic impression as it were, has been created in our larynx and in the whole of the speech apparatus . It can then be said: these beings preceding the ego worked on the human being in such a manner that they formed and ordered him such that the air could come to expression in him in this threefold direction. For when we look at language capability in the true sense of the word, we have to ask: does it consist of the sound which we utter? No, it is not the sound. Our ego sets in motion what has been created into us by the air. In the same way that we move the eye to take in the outward light, whilst the eye itself exists to take light in, our ego within us sets in motion those organs which have been formed by the spiritual beings in the air. We set the organs in motion by the ego; we activate the organs which correspond to the spirit of the air and we have to wait until the spirit of the air who formed the organs sounds back at us the tone as an echo of our action on the air. We do not produce the tone, just as the individual parts of a pipe do not produce the tone. Our ego develops activity by the use of those organs which have been created from the spirit of the air. Then we have to wait for the latter to set the air in motion again such that the word sounds by the original activity which produced the organs. Thus we can indeed see that human language must rest on the threefold correspondence which was mentioned. How does this correspondence work? Imitation in the physical body rests on the speech organs imitating those things which are outward activities, outward objects which make an impression on us, and producing them as sound in the same way that a painter imitates a scene which consists of quite different constituents than paint, canvas, light and dark. Similar to the painter who imitates with light and dark we imitate the environment with our organs which were formed from elements of the air. That is why what we produce in sound is a true imitation of the essence of an object; and our vowels and consonants are nothing but images and imitations of those things which make an impression on us from the outside. The next thing is the image in the ether body, what we might call symbolism. The first elements of our language were created by imitation, but then this developed further by tearing itself away, as it were, from outward impressions. The ether body assimilates — such as in the dream — those things which no longer correspond to outer experiences; that is the developing element in sound . Initially the ether body assimilates the pure imitation; then the imitation is transformed in the ether body so that it becomes something independent and, because it has been through an internal process, corresponds to outward impressions only symbolically as image: we are no longer merely imitators. And thirdly, desire, emotion, everything which lives internally is expressed in the astral body. This works in such a manner that it continues to transform the sound. The internal experiences flow from the inside into the sound: pain and pleasure, joy and sorrow, desires, wishes; all these things stream into the sound and bring the subjective element into it. What started as pure imitation was then transformed into the language symbol in the independent sound or word image and is now transformed further by the infusion of the human being's internal experiences. It always has to be an outward correspondence which provokes the sound in the soul; when the soul expresses its inward experiences, pleasure and pain, joy and sorrow and all the others, in sound it has to search for a corresponding outer form. At the first stage the outer impression is imitated. The inner sound image or the creation of the symbol is the next step. But the inner experiences, such as joy and sorrow, by their nature have no outer equivalent. This correspondence between outer being and inner experience can be observed with children as they learn to speak. One can see how the child begins to transform a feeling into a sound. When the child initially calls “ma” or “pa” then this is only the inner transformation of an emotion into sound. It is only the expression of something inward. But when the child expresses itself in this way and the mother, for example, comes, the child notices how its inward feeling of pleasure, which is transformed into the sound “ma”, corresponds to an outer event. Of course the child does not enquire how it happens that in this case there is a correspondence with the coming of the mother. The inner experience of pleasure or pain is allied with an outward impression and thus what streams out from the inside is united with the outer impression. That is the third way in which language acts. It is therefore true to say that language originated equally by internal imitation of the outside and by outward reality being linked to our inner experience. The process which happens in innumerable cases, and which is completed when the inner expression “ma” or “pa” is formed into the words “mama” or “papa”, and is satisfied when the father or mother responds. Every time that the human being realises that something happens as a result of an inner expression, the expression of that inner event unites for him with something outward. All this takes place without any participation by the ego. It is only at a later stage that the ego takes over this activity. Thus the forces in existence previous to the ego were at work in the configuration which lies at the base of the human language ability. And because the ego took over when the basis for human language had already been created, language then ordered itself according to the ego. Therefore the expression connected with the sentient body is transfused by the sentient soul ; the images and symbols connected with the ether body are transfused by the intellectual soul : the human being fills the sound with the experiences of the intellectual soul, and similarly he fills it with the experiences of the consciousness soul , which were initially only imitation. By this process gradually those areas of our language came into existence which represents inner experiences of the soul. That is why, regarding the nature of language, it must be quite clearly understood that there is something in us which was there before the ego, which was then developed by the ego. But then, also, it cannot be claimed that language directly represents the ego, that it represents the spiritual aspect in us, everything which is intimate to our personality; but it must be understood that we can never see in language an immediate expression of the ego. The spirit of language works symbolically in the ether body, imitatively in the physical body; and this is linked with its creative activity in the sentient soul, forcing the inward experiences from it in such a manner that the sound is an expression of the inner life. In sum, language did not develop according to the conscious ego as it is today, but, if the development of language is to be compared to anything at all, its development can only be compared to artistic creation. Just as we cannot demand that the imitation of the artist corresponds to reality, we cannot demand that language copies those things which it is meant to represent. Language only imitates the outside world in a way similar to the picture, to the way that the artist as such imitates outside reality. Before the human being was a self-conscious being in the way that he is today, an artist was at work in him, active as the spirit of language , and our ego is embedded in a place where previously an artist was at work. This in itself is put rather in the form of an image, but it expresses the truth in this field. We observe an unconscious activity and feel that here there is something which created the human being as a work of art. In this respect we must not forget that we can only examine each work of art as permitted by the methods of that art. If this were born in mind, it would preclude from the beginning such pedantic works as Fritz Mauthner's “Kritik der Sprache”. 6 Fritz Mauthner, 1849–1923. A new edition of this work, Die Kritik der Sprache , was just being published in 1910. Here the critique of language is based on quite wrong premises; namely, that if we regard human languages they do not in any way represent objective reality. But is that their function in the first place? There is just as little possibility for language to represent reality as there is of the picture representing outward reality in the colours on the canvas and the use of light and shadow. The spirit of language which lies at the foundation of human activity has to be grasped with artistic feeling. Only a brief outline of these things has been given. But if one knows that an artist who formed language was active in mankind then one can understand — as different as the various languages may be — that even in the individual human languages the artistic element was at work in all sorts of differing ways. Then it can be understood how the spirit of language — let us call this being working in the air the spirit of language — when it reveals itself on a relatively low level in the human being works in an atomistic way by wanting to construct everything from the single parts. That is how it comes about that the individual sounds combine to form a whole sentence. If, for example, we take the sounds “shi” and “pian” in Chinese, we have two atoms of language formation; the one syllable “shi” means song, poem, and “pian” means book. If we combine the two sounds, “shi-pian”, then this would be the same as creating the combination “poem-book” in English; something results from the particles which, seen as a whole, produces poetry book. This is only one example of how the Chinese language forms its concepts and ideas. If we reflect on the things which we have considered today, we can also now understand how a wonderfully formed language such as a Semitic one must be considered in its essence. In Semitic languages we have certain sounds as a foundation which are really only constituted of consonants. And then the human being inserts vowels in between these consonants. If we thus take the consonants q, t, l, just as an example, and insert an a and then another a, then, whilst the word formed purely from the consonants is only an imitation of an outward sound, the word “qatal”, to kill, is created by the addition of the vowels. We thus have a noteworthy development in that “to kill” as a complex of sounds comes about initially by the speech organs simply imitating the outward process. Then the soul continues the process and the inward experience is added with the vowels: the complex of sounds is further developed so that “to kill” is referred back to a subject. This is basically the constitution of the Semitic languages and in it is expressed the combination of the various elements in language formation within the framework of language. Symbolism (i.e. that which is found at work in the ether body as the spirit of language), which is the primary agent in Semitic languages, demonstrates the particular aspect of the Semitic languages which takes the individual imitative sounds one step further and transforms them into symbols by the insertion of vowels. That is why fundamentally all words in Semitic languages are formed in such a way that they relate to the surroundings of the outside world as symbols. In contrast, everything which appears in the Indo-Germanic languages is prompted more by what we have called the inner expression of the astral body, the inner being. For the astral body is something which is already connected with the consciousness. When one faces the outside world one contrasts oneself with it. If one faces the outside world from the point of view of the ether body one fuses with it, is one with it. Only when things are reflected in the consciousness does a difference exist between oneself and things. This working of the astral body with all its inner experiences can be seen in the Indo-Germanic languages in contrast to the Semitic languages in that they have the verb “to be”: a reflection of independent existence. That is possible because we are able to separate ourselves from outward impressions with our consciousness. If, therefore, we want to say for example “God is good” in Semitic, then this is not immediately possible because there is no way of producing the word “is” as an expression of being, for this originates in the contrast of astral body and outside world. The ether body simply states. That is why in the Semitic languages one would have to say “God the good”. The contrast of subject and object is not a characteristic element. The languages which are in contrast with the outside world, which contain as an essential element the perception of an outside world, are particularly the Indo-Germanic languages. They in turn affect the human being in such a way that they support inwardness, i.e. all those things which provide the foundations for developing a strong personality, a strong ego. This is already evident in the language. All the things which I have spoken about might be considered by some to be only unsatisfactory indications for the simple reason that one would have to speak for two weeks if one wanted to describe everything in this field in detail. Nevertheless, those who have attended these lectures more regularly and who have penetrated into the essential nature of the matter will see that such indications are not unjustified. They are only intended to show how a spiritual-scientific view of language can be provoked which fundamentally shows that language cannot be understood in any other way than in an artistic sense, which must be developed. That is why all scholarship must fail if it is not willing to participate in the creative act which was undertaken by the forces creating language in the human being before the ego became active in us. Only a creative faculty can grasp the secret of language, because only a creative faculty as such can recreate. No learned abstraction can ever bring about comprehension of a work of art. Only those ideas illuminate a work of art which are able to recreate in a fruitful way as ideas the things which the artist expresses by other means paint, sound, etc. Creative feeling alone can comprehend the artist, and a creative feeling for language alone can understand the spiritual creativity in the origin of language. That is one of the tasks which spiritual science is called upon to do in respect of language. The other task is something which is of significance on a practical level. If we understand how language originated from an inner pre-human artist, then we can also elevate ourselves to make this creative feeling become active where we want to express something of validity in language. But there is little feeling for that in our present time, where not much progress has been achieved in fostering a living feeling for language. 7 In 1898 already Rudolf Steiner wrote in his essay “Noch ein Wort über die Vortragskunst”: “Artistic speech is often considered today to be failed idealism”. In: Gesammelte Aufsätze zur Dramaturgie 1889–1900, Rudolf Steiner Verlag, Dornach, Switzerland. (GA 29) Today everyone who opens his mouth feels that he is able to express all things. But it must be understood quite clearly that we have to create again in our soul an immediate connection between what we want to express and how we want to express it. We have to re-awaken the linguistic artist in us in all areas. Today human beings are satisfied if what they want to say comes out in any way, no matter what form it takes. How many people realise — which is absolutely necessary in the field of spiritual science — that an artistic feeling for language is necessary to express anything? If true presentations of spiritual-scientific material, for example, are examined, 8 Cf. also chapter 33 of Rudolf Steiner, An Autobiography , Steiner Books, New York, 1980. it will be found that the true spiritual scientists who have written these things also seriously worked on them to form each sentence creatively, that the position of the verb is not an arbitrary decision. Each sentence will be seen as a birth, because it must be experienced inwardly in the soul as immediate form, not simply as a thought. And the sentences are connected not only consecutively, but the third one has to be formed in essence at the same time as the first one because they are interconnected in their effect. In spiritual science it is impossible to work without a creatively active sense of language. Everything else is inadequate. It is important to free oneself of being slavishly tied to words. But we cannot do that if we think that any word is suitable to express a given thought; that already is an error in our linguistic creativity. The expression of super-sensible facts cannot be gained from words which are coined only with a view to the sense world. If the question is asked “How is one to express the ether body or the astral body in a concrete manner in reality by means of a word?” nothing of this has been understood. Only the person has understood something of this who says: I will understand what the ether body is if in the first instance I investigate from one particular aspect and it is quite clear that I am dealing with artistically formed reflected images; and then I investigate three more aspects. The matter has then been presented from four different sides. When it is thereafter expressed in language, in walking round the topic as it were, we are presenting an artistic image of the matter. If one is not aware of this, nothing will be achieved but abstractions and a sclerotic reproduction of what is previously known. That is why development in spiritual science will always be connected with what might be called “development of the inward sense and the inward creative power of language”. In this sense spiritual science will have a fruitful effect on style in language, will transform the terrible linguistic style of today which is ignorant of the creativity of language, and fewer people, who can hardly speak and write, will embark on literary careers. The awareness has been lost today, for example, that to write prose is something much more elevated than writing in verse; only the prose which is written today is on a much lower level. But it is the purpose of spiritual science to act as a stimulus in those fields which are connected with the deepest secrets of mankind. For spiritual science will be active in those areas in such a way that it fulfils the visions of the greatest personalities. Spiritual science will conquer the super-sensible worlds through the thinking, will become capable of decanting the thought in such a way into the sound structure that our language too can again become a means of communication of the experiences of the soul in the super-sensible. 9 Rudolf Steiner repeatedly noted in his later work that for example the 7th scene of his mystery drama “The Portal of Initiation” (in: Rudolf Steiner, Four Mystery Plays , Rudolf Steiner Press, London, 1983) showed in the most direct sense this transformation of spiritual experience into sound. Then spiritual science will have become the agent which makes real what is expressed about an important realm of the inner human being in the words: Unmeasurably deep is the thought; And its winged agent is the word. 10 Friedrich von Schiller, Poetry in Homage to the Arts (Die Huldigung der Künste) .

Metamorphoses of the Soul: Paths of Experience II

Spiritual Science and Language

https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA059/English/RSP1983/19100120p02.html

Berlin

20 Jan 1910

GA059-1

In a series of lectures on spiritual science, our subject today might well appear insignificant. But considerations which lead into the higher realms of being are often at fault in leaving aside the details of life and its immediate, everyday realities. When lectures set out to deal with eternal life, with the highest qualities of the soul or with great questions concerning the evolution of world and man, people generally are pleased, and well content to leave alone such apparently commonplace matters as those we are to examine today. But everyone who follows the path indicated here for penetrating into the spiritual worlds, will be convinced that to advance quietly, step by step, from the well known to the less known, is a very healthy way. Moreover, we can draw on many examples to show that eminent men have by no means regarded laughter and tears as merely commonplace. After all, the consciousness which is achieved in the legends and the great traditions of mankind — so often much wiser than the individual human consciousness — has endowed the great Zarathustra, who became so immensely important for Eastern culture, with the famous “Zarathustra smile”, for this consciousness it was particularly significant that this great spirit came smiling into the world. And with a deep understanding of world history, tradition adds that on account of this smile all creatures in the world exulted, while evil spirits and adversaries in all parts of the earth fled away from it. If we pass from these legends and traditions to the works of a single great genius, we might well call to mind the figure of Faust, into whom Goethe poured so many of his own feelings and ideas. When Faust, despairing of all existence, comes near to killing himself, he hears the Easter bells ring out and cries: “Tears spring forth, the earth holds me again.” 11 Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Faust I , 1.784. Tears are used here by Goethe to symbolise the state of soul which enables Faust, after experiencing the most bitter despair, to find his way back into the world. Thus we can see, if we will only think about it, that laughing and weeping are related to things of great significance. But to speculate on the nature of spirit is easier than to seek the spirit where it is revealed in the world immediately around us. And we can find the spirit — and the human spirit in the first instance — precisely in those gestures of the soul that we call laughing and weeping. They cannot be understood unless we regard them as expressions of a person's inner spiritual life. But in order to do this we must not only accept man as a spiritual being, we have also to understand him. All the lectures in our present winter series have been devoted to this task. Hence we need give only a passing glance now at the being of man as seen by spiritual science. But that is the foundation on which we must build if we are to understand laughing and weeping. We have seen that man, when we observe him in his totality, possesses a physical body, which he has in common with the mineral realm; an etheric or life-body, which he has in common with the plants; and an astral body which he has in common with the animal kingdom. The astral body is the bearer of pleasure and pain, joy and sorrow, terror and amazement, and also of all the ideas which flow into and out of his soul from waking until he falls asleep. These are man's three external sheaths and within them lives the ego which makes him the crown of creation. The ego works in the soul-life on its three components, the sentient soul, intellectual soul and consciousness soul, and we have seen how it works to bring man ever nearer to fulfilment. What, then, is the basis of the ego's activities within the human soul? Let us look at some examples of its behaviour. Suppose that the ego, this deepest centre of man's spiritual life, encounters some object or being in the outer world. The ego does not remain indifferent towards the object or the being; it expresses itself in some way and experiences something inwardly, according to whether the encounter pleases or displeases it. The ego may exult at some occurrence or it may fall into deepest sadness; it may recoil in terror, or it may lovingly contemplate or embrace the source of the event. And the ego can also have the experience of understanding or not understanding whatever is involved. From our observation of the ego's activities between waking and falling asleep we can see how it tries to bring itself into harmony with the external world. If some entity pleases us and makes us feel that here we have something that warms us, we weave a bond with it; something from ourselves connects with it. That is what we do with our whole environment. During our entire waking life we are concerned, as regards our inner soul-processes, with creating harmony between our ego and the rest of the world. The experiences that come to us through objects or beings in the outer world and are reflected in our soul-life, work on the three constituents of the soul where the ego dwells but also on the astral, etheric and physical bodies. We have already given several examples of how the relation established by the ego between itself and any object or being not only stirs the emotions of the astral body and corrects the currents and movements of the etheric body but affects the physical body also. Who has not noticed how someone will turn pale when something frightening approaches? This means that the bond formed by the ego between itself and the frightening entity works into the physical body and affects the flow of the blood, so that the person concerned turns pale. We have mentioned also an opposite effect, the blush of shame. When we feel that our relationship with someone in our environment is such that we would like to disappear for a moment, the blood mounts to the face. Here we have two examples of a definite influence on the blood caused by the ego's relation to the outer world. Many other examples could be given of how the ego expresses itself in the astral, etheric and physical bodies. This search by the ego for harmony, or for a definite relationship between itself and its environment, results in certain consequences. In some cases we may feel that we have established a right relationship between the ego and the object or being. Even if we have good reason for feeling fear of a being, our ego may still feel that it has been in harmony with its environment, including fear itself — though we may not be able to see it in that light until afterwards. The ego feels especially in tune with its environment if it has been trying to understand certain things in the outer world and finally succeeds. Then it feels united with these things, as though it had gone out of itself and immersed itself in them, and can feel itself rightly related to them. Or it may be that the ego lives with other people in an affectionate relationship: then it feels happy and satisfied and in harmony with its surroundings. These feelings of contentment then pass over into its astral and etheric bodies. It may happen, however, that the ego fails to establish this harmony and so falls short of what we may call, in a certain sense, the normal. Then it may find itself in a difficult situation. Suppose the ego encounters some object or being it cannot understand; suppose it tries in vain to find a right relationship to this entity; yet it has to take up a definite attitude towards it. A concrete example: suppose we meet in the outer world a being we do not want to understand, because it seems not worthwhile for our ego to penetrate into its nature; we feel that to do so would mean surrendering too much of our own force of knowledge and understanding. In such a case we have to set up a sort of barrier against it so as to keep ourselves free from it. By turning our forces away from it we become conscious of them, while we enhance our own self-consciousness. The feeling that comes over us then is one of liberation. When this occurs, clairvoyant observation can see how the ego withdraws the astral body from the impressions which the environment or the being might make on it. The impressions will, of course, be made on our physical body unless we close our eyes or stop up our ears. The physical body is less under our control than the astral, so we draw back the astral from the physical and thus save it from being touched by impressions from the outer world. This withdrawal of the astral body, which would otherwise expend its energy on the physical body, appears to clairvoyant observation as an expansion of the astral: at the moment of its liberation it spreads out. When we raise ourselves above a being, we cause our astral body to expand like an elastic substance: we relax its normal tension. By so doing we liberate ourselves from any bond with the being we wish to turn away from. We withdraw into ourselves, as it were, and raise ourselves above the whole situation. Everything that occurs in the astral body comes to expression in the physical, and the physical expression of this expansion of the astral body is laughing or smiling. These facial gestures, accordingly, indicate that we are raising ourselves above what is happening around us because we do not want to apply our understanding to it and from our standpoint are right not to do so. It would be true to say, therefore, that anything we are not intending to understand will cause an expansion of our astral body and thus give rise to laughter. Satirical papers often depict public men with huge heads and tiny bodies, which is a way of expressing grotesquely the significance of these men for their time. To try to make sense of this would be futile, for there is no law which could unite a huge head with a tiny body. Any attempt to apply our reason to it would be a waste of energy and mental power. The only satisfying thing is to raise ourselves above the impression it makes on our physical body, to become free in the ego and to expand the astral body. For what the ego experiences is passed on in the first place to the astral body, and the corresponding facial gesture is laughter. It may happen, however, that we cannot find the relationship to our environment that our soul needs. Suppose that for a long time we have loved someone who is not only closely related to our daily life but is associated with particular soul-experiences that arise from this close attachment. Suppose, then, that this person is torn from us for a while. With that loss, a part of our soul-experiences is torn away; a bond between ourselves and a being in the outer world is broken. Because of the soul-condition created by our relationship with this other person, our soul has good reason to suffer from this breaking of a bond it has long cherished. Something is torn from the ego, and the effect on the ego passes over into the astral body. Since in this case something is taken from the astral, it contracts: or, more exactly, the ego presses the astral body together. This can always be clairvoyantly observed when a person suffers pain or grief from some loss. Just as the expanded astral body loses tension and creates in the physical body the gesture of laughing or smiling, so a contracted astral body penetrates more deeply into all the forces of the physical body and contracts it along with itself. The bodily expression of this contraction is a flow of tears. The astral body, having been left with gaps as it were, wants to fill them by contracting, while making use of substances from its environment. In so doing, it also contracts the physical body and squeezes out the latter's substances in the form of tears. What, then, are these tears? The ego has lost something in its grief and deprivation. It draws itself together, because it is impoverished and feels its selfhood less strongly than usual, for the strength of this feeling is related to the richness of its experiences in the surrounding world. We not only give something to those we love; we enrich our own souls by so doing. And when the experiences that love gives us are taken away and the astral body contracts, it seeks to regain by this pressure on itself the forces it has lost. Because it feels impoverished, it tries to make itself richer again. The tears are not merely an outflow; they are a sort of compensation for the stricken ego. The ego had formerly felt itself enriched by the outer world; now it feels strengthened by itself producing the tears. If someone suffers a weakening of self-consciousness, he tries to compensate for this by spurring himself on to an inward act of creation, manifest in the flow of tears. The tears give the ego a subconscious feeling of well-being; a certain balance is restored. You all know how people, when they are in the depths of grief and misery, find consolation, a kind of compensation, in tears. You will know, too, how people who cannot weep find sorrow and pain much harder to endure. The ego, then if it cannot achieve a satisfying relationship with the outer world, will either raise itself to inner freedom through laughter, or it will sink into itself in order to gain strength after a deprivation. We have seen how it is the ego, the central point in man, which expresses itself in laughing and weeping. Hence you will find it easy to understand that in a certain sense the ego is a necessary precondition of laughter and tears. If we observe a new-born child, we find that during its first days it can neither laugh nor weep. True laughing or weeping begins only around the 36th or 40th day. The reason is that although an ego from a former incarnation is living in the child, it does not immediately seek to relate itself to the outer world. A human being is placed into the world in such a way that he is built up from two sides. From one side he derives all the attributes and facilities acquired by heredity from father, mother, grandfather and so on. All this is worked on by the individuality, the ego that goes on from life to life, bearing with it its own soul-qualities. When a child enters existence at birth, we see at first only an undefined physiognomy, and quite undefined also are the talents, capacities and special characteristics which will emerge later on. But presently we are able to observe how the ego, with the powers of development it has brought from previous lives, works unceasingly on the infant organism and modifies the inherited elements. Thus the inherited qualities are blended with those which pass from one incarnation to another. That is how the ego is active in the child, but it is some time before the ego can begin to transform body and soul. During its early days, the child shows only its inherited characteristics. The ego, meanwhile, remains deeply hidden, waiting until it can impress on the undefined physiognomy the qualities it has brought from previous lives and will develop from day to day and year to year. Before the child has taken on the individual character that belongs to it, it cannot express a relationship to the outer world through laughing or crying. For this requires the ego, the individuality, which tries to place itself in harmony with the outer world. Only the ego can express itself in laughter or tears. So it is that when we consider laughing and weeping, we are dealing with the deepest and most inward spirituality of man. Those who refuse to admit any real distinction between men and animals will of course try to find analogies to laughing and weeping in the animal kingdom. But anyone who understands these things rightly will agree with the German poet who says that animals can rise at most only to howling, never to weeping; they can show their teeth in a grin but they never smile. Herein lies a deep truth which we can express in words by saying that the animal does not raise itself to the individual egohood which dwells in every human being. The animal is ruled by laws which appear to resemble those appertaining to human selfhood but remain external to the animal throughout its life. This essential difference between human beings and animals has already been mentioned here, and it was said that what interests us in the animal is comprised in the species to which it belongs. For example, there are no such great difference between lions and their progeny as we may find between human parents and their offspring. The main characteristics of an animal are those of its type or species. In the human realm every person has his own individual characteristics and his own biography, and this is what concerns us, whereas in animals it is the history of the species. Certainly there are many dog-owners and cat-owners who aver that they could write a biography of their pet, and I even knew a schoolmaster who regularly set his pupils the exercise of writing the biography of a pen. The fact that a thought can be applied to anything is not important; what matters is that we should penetrate with our understanding the essential nature of a being or a thing. Individual biography is significant for man, but not for animals, for the essential part of man is the individuality which goes on and develops from life to life, whereas in animals it is the species that lives on and evolves. In spiritual science, the enduring element that informs the species is called the animal's group-soul or group-ego, and we regard it as a reality. Thus we say that the animal has its ego outside itself. We do not deny the animal an ego, but we speak of the group-ego which directs the animal from outside. With man, by contrast, we speak of an individual penetrating right into his inmost part and directing each human being from within in such a way that he can enter into a personal relationship with the beings in his environment. The relationships that animals establish through the guidance of the external group-ego have a general character. What this or that animal likes or hates or fears is typical for its species, modified only in minor details among domestic animals and those which live with men. In human beings, what a person feels by way of love and hate, fear, sympathy or antipathy in relation to his environment springs from his individual ego. Thus the special relationship whereby man liberates himself from something in his environment and expresses his relief in laughter, or, in the opposite case, when he seeks for a relationship he cannot find and expresses his frustration in tears — all this can occur in man only. The more the individuality of the child makes itself evident above the animal level, the more does it show its humanity through laughter and tears. If we are to take a true view of life, we must not attach primary importance to such crude facts as the similarities of bone and muscle in men and animals or the resemblances between some other organs. We must look for man's essential characteristics as evidence of his status as the highest of earthly beings in subtler aspects of his nature. If anyone cannot see the significance of such facts as laughter and tears for bringing out the difference between men and animals, one has to say: Nothing can be done to help a person who cannot rise to the facts which matter most in coming to understand man in his spirituality. The facts we are now considering in the light of spiritual science can illuminate certain scientific findings, but only if the facts are placed in the context of a great spiritual-scientific whole. If we observe a person laughing or weeping, we can see that a change in the breathing process occurs. When sorrow goes as deep as tears, leading to a contraction of the astral body, and hence to a contraction also of the physical body, the in-breathing becomes shorter and shorter and the out-breathing longer and longer. In laughter the opposite occurs: the in-breathing is long and the out-breathing short. When a person's astral body is relaxed, and with it the finer parts of the physical body, the situation resembles that of a hollow space from which all the air is pumped out and immediately the outside air rushes in. A kind of liberation of the outer corporeality occurs in laughter, and then a long breath of air is drawn in. In weeping the opposite occurs. We press the astral together and with it the physical body, and the contraction causes an out-breathing in one long stretch. Here, again, we have an instance where a soul-experience is brought by the ego into connection with the physical, right down into the physical body of man. If we take these physiological facts, they will wonderfully illuminate an event which is recorded symbolically in the ancient religious records of mankind. You will remember the passage in the Old Testament which tells how man was raised to fully human status when Jahve or Jehovah breathed into him the breath of life and thereby endowed him with a living soul. 12 Genesis 2, 7 That is the moment when the birth of selfhood is impressed on our attention. Thus in the Old Testament the breathing process is shown as an expression of true ego-hood and brought into relation with the soul-quality of man. If we then recall how laughing and weeping are a unique expression of the human ego, we see at once the intimate connection between the breathing process and the soul-nature in man; and then, in the light of this knowledge, we come to look on the ancient religious records with the humility that such a deep and true understanding must instil in us. For spiritual science these records are not necessary. Even if they were all destroyed in a great catastrophe, spiritual-scientific research has the means to discover for itself what lies at the root of them. But when the facts have been ascertained by this means, and when later the same facts are found to be unmistakably rendered in the symbolic-pictorial language of the old records, our understanding of the records is greatly enhanced. We feel that they must originate from seers who knew what the spiritual-scientific researcher discovers — spiritual vision meets spiritual vision across thousands of years, and from this knowledge we gain the right attitude towards these records. When we are told how God breathed his own living breath into man, whereby man would find his own in-dwelling ego, we can see from our study of laughter and tears how true to human nature is this symbolically recorded event. There is one other point I will mention, but only briefly, or it would lead us too far afield. Someone might say to me: you have started at the wrong end, you ought to have started with the external facts. The spiritual element should be sought where it appears purely as a natural occurrence — for example when a person is tickled. That is the most elementary fact about laughter. How do you reconcile that with all your fantasies about the expansion of the astral body and so forth? Well, it is just in such a case that an expansion of the astral body occurs, and everything I have described comes to pass, though on a lower level. If someone tickles himself on the soles of his feet, he knows very well what is happening and is not impelled to laugh. But if he is tickled on the sole by someone else, he will reject it as an alien incursion, not to be rationally understood. Then his ego will try to rise above it, to liberate itself and set the astral body free. This freeing of the astral from an inappropriate contact expresses itself in laughter without motive. That signifies precisely a liberation, a rescue of the ego on a fundamental level, from the attack made on us by the tickling of our feet. Laughing at a joke or at something comic is on the same level. We laugh at a joke because laughter brings us into a right relationship with it. A joke associates things which in serious life are kept apart; if the connection between them could be logically grasped, it would not be comic. A joke sets up relationships which — unless we are topsy-turvy minded — do not call for understanding but only for playing a sort of game. Directly we feel masters of the game, we free ourselves and rise above the content of the joke. This liberation, this raising ourselves above something, we shall always find when laughter breaks out. But this kind of relationship to the outer world may or may not be justified. We may rightly wish to liberate ourselves through laughter; or alternatively our own cast of mind may make us unwilling or unable to understand what is going on. Laughter will then derive from our own limitations, not from the nature of things. This is what happens when an undeveloped human being laughs at someone because he cannot understand him. If an undeveloped human being fails to find in another the commonplace or philistine qualities that he regards as right and proper, he may think he need not try to understand the other person and so he tries to free himself — perhaps because he does not want to understand. So it can easily become a habit to liberate oneself through laughter on all occasions. There are indeed certain people for whom it is quite natural to laugh and bleat at everything, without ever trying to understand anything; they fluff out their astral and so are continually laughing. Or it may be that attitudes currently in fashion make it seem that some everyday behaviour is not worth any attempt to understand it. Then people will allow themselves a smile, feeling that they are superior to this or that. Hence you will see that laughter does not always express a feeling of justified withdrawal; the withdrawal can also be unjustified. But the fundamental facts concerning laughter are not affected either way. It may happen also that someone makes calculated use of this form of human expression. Consider a speaker who calculates the effect his words will have on his hearers, whether they agree with him or not. Now it may be justified for him to refer to things so trivial or so far below the level of his audience that they can be described without weaving any intimate link between them and the souls of his hearers. In fact, by so doing he may help them to free themselves from the trivialities that surround the subject which he really wants to get them to understand. But there are also speakers who always want to get the laugh on their side. I have heard them saying: If I am to win I must stimulate laughter, so that I will have the laughers on my side — for if anyone has the laughers on his side, his case is as good as won! That may spring from inward dishonesty. For anyone who appeals to laughter is evoking a response which is intended to raise his hearers above something. But if he presents the matter in such a way that his hearers need not try to understand it but can laugh at it only because it has been brought down to a level where it appears trivial — then he is counting on human vanity, even though his hearers may not be aware of it. So you can see that this counting on laughter may involve a certain dishonesty. In the same way it is sometimes possible to win people over by stirring in them the feelings of comfort and well-being which I have described as being associated with tears. In such cases, when some loss is brought before a person in imagination only, he may indulge himself in craving for something he knows he cannot find. By contracting his ego he feels his selfhood strengthened; and often this kind of appeal to the emotions is really an appeal to human selfishness. All these forms of appeal can thus be grossly misused, because pain and grief, mockery and scorn, which may be accompanied by tears or laughter, are all connected with strengthening or liberating the ego and so with human egohood. When therefore such appeals are made, it may be our selfishness that is addressed, and it is selfishness that destroys the bonds between man and man. In other lectures we have seen that the ego not only works on the sentient soul, the intellectual soul and the consciousness soul, but through this work is itself made stronger and brought nearer fulfilment. Hence we can readily understand that laughing and weeping can be a means whereby the ego can educate itself and further strengthen its powers. No wonder, then, that among the great sources of education for human development we rank those dramatic creations which stimulate the soul-forces that find expression in laughter and tears. Our experience of tragic drama does in fact have the effect of pressing the astral body together and so imparting firmness and inner cohesion to the ego. Comedy expands the astral body, inasmuch as a person raises himself above follies and coincidences and thereby liberates the ego. Hence we can see how closely connected with human development are tragedy and comedy, when through artistic creations they come before our souls. Anyone who can observe human nature in its smallest details will find that everyday experiences can lead to an understanding of the greatest facts. Artistic productions, for example, can make us see that in human life there is a kind of pendulum which swings to and fro between laughter and tears. The ego can progress only by being in motion. If the pendulum were at rest, the ego would not be able to expand or develop; it would succumb to inward death. It is right for human development that the ego should be able to free itself through laughter and on the other hand to search for itself through tears. Certainly a balance between the two poles must be found: the ego will find completion only in the balance, never in swinging to and fro between exultation and despair. It will find itself only at the point of rest, which can swing over as easily to one extreme as to the other. The human being must gradually become the guide and leader of his own development. If we understand laughter and tears, we can see them as revelations of the spirit, for a human being becomes transparent, as it were, if we know how in laughter he seeks an outward expression of inner liberation, while in tears he experiences an inner strengthening after the ego has suffered a loss in the external world. To the question as to what laughter fundamentally is, we can reply: It is a spiritual expression of man's striving for liberation, in order that he may not be entangled in things unworthy of him but with a smile may rise above things to which he should never be enslaved. Similarly, tears are an expression of the fact that when the thread linking him to someone in the outer world has been broken, he still seeks for such a link in the midst of his tears. When he strengthens his ego through weeping, he is in effect saying to himself, I belong to the world and the world to me, for I cannot endure being torn away from it. Now at last we can understand how this liberation, rising above everything base and evil, could be expressed in the “Zarathustra smile”, at which all creatures on earth exulted, while the spirits of evil fled away. That smile is the symbol in world-history of the spiritual elevation of the ego above everything that might strangle it. And if the ego comes to an occasion when it feels that existence is worthless and that it wants to have no more to do with the world, and if then a power rises up in the soul which impels the ego to affirm, “The world belongs with me and I with the world”, then this feeling is rendered in Goethe's “The tears flow forth — the earth holds me again!” These words give voice to a conviction that we cannot be shut off from the earth and that even in our tears we assert our intimate connection with the world at the very moment when it seems to be taken from us. And for this assertion there is justification in the deep secrets of the world. Man's connection with the world is made known to us by the tears on his face, and his liberation from everything base by the smile upon his countenance.

Metamorphoses of the Soul: Paths of Experience II

Laughing and Weeping

https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA059/English/RSP1983/19100203p01.html

Berlin

3 Feb 1910

GA059-2

The subject of today's lecture 13 On this subject and the mystics mentioned in the lecture cf. also Rudolf Steiner, Mysticism at the Dawn of the Modern Age , Multimedia Publishing Corp., New York, 1980. is one on which widespread confusion prevails. Not long ago I heard a cultured scholar declare that Goethe should be numbered among the mystics, for he had admitted the existence of a dark, inscrutable element, beyond the range of knowledge. And many people would probably agree with that opinion. What indeed is not called mysticism or mystical nowadays? When a person is not clear about something, if his response to it hovers between not-knowing and a dim inkling, he will call it mystical or mysterious. When people are tempted by a certain lack of thought and psychological knowledge to assert that nothing reliable is known about something, and then go on to deny that anyone else may have knowledge of it, as is the wont today, they dismiss it as mystical. If, however, we study the historical origin of the word, we shall gain a quite different idea of what great men have understood by mysticism and of what they believed it offered them. We shall see that there have been men who, far from regarding that which is obscure and inscrutable as the content of mysticism, have spoken of its goal as attainable only through a higher clarity, a brighter light in the soul; so much so that for them the clarity of science leaves off where the clarity of mysticism begins. That is the conviction of those who believe they have experienced real mysticism. We find some mysticism in the earliest periods of human evolution, but what was called mysticism in the Mysteries of the Egyptians, the Greeks and the Asiatic peoples is so far removed from our conceptual thinking that it is hard to give any idea of mysticism if we go by those old forms of mystical experience. We can come nearest to present-day concepts if we start with the still fairly recent forms of mysticism found among the German mystics from Meister Eckhart 14 Meister Eckhart, 1260–1327. onwards, during the 13th and 14th centuries, up to their culmination in that incomparable mystic, Angelus Silesius. 15 Angelus Silesius, 1624–1677. If we examine their mysticism, we find that it sought to reach a true knowledge of the deepest foundations of the world by a purely inward soul-experience; above all, by the liberation of the soul from all external impressions and perceptions, so that the soul would draw back from the outer world and try to plunge into the depths of its own inward life. In other words, a mystic of this type believes that by this means he can find the divine ground of the world, which he would not be able to do if he attempted to analyse natural phenomena, however intensively, and to grasp them with his intellect. His view is that outward sense-impressions form a kind of veil through which human cognition cannot penetrate in its search for the divine foundations of the world. The inward experiences of the soul, however, form a much thinner veil, and it is possible to penetrate through this to the divine ground, which also lies at the foundation of external appearances. This is the mystical way of Meister Eckhart, Johannes Tauler 16 Johannes Tauler, c. 1300–1361. and Suso 17 Heinrich Suso, c. 1300–1366. and other mystics of that century, leading to Angelus Silesius. We must be clear that these mystics were expecting to find more than only that which could be regarded as the immediate result of their inward search. In the course of this winter's lectures we have dealt with this inward search in all its manifold aspects. We saw that if we look into what is rightly called man's inner being, we come first to the darkest depths of the soul, where the soul is still subject to emotions of fear, terror, anxiety and hope, and to the whole gamut of pleasure and pain, joy and sorrow. We called this part of the soul the sentient soul. We went on to distinguish in these dark foundations of soul experience what we call the intellectual soul, which is achieved when the ego assimilates external impressions and quietly allows that which emerges in the sentient soul to live itself out and find equilibrium. We said also that inner truth, as we may call it, arises in the intellectual soul. When the ego then works further on what it has gained on its way to the intellectual soul, it raises itself to the consciousness soul, where for the first time a clear knowledge of the ego is possible, and where man is led out from inner life to a real knowledge of the world. If we keep before us these three members of the soul's life, we have the outline of what we find when we sink ourselves directly into our inner being; and we find out how the ego works on the three soul members. Those mystics who sought for knowledge in the way described, believed that they could find something else through this immersion in the depths of the soul. For the inward experiences of the soul's life were for them only a veil they had to pass through in order to reach the source of being. Above all, they believed that if they attained to that source, they would themselves undergo, as a further inward experience, what is presented in external history as the life and death of Christ. Now when this mystical descent into the soul occurs, even if only in the mediaeval sense, the process is as follows. The mystic has in front of him the external world, with its realms of light and colour and all the other impressions it makes on his senses, and he works on all this with his intellect. But he remains in thrall to the external world and cannot penetrate through its appearances to their source. His soul retains conceptual images of the outer world, and above all it retains all its experiences, whether as pleasure or pain, sympathy or antipathy, from the impressions it receives. A human being's ego, with his interests and his entire inner life, always directs him towards the outer world and the impressions the latter makes upon him. When, therefore, a mystic first attempts to turn away from the outer world, he has to reckon with everything that the outer world has engendered in his soul from morning till evening. So at first his inner life appears to him as a repetition, a reflected image, of outer life. Is the soul left empty, then, when it exerts itself to forget everything reflected within it from the outer world, to obliterate all impressions and conceptual images drawn from that world? The true mystical experience depends on the fact that the soul has other possibilities, so that when it banishes not only its memories but its feelings of sympathy and antipathy, it still has some content. The mystic feels that impressions of the outer world, with their brightly coloured pictures and their effects on the soul, have the result of suppressing something which exists in the soul's hidden depths. The mystic feels that when he is open to the external world, its life is like a powerful light which outshines and blots out the finer experiences of the soul. But when all impressions from the outer world are erased, the inner spark, as Eckhart calls it, shines forth. He then experiences in the soul something which had previously seemed not to be there, for it was imperceptible in face of the dazzle of the outer world. For the sake of clarity, the mystic then asks if what he experiences in the soul is comparable with what he encounters in the outer world. No: there is a radical difference. Our relation to things in the outer world is such that we cannot penetrate into their inwardness, for they show us only their outer sides. When we perceive colours and sounds, it is possible for us to realise that behind them lies something which for the moment we must regard as their hidden side; but with the experiences that arise in the soul it is different once we have obliterated the impressions and conceptual images of the outer world: we cannot say that they show us only their outer side, for we are within them and are part of them. And if we have the gift for opening ourselves to the inner light, they show themselves to us in their true being, and we see them to be entirely different from anything we encounter in the outer world. For the outer world is subject everywhere to growth and decline, to flowering and withering, to birth and death. And when we observe what reveals itself in the soul when the little spark begins to shine, we see that all ideas of growth and decline, of birth and death, are not applicable to it, for here we encounter something independent; and we see that concepts which belong to the outer world, including that of outside and inside, are not relevant to it. Hence it is no longer the surface or outer side of things that we grasp, but the thing itself in its true being. It is precisely through this inward knowledge that we gain assurance of the imperishable element in ourselves and of its kinship with what we must think of as the spirit, the primal basis of everything material. This experience leads the mystic to feel that he must overcome and kill all his former experiences; that his ordinary soul-life must die, and then his real soul, the victor over birth and death, will arise within him. This awakening of the inner kernel of the soul, after the death of ordinary soul-life, is experienced by the mystic as an inner resurrection, an analogue of the historical life, death and resurrection of Christ. Thus he sees the Christ-event taking place in his soul and spirit as an inner mystical experience. If we trace out this mystical path, we find that it must lead to what may be called a unity of all experience. For it belongs to the nature of our soul-life that we pass from the multiplicity of sense-perceptions, the flow and ebb of perceptions and feelings and the rich variety of thoughts, to a simplification; for the ego, the centre-point of our life, is always working to create unity in our entire life of soul. It is clear, then, that when the mystic treads the path of soul-experiences, they come before him in such a way that everything manifold and multiple strives towards the unity prescribed by the ego. In all mystics, accordingly, we find an outlook which could be called spiritual monism. When the mystic raises himself to the knowledge that the inner being of the soul has qualities radically different from those found in the external world, he experiences in his inner being the consonance of the soul's kernel with the divine-spiritual ground of the world, which he therefore represents as a unity. What I have now been saying should be regarded simply as descriptive. It is impossible to reproduce in a modern sense what the mystic reveals except in the form of individual mystical experience passed through by the soul as its most intimate concern. Then the strange things told us by the mystic can be compared with one's own experience. But external criticism is not possible if one has no personal experience, because another person's description of individual experience has to be relied on. But from the basic standpoint of these lectures we can form a clear picture of the mystic's path. It is essentially a path into the inner life, and the history of human development shows it to be one of the paths taken by the human spirit in its search for enlightenment. Various opinions as to which is the right path may be held, but if we are to give a clear answer to the question “What is mysticism?”, we must throw some light on the other path that can be pursued. The mystic's path leads him to unity, to one divine-spiritual Being. This he does by following the path which leads into his inner being where the ego gives him the unity of soul experience. The other path is the one that the human spirit has always taken when it seeks to pierce through the veil of the external world to the foundations of existence. Here, in conjunction with many other things, it has been above all the human thinking which has tried to reach a deeper understanding of what lies behind the surface of things through that which can be perceived by the senses and grasped by ordinary intelligence. Whither does such a path necessarily lead, in contrast to the goal of mysticism? If all relevant relationships are taken into account, it must lead from the manifold variety of external phenomena to the conclusion that a similar multiplicity of spiritual grounds must exist. In modern times such men as Leibniz 18 Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz, 1646–1716. Cf. for example his Monadology , a short treatise which he wrote in 1714 (without title) as a summary of his philosophy of unities. and Herbart, 19 Johann Friedrich Herbart, 1776–1841. Philosopher and pedagogue. who followed this way of thought, have seen that one cannot explain the wealth of external phenomena in terms of any kind of underlying unity. In brief, they found the true antithesis — monadology — to all mysticism. They reached the view that the world is founded on the activities of a multiplicity of monads, or spiritual beings. Thus Leibnitz, the great thinker of the 17th and 18th century, said to himself: When we look at what comes to meet us in space and time, we go astray if we believe that it all springs from a unity; it must come from many unities working together. And this reciprocal activity of monads, a world of monads or spiritual beings, brings about the phenomena perceived by human senses. I cannot go further into this today, but a deeper study of spiritual development would show that all those who have sought for unity on the outward path were subject to an illusion, for they projected outwards, like a sort of shadow, the unity which is experienced inwardly in mysticism, and they believed that this unity was the basis of the external world and could be apprehended by thinking. Healthy thinking, however, finds no unity in the outer world, but recognises that its manifold variety arises from the inter-working of a variety of beings, or monads. Mysticism leads to unity because the ego works in our inner being as a single centre of the soul. The path through the external world leads by necessity to multiplicity, plurality, monadology, and thus to the view that many spiritual beings must work together in order to engender our world, while human knowledge of the world is achieved through a multiplicity of organs and observations. Now we come to a point of far-reaching importance which receives all to little attention in the history of thought. Mysticism leads to unity; but its recognition of the divine ground of the world as a unity derives from the nature of the ego, the inner constitution of the soul. The ego sets its seal of unity when the mystic looks up to the Divine Spirit. Contemplation of the external world leads to a multiplicity of monads. But it is only our way of observing the outer world and the way in which it comes to meet us that lead to multiplicity and which therefore prompted Leibniz and Herbart to postulate multiplicity as the foundation of the world. Deeper research leads to a realisation that unity and multiplicity are concepts inapplicable to the divine-spiritual ground of the world, for we cannot characterise it as either a unity or a multiplicity. We must say that the divine-spiritual transcends these concepts and cannot be fathomed by them. This is a principle which throws light on the supposed conflict between monism and pluralism, so often portrayed as opposites in philosophical debates. If the disputants would only realise that their concepts are inadequate for any approach to the divine ground of the world, they might come to see the subject of their debate in the right light. Now we have learnt what the essence of real mysticism is. It is an inner experience of such a kind that it leads the mystic to real knowledge. He will not be justified in regarding the unity he experiences as objective truth, for its appearance of unity derives from his own ego, but he may truly say that he experiences the substantiality of spirit as one living within it. If we pass on from this general account of mysticism to individual mystics, we often encounter facts which are called in evidence against mysticism by its opponents. The inner experience of individuals takes various forms, so that the experiences of one mystic may not agree entirely with those of another. But if two persons have different experiences of something, it by no means follows that their reports are untrue. If one person sees a tree from the right and another sees it from the left, and each describes it from his own point of view, it will be the same tree and both descriptions may be correct. This simple example will show why the soul-experiences of mystics differ: after all, a mystic's inner life does not come before him as a complete blank. However much it may be his ideal to obliterate external experiences and to withdraw his attention from them completely, they will yet leave a trace in his soul, and this makes a difference. The mystic will be subject also to some influence from the character of the nation from which he descends. Even if he casts out from his soul every external experience he has had, his inner experience will still have to be described in words and concepts drawn from his own life. Two mystics may experience exactly the same thing, but they will describe it differently as a result of their earlier lives. It is only if we are able through our own personal experience to allow for these individual variations in description and representation that we can come to recognise that fundamentally the reality of mystical experience is always the same. It is just as though we were to photograph a tree from various angles: the photographs would differ but they would all be of the same tree. There is another point, which might in a sense be considered an objection against mystical experience, and since I must speak quite objectively, with no bias one way or the other, I have to say that this objection is valid and applies to all forms of mysticism. Just because mystical experience is so intimate and inward, and has an individual character derived from the mystic's earlier years, it is extraordinarily difficult for anything he says about his mystical life, closely bound up as it must be with his own soul, to be rightly understood or assimilated by another soul. The most intimate aspects of mysticism must always remain intimate and very hard to communicate, however earnestly one may try to understand and enter into what is said. The point is that two mystics, if both are far enough advanced, may have the same experience — and anyone well-disposed will then recognise that they are speaking of the same thing — but they will have passed through different experiences during their earlier years, and this will give their mysticism an individual colouring. Hence the expressions used by a mystic and his style of utterance, in so far as they derive from his pre-mystical life, will always remain somewhat incomprehensible unless we make an effort to understand his personal background and so come to see why he speaks as he does. This, however, will divert our attention from what is universally valid to the personality of the mystic himself, and this tendency can be observed in the history of mysticism. With the deepest mystics, especially, we must set aside any idea that the knowledge they have gained can be imparted and assimilated by other people. Mystical knowledge cannot at all easily be made part of general human knowledge. But this only goes to strengthen our interest in the personality of the mystic, and it is endlessly attractive to study him in so far as the universal human image is reflected in him. What the mystic describes and values only because it leads him to the foundations and sources of existence will in itself have little interest for us as regards the objective nature of the world; what interests us will be the subjective side of it and its bearing on the mystic as an individual. In studying mysticism, accordingly, we shall find value in precisely what the mystic tries to overcome — in the personal, the immediate, his attitude to the world. Certainly we can learn a great deal about the depths of human nature if we observe the history of mankind from the aspect of the mystic as it were, but it will be very hard for us — this can never be too strongly emphasised — to find in a mystic's words as he expresses them anything that can have direct validity for us. Mysticism is the opposite of monadology, or pluralism, which derives from observing and reflecting on the external world which all men have in common. The resulting systems of the latter may contain error upon error, but they can be discussed and something made of them from whatever point of development the individual has reached. The mysticism I have been describing here can thus be extremely attractive, but we shall recognise its limits quite objectively if we allow our souls to assimilate what has just been said about it. Further light is thrown on mysticism if we assess it in relation to the method of spiritual science, a method drawn from the deeper levels of present-day spiritual life with the aim of penetrating to the primal foundations of existence. If a subject gives difficulty because of the subtlety of its ideas, the best way of understanding it is often to compare it with some related subject. You have often heard it said in these lectures that there is a path of ascent to the higher worlds. In a certain sense it is a threefold path. We have described the outward path, and then the inward path taken by the mediaeval mystics, and we have defined the limits of the latter. Now we will turn to what can be called the proper path of spiritual science, or spiritual research. We have already seen that this way of knowledge does not simply require the student to take either the outward path, leading to the spiritual basis of the sense-world and therefore to plurality, or the inward path leading to the deeper foundations of one's own soul and finally to the mystical unity of the world. Spiritual science says that a man is not bound to follow only those paths which his own immediate knowledge opens for him, but that he possesses hidden, slumbering faculties of cognition, and that starting from them he can find other paths than the two just mentioned. A person who follows either of these two paths remains as he already is and has become; he may seek to pierce the veil of the sense world and penetrate to the foundations of existence; or he may obliterate external impressions and allow the inner spark to shine out. But in spiritual science it is fundamental that man need not remain as he is today, with his existing faculties of knowledge. Just as man has evolved to his present stage, so, by using the appropriate method, he can develop faculties of knowledge higher than those he has now. If we are to compare this method with the mystical mode of knowledge, we must say: If we eliminate outer impressions we can discover the inner spark, and see how it shines when all else is extinguished, but we are still only drawing on what is already there. Spiritual science is not content with that; it comes to the spark, but does not stop there. It seeks to develop methods which will turn the little spark into a much stronger light. We can take the outward path or the inward path, but since we are to develop new powers of cognition, we take neither path immediately. The modern form of spiritual scientific research is distinguished both from mediaeval mysticism and from pluralism and also from the old teachings of the Mysteries, by developing inner faculties of cognition in such a way that the outward path and the inward path are brought together. Thus we follow a path that leads equally to both goals. This is possible because the development of higher faculties by the methods of spiritual science leads man through three stages of knowledge. The first stage, which proceeds from ordinary knowledge and goes beyond it is called Imagination; the second stage is called Inspiration, and the third is called Intuition, in the true sense of the word. How is the first stage attained and what is accomplished in the soul for higher faculties to arise? The way in which they are developed will show you how pluralism and mysticism are transcended along this path. The example most helpful for an understanding of Imagination, or imaginative cognition, has already been mentioned more than once: it is drawn from the methods applied by the spiritual scientist to himself. It is one of many such examples and is best given in the form of a dialogue between master and pupil. The teacher who wants to educate a pupil in the higher faculties leading to Imagination would say: “Look at the plant; it grows up out of the soil and unfolds leaf by leaf until it is a flower. Compare it with man as he stands before you. Man has something more than the plant, for the world is reflected in his ideas, feelings and sensations; he excels the plant in possessing human consciousness. But he has had to pay for this consciousness by absorbing into himself on his way towards becoming man, passions, impulses and desires which may lead him into error, wrong and evil. The plant grows according to its natural laws; it unfolds its being according to these laws, and it stands before us, pure, with its green sap. Unless we indulge in fancies we cannot attribute to it any desires, passions or impulses which could divert it from the right path. If now we observe the blood as it circulates through man, the blood which is the external expression of human consciousness, of the human ego, and contrast it with the green chlorophyll sap permeating the plant, we shall realize that this streaming, pulsating blood is the expression as much of man's rise to a higher stage of consciousness as it is of the passions and impulses which drag him down. “Then” — the teacher might continue — “imagine that man develops further; that through his ego he overcomes error, evil and ugliness, everything which tries to drag him down to evil; that he purifies and refines his passions and affections. Picture an ideal which man strives to realise, when his blood will no longer be the expression of any passions, but only of his inner mastery of all that might drag him down. His red blood may then be compared with what the green sap has become in the red rose. Just as the red rose shows us the plant sap in all its purity, and yet at a higher stage than it had reached in the plant, so the red blood of man, when purified and refined, can show what man becomes when he has mastered everything that might drag him down.” These are the feelings and images that the teacher can evoke in the pupil's mind and soul. If the pupil is not a dry stick, if he is able to enter with his feelings into the whole secret symbolised by this comparison, his soul will be stirred and he will experience something which will come before his spiritual vision as a symbolic picture, The picture can be of the Rose Cross: the black cross symbolising what has been slain in man's lower nature and the roses representing the red blood, so purified and refined that it has become a pure expression of his higher soul-nature. Thus the black cross wreathed with red roses becomes a symbolical summing-up of what the soul experiences in this dialogue between teacher and pupil. If the pupil has opened his soul to all the feelings and images which can make the Rose Cross a true symbol for him; if he does not merely claim to have placed the Rose Cross before his inner vision, but if with pain and struggle he has won through to a heightened experience of its essence, he will know that this picture, or similar ones, call forth something in his soul — not merely the little spark but a new power of cognition which enables him to look at the world in a new way. Thus he has not remained as he formerly was, but has raised his soul to a further stage of development. And if he does this again and again, he will finally attain to Imagination, which shows him that in the outer world there is more than meets the eye. Now let us see how this way of knowledge came into being. Did we say to ourselves: We will take the outward path and seek for the foundations of things? To a certain extent, yes. We go out to the external world, but we are not searching for the basis of things, or for molecules and atoms; we are not concerned with what the outer world sets directly before us, but we retain something from it. The black cross could not arise in the soul if there were no wood in the world; the soul could not imagine a red rose unless it had received an impression of one from the world around it. Hence we cannot say, as the mystic does, that we have obliterated everything external and turned our attention away entirely from the outer world. We submit to the outer world and take from it something that it alone can give, but we do not take it just as it comes, for the Rose Cross is not found in nature. How was it, then, that rose and wood, drawn from the outer world, were combined into a symbolic picture? It was the work of our own souls. The experience that comes to us when we devote ourselves to the outer world, not merely staring at it but becoming absorbed in it, and what we can learn from comparing plant with man as he develops — all this we have made into an inner mystical experience. But we have not taken immediate possession of our experience, as the mystic does; we sacrifice it to the outer world, and, with the help of what the world can give outwardly and the soul inwardly, we build up a symbolic picture in which outer and inner mystical life are fused. The picture stands before us in such a way that it does not lead directly either to the outer world or to the inner world, but it works as a force. If we place it before our souls in meditation, it creates a new spiritual eye, and then we can see into a spiritual world which previously we could not find, either in the inner world or in the outer. And then we can discern that what lies at the basis of the external world, and can now be experienced through imaginative cognition, is identical with what can be found in our own inner being. If now we ascend to the stage of Inspiration, we have to strip away the content of our symbolic picture. We have to do something very similar to the procedure of the mystic who takes the inward path. We have to forget the rose and the cross, to banish the whole picture from our mind's eye. However difficult this may be, it has to be done. In order to bring before us inwardly the symbolical comparison between plant and man, our soul had to exert itself. Now we have to concentrate our attention on this activity, on what the soul had to do in order to call up the image of the black cross as a symbol of what has to be overcome in man. When we thus deepen ourselves mystically in the experience of the soul during this activity, we come to Inspiration, or inspirational cognition. The awakening of this new faculty not only brings the appearance of the little spark in our inner being: we see it lighting up as a powerful force of cognition, and through it we experience something which reveals itself as closely related to our inner being and yet wholly independent of it. For we have seen how our soul-activity is not only an inner process but has exercised itself on something external. So we have here a knowledge of our inner being, as a residue of mysticism, which is also knowledge of the outer world. Now we come to a task which is opposed to that of the mystic. We have to do something similar to what ordinary natural science does: we have to go forth into the external world. This is difficult, but essential for rising to the stage of Intuition, or intuitive cognition. Our task now is to divert our attention from our own activity, forget what we have done to bring the Rose Cross before our inner sight. If we are patient and carry out the exercises long enough and in the right way, we shall see that we are left with something which we know for certain is entirely independent of our own inner experience and has no subjective colouring, and yet shows by its objective being that it is akin to the centre of the human being, the ego. Thus in order to reach intuitive knowledge we go out from ourselves and yet come to something which is closely akin to our inner being. So we rise from our own inward experience to the spiritual, which we no longer experience within ourselves but in the external world. Thus on the path of spiritual science, through Imagination, Inspiration and Intuition, we overcome the shadow-sides both of pluralism and ordinary mysticism. Now we can give an answer to the question — What is mysticism? It is an endeavour by the human soul to find the divine-spiritual source of existence through immersing itself in its own inner being. Fundamentally, spiritual-scientific cognition also must take this mystical path, but it is well aware that it must first prepare itself and not set out prematurely. Mysticism is thus an enterprise which springs from a justified urge in the human soul, thoroughly justified in principle, but undertaken too early if the soul has not first sought to make progress in imaginative cognition. If we try to deepen our ordinary life through mysticism, there is a danger that we may not have made ourselves sufficiently free and independent of ourselves, so that we are unable to form a picture of the world not coloured by our personality. If we rise to the stage of Inspiration, we have poured out our inner being into something drawn from the outer world; and then we have gained the right to be a mystic. All mysticism should therefore be undertaken at the proper stage of human development. Harm is done if we try to achieve mystical knowledge before we are ready for it. In justified mysticism, accordingly, spiritual science can recognise a stage which enables us to understand the real aim and intention of spiritual-scientific research. There is hardly anything from which we can learn as much in this respect as we can from a devoted study of the mystics. It must not be thought that the spiritual scientist, when he recognises something justified in mysticism, is denying the need for further progress. Mysticism is justified only if it is raised to a certain level of development, so that its methods yield results which are not merely subjective but give valid expression to truths concerning the spiritual world. We need not say much about the dangers which a premature devotion to mystical methods can incur. They involve a descent into the depths of the human soul before the mystic has prepared himself in such a way that his inner being can grow out into the external world. He will often then be inclined to shut himself off from the outer world, and fundamentally this is only a subtle, refined form of egotism. This often applies to mystics who turn away from the outer world and indulge in those feelings of rapture, exaltation and liberation which flood into their souls when this golden mood pervades their inner life. This egotism can be overcome if the ego is constrained to pass outside itself and make its activity flow into the external world by the creation of symbols. In this way an imaginative symbolism leads to an experience of truth which strips away egotism. The danger incurred by a mystic who strives after knowledge too early in his development is that he may become an eccentric or a refined egoist. Mysticism is justified, and what Angelus Silesius says is true: If you transcend yourself in God's prevailing, Then in your spirit will ascension reign! 20 Angelus Silesius, Cherubinischer Wandersmann , Book 4, Verse 56. It is true that by developing his soul man attains not only to his own inner being but to the spiritual kingdoms which underlie the outer world. But he must take in full earnest the work of transcending himself, and this must not be confused with a mere brooding within himself just as he is. He must take seriously the words of Angelus Silesius, both the first line and the second. We fail to do this if we withdraw from any aspect of the divine revelation; we let God hold sway only if we are able to sacrifice our inner being to all that can flow into us as revelation from the outer world. If we bring this way of thinking into relation with our spiritual-scientific cognition, we shall be taking the second line in the right sense. We let the divine-spiritual ground of the outer and inner worlds hold sway in us, and only then can we hope that we shall be “on Heaven's way.” This means that we shall come to a spiritual realm which is coloured neither by our own inner world nor by the outer world — a realm which has the same ground as the infinite world of stars shining in on us, as the atmosphere which envelops the earth, as the green plant-cover, as the rivers flowing into the sea; while the same divine-spiritual element lives in our thinking, feeling and willing and permeates our inner and outer worlds. These examples will show that to read a saying such as this one by Angelus Silesius is not enough; we must take it up at the right stage, when we are first able to understand it truly. Then we shall see that mysticism, because it has the right kernel, can indeed lead us to the point where we shall be ripe for learning gradually to see into spiritual realms, and that mysticism in the highest and truest sense can make real for us what can be found in the beautiful words of Angelus Silesius: When you raise yourself above yourself and truly let the divine spiritual ground of worlds hold sway in you, you will tread the heavenly way to the divine-spiritual sources of existence.

Metamorphoses of the Soul: Paths of Experience II

What is Mysticism?

https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA059/English/RSP1983/19100210p01.html

Berlin

10 Feb 1910

GA059-3

In the lecture on mysticism, we spoke of the particular form of inward deepening which appears in the mysticism of the Middle Ages from the time of Meister Eckhart down to Angelus Silesius. Its characteristic is that the mystic seeks to make himself free and independent of all the experiences that come to him from the external world. He tries to press on to an experience which will prove to him that when everything to do with ordinary life has been extinguished and the soul withdraws into itself, it still has within it a world of its own, so to speak. This world is always there but is outshone by the external experiences that work so powerfully on human beings, and thus it appears as a light so weak that most people never notice it. Hence the mystic often calls it the little spark. But he is sure it can be fanned into a powerful flame which will illuminate the sources and foundations of existence. In other words, it leads a man along the path of his own soul to a knowledge of his origin, which can indeed be called “knowledge of God.” In the same lecture we observed how the mediaeval mystics supposed that the little spark had to grow by itself, its own nature remaining unchanged. In opposition to this, we emphasised that modern spiritual research calls for a development of these inner soul-forces under conscious control, so that they can rise to higher forms of cognition, which we called Imagination, Inspiration and Intuition. So this inwardly devoted mediaeval mysticism comes before us as a sort of first step towards true spiritual investigation. If we are able to immerse ourselves in the inward fervour of a Meister Eckhart; if we recognise the immeasurable force of spiritual knowledge that this mystical devotion gave to Johannes Tauler; if we appreciate how deeply Valentin Weigel 21 Valentin Weigel, 1533–1588. or Jacob Boehme 22 Jakob Boehme, 1575–1624. were led into the secrets of existence by all that they achieved through this physical devotion (though they certainly advanced beyond it); if we understand how Angelus Silesius was enabled through this same devotion not only to gain illuminating insights into the general laws of spiritual world-order but to give heart-warmingly beautiful expression in his writings to the secrets of the world — if we bear all this in mind, we shall realise the power and depth that resides in this medieval mysticism, and the endless help it can give to anyone who wishes to follow the spiritual-scientific path for himself. Mediaeval mysticism can thus be regarded — particularly in the light of the last lecture — as a great and wonderful preparatory school for spiritual-scientific research. And how could it be otherwise? After all, the aim of the spiritual scientist is to develop the little spark through his own inner forces. The only difference is that the mystics believed that they could surrender themselves in peace of soul to the little spark and that it would come to shine ever more brightly of its own accord, whereas the spiritual scientist is convinced that we must use our capacities and forces, placed by the wisdom of the world in the service of our will, to kindle the spark to a brighter flame. If, then, the mystical frame of mind is a good preparation for spiritual science, we have, in turn, as a preparation for mystical devotion, the activity of soul which can be called, in the true sense, prayer. Just as the mystic is able to attain to his inward devotion because he has — even though unconsciously — trained his soul for it, so, if we wish to work our way along the same path to physical meditation, we can look for a preparatory stage in true prayer. During recent centuries, the nature of prayer has been misunderstood in all sorts of ways by this or that spiritual movement, and to gain a true understanding of it will not be easy. If, however, we remember that these centuries have been marked especially by the emergence of egotistic spiritual trends which have laid hold of wide circles of people, we shall not find it surprising that prayer has been dragged down to the level of egotistic wishes and desires. And it must be said that prayer can hardly be more utterly misunderstood than when it is permeated by some form of egotism. In this lecture we shall try to study prayer entirely in the light of spiritual science, free from any sectarian or other influence. As a first approach, we might say that while the mystic assumes that he will find in his soul some kind of little spark which his mystical devotion will cause to shine ever more brightly, prayer is intended to engender the spark. And prayer, from whatever presuppositions it proceeds, proves its effectiveness precisely by stirring the soul either to discover gradually the little spark, if it is there, gleaming but hidden, or to kindle it. If we are to study the need for prayer and its nature, we shall have to enter on a description of the soul in depth, bearing in mind the always relevant saying of the old Greek sage, Heraclitus, quoted in an earlier lecture: “Never will you find the boundaries of the soul, by whatever paths you search, so all-embracing is the soul's being.” 23 Hermann Diels, Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker . Herakleitos aus Ephesus, Nr 45. Also, The art and thought of Heraclitus. An edition of the fragments with translation and commentary by Charles H. Kahn. CUP, Cambridge, 1979, No. XXXV. And although in prayer we are at first seeking only for the soul's inner secrets, the intimate feelings stirred by prayer can give even the simplest person some inkling of the endless expanses of soul-life. We have to realise that the soul is engaged in a process of living evolution. It not only comes from the past and is always travelling towards the future; the effects of the past extend into every present moment, and so in a certain sense, do those of the future. Anyone who looks deeply into the life of the soul will see that these two streams, one from the past and one from the future, are continually meeting there. The fact that we are influenced by the past is obvious: who could deny that our energy or idleness of yesterday has some effect on us today? But we ought not to deny the reality of the future, either, for we can observe in the soul the intrusion of future events, although they have not yet happened, After all, there is such a thing as fear of something likely to happen tomorrow, or anxiety about it. Is that not a sort of feeling or perception concerned with the future? Whenever the soul experiences fear or anxiety, it shows by the reality of its feelings that it is reckoning not only with the past but in a very lively manner with something hastening towards it from the future. These, of course, are single examples, but they will suffice to suggest that anyone who surveys the soul will find numerous others to contradict the abstract logic which says that since the future does not yet exist, it can have no present influence. Thus there are these two streams, one from the past and one from the future, which come together in the soul — will anyone who observes himself deny that? — and produce a kind of whirlpool, comparable to the confluence of two rivers. Closer observation shows that the impressions left on us by past experiences, and in which we have dealt with them, have made the soul what it is. We bear within ourselves the legacy of our doing, feeling and thinking in the past. If we look back over these past experiences, especially those in which we played an active part, we shall very often be impelled to an assessment of ourselves. We have become capable from our present standpoint of disagreeing with some deeds that happened in our past; we have reached the stage of even being able to look back with shame, perhaps, at some of our past actions. If we compare our present with our past in this way, we shall come to feel that within us there is something far richer and more significant than whatever we have made of ourselves through our individual powers. If there were not something extending beyond our conscious selves, we should be unable to reproach ourselves or even to know ourselves. We must, then, have within us something that is greater than anything we have employed to form ourselves in the past. If we transform this realisation into a feeling, we shall be able to look back at everything in our past actions, at experiences that memory can bring clearly before us, and we shall be able to compare these memories with something greater, with something in our soul that guides us to stand face to face with ourselves and to judge ourselves from the standpoint of the present. In short, when we observe the stream flowing into us from the past, we feel that we have within us something that extends beyond ourselves. This intimation is the first awakening of a feeling of God within us; a feeling that something greater than all our will-power dwells within us. And thus we are led to look beyond our limited ego towards a divine-spiritual ego. That is the outcome of a contemplation of the past, transformed into perceptive feeling. What, then, does the stream from the future say to us, again in terms of perceptive feeling? It speaks to us in even clearer and more emphatic language, since we are here concerned directly with emotions of fear and anxiety, hope and joy. For the relevant events have not yet occurred; only the feelings connected with them strike into the soul. And we know that this stream from the future may bring different effects and responsibilities from those we expect. If we ran relate ourselves rightly to whatever experiences are surely coming towards us from the dark womb of the future, we shall see how this continually stimulates the soul. We feel how in the future the soul can become far richer, wider in scope, than it now is; we feel that we are already related to the approaching future and that our soul must be a match for anything it may bring. If in this way we observe how past and future flow into the present, we can see how the life of the soul grows beyond itself. When the soul, on looking back over the past, becomes aware — whether as a judgment or with regret or shame — of a power from the past which is playing into the present but which is greater than itself, this realisation will evoke in the soul a reverence towards the divine. And this reverence, which we can feel working upon us but which is more than we can consciously grasp, evokes one mode of prayer — for there are two which bring the soul into an intimate relationship with God. For if the soul surrenders itself in innermost calm to the feelings engendered by the past, it will begin to wish that the power it had left unused, which it had not penetrated with its ego, might now become a present reality. Then the soul can say to itself. If this power were within me, I should be different now. The divine element I aspire to did not belong to my inner life; that is why I failed to make myself into something of which I could approve today. Having come to this realisation, the soul might continue: How can I draw into myself the unknown which indeed lived in all my actions and experiences, but without my being aware of it, for I was not able to grasp it with my ego? When the soul is brought to this frame of mind, whether through a feeling, a word or an idea, we have the prayer directed to the past. This means that the soul is seeking to draw near to the divine along one devotional path. Now we will turn to the gleam of the divine that comes with the stream from the unknown future. Here a different frame of mind is evoked. As we have just seen, when we look back over the past we realise that we have not developed our innate capabilities; we see how our shortcomings have prevented us from responding to the divine light that shines in on us, and this feeling leads us to the prayer of devotion, prompted by the past. What, then, is the influence coming from the future that in a similar way makes us aware of our defects which restrict our ascent to the spiritual? We need only to remember the feelings of fear and anxiety that gnaw at our soul-life in face of the unknown future. Is there anything that can give the soul a sense of security in this situation? Yes, there is. It is what we may call a feeling of humbleness towards anything that may come towards the soul out of the darkness of the future. But this feeling will be effective only if it has the character of prayer. Let us avoid misunderstanding. We are not extolling something that might be called humbleness in one sense or another; we are describing a definite form of it — humbleness to whatever the future may bring. Anyone who looks anxiously and fearfully towards the future hinders his development, hampers the free unfolding of his soul-forces. Nothing, indeed, obstructs this development more than fear and anxiety in face of the unknown future. But the results of submitting to the future can be judged only by experience. What does this humbleness mean? Ideally, it would mean saying to oneself: Whatever the next hour or day may bring, I cannot change it by fear or anxiety, for it is not yet known. I will therefore wait for it with complete inward restfulness, perfect tranquillity of mind. Anyone who can meet the future in this calm, relaxed way, without impairing his active strength and energy, will be able to develop the powers of his soul freely and intensively. It is as if hindrance after hindrance falls away, as the soul comes to be more and more pervaded by this feeling of humbleness toward approaching events. This feeling, however, cannot be called forth in the soul by some edict, or by an arbitrary decision with no firm basis. It springs from the second mode of prayer, directed towards the future and the wisdom-filled course of events therein. To give ourselves over to this divine wisdom means that we call up again and again the thoughts, feelings and impulses that go with a recognition that what will come must come and that in one direction or another it must have good effects. To call forth this frame of mind and to give it expression in words, perceptions and ideas — that is the second mode of prayer the prayer of devotional submission. It is from these feelings that impulses to prayer must come. For they are present in the soul itself, and fundamentally they lead towards prayer in every soul that raises itself even a little above the immediate present. The pre-condition of prayer, one might say, occurs when the soul turns its gaze away from the transitory present towards the eternal, which embraces past, present and future. It is because this raising of oneself above the present is so necessary that Goethe gives to Faust the great lines, addressed to Mephistopheles: If to the moment fleeting past ‘Linger’, I cry, ‘thou art so fair!’ This means: if I were to be satisfied with living merely for the moment — Then in fetters you may bind me, Let me perish, for all I care! 24 Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Faust I , 11. 1699–1702. Hence one could also say: It is for the power to pray that Faust begs in order to escape from the fetters of his companion, Mephistopheles. The experience of prayer, accordingly, leads us on the one hand to observe our narrowly restricted ego, which has worked its way from the past into the present, and shows us clearly how very much more there is in us than we have put to use; on the other hand it leads us to look towards the future and shows us how much more can flow from the future into our ego than our ego has grasped so far. If we understand this, we shall find in every prayer a force that leads us beyond ourselves. For what else is prayer than the lighting-up within us of a power that seeks to transcend what our ego is at the moment? And if the ego is seized by this striving, it already has the power to develop itself. When the past has taught us that we have more within us than we have ever put to use, then prayer is a cry to the divine that it may fill us with its presence. When we have come to this knowledge through our own feelings and perceptions, we can number prayer among the forces that will aid the development of our ego. We can do the same with prayer directed towards the future. If we live in fear and anxiety about the approaching future, we lack the attitude of humbleness that prayer can bring. We fail to realise that our destiny is ordered by the wisdom of the world. But if we meet the future with humbleness and devotion, we draw near to it in fruitful hope. So it is that humbleness, which may seem to diminish us, becomes a powerful force, enriching the soul and carrying our development to higher levels. We need not expect any external results from prayer, for we know that through prayer we have implanted in our souls a source of light and warmth: of light, because we set the soul free in its relation to the future and dispose it to accept whatever may emerge from that dark womb; of warmth, because prayer helps us to recognise that, although in the past we failed to bring the divine element to fruition in our ego, we have now pervaded our feelings with it, so that it can be an effective power within us, The prayer that springs from looking back over the past gives rise to that inner warmth which is spoken of by all who understand prayer in its true nature. And the inward light comes to those who understand the prayer of humbleness towards the future. From this point of view it will not seem surprising that the greatest mystics found in their devotion to prayer the best preparation for what they hoped to achieve through inward contemplation. They led their soul to the point where they were able to kindle to brightness the little spark within them. It is precisely through entering into the past that we can gain access to that wonderful feeling of intimacy which true prayer can bestow. Preoccupation with the external world estranges us from ourselves, just as in the past it prevented the more powerful element in us, the ego conscious of itself, from emerging. We were given over to external impressions and the manifold demands of outer life; they tear us apart and keep us from recollecting ourselves in tranquillity. This is what prevented the stronger divine power within us from unfolding. But now, if we allow it to unfold in the intimacy of prayer, we shall not be subject to the disintegrating effects of the outer world. We shall feel that wonderful inner warmth which fills us with inner blessedness and can truly be called divine. Through their experience a soul that is losing itself in externals can be enabled to collect itself. During prayer we are warmed in the feeling of God; we not only feel the warmth, but we live intimately within ourselves. On the other side, when we approach the things of the outer world, we always find them involved with what has been called the dark womb of the future. Close observation shows that in everything we encounter in the outer world there is always a hint of the future. If we feel fear and anxiety as to what may befall us, something always thrusts us away. The outer world stands before us like an impenetrable veil. If we develop the feeling of devoted humbleness towards whatever may come to us from the future, we find that we are able to meet everything in the outer world with the confidence and hope that this feeling engenders. And then we know that in all things the light of wisdom shines towards us. Failing this, in everything we come up against we meet a darkness which spreads into our feelings. So it is hope for illumination from the whole world that comes to us in the prayer of devoted submission. If in the physical world we are standing somewhere surrounded by the blackness of night, we may feel abandoned and pressed in on ourselves. When morning brings the light, we feel that we are set free, but not as though we were wanting to escape from ourselves, but as though we could now carry forth into the outer world our best desires and aspirations. Similarly, we can feel how surrender to the world, which estranges us from ourselves, is overcome by the warmth of prayer, which unites us with ourselves. And when we carry this warmth of prayer into the feeling of humbleness, it becomes a light. And now, when we go out from ourselves and unite ourselves with the outer world and behold it, we no longer feel torn apart and estranged by it, but we feel that what is best in our soul flows out and unites us with the light that shines in on us from the outer world. These two modes of prayer are expressed better in images than in ideas. We can think, for instance, of the Old Testament story of Jacob and his soul-convulsing contest in the night. 25 Genesis 32, 24–32 He appears to us as if we ourselves were given over to the manifold pressures of the world, where at first the soul is lost and cannot recover itself. When the striving to find ourselves begins, it sets off a conflict between our higher and our lower ego. Then our feelings surge up and down; but prayer will help us to work our way through, until at last comes the moment prefigured in the story of Jacob, where we are told that his night-long struggle is resolved and is harmonised when the rising sun shines upon him. That is in fact what prayer can do for the soul. Seen in this light, prayer is free from all superstition. For it brings out the best in us and works directly as a force in the soul. Prayer is thus preparatory to mystical contemplation, just as mystical contemplation is itself a preparation for what we know as spiritual research. Our discussion of prayer will have illustrated something often mentioned here — that we pile error upon error if we believe that we can find the divine, or God, within ourselves by mystical means. This mistake was repeatedly made by mystics and even by ordinary Christians during the Middle Ages. It occurred because the practice of prayer came to be permeated by egotism, an egotism which impels the soul to say to itself: I will become more and more perfect and will think of nothing else but my own perfection. We can hear an echo of this egotistic desire when a misguided form of theosophy asserts that if only we turn aside from everything external, we can find God within ourselves. We have seen that there are two modes of prayer. One leads to inner warmth; the other, imbued with the feeling of humbleness towards the future, leads out into the world and so to illumination and true knowledge. Anyone who looks at prayer in this way will soon see that the knowledge acquired by ordinary intellectual methods is unfruitful compared with another kind. Anyone who knows what prayer is, will be familiar with that withdrawal of the soul into itself, where it frees itself from the disruptive multiplicity of the world and collects itself inwardly, raising its thoughts above the present moment and devoting them to the past and the future. If we are acquainted with this state, when our whole environment becomes calm and silent, when only the finest thoughts and feelings of which we are capable are present in the soul, when perhaps even these vanish and only a fundamental feeling remains, pointing in two directions, towards the God who announces himself from the past and towards the God who announces himself from the future — then, if we have come to live in this feeling, we know that great moments come for the soul, so that it says to itself: I have turned away from everything that my clever thinking creates in my consciousness, from everything brought about by my feelings and perceptions, from all the ideals set up by my will-power and my education — I have swept all this away. I was devoted to my highest thoughts and feelings — even these I have now banished and have kept only the fundamental feeling already mentioned. If we have reached this stage, we know that in the same way as the wonders of nature meet us when we look at them with pure eyes, so do new feelings, hitherto unknown to us, shine into the soul. Impulses of will and ideals strange to us spring up in the soul, so that from this ground the most fruitful moments arise. So it is that prayer in the best sense can imbue us with a wisdom beyond our immediate capacities; it can give us the possibility of feelings and perceptions to which we have not yet attained. And if prayer carries our self-education further, it can endow us with a strength of will to which we have not yet been able to rise. Certainly, if we are to accomplish all this, we shall need first to cultivate and cherish the finest feelings and impulses in our souls. And here we must again call attention to the prayers that have been given to mankind on the most solemn occasions from the earliest times. In my booklet, The Lord's Prayer , 26 The Lord's Prayer , Anthroposophic Press Inc., Spring Valley, N.Y., 1977. you will find an account of its contents showing that its seven petitions embrace all the wisdom of the world. Now you might be inclined to say: We are told in this booklet that the seven petitions can be understood only by someone who has come to know the deeper sources of the universe, but obviously the simple man, when he repeats the prayer, will not be able to fathom these depths. But it is not necessary that he should. For the Lord's Prayer to come into being, the all-embracing wisdom of the world had to set down in words what can be called the deepest secrets of man and the world. Since this is the content of the Lord's Prayer, it works through its wording, even for people who are far from understanding its depths. That is indeed the secret of a true prayer. It has to be drawn from the wisdom of the world, and so it can be effective even if it is not understood. We can come to understand it if we rise to the higher stages for which prayer and mysticism are a preparation. Prayer prepares us for mysticism, mysticism for meditation and concentration, and from that point we are directed to the real work of spiritual research. To say that we must understand a prayer if it is to have its true effect is simply not true. Who understands the wisdom of a flower, yet we can all take pleasure in it? Similarly, if the wisdom of the world has gone into the creation of a prayer, the prayer can pour its warmth and light into the soul without its secrets being grasped. However, unless it has been created out of wisdom, it will not have this power. The depth of wisdom in a prayer is shown by its effectiveness. Although a soul can truly develop itself under the influence of this power, it must also be said that a true prayer has something to give to all of us, whatever stage of development we may have reached. The simplest person, who perhaps knows nothing more than the words of the prayer, may still be open to the influence of the prayer on his soul, and it is the prayer which can call forth the power to raise him higher. But, however high a stage we may have reached, we have never finished with a prayer; it can always raise us to a still higher level. And the Lord's Prayer is not for speaking only. It can call forth the mystical frame of mind, and it can be the subject of higher forms of meditation and concentration. This could be said of many other prayers. Since the Middle Ages, however, something has come to the fore, a kind of egotism, which can impair the purity of prayer and its accompanying state of mind. If we make use of prayer with the aim only of withdrawing into ourselves and making ourselves more perfect — as many Christians did during the Middle Ages and perhaps still do today — and if we fail to look out at the world around us with whatever illumination we may have received, then prayer will succeed only in separating us from the world, and making us feel like strangers in it. That often happened to those who used prayer in connection with false asceticism and seclusion. These people wished to be perfect not in the sense of the rose, which adorns itself 27 Cf. Friedrich Rückert's poem “Welt und Ich”: “in adorning itself,/The rose adorns the garden too”. in order to add beauty to the garden, but on their own account, so as to find blessedness within their own souls. Anyone who seeks for God in his soul and refuses to take what he has gained out into the world will find that his refusal turns back on him in revenge. And in many writings by saints and mystics who have known only the prayer that gives inner warmth — even in the writings of the Spanish mystic, Miguel de Molinos 28 Miguel de Molinos, 1640–1697, Spanish mystic. See his Guida Spirituale (1675). Molinos was sentenced to life imprisonment in Rome for this book by the Pope in 1686. — you will come upon remarkable descriptions of all sorts of passions and urges, fights, temptations and wild desires which the soul experiences when, it seeks perfection through inward prayer and complete devotion to what it takes to be its God. If someone tries to find God and to approach the spiritual world in a one-sided way, if he brings to his prayers only the kind of devotion that leads to inner warmth, and not the other kind that leads to illumination, then the other side will take its revenge. If I look back over the past with feelings of regret and shame and say to myself — there is something great in me to which I have never allowed full scope, but now I will let it permeate me and perfect me — then in a certain sense a feeling of perfection does arise. But the imperfection which remains in the soul turns into a counter-force and storms out all the more strongly in the form of temptations and passions. But as soon as the soul, after having recollected itself in inner warmth and intimate devotion, looks for God in all the works where he is revealed and strives for illumination, it comes out of itself, turns away from the narrow, selfish ego, and the storms of passion are stilled. That is why it is so bad to allow egotism to find its way into mystical devotion and meditation. If we wish to find God, but only in order to keep him in our own souls, we show that an unhealthy egotism has crept into our highest endeavours. Then this egotism will take revenge upon us. We shall be healed only if, after having found God within us, we pour out into the world, through our thoughts and feelings, our willing and doing, what we have inwardly gained. We are often told today, especially on the ground of Theosophy wrongly understood — and warnings against this can never be given too often — that you cannot find the divine in the outer world, for God dwells within you. You have only to take the right path into your inner life and you will find God there. I have even heard it said by someone who liked to flatter his audience: You have no need to learn or experience anything to do with the great secrets of the universe; you need only look within yourselves and there you will find God! An opposing view to this, must be made clear before we can approach the truth. A mediaeval thinker found the right thing to say about inward devotion, which is indeed justified if kept within its right limits. We must never forget that it is not untruths that do most harm, for the soul will soon detect them. Much worse are statements which are true under certain circumstances, but thoroughly false if they are misapplied. In a certain sense it is true to say that we have to seek for God within ourselves, but just because this is true, it is all the more harmful if it is not kept within its bounds. A mediaeval thinker said: “Who would search everywhere out-of-doors for a tool he needs when he knows for certain that it is in his house? He would be a fool if he did so. Equally foolish is someone who searches in the outer world for an instrument with which to gain knowledge of God when he has it within his own soul.” Notice the word he uses — tool or instrument ( Werkzeug ). It is not God himself that one should seek in one's own soul. God is sought by means of an instrument, and this at least will not be found in the outer world. It must be sought within the soul — through true prayer, through mystical devotion, meditation and concentration at various levels. With the aid of this instrument we must approach the kingdoms of the world. Then we shall find God everywhere, for he reveals himself in all the kingdoms of the world and at all stages of existence. Thus we seek in ourselves for the instrument, and with its aid we shall find God everywhere. Observations such as these on the nature of prayer are not popular today. How on earth — people say — can prayer change anything, whatever we may ask for? The course of the world follows necessary laws and we cannot alter them, but if we want to recognise a force, we must look for it where it is. Today we have sought for the power of prayer in the human soul, and we found that it is something which can help the soul forward. And anyone who knows that it is the spirit which works in the world — not an imaginary, abstract spirit but actual, active spirit — and that the human soul belongs to the realm of the spirit, will know that not only material forces, following unalterable laws, are at work in the world; but spiritual beings are also at work there, although their activities are not normally visible. If we strengthen our spiritual life through prayer, we need only wait for the effects; they will certainly come. But the effects of prayer in the outer world will be sought only by someone who has first recognised the power of prayer as a reality. Anyone who does recognise this might try the following experiment. Let him look back over a period of ten years during which he scorned prayer, and then over a second period of ten years during which he recognised its power. If he then compares the two periods, he will soon see how the course of his life has changed under the influence of the forces which prayer poured into his soul. Forces are made evident by their effects. It is easy to deny the existence of forces if nothing is done to call them forth. How can anyone have the right to deny the power of prayer if he has never sought to make it effective within him? Can we suppose that we should know the light if we had never kindled it or looked for it? We can learn to recognise a force which works in and through the soul only by making use of it. I must admit that the time is not yet ripe for going into the wider effects of prayer, however unbiased the discussion might be. The idea that a congregational prayer, in which the forces of all the participants flow together, has a heightened power and therefore an enhanced strength of reality — that is outside the grasp of ordinary thinking today. Hence we must be content with what we have brought before our souls with regard to the inner nature of prayer. And that is enough, for anyone who understands it will certainly see through many of the objections to prayer that are so easily advanced nowadays. What are these various objections? We are asked, for example, to contrast an active present-day man who uses his powers to help his fellow human beings with a man who quietly withdraws into himself and works on the forces of his soul through prayer — surely we must regard this second man as an idler compared with the first? You will pardon me if I say, out of a certain feeling for the knowledge of spiritual science, that another point of view exists. I will put it in a somewhat exaggerated way, but there are good grounds for it. Anyone familiar today with the underlying causes of life will feel that many writers of leading articles in newspapers would be rendering better service to their fellows if they prayed and worked for the improvement of their souls, far-fetched as this may sound. Would that more people were persuaded that to pray is more sensible than writing articles. The same could be said of many other intellectual occupations. Moreover, to understand the whole life of man, an understanding is necessary of the force that works through prayer, and this comes out with especial clarity if we look at particular aspects of cultural life. Who can fail to recognise that prayer, not in its one-sided egotistic sense but in the wider view of it that we have taken today, is a constituent of art? Certainly, in art we find also the quite different aspect expressed in comedy, in the humorous approach which raises itself above what it portrays. But there are also odes and hymns, which are not far removed from prayer, and even pictorial art shows examples of what could be called “prayers in paint.” And who would deny that in a great majestic cathedral we have something like a prayer expressed in stone and reaching heavenwards? If we are able to grasp all this in the context of life, we shall recognise that prayer, seen in accordance with its true nature, is one of the things that lead mankind out of the finite and the transient to the eternal. This was felt especially by those who found the way from prayer to mysticism, as did Angelus Silesius, mentioned today and in the previous lecture. He felt that he owed the inner truth and glorious beauty, the warm intimacy and shining clearness of his mystical thoughts — as shown for example in “The Cherubinean Traveller” — to his self-training in prayer, which had worked so powerfully on his soul. And what is it, fundamentally, that permeates and illuminates all mystics such as he? What is it but the feeling of eternity for which prayer has prepared them? Everyone who prays can have some intimation of this feeling, if through prayer he attains to true inner rest and inwardness, and then to liberation from himself. It is this intimation which allows us to look beyond the passing moment to eternity, and links past, present and future together in our souls. When we turn in prayer to those aspects of life where we seek for God, then — whether we are aware of it or not — the feelings, thoughts and words which enter into our praying will be permeated by the feeling for eternity which is expressed by Angelus Silesius in lines with which we may well conclude today. They can bring to every true prayer, even if unconsciously, something like a divine aroma and sweetness: Forsaking time, I am myself eternity, Then I am one with God, God one with me. 29 Angelus Silesius, Cherubinischer Wandersmann , Book 1, Verse B.

Metamorphoses of the Soul: Paths of Experience II

The Nature of Prayer

https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA059/English/RSP1983/19100217p02.html

Berlin

17 Feb 1910

GA059-4

It has probably become clear to those people who attended the lectures which I was permitted to hold here this winter more or less regularly that this lecture cycle has dealt with a series of far-reaching questions concerning the soul. It is the intention of today's lecture, also, to deal with such a question, namely the nature of sickness and healing . What might be said on the relevant facts in life from the point of view of spiritual science, in so far as they are only physical expressions of spiritual causes, was explained in earlier lectures held here — for example “Understanding Sickness and Death” 30 “Wie begreift man Krankheit und Tod”, Berlin, 13th December 1906, in: Die Erkenntnis des Übersinnlichen in unserer Zeit und deren Bedeutung für das heutige Leben , Rudolf Steiner Verlag, Dornach, Switzerland. (GA 55) or “Illusory Illness” and “The Feverish Pursuit of Health “. 31 “Der Krankheitswahn im Lichte der Geisteswissenschaft”, Berlin, 13th February 1908; “Das Gesundheitsfieber im Lichte der Geisteswissenschaft”, Berlin, 27th February 1908. The parallel lectures held in Munich (3rd and 5th December 1907) are printed in Die Erkenntnis der Seele und des Geistes , Rudolf Steiner Verlag, Dornach, Switzerland. (GA 56) Today I want to deal with significantly deeper questions in the understanding of sickness and healing. Sickness, healing and sometimes the fatal course of some illnesses deeply affect the human life. And since we have inquired repeatedly into the preconditions, the spiritual foundations which lie at the base of our reflections here, we are justified in also inquiring into the spiritual causes of these far-reaching facts and consequences of human existence. In other words, what can spiritual science say about these experiences? We will have to investigate deeply once again the meaning of human life as it develops in order to clarify how illness, health, death and healing stand in relation to the normal course of development of the human being. For we see the events referred to affecting this normal course of development. Do they perhaps contribute something to our development? Do they advance or retard us in our development? We can only reach a clear conception of these events if here, too, we take the whole of the human being into account. We have often said here that the latter is constituted of four members: first, the physical body which the human being has in common with all mineral beings of his environment which take their form from the physical and chemical forces within them. The second member of the human being we have always called the ether or life body. This he has in common with all living things; that is, with the plant and animal beings of his environment. Then we spoke of the astral body as the third member of man's being; this is the bearer of pleasure and pain, joy and sorrow, of all the emotions, images, thoughts and so on which flood through us throughout the day. This astral body the human being has in common only with the animal world of his environment. And then there is the highest member of the human being which makes him the crown of creation; the bearer of the ego, his self-consciousness. When we consider these four members, we can say in the first instance that there appear to be certain differences between them, even to the superficial view. The physical human body is there when we look at the human being, at ourselves, from outside. The external physical sense organs can observe the physical body. With the thinking which is tied to these organs, the thinking which is tied to the instrument of the brain, we can understand this physical body of the human being. It is revealed to our external observation. The relation to the human astral body is quite different. We have already seen from previous descriptions that the astral body is only an outward fact, so to speak, for the truly clairvoyant consciousness; the latter can see the astral body in the same way as the physical one only by schooling the consciousness as has been frequently described. In ordinary life the astral body of the human being is not observable from the outside; the eye can only see the outer expression of the instincts, desires, passions, thoughts and feelings which surge through it. But in contrast, the human being observes within himself these experiences of the astral body. He observes what we call the instincts, desires, passions, joy and sorrow, pleasure and pain. Thus it can be said that the relationship between the astral and the physical body is such that in normal life we observe the former internally, but the physical body externally. Now in a certain sense the other two members of the human being, the ether body and the bearer of the ego, are situated between these two extremes. The physical body is observable purely from the outside, the astral body purely from the inside. But the intermediary member between the physical body and the astral body is the ether body. It cannot be observed from the outside, but it affects the outside. The forces, the inner experiences of the astral body initially have to be transferred to the ether body; only then can they act on the physical instrument, the physical body. The ether body acts as an intermediary member between the astral body and the physical body, forming a link between outside and inside. We can no longer see it with the physical eyes, but that which we can see with the physical eyes is an instrument of the astral body only because the ether body is connected towards the outside with the physical body. Now in a certain sense the ego acts from the inside to the outside, whilst the ether body acts from the outside inwards to the astral body; for by means of the ego and the way it affects the astral body the human being gains knowledge of the outside world, the physical environment, from which the physical body itself originates. Animal existence takes place without individual, personal knowledge because the animal does not have an individual ego. The animal inwardly lives through all the experiences of the astral body, but does not use its pleasure and pain, sympathy or antipathy to gain knowledge of the outside world. What we call pleasure and pain, joy and sorrow, sympathy or antipathy are all experiences of the astral body in the animal; but the animal does not commute its pleasure into a celebration of the beauty of the world, but it remains within the element which causes the pleasure. The animal lives immediately within its pain; the human being is guided by his pain beyond himself into discovery of the world because the ego leads him out again and unites him with the outside world. Thus we see on the one hand how the ether body is directed inwards into the human being towards the astral body, whereas the ego leads into the outside world, into the physical world which surrounds us. The human being leads an alternating life. This alternating life can be observed everyday. From the moment of waking in the morning we observe in the human soul all the in and out flooding experiences of the astral body — joy and sorrow, pleasure and pain, feelings, images, etc. We see how at night these experiences sink down to a level of undefined darkness as the astral body and the ego enter an unconscious, or perhaps better said, subconscious state. When we look at the waking human being between morning and evening, the physical body, ether body, astral body and ego are interwoven, are inter-linked in their effects. When the human being goes to sleep at night, the occult consciousness can see that the physical body and the ether body remain in bed and that the astral body and the ego return to their proper home in the spiritual world, that they withdraw from the physical body and the ether body. It is possible to describe this in still a different way which will enable us to deal with the present subject in the appropriate way. The physical body, which only presents us with its outward aspect, sleep remains in the physical world as the outward human being and keeps the ether body, the mediator between inner and outer, with it. That is why in the sleeping human being there can be no mediation between outer and inner because the ether body, as mediator, has entered the outside world. Thus one can say in a certain sense that in the sleeping human being the physical body and the ether body are merely the outer human being; one could even describe the physical and ether bodies as the “outer human being” per se , even though the ether body is the mediator between outer and inner. In contrast, the astral body in the sleeping human being can be described as the “inner human being”. These terms are also true of the waking human being, because all the experiences of the astral body are inner experiences under normal circumstances and what the ego gains in knowledge of the outside world in waking life is taken up inwardly by the human being to be assimilated as learning. The external becomes internalised through the ego. This demonstrates that we can speak of an “outward” and an “inward” human being, the former consisting of a physical and ether body, the latter of ego and astral body. Now let us observe the so-called normal human life and its development in essence. Let us ask the question: Why does the human being return with his astral body and his ego to the spiritual world every night? Is there any reason for the human being to go to sleep? This subject has been mentioned before, but it is necessary for the topic we are dealing with today. Normal developments have to be understood in order to recognise the apparently abnormal states as they manifest themselves in sickness and healing. Why does the human being go to sleep every night? An understanding of this can only be reached if one considers fully the relationship between the astral body and the ego and the “outer human being”. We described the astral body as the bearer of pleasure and pain, joy and sorrow, of instincts, desires, passions, of the surging imagination, perceptions, ideas and feelings. But if the astral body is the bearer of all these things, why is it that at night the human being does not have these experiences, even though the actual inner human being is connected with the astral body in such a manner that the physical and the ether bodies are not present? Why is it that during this period these experiences sink down into an undefined darkness? The reason is that the astral body and the ego, although they are the bearers of joy and sorrow, judgments, the imagination, etc., cannot experience directly those things of which they are the bearers. In our human life the astral body and the ego under normal circumstances are dependent on the physical body and the ether body for awareness of their own experiences. Our soul-life is not something which is immediately experienced by the astral body. If this were the case, then we would also experience it during the night when we remain united with the astral body. Our daytime soul-life is like an echo or a mirror-image. The physical body and the ether body reflect the experiences of the astral body. Everything which our soul conjures up for us between waking up and going to sleep, it can only do because it sees its own experiences in the mirror of the physical and ether or life bodies. At the moment when we leave the physical and ether bodies at night we still have all the experiences of the astral body in us but we are not conscious of them because in order to be conscious of them the reflecting qualities of the physical body and the ether body are required. Thus in the whole of our life as it takes its course from waking up in the morning to going to sleep at night we see an interaction between the inner and the outer human being, between the ego and the astral body on the one hand and the physical body and the ether body on the other. The forces which are at work here are the forces of the astral body and the ego. For under no circumstances could the physical body as the sum of physical attributes bring forth our soul-life out of itself and neither could the ether body. The reflecting forces come from the astral body and the ego in the same way as the image which we see in the mirror does not originate in the mirror but in the object which is reflected in the mirror. Thus all the forces which cause our soul-life lie in the astral body and the ego, in the inward nature of the human being. And they become active in the interaction between inner and outer world, they reach out, so to speak, for our physical and ether bodies, but at night we see them enter the state which we call “tiredness”. We see them exhausted at night. And we would be unable to continue our life if we were not in a position to enter a different world each night than the one which we inhabit from morning to evening. In the world which we inhabit when we are awake we can make our soul-life perceptible, we can create it before our soul. That we do with the forces of the astral body. But we also exhaust these forces and cannot replenish them out of our waking life. We can only replenish them out of the spiritual world which we enter each night and that is why we sleep. We would be unable to live without entering the world of night and fetching from the spiritual world the forces which we use during the day. Thus the question what we bring into the physical world when we enter our ether and physical bodies is answered. But do we not also carry something from the physical world into the spiritual world at night? That is the second question, and it is just as important as the first one. In order to answer this question, we have to deal with a number of things which are a part of normal human life. In ordinary life we have so-called experiences. These experiences are significant in our life between birth and death. An example which has often been mentioned here will illuminate this, the example of learning to write. When we put pen to paper in order to express our thoughts, we practise the art of writing. We can write, but what are the conditions required that we can do so? It is necessary that in a certain span of existence between birth and death we have a whole series of experiences. Think of all the things which you went through as a child, from the first clumsy attempts to hold the pen, put it to paper, etc., etc. One might well thank God that one does not have to recall all those things. Because it would be a dreadful situation if every time that we wanted to write we had to recall all the unsuccessful attempts at tracing the lines, perhaps also the punishments connected therewith, and so on in order to develop what we call the art of writing. What has taken place? Development in an important sense has taken place in the human life between birth and death. We have had a whole series of experiences. These experiences took place over a long period of time. Then they were refined, as it were, into an essence which we call the “ability” to write. All the other things have sunk into the indeterminate shadow of forgetfulness. But there is no need to remember them, because our soul has developed to a higher stage from these experiences: our memories flow together into essences which appear in life as our capabilities and abilities. That is our development in the existence between birth and death. Experiences are transformed initially into abilities of the soul which can then come to expression by means of the outer tools of the physical body. All personal experiences between birth and death take place in such a manner that they are transformed into abilities and also into wisdom. We can gain an insight into how this transformation takes place if we take a look at the period between 1770 and 1815. A significant historical event took place during this period. A large number of people were contemporaries of this event. How did they respond to it? Some of them did not notice the events passing by them. Impassively they neglected to turn the events into knowledge, wisdom of the world. Others transformed them into a deep wisdom, they extracted the essence. How are experiences transformed in the soul into ability and wisdom? They are transformed by being taken in their immediate form into our sleep each night, into those spheres where the soul or the inner human being reside during the night. There the experiences which occur over a period of time are changed into essences. Any observer of life knows that if one wants to master and co-ordinate a series of experiences in a single sphere of activity it is necessary to transform these experiences in periods of sleep. For example, a thing is best learnt by heart by learning it, sleeping on it, learning it again, sleeping on it again. If one is not able to immerse the experiences in sleep in order for them to emerge as abilities or in the form of wisdom or art, then they will not be developed. This is the expression on a higher level of what we are faced with as necessity on a lower one. This year's plant cannot become next year's one if it does not return to the dark lap of the earth in order to grow again the following year. Here development remains repetition. Where it is illuminated with the human spirit it is a true “development”. The experiences descend into the nocturnal lap of the unconscious and they are brought forth again, initially still as repetition; but eventually they will have been transformed to such an extent that they can emerge as wisdom, as abilities, as life experience. Thus life was understood in times when it was still possible to observe the spiritual worlds more deeply than is the case today. That is why, where leading personalities of ancient cultures wanted to speak of certain things by means of an image we see indications of these significant foundations of human life. What would someone have to do if he wanted to prevent a series of daytime experiences catching fire in his soul and being transformed into certain abilities? What, for example, happens when someone experiences a certain relationship with another person over a period of time? These experiences with the other person descend into the night-time consciousness and re-emerge from night-time consciousness as love for another person, which, when it is healthy, is an essence, as it were, of the consecutive experiences. The feeling of love for the other person has come about in such a way that the sum of experiences has been drawn together into unity, as if woven into a fabric. Now what would someone have to do to prevent a series of experiences turning into love? He would have to take the special measure of preventing the nightly natural process which turns our experience into essence, the feeling of love, from taking place. He would have to unravel again at night the fabric of daytime experience. If he can manage this his achievement is that his experience of the other person, which turns into love in his soul, has no effect on him. Homer was alluding to these depths of human soul-life in his image of Penelope and her suitors. 32 See Odyssey , 19th Book, 1.137 ff. She promises marriage to each one after she has completed a certain fabric. She manages to avoid having to keep her promise only by unravelling each night what she has woven during the day. Great depths are revealed where the seer is also artist. Today there is little feeling left for these things and such interpretations of poets who were also seers are declared arbitrary and phantastical. This can harm neither the ancient poets nor the truth, but only our time, which is thus prevented from entering into the depths of human life. Thus something is taken into the soul at night which returns again. Something is taken into the soul which the soul develops and which raises it to ever higher levels of ability. But now it must be asked: where does this development of the human being reach its limit? This frontier can be recognised if we observe how the human being when he wakes up in the morning always returns to the same physical body and ether body with the same abilities and talents, the same configuration which they have possessed from birth. This configuration, these inner structures and forms of the physical and ether bodies cannot be altered by human being. If we were able to take the physical or, at least, the ether body into the state of sleep then we would be able to change them. But in the morning we find them again unchanged from the evening. Here there is a clear limitation to what can be achieved by development in the life between birth and death. Development between birth and death is essentially restricted to experiences of the soul; it cannot extend to physical experience. Thus for all the opportunities someone might have to pass through experiences which could deepen his musical appreciation, to awaken in his soul a profound musical life, it could not be developed if he did not have a musical ear, if the physical and etheric formation of his ear did not permit him to establish the harmony between the outer and the inner human being. In order for the human being to be whole, all the members of his being have to form a unity, to be in harmony. That is why all the opportunities which a person with an unmusical ear might have to go through experiences which would enable him to rise to a higher level of musical appreciation have to remain in the soul, have to resign themselves. They cannot come to fruition because the boundary is drawn each morning by the structure and form of the internal organs. These things are not dependent merely on the more rough structures of the physical and ether bodies but on very subtle relationships therein. Every function of the soul in our current normal life has to find expression in an organ; and if the organ is not formed in a suitable way then this is prevented. Those things which cannot be demonstrated by physiology and anatomy, the subtle sculpting within the organs, are precisely the things which are incapable of transformation between birth and death. Is the human being completely powerless, then, to transfuse into his physical and ether bodies the events and experiences which he has taken into his astral body and ego? For when we look at people we can see that the human being can even shape his physical body within limits. One only needs to observe a person who has spent ten years of his life in deep inner contemplation: the gestures and physiognomy will have changed. But this occurs within very narrow confines. Is it always the case? That this is not always confined to the narrowest of limitations can only be understood if we take recourse to a law which we have often mentioned here, but which needs to be recalled frequently because it is so alien to our present time, a law which can be compared with another one which became established for mankind in the 17th century on a lower level. Up until the 17th century it was believed that the lower animals, insects, etc., could originate from river mud. It was believed that nothing more than pure matter was required to generate earth-worms and insects. This was thought to be true not only by amateurs but also by scholars. If we go back to earlier times we find that everything was systematised in such a way that, for example, instructions were given on how to create life from the environment. Thus a book from the 7th century AD 33 The reference is to the work De Natura Rerum by Isidore of Seville, c. 560-636, the last Occidental Church Father. Cf. also Rudolf Steiner's lecture of 18th January 1912 in Menschengeschichte im Lichte der Geistesforschung , Rudolf Steiner Verlag, Dornach, Switzerland. (GA 61) describes how the carcass of a horse has to be beaten tender in order to create bees. Similarly bullocks created hornets, donkeys, wasps. It was in the 17th century that the great scientist Francesco Redi 34 Francesco Redi, 1626–1698. Italian doctor, scientist and poet. Cf. his work Osservazione intorno agli animali viventi che si trovano negli animali viventi , 1684. first pronounced the axiom: life can only originate from life! Because of this truth, which is taken as self-evident today so that no one can understand how anything else could ever have been believed, Redi was considered a dreadful heretic still in the 17th century and he barely escaped the fate of Giordano Bruno. It is always like that with such truths. At first those who proclaim them are branded as heretics and fall prey to the inquisition. In the past people were burned or threatened with burning. Today this type of inquisition has been abandoned. No one is burnt anymore. But those who today sit on the curule chair of science regard all those who proclaim a new, higher level of truth to be fools and dreamers. People who today espouse in a different way the axiom regarding living things which Francesco Redi put forward in the 17th century are considered to be fools and dreamers. Redi pointed out that it is inexact observation to believe that life can originate immediately from dead matter but that it must be traced back to similar living matter, to the embryo which draws its matter and strength from the environment. Similarly spiritual science today must point out that what enters existence as soul and spiritual nature must originate from soul and spirit and is not an assembly of inherited characteristics. As the embryonic form of the earth-worm draws on the matter of its environment to develop, so the soul and spiritual kernel equally has to draw on the substances of its environment in order to develop. If we pursue the soul and spiritual nature in the human being backwards, we come to an earlier soul and spiritual element which exists before birth and which has nothing to do with heredity. The axiom that soul-spiritual elements can only arise from soul-spiritual elements entails in the last instance the axiom of repeated earth lives, of which a closer study of spiritual science furnishes the proof. Our life between birth and death leads back to other lives which we went through in earlier times. The soul and spiritual element originates in the soul and in the spirit, and the causes of our present experiences between birth and death lie in a previous soul and spiritual existence. When we pass through the gates of death we take with us what we assimilated in this life as transformation from causes into abilities. This we return with when we enter a future existence through birth. In the time between death and birth we are in different circumstances than when we enter the spiritual world each night through sleep from which we wake up again in the morning. When we wake up in the morning, we find our physical and ether bodies as we left them the previous evening. We cannot transform them with our experiences in life between birth and death. We find our limitation in the finished ether and physical bodies. But when we enter the spiritual world through the gate of death we leave the physical and ether bodies behind and retain only the essence of the ether body. In the spiritual world we have no need to take account of an existing physical and ether body. In the whole period between death and a new birth the human being can work with purely spiritual forces, he is dealing with purely spiritual substance. He takes from the spiritual world what he requires to create the archetype of his new physical body and ether body and forms these archetypes up to the time of his new birth, weaving into them all the experiences which the soul was unable to utilise between birth and death in the previous physical and ether bodies. Then the moment arrives when this purely spiritual archetypal image has been finished and when the human being is able to sculpt into the physical and ether bodies what he has woven into the archetypal image; the archetype is thus active in this particular state of sleep which the human being is passing through. If the human being were able to bring with him in a similar manner his physical body and ether body each morning on waking up, then he would be able to form them from out of the spiritual world; but he would also have to transform them. But birth means waking up from a state of sleep which encompasses the physical and ether bodies in the existence before birth. It is at this point that the astral body and ego descend into the physical world, into the physical body and the ether body, into which they can now sculpt everything which they could not form into the complete bodies of the previous life. Now, in a new life, they can express in an ether body and a physical body everything which they were able to raise to a higher stage of development but which they were unable to put into practice in the previous life because the complete ether body and physical body made it impossible. Were we not able to destroy our physical and ether bodies, were the physical body unable to pass through death, it would be impossible to integrate our experiences into our development. However much we regard death with fear and shock and feel pain and sorrow at the death which will affect us, an objective view of the world teaches us in fact: we have to want death! For death alone gives us the opportunity to destroy this body in order to enable us to construct a new one in the next life so that we can bring into life all the fruits of earthly existence. Thus two currents are active together in the normal course of human life: an inner and an outer. These two currents reveal themselves to us in parallel in the physical and the ether bodies on the one hand and in the astral body and the ego on the other. What can the human being do between birth and death in relation to the physical and ether bodies? Not only the astral body is exhausted by the life of the soul, but the organs of the physical body and the ether body are also exhausted. We can now observe the following: whilst the astral body is in the spiritual world during the night, it also works on the physical body and the ether body to restore them to their normal state. Only in sleep can what has been destroyed during the day in the physical and ether bodies be restored. Thus the spiritual world does indeed work on the physical and ether bodies, but with limitations. The abilities and structure of the physical body and ether body are given at birth and cannot alter except within very narrow margins. Two streams are active in cosmic development, as it were, which cannot abstractly be made to harmonize. If someone tried to unite these two streams in abstract reflection, tried to develop lightly a philosophy which said: “Well, the human being has to be in harmony, therefore the two streams have to be harmonious in man!” he would be making an enormous error. Life does not work according to abstractions. Life works in such a way that these abstract visions can only be achieved after long periods of development. Life works in such a manner that it creates states of equilibrium and harmony only by passing through stages of disharmony. This is the living interaction in the human being and indeed it is not meant to be made harmonious by reflection. It is always an indication of abstract, dry thinking if a harmony is imagined into a situation where life has to develop towards a stage of balance through disharmony. It is the fate of human development that we must have harmony as an aim which cannot, however, be reached if it is merely imagined into a given stage of human development. It will now be easier to understand when spiritual science says that life presents different aspects, depending on whether we regard it from the point of view of the inner or outer human being. The person who wanted to combine these two aspects by some abstraction would leave out of account that there is more than one ideal, one judgment, but that there are as many judgments as there are points of view and that it is only when these different points of view act together that the truth can be found. This allows us to assume that life's view of the inner human being might be different from its view of the outer human being. An example will make clear that truths are relative, depending on whether they are regarded from one aspect or another. It is certainly quite appropriate for a giant who has a hand the size of a small child to talk of his little finger. Whether a dwarf the size of the small child can also talk of the giant's little finger is another matter. Things by necessity are complementary truths. There is no absolute truth as regards outer things. Things have to be looked at from all different points of view and truth has to be found through the individual truths which illuminate one another. That is also the reason why in life as we can observe it the outer human being, physical body and ether body, and the inner human being, astral body and ego, need not in a given period of life be in complete harmony. If there were complete harmony then the case would be that when the human being enters the spiritual world at night he would take the events of the day with him and would transform them into the essence of ability, of wisdom, and so on, and the forces which he brought with him from the spiritual world in the morning into the physical world would be used only in relation to the soul life. But the frontier which we described and which is drawn for the physical body would never be crossed. Then, also, there would be no human development. The human being has to learn to take note of these limitations himself; he has to make them part of his judgment. The possibility must be given for him to breach these limits to the greatest possible extent. And he breaches them continually! In real life these frontiers are crossed continually so that for example the astral body and the ego do not keep within the limits when they affect the physical body. But in doing so they breach the laws of the physical body. We then observe such breaches as irregularities, as disorganisation of the physical body, as the appearance of sickness, caused by action of the spirit — the astral body and the ego. Limits can be breached also in other ways, namely that the human being as inner being does not manage to correlate with the outside world, that he fails to relate fully to the outside world. This can be shown in a very dramatic example. When the famous eruption of Mount Pelee 35 Volcano on the West Indian island of Martinique; largest eruption on 8th May 1902. in Central America took place, very noteworthy and instructive documents were found in the ruins afterwards. In one of them it said: “You need not fear any more because the danger is past; there will be no more eruptions. This is shown by the laws which we have recognised as the laws of nature.” These documents, which stated that further volcanic eruptions were impossible according to the current state of knowledge of nature, had been buried — and with them the scholars who had written these documents on the basis of their normal scholarly knowledge. A tragic event took place here. But that precisely demonstrated the disharmony of the human being with the physical world quite clearly. There can be no doubt that the intelligence of the scholars who investigated these natural laws would have been adequate to find the truth if they had been sufficiently trained. For they were not lacking in intelligence. But although intelligence is necessary, it is insufficient on its own, Animals, for example, leave an area if such an event is imminent. That is a well-known fact. Only the domesticated animals perish with the human beings. The so-called animal instinct is therefore sufficient to develop a far greater wisdom as far as those future events are concerned than human wisdom today. “Intelligence” is not the decisive factor; our current intellect is present also in those who commit the greatest follies. Intelligence is therefore not lacking. What is lacking is sufficiently matured experience of events. As soon as the intelligence lays something down which appears plausible to its narrow limited experience it can come into disharmony with the real outward events and then the outer events break down around it. For there is a relationship between the physical body and the world which the human being will gradually learn to recognise and grasp with the forces which he possesses today already. But he will only be able to do this once he has accrued and assimilated the experiences of the outside world. Then the harmony which will have developed as a result of this experience will have been created by no other intellect than the one we have today; for it is precisely in the present that our intellect has developed to a certain stage. The only thing lacking is the ripening of experience. If the maturing of experience does not correspond to the outside then the human being becomes disharmonious with the outside world and can be broken on events in the outer world. We have seen in an extreme example how disharmony between the physical bodies of the scholars and the stage which they had reached inwardly in the development of their soul came about. Such disharmony occurs not only when momentous events happen to us; such disharmony is given in principle and in essence always when any outer harm befalls our physical and ether bodies, when outer harm affects the outer human being in such a way that he is not capable of countering this harm with his inner forces, to ban it from his life. This applies whether it is externally visible or an internal sickness, which is, however, in reality only an external one. For if we have an upset stomach, then that is essentially the same as if a brick drops on our head. This is the situation which occurs when conflict arises — or is allowed to arise between the inner human being and the external world, when the inner human being cannot match the outer human being. Fundamentally all illnesses are such disharmony, such breaching of the division between inner and outer human being. Something is created by the continual breach of these divisions which will become harmony only in the far distant future, which remains an abstraction if our thinking tries to impose it on our life. The human being only develops his inner life by beginning to realise that at his present stage he is not yet able to match outer life. This is true not only of the ego, but also of the astral body. The human being experiences consciously between waking up and going to sleep those things which are penetrated by the ego. The working of the astral body, the way in which it breaches its limits and is impotent to create proper harmony between the inner and the outer human being, lies outside normal human consciousness. But it is present, nevertheless. All these things reveal the deeper inner nature of sickness. What are the two possible courses which an illness can take? Either healing or death occurs. In the normal development of life death must be seen as the one side and healing as the other. What does healing signify for the development of the human being? First of all it must be clarified what sickness means for the overall development of the human being. In sickness there is disharmony between the inner and the outer human being. In a certain way the inner human being has to withdraw from the outer one. A simple example is when we cut our finger. We can only cut the physical body, not the astral. But the astral body always transfuses the physical one and the result is that the astral body does not find in the cut finger what it should find when it penetrates into its smallest recesses. It feels disconnected from the physical part of the finger. That, in essence, is the nature of a whole number of illnesses that the inner human being feels disconnected from the outer, that it cannot penetrate the outer human being because an injury causes a division. Now health can be restored to the human being by outer means or the inner human being can be strengthened to such an extent that it is able to heal the outer human being. The link between outer and inner human being is re-established to a greater or lesser degree after healing, the inner human being can again live in the healed outer one. This is a process which can be compared to waking up: after an artificial withdrawal by the inner human being we return to the experiences which are only available in the outside world. Healing makes it possible for the human being to return with those things which he could not otherwise bring back. The healing process is assimilated into the inner human being and becomes an integral part of this inner human being. Return to health, healing, is something which we can look back on with satisfaction because in a similar manner that sleep makes the inner human being progress we are given something by healing which allows the inner human being to progress. Even if it is not immediately visible, we are elevated in our soul experience, are enhanced in our inner human being by a return to health. In sleep we take with us into the spiritual world the things we have won through healing and the latter is therefore something which strengthens us as far as the forces which we develop in sleep are concerned. All these thoughts on the mysterious relationship between healing and sleep could be developed in full if there were the time, but it can be seen, nevertheless, how healing can be equated with what we take into the spiritual world at night; with that which brings progress into our processes of development in so far as they can be made to progress at all between birth and death. Those things which in normal life we draw in from outer experience come to expression in our soul-life between birth and death as higher development. But not everything which assimilated through healing emerges again. We can also take it through the gate of death and it can be of benefit to us in the next life. But spiritual science shows us the following: we should be thankful each time that we are healed, for each healing signifies an enhancement of our inner human being which can only be achieved with the forces which we have assimilated inwardly. The other question is: what is the significance for the human being of the illness which ends in death? In a certain sense it means the opposite, that we cannot restore the disturbed balance between the inner and the outer human being, that we cannot in the correct way cross the frontier between the inner and the outer human being in this life. As we have to accept our unchanged healthy body when we wake up in the morning we have to accept our unchanged damaged body when an illness ends with death and are incapable of making it change. The healthy body remains as it is and receives us in the morning; the damaged body can no longer receive us and we end up in death. We have to leave the body because we are no longer able to re-establish its harmony. But we then take our experiences into the spiritual world without the benefit of an outer body. The fruits which we gain as a result of our damaged body no longer receiving us become an enrichment for the life between death and a new birth. Thus, also, we have to be thankful to an illness which ends in death because it gives us the opportunity of enhancing the life between death and a new birth and to gather together the forces and experiences which can only mature during that time. Thus we have here the consequences for the soul of illnesses which end in death and illnesses which end in healing. That gives us two aspects: we can be thankful to an illness which ends in healing because we have become strengthened in our inner self; and we can be thankful to an illness which ends in death because we know: in the higher stage which we enter in the life between death and a new birth death is of great significance for us because we will have learnt from it that our body must be different when we construct it for the future. And we will avoid the harmful aspects which caused us to fail before. The healing process makes our inner life progress, death influences the development in the outer world. The necessity therefore arises that we take two different points of view. Nobody should think that it would be correct to say from the point of view of spiritual science: if death, which results from illness is something for which we must be grateful, if the course of an illness is something which elevates us in our next life, then we should really permit all illness to end in death and not make any attempt at healing! To speak like that would not be in the spirit of spiritual science, for the latter is not concerned with abstractions but with those truths which are arrived at from different points of view. We have the duty to make every attempt at healing with all the means at our disposal. The task to heal to the best of our ability lies embedded in the human consciousness. Thus the view that death, when it occurs, is something to be grateful for is not one which is normally present in ordinary human consciousness, but can only be won if we transcend it. From the “viewpoint of the gods” it is justified to let an illness end in death; from the human viewpoint it is justified only to do everything to bring about healing. An illness which ends in death cannot be judged on the same level. Initially these two views are irreconcilable and they have to progress in parallel. Any abstract harmonising is of no use here. Spiritual science has to advance to a recognition of the truths which stem from one particular side of life and of other truths which are representative of another side. The sentence “healing is good, healing is a duty” is correct. But so is the other sentence “death is good when it occurs as the result of illness; death is beneficial for overall human development.” Although these two sentences contradict one another, both of them contain living truths which can be recognised by living knowledge. Precisely where two streams, which can only be made harmonious in the future, enter human life it is possible to see the error of thinking in stereotypes and the necessity to regard life in broad outline. It has to be clearly understood that so-called contradictions, when they refer only to experience and a deeper knowledge of the matter, do not limit our knowledge but lead us gradually into a living knowledge because life itself develops towards harmony. Normal life proceeds in such a manner that we create abilities from experiences and that the things which we cannot assimilate between birth and death are woven into the fabric which we then make use of between death and a new birth. Healing and fatal illness intertwine with this normal course of human life in such a manner that every healing is a contribution to the elevation of the human being to a higher stage, and every fatal illness, too, leads the human being to higher levels. The former as far as the inner human being is concerned and the latter as far as the outer human being is concerned. Thus there is progress in the world in that it moves not in one but in two opposing currents. It is precisely in sickness and healing that the complexities of human life become visible. If sickness and health did not exist, normal life could only proceed in such a manner that the human being would spin the thread of his life hanging on to the apron strings of existence, never going beyond his limits. And the forces to construct his body anew would be given to him from the spiritual world between death and a new birth. In such a situation the human being would never be able to unfold the fruits of his own labour in the development of the world. These fruits can be unfolded by the human being in the close confines of life only in that he can err. For only by a knowledge of error can truth be arrived at. It is only possible to assimilate truth such that it becomes part of the soul, such that it influences development, if it is extracted from the fertile soul of error. The human being could be perfectly healthy if he did not interfere in life with his errors and imperfections by breaching his limits. But health which has the same origins as the inwardly recognised truth, health for which the human being wrestles from one incarnation to the next with his own life, such health only comes about through the reality of mistakes, through illness. The human being learns to overcome his mistakes and errors in healing on the one hand, and on the other he meets the mistakes which he was not able to overcome in life in the existence between death and a new life so that he learns to surmount them in the next life. We can now return to our dramatic example and say: the intellect of those scholars who made such a wrong judgment at the time will not only become more cautious in jumping to conclusions, but it will let the experience ripen in order gradually to create harmony with life. Thus it can be observed how healing and sickness affect human life so that the human being could never achieve his aims by his own effort without them. We can see how their seemingly abnormal intervention in our development belongs to human existence, as does error, if our aim is to recognise truth. We could say the same about sickness and healing as a great poet in an important epoch said about human error: “The striving human being errs.” 36 Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Faust I , Prologue in Heaven, 1.317. This might give the impression as if the poet had wanted to say: “The human being always errs!” But the sentence is reversible and might be said: “Let the human being strive whilst he still errs!” Error gives birth to renewed striving. The sentence “The striving human being errs” need not, therefore, fill us with despair, for every error brings forth new striving and the human being will continue to strive until he has overcome the error. That is as much as to say that error in itself points beyond itself and leads to human truth. And similarly it can be said: sickness may occur in the human being, but he must develop. Through illness he develops to health. Thus illness points beyond itself in healing and even in death, and produces a state of health which is not alien to man but which grows out of the human being and is in accord with this being. Everything which appears in this context is well suited to showing us how the world in the wisdom of its existence avails the human being at every stage of his development of the opportunity to grow beyond himself in the sense of the saying by Angelus Silesius with which we concluded the lecture “What is Mysticism?” At that time we were referring to more intimate spheres of development; now we can expand its meaning to the whole field of sickness and healing and we can truly say: If you transcend yourself in God's prevailing, Then in your spirit will ascension reign! 37 See note 20.

Metamorphoses of the Soul: Paths of Experience II

Sickness and Healing

https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA059/English/RSP1983/19100303p01.html

Berlin

3 Mar 1910

GA059-5

If we examine the human soul, comparing one individual with another, we find the greatest possible variety. In these lectures we have spoken of some typical differences and the reasons for them, relating them to character, temperament, capacities, forces and so on. One significant difference, the difference between positive and negative man, will occupy us today. At the start, I want to make it clear that this treatment of the subject — which will be fully in keeping with my other lectures — has nothing in common with the superficial but popular descriptions of people as positive and negative. Our account will stand entirely on its own ground. We might first look round for a kind of clarifying definition of what is meant by a positive or negative person, and thus we might say: In the sense of a true and penetrating teaching concerning human souls, we could designate a positive person as one who, in face of all the impressions pouring in on him from the outer world, is able to maintain the firmness and security of his inner being, at least up to a certain point. Hence he will have clear-cut ideas and concepts, together with certain inclinations and aversions, which outer impressions cannot disturb. Again, his actions follow certain urges and impulses which will not be affected by whatever transient impressions may come to him from daily life. A negative man, on the other hand, can be described as one who readily submits to changing impressions and is strongly influenced by ideas which come to him from this or that person or group. Hence he is easily impelled to change what he had been thinking or feeling and to take something different into his soul. In his actions he is drawn away from his own impulses by all kinds of influences from other people. These could be our definitions, roughly speaking. But if we inquire how these deeply rooted characteristics of human nature work out in practice, we shall soon be convinced that we have gained very little from our definitions and that to search for any such convenient labels is fairly useless. For if we try to apply them to real life we have to say: A man of strong passions and impulses, which have carried a certain enduring stamp since childhood, will have allowed all sorts of good and bad examples to pass him by without affecting his habits. He will have formed certain ideas and concepts about this or that and he will stick to them, whatever other facts may be brought before him. Countless obstacles will mount up before he can be convinced of anything different. Such a man would indeed be positive, but it would lead to nothing for him but a dull life, shut off from new impressions, seeing and hearing nothing that could enrich or enlarge his experience. The other type of man, ready at any time to welcome new impressions and always prepared to correct his ideas if facts go against them, would become — perhaps in a relatively short time — a quite different being. As he goes through successive periods in his life he will seem to be hastening on from one interest to another, so that the character of his life will be quite transformed as time goes on. Compared with the other, “positive” type of man, he will certainly have made more of life — but according to our definition we should have to call him “negative”. Again, a man of robust character, whose life is governed by custom and routine, might be led by the fashion of the moment to travel in a country richly endowed with art treasures. But he has loaded his soul with so many fixed responses that he passes by one work of art after another, at most consulting his Baedeker to see which are the most important, and finally he goes home with his soul not in the least enriched by all this trailing from gallery to gallery, from landscape to landscape. We would have to call him a very positive man. By contrast, someone else might follow much the same course of travel, but his character is such that he gives himself up to every picture, loses himself enthusiastically in it, and so it is with the next picture and the next. Thus he passes along with a soul that surrenders to every detail, with the result each impression is wiped out by the next, and he returns home with a kind of chaos in his soul. He is a very negative person, the exact opposite of the other man. We could go on giving the most varied examples of the two types. We could describe as negative a person who has learnt so much that on every subject his judgment is uncertain; he no longer knows what is true or false and has become a sceptic with regard to life and knowledge. Another man might absorb just as many of the same impressions, but he works on them and knows how to fit them into the whole of his acquired wisdom. He would be a positive man in the best sense of the word. A child can be tyrannically positive towards grown-ups if it asserts its own inherent nature and tries to reject everything opposed to it. Or a man who has been through many experiences, errors and disappointments may nevertheless surrender to every new impression and may still be easily elated or depressed: compared with the child he will be a negative type. In brief, it is only when we allow the whole of a man's life, to work upon us, not in accordance with any theoretical ideas but in all its variety, and if we use concepts only as an aid in ordering the facts and events of a life, that we can rightly approach these decisive questions concerning positive and negative man. For in discussing the individual peculiarities of human souls we touch on something of the utmost importance. If we did not have to think of man in all his completeness as a living entity, subject to what we call evolution — so often discussed here — these questions would be much simpler. We see the human soul passing from one stage of evolution to the next, and, if we are speaking in the true sense of spiritual science, we do not picture the life of an individual between birth and death as following always a uniform course. For we know that his life is a sequel to previous lives on earth and the starting-point for later ones. When we observe a human life through its various incarnations, we can readily understand that in one earthly life a man's development may go somewhat slowly, so that he retains the same characteristics and ideas throughout. In another life he will have to catch up with all the more development, leading him to new levels of soul-life. The study of a single life is always in the highest degree insufficient. Let us now ask how these indications concerning positive and negative types can help us in studying the human soul on the lines laid down in previous lectures. We showed that the soul is by no means a chaotic flux of concepts, feelings and ideas, as it may seem to be at a casual glance. On the contrary, the soul has three members which must be clearly distinguished. The first and lowest of these we called the sentient soul. Its primal form is best seen in men at a relatively low stage of development who are wholly given up to their passions, impulses, wishes and desires and simply pursue every wish, every desire, that arises within them. In men of this type the ego, the self-conscious kernel of the human soul, dwells in a surging sea of passions, desires, sympathies and antipathies, and is subject to every storm that sweeps through the soul. Such a man will follow his inclinations not because he dominates them but because they dominate him, so that he gives way to every inner demand. The ego can scarcely raise itself out of this surge of desires. When the soul develops further, we see more and more clearly how the ego works from a strong central point. In due course, as evolution proceeds, a higher part of the soul, which exists in everyone, gains a certain predominance over the sentient soul. We have called this higher part the intellectual soul or mind soul. When man ceases to follow every inclination or impulse, then in his soul something emerges which has always been there but can be effective only when the ego begins to control his inclinations and desires and to impose on the ever-changing impressions he receives some kind of coherence in his inner life. Thus when this second member of the soul, the intellectual soul, comes to prevail, it deepens our picture of man. Next, we spoke of the highest member of the soul, the consciousness soul, where the ego comes to the fore in full strength. Then the inner life turns towards the outer world. Its conceptual images and ideas are no longer there only to control the passions, for at this stage the entire inner life of the soul is guided by the ego, so that it reflects the outer world and gains knowledge of it. When we attain to this knowledge, it is a sign that the consciousness soul has come to dominate the life of the soul. These three soul-members exist in all human beings, but in every case one of them predominates. The last lectures have shown that the soul can go further in development — must indeed go further even in ordinary life, if we are to be human beings in the true sense of the word. A man whose motives for action derive entirely from external demands, who is impelled to act only by sympathy or antipathy, will make no effort to realise in himself the true quality of human nature. This will be achieved only by someone who raises himself to moral ideas and ideals, derived from the spiritual world, for that is how we enrich the life of the soul with new elements. Man has a “history” only because he can carry into life something which his inner being draws from unknown depths and impresses on the outer world. Similarly, we would never reach a real knowledge of world secrets if we were not able to attach external experiences to ideas. We draw forth these ideas from the spirit in ourselves and bring them to meet the outer world, and it is only by so doing that we can grasp and elucidate the outer world in its true form. Thus we can infuse our inner being with a spiritual element and enrich our soul with experiences that we could never gain from the outer world alone. As described in the lecture on mysticism, we can rise to a higher form of soul-life by cutting ourselves off for a while from impressions and stimuli from the outer world, by emptying the soul and devoting ourselves — as Meister Eckhart puts it — to the little flame which is usually outshone by the continual experiences of daily life but which can now be kindled into flame. A mystic of this order rises to a soul-life above the ordinary level; he immerses himself in the mysteries of the world by unveiling within himself what the world-mysteries have laid down in his soul. In the next lecture we saw that if a man awaits the future with calm acceptance, and if he looks back over the past in such a way as to feel that dwelling within him is something greater than anything evident in his daily life, he will be impelled to look up in worship to this greater thing that towers above him. We saw that in prayer a man rises inwardly above himself towards something that transcends his ordinary life. And finally, we saw that by real spiritual training, which leads him through the three stages of Imagination, Inspiration and Intuition, he can grow into a world which is as unknown to ordinary people as the world of light and colours is to the blind. Thus we have seen how the soul can grow beyond the normal level, and so we have gained a glimpse of the development of the soul through the most varied stages. If we look at people around us, we find that they are at widely different levels of development. One man will show in life that he has the potential for raising his soul to a certain stage and will then be able to carry through the gate of death what he has gained. If we study how people go from stage to stage, we come to the concepts of positive and negative but we cannot now say simply that an individual is positive or negative, for he will exhibit each characteristic at different stages of his progress. To start with, a man may have the strongest, most headstrong impulses in his sentient soul; he will then be impelled by definite urges, passions and desires, while his ego-centre remains in relative obscurity and he may be hardly aware of it. At that point he is very positive and pursues his life as a positive type. But, if he were to remain in that condition, he would make no progress. In the course of his development he must change from a positive into a negative person, for he has to be open to receive whatever his development requires. If he is not prepared to suppress the positive qualities in his sentient soul, so that new impressions can flow in; if he is unable to raise himself out of the positive qualities given him by nature and to acquire a certain negative capacity to receive new impressions, he will get no further. Here we touch on something which is necessary for the soul but can also be a source of danger — something which shows very clearly that only an intimate knowledge of the soul can guide us safely through life. The fact is that we cannot progress if we try to avoid certain dangers affecting the life of the soul. And these dangers are always present for a negative person, since he is open to the influx of external impressions and to uniting himself with them. This means that he will take in not only good impressions, but also bad and dangerous ones. When a very negative person meets another person, he will be easily carried away by hearing all sorts of things that have nothing to do with judgment or reason, and he will be influenced not only by what the other person says but by what he does. He may imitate the other person's actions and examples, to the point even of coming to resemble him quite closely. Such a man may indeed be open to good influences, but he will be in danger of responding to every kind of bad stimulus and making it his own. If we rise from ordinary life to the level where we can see what spiritual facts and beings are at work in our vicinity, we must say that a man with negative soul-qualities is particularly open to the influence of those intangible, indefinable impressions which are hardly evident in external life. For example, the facts show that a man alone is a quite different being from what he is in a large assembly of others, especially if the assembly is active. When he is alone, he follows his own impulses; even a weak ego will look for the source of its actions in itself. But in a large assembly there is a sort of mass-soul in which all the various urges, desires and judgments of those present flow together. A positive man will not easily surrender to this collective entity, but a negative man will always be influenced by it. Hence we can repeatedly experience the truth of what a dialect poet, Rosegger, has said in a few words. He puts it crudely, but there is more than a grain of truth in what he says: Oaner is a Mensch, Zwoa san Leit', San's mehra, san's Viecher. 38 Peter Rosegger, 1843–1918. Styrian writer: “One is a man/Two are people/Any more are cattle”. We can often notice that men are wiser alone than they are in company, for then they are almost always subject to the prevailing average mood. Thus a man may go to a meeting without any definite ideas or feelings; then he listens to a speaker who takes up with enthusiasm some point which had previously left him cold. He may be affected not so much by the speaker as by the acclamation won from the audience. This grips him and he goes home quite convinced. Mass-suggestion of this kind plays an enormous part in life. It illustrates the danger to which a negative soul is exposed, and in particular the danger of sectarianism, for while we might fail to convince an individual of something, it becomes relatively easy to do so if we can bring him under the influence of a sect or group, for here mass suggestion will be at work, spreading from soul to soul. There are great dangers here for persons of a negative type. We can go further. In earlier lectures we have seen how the soul can raise itself into higher realms of spiritual life. And in my Occult Science 39 Rudolf Steiner, Occult Science , Rudolf Steiner Press, London, 1969. you will find an account of how the soul must train itself to accomplish this stage-by-stage ascent. In the first place it has to suppress the positive element in itself and open itself to new impressions by putting itself artificially into a negative mood. Otherwise it will make no progress. We have often explained what the spiritual researcher has to do if he wishes to reach the higher levels of existence. He has to bring about, deliberately and consciously, the condition which occurs normally in sleep, when the soul receives no outer stimuli. He has to shut out all external impressions, so that his soul is quite empty. Then he must be able to open his soul to impressions which at first, if he is still a beginner, will be quite new to him, and this means that he has to make himself as negative as possible. And everything in mystical life and knowledge of higher worlds that we call inner vision, inward contemplation, does fundamentally bring about negative moods in the soul. There is no way round that. When a man suppresses all stimuli from the outer world and consciously achieves a condition in which he is entirely sunk in himself and has banished all the positive characteristics that had previously been his, then he is bound to become negative and self-absorbed. Something similar occurs if we employ an easier external method which cannot of itself lead us to a higher life but can give us some support in our ascent — if for instance we turn from foods which stimulate positive impulses in a sort of animal fashion to a special diet, vegetarian or the like. We cannot bring about our ascent into higher worlds by vegetarianism or by not eating this or that; it would be altogether too easy if we could eat our way up to those heights. Nothing but work on our own souls can get us there. But the work can be made easier if we avoid the hampering influence that particular forms of nourishment can have. Anyone who is trying to lead a higher, more spiritual life can readily convince himself that his forces are enhanced by adopting a certain diet. For if he cuts out the foods which tend to foster the robust and positive elements in himself, he will be brought into a negative condition. Anyone who stands on the ground of genuine spiritual science, free from charlatanry, will never refuse to recognise the things, including external things, which are in fact connected with endeavours to lead a true spiritual life. But this means that we may be exposed also to bad spiritual influences. When we educate ourselves in spiritual science and eliminate everyday impressions, we open ourselves to the spiritual facts and beings which are always around us. Among them, certainly, will be the good spiritual powers and forces which we first learn to perceive when the appropriate organ has unfolded within us, but we shall be open also to the evil spiritual powers and forces around us just as if we are to hear harmonious musical sounds, we must be open also to discordant ones. If we want to penetrate into the spiritual world, we must be clear that we are liable to encounter the bad side of spiritual experiences. If our approach to the spiritual world were to be entirely negative, we would be threatened by one danger after another. Let us look away from the spiritual world and consider ordinary life. Why should a vegetarian diet, for example, make us negative? If we become vegetarians because of some popular agitation but without adequate judgment, or as a matter of principle without changing our ways of living and acting, it may under certain conditions have a seriously weakening effect on us in relation to other influences, and particularly perhaps on certain bodily characteristics. But if we have gone over to a life of initiative, involving new tasks that arise not from external life but from a richly developing life of the soul, then it can be immensely useful to take a new line in diet also and to clear away any hindrances that may have arisen from our previous eating habits. Things have very different effects on different people. Hence the spiritual-scientific researcher always insists on something that has often been emphasised here: he will never impart to anyone the means of rising into higher worlds without making it clear to him that he must not merely cultivate the negative soul-qualities that are necessary for receiving new impressions, nor must be content to develop inner vision and inward concentration, for a life which is to rise to a new level must have a content which is strong enough to fill and sustain it. If we were merely to show someone how he can acquire the strength that will enable him to see into the spiritual world, we should be exposing him to bad spiritual forces of every kind, through the negativity that goes with such endeavours. But if he is willing to learn what the spiritual investigator can tell him about the higher worlds, he will never remain merely negative, for he will possess something which can imbue his soul with positive content at a higher stage. That is why we so often emphasise that the seeker must not only strive for higher levels, but must at the same time give careful study to what spiritual science communicates. That is how the spiritual researcher takes account of the fact that anyone who is to experience new realms has to be receptive, and therefore negative, towards them. What we have to call forth, when we set out consciously to develop the soul, can be seen in the various people we encounter in ordinary life, for the soul does not go through development only in its present life but has done so in previous lives and is at a definite stage when it enters earth-existence. Just as in our present life we have to proceed from stage to stage, and must acquire negative characteristics on our way to a positive stage, so the same thing may have happened when we last went through the gate of death and entered a new life with positive or negative characteristics. The design which sent us into life with positive qualities will leave us where we are and act as a brake on further development, for positive tendencies produce a clearly-defined character. A negative tendency, on the other hand, does make it possible for us to receive a great deal into our soul-life between death and a new birth, but it also exposes us to all the chance happenings of earthly life, and especially to the impressions made on us by other people. Thus when a man of negative type meets other persons, we can usually see how their characteristics leave their mark upon him. Even he himself, when he comes close to a friend or to someone with whom he has had an affectionate relationship, can feel how he becomes more and more like the other: in cases of marriage or deep friendship even his handwriting may be influenced. Observation will indeed show how in marriage the handwriting of a negative person may come to resemble increasingly that of his or her spouse. So it is that negative types are susceptible to the influence of other people, especially of those close to them. Hence they are exposed to a certain danger of losing themselves, so that their individual soul life and ego-sense may be extinguished. The danger for a positive type is that he will not be readily accessible to impressions from other people and will often fail to appreciate their characteristic qualities, so that he passes them all by and may be unable to form a friendship or close association with anyone. Hence he is in danger of his soul becoming hardened and desolate. We can gain deep insight into life when we consider people in terms of the positive and negative aspects in human beings, and this applies also to the different ways in which they respond to the influence of Nature around them. What then is it that acts on a person when he is influenced by other people or when he absorbs impressions from the outer world? There is one thing that always imparts a positive character to the soul. For modern man, regardless of his stage of development, it is sound judgment, rational weighing up, clarifying for oneself any situation or relationship that may arise in life. The opposite of this is the loss of healthy judgment, so that impressions are admitted to the soul in such a way that positive qualities are no protection against them. We can even observe that when certain human activities slip down into the unconscious, they often have a stronger effect on other people than when they arise from the conscious exercise of normal judgment. It is unfortunate, especially in a spiritual-scientific movement, that when facts concerning the spiritual world are given in a strictly logical form, a form well recognised in other spheres of life, people are inclined to evade them; they find it uncongenial that such facts should be presented in a rational sequence of cause and effect. But if these communications are imparted to them in such a way that their judgment is not evoked, they are far more ready to respond. There are even people who are highly mistrustful of information about the spiritual world if it is given in rational terms, but very credulous towards anything they may hear from mediums who seem to be inspired by some unknown power. These mediums, who do not know what they are saying and who say more than they know, attract many more believers than do persons who know exactly what they are saying. How is it possible — we often hear it said — for anyone to tell us about the spiritual world unless he is in at least a half-conscious state and evidently possessed by some other power? This is often taken as a reason for objecting to the conscious communication of facts drawn from the spiritual world. That is why running to mediums is much more popular than paying heed to communications based on sound judgment and set forth in rational terms. When anything that comes from the spiritual world is thrust down into a region from which consciousness is excluded, there is a danger that it will work on the negative characteristics of the soul, for these characteristics always come to the fore when we are approached by an influence from dark subconscious depths. Close observation shows again and again how a relatively stupid person, thanks to his positive qualities, can have a strong effect on a more intelligent person if the latter is easily impressed by anything that emerges from subconscious obscurity. So we can understand how it happens in life that persons with fine minds are the victims of robust characters whose assertions derive solely from their own impulses and inclinations. If we take one further step, we shall come to a remarkable fact. Consider a man who not merely belies his own reason now and then but suffers from mental illness and says things that spring from this deranged condition. So long as his illness is not noticed, he may have an uncommonly strong influence on persons of finer nature. All this belongs to the wisdom of life. We shall not get it right unless we realise that a man with positive qualities may not be open to reason, while a negative type of man will often be subject to irrational influences he cannot keep out. A subtler psychology will have to take account of these things. Now we will turn from impressions made by individuals on one another and come to impressions received by people from their surroundings. Here, too, we can gain important results in the context of positive and negative. Let us think, for example, of a researcher who has worked very fruitfully on a special subject and has brought together a large number of relevant facts. By so doing he has accomplished something useful for mankind. But now suppose that he connects these facts with ideas gained from his education and his life up to date or from certain theories and philosophical viewpoints which may give a very one-sided view of the facts. In so far as the concepts and ideas he has inferred from the facts are the outcome of his own reflective thinking, they will have a healthy effect on his soul, for by working out his own philosophy he will have imbued his soul with positive feelings. But now suppose that he meets some followers who have not themselves worked over the facts but have merely heard of them or read them. They will lack the feelings that he evoked in himself through his work in laboratory or study, and their frame of mind may be entirely negative. Hence the same doctrine, even though it be one-sided, can be seen as making the leader of their school positive in his soul, while on the whole throng of followers, who merely repeat the doctrine, it can have an unhealthy, negative effect, making them weaker and weaker. This is something that runs through the whole history of human culture. Even today we can see how men of an entirely materialistic outlook, which they themselves have worked hard to develop from their own findings, are lively positive characters whom it is a pleasure to meet, but in the case of their followers, who carry in their heads the same basic ideas but have not acquired them by their own efforts, these ideas have an unhealthy, negative, weakening effect. Thus we can say that it makes a great difference if a man achieves a philosophical outlook of his own or if he merely takes it from someone else. The first man will acquire positive qualities; the second, negative qualities. Thus we see how our attitude to the world can make us both positive and negative. For example, a purely theoretical approach to Nature, especially if it omits everything we can actually see with our eyes, makes us negative. There has to be a theoretical knowledge of Nature. But we must not be blind to the fact that this theoretical knowledge gained by the systematic study of animals, plants and minerals and embodied as laws of Nature in the form of concepts and ideas — works on our negative qualities in such a way as to imprison us in these ideas. On the other hand, if we respond with living appreciation to all that Nature in its grandeur has to offer, positive qualities are called forth in our souls — if for example we take delight in a flower, not pulling it to pieces but responding to its beauty, or if we open ourselves to the morning light when the sun is rising, not testing it in astronomical terms but beholding its glory. For anything we adopt by way of a theoretical conception of the world does not implicate our souls; we allow it to be dictated to us by others. But our whole soul is actively involved when we are delighted or repelled by the phenomena of Nature. The truth of Nature is not concerned with the ego, but that which delights or repels us is; for how we respond to Nature depends on the character of our ego. Thus we can say: Living participation in Nature develops our positive qualities; theorising about Nature does the reverse. But we must qualify this by repeating that a researcher who is the first to analyse a series of natural phenomena is far more positive than one who merely adopts his findings and learns from them. This distinction should be given attention in wide fields of education. And a relevant fact is that wherever there has been a conscious awareness of the things we have been discussing today, the negative characteristics of the human soul have never been cultivated on their own account. Why did Plato inscribe over the entrance to his school of philosophy the words: “Only those with a knowledge of geometry may enter here”? 40 These words over the entrance to the Platonic Academy can be found neither in Plato nor in any of his Greek and Roman contemporaries. They are first found in commentators on Aristotle in the 6th century AD; thus Elias, Aristotelis Categorias commentaria , ed. A. Busse (Comm. in Arist. Graeca XVIII, pars 1), Berlin 1900, 118.18; and Philoponus Joannes, Aristotelis de Anima Libris commentaria , ed. M. Hayduck (Comm. in Arist. Graeca XV), Berlin 1897, 117.29. It was because geometry and mathematics cannot be accepted on the authority of another person. We have to work through geometry by our own inner efforts and can master it only by a positive activity of our souls. If this were heeded today, many of the philosophical systems that buzz around would not exist. For if anyone realises how much positive work has gone into formulating a system of ideas such as geometry, he will learn to respect the creative activity of the human mind; but anyone who reads Haeckel's Riddle of the Universe , 41 Ernst Haeckel, 1834–1919. Die Welträtsel Gemeinverständliche Studien über monistische Philosophie , Bonn 1899. for instance, with no notion of how it was worked out, may quite easily arrive at a new world-outlook, but he will do so out of a purely negative state of soul. Now in spiritual science, or Anthroposophy, we have something which unconditionally requires a positive response. If someone is told that with the aid of popular modern devices, photographs or lantern-slides, he can see some animal or some natural phenomenon brought before his eyes on the screen, he will watch it quite passively, in a negative frame of mind; he will need no positive qualities and will not even need to think. Or he might be shown a series of pictures illustrating the various phases of a glacier on its way down the mountain it would be just the same. These are just examples of how wide is the appeal of these negative, attitudes today. Anthroposophy is not so simple. Photographs could at most give a symbolical suggestion of some of its ideas. The only way of approach to the spiritual world is through the life of the human soul. Anyone who wishes to penetrate fruitfully into spiritual science must realise that its most important elements are not going to be the subject of a demonstration. He is therefore advised that he must work on and with his soul, so as to bring out its most positive qualities. In fact, spiritual science is in the highest sense competent to cultivate these qualities in the human soul. Herein, too, resides the healthiness of its world-outlook, which makes no claim except to arouse the forces sleeping in the soul. In appealing to the activity inherent in every soul, Anthroposophy calls forth its hidden forces, so that they may permeate all the saps and energies of the body; thus it has a health-giving effect, in the fullest sense, on the whole human being. And because Anthroposophy appeals only to sound reason, which cannot be evoked by mass-suggestion but only through individual understanding, and because it renounces everything that mass-suggestion can evoke, it reckons with the most positive qualities of the human soul. Thus we have brought together, without embellishment, a number of facts and examples which show how man is placed in the midst of two streams, the positive and the negative. He cannot rise to higher stages unless he leaves a lower positive stage and goes over to a negative, receptive condition, so that his soul acquires new content; he takes this along with him and thus becomes positive once more on a higher level. If we learn how to observe Nature rightly, we can see how world-wisdom arranges things so that man may be led from a positive to a negative phase, and on to a positive phase once more. From this point of view, it is illuminating to study particular topics — for example, Aristotle's famous definition of the tragic. 42 See Aristotle, Poetics , chapter 6. A tragedy, he says, brings before us a complete dramatic action which can be expected to evoke fear and pity in the spectators, but in such a way that these emotions undergo a catharsis or purgation. Let us note that man, on coming into existence with his usual egotism, is at first very positive: he hardens himself and shuts himself off from others. But then, if he learns to sympathise with others in their sorrows and feels their joys as his own, he becomes very negative, because he goes out from his ego and participates in the feelings of other people. We become negative also if we are deeply affected by some undefined fate which seems to hang over another person, by what could happen on the morrow to someone with whom we are in close sympathy. Who has not trembled when someone is hastening towards a deed which will lead him to disaster — a disaster we can foresee but which he, driven by his impulses, is powerless to avert? We are afraid of what may come of it, and this induces in us a negative state of soul, for fear is negative. We would no longer have any real part in life if we were unable to fear for someone who is approaching a perilous future. So it is that fear and sympathy make us negative. In order that we may become positive again, tragedy sets before us a Hero. We sympathise with his deeds, and his fate touches us so nearly that our fates are aroused. At the same time the course of the dramatic action brings the picture of the Hero before us in such a way that our fear and pity are purified; they are transformed from negative feelings into the harmonious contentment bestowed on us by a work of art, and so we are raised once more into the positive mode. Thus the old Greek philosopher's definition of tragedy shows us how art is an element in life which comes to meet an unavoidably negative state of feeling and transmutes it into a positive condition. Art, in all its realms, leads us to a higher level when we have first to be negative in order to progress from a less developed state. Beauty, initially, must be seen as that which is intended to come before us in order to help us rise beyond our present stage. Ordinary life is then suffused with the radiance of a higher state of soul, if we have first been raised through art to a higher level. Thus we see how positive and negative alternate, not only in individuals but in the whole life of man, and we see how this contributes to raising both the individual from one incarnation to the next and humanity as a whole. We could easily show, if there were time, how there have been positive and negative epochs and historical periods. The idea of positive and negative throws light into every sphere of the soul's life and of the life of humanity at large. It never happens that one man is always negative and another always positive. Each of us has to go through positive and negative conditions at different stages of existence. Only when we see the idea in this light shall we accept it as a truth and therefore as a basis for the practice of living. And our discussion today has confirmed the saying that we have put at the beginning and end of these lectures — the saying by the old Greek philosopher, Heraclitus, who, because he could see so deeply into human life, was called the Obscure: “Never will you find the boundaries of the soul, by whatever paths you search, so all-embracing is the soul's being.” 43 See note 23. Now someone might say: “All study of the soul must then be useless, for if its boundaries can never be discovered, no research can establish them and one could despair of ever knowing anything about them.” Only a negative man could take that line. A positive man would add: “Thank God the life of the soul is so far-ranging that knowledge can never encompass it, for this means that everything we comprehend today we shall be able to surpass tomorrow and thus hasten towards higher levels.” Let us be glad that at every moment the life of the soul makes a mockery of our knowledge. We need an unbounded soul-life, for this limitless perspective gives us hope that we may continually surpass the positive and rise from step to step. It is precisely because the extent of our soul-life is unbounded and unknowable that we can look forward with hope and confidence. Because the boundaries of the soul can never be discovered, the soul is able to go beyond them and rise to higher and ever-higher levels. ˂˂ Previous Table of Contents Next ˃˃ Now someone might say: “All study of the soul must then be useless, for if its boundaries can never be discovered, no research can establish them and one could despair of ever knowing anything about them.” Only a negative man could take that line. A positive man would add: “Thank God the life of the soul is so far-ranging that knowledge can never encompass it, for this means that everything we comprehend today we shall be able to surpass tomorrow and thus hasten towards higher levels.” Let us be glad that at every moment the life of the soul makes a mockery of our knowledge. We need an unbounded soul-life, for this limitless perspective gives us hope that we may continually surpass the positive and rise from step to step. It is precisely because the extent of our soul-life is unbounded and unknowable that we can look forward with hope and confidence. Because the boundaries of the soul can never be discovered, the soul is able to go beyond them and rise to higher and ever-higher levels.

Metamorphoses of the Soul: Paths of Experience II

Positive and Negative Man

https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA059/English/RSP1983/19100310p01.html

Berlin

10 Mar 1910

GA059-6

The cycle of lectures which I was permitted to hold this winter before you, had the task of illuminating from the point of view of spiritual science as characterised in the first lecture here, the most various manifestations of human soul-life and of life in a wider context. Today, let us observe an area of human life which can lead to misery, suffering and perhaps also to the loss of hope. To make up for this, in the next lecture we will touch on a field entitled “Human Conscience”, which will lead us back to the heights where human dignity and value, the power of human self-consciousness is revealed most. And then, this year's cycle will be concluded with a reflection on “The Mission of Art”, which will try to show the thoroughly healthy side of what might appear to us today from its most terrible, dark aspect of life. When error and mental disorder are spoken of, images of deepest human suffering arise in every person's soul, and images, too, of deepest human sympathy. And everything which thereby arises in the soul can also be a challenge to illuminate a little this chasm in the human soul with the light which we hope to have gained in these lectures. Particularly the person who increasingly accustoms himself to proceed in the way of thinking which has passed before our soul here must have the hope that the spiritual-scientific method of observation can illuminate in certain respects this sad chapter of human life. For anyone with some knowledge of the literature, and I am now referring less to the rapidly expanding non-specialist literature than to the specialist one, will be able to note from the point of view of spiritual science that it reaches an extraordinarily long way in some respects and offers a wealth of material for the assessment of the relevant facts. But on the other hand in no literature does it become so clear how little the different theories, views and modes of thinking in our time are appropriate to providing a framework for the experiences and scientific observations which have been collected. In this field in particular it can be seen clearly how spiritual science is in harmony with true and genuine science, with everything which we come up against as scientific facts, results and experiences. But it can also be seen how at each stage it finds a contradiction between these experiences and the way that they are interpreted from the current scientific point of view. As in other fields, we will again only be able to deal with the subject in outline, but perhaps it will provide the stimulus to gain a relevant understanding which can also flow into our practical life, so that we are increasingly capable of orientating ourselves in respect of the sad condition which we are about to touch upon. In using the words “error” and “mental disorder” we will be aware that the one is fundamentally different from the other. Nevertheless, the exact observer of a soul-life which can be described truly as mentally disordered will find expressions and appearances which only seem to be different in degree from error committed in some respect in a life which is otherwise regarded as normal. But such observations are liable to misinterpretation in so far as certain directions of thought have the tendency to blur the individual divisions and to state that in fact no firm line exists between a healthy normal soul-life and one which can be described with the words “mental disorder”. Such statements contain a certain danger which must be emphasised when the occasion occurs. And the danger lies not in the fact that the statement is wrong, but that it is correct. This may sound paradoxical, but nevertheless it is true, that wrong statements are sometimes less dangerous than correct ones which can be interpreted and put into practice in a one-sided way because the danger inherent in their correctness is not noticed. It is often thought to be sufficient that if something can be proved in a certain context it is correct; but it should be realised that every matter which is correct also has its reverse aspect and that any truth which we discover is true only in respect of certain facts and experiences. The danger arises in the moment that it is extrapolated to cover other areas, when it is carried too far and becomes dogmatic belief. That is the reason why in general not much is achieved if we know that a truth exists; the important thing is that in true knowledge we should know the limits within which that knowledge is valid. We can certainly observe phenomena in normal healthy soul-life which, if they go beyond a certain point, are also pathological symptoms. The full weight of this statement will be noticed only by someone who is properly accustomed to observe life on a more intimate level. Who would deny the pathological aspect which can be included under the heading of “mental disorder” when someone is incapable of linking one comprehended concept with a second one at the right moment, so that he applies the first one in a new and completely inappropriate situation and acts on the basis of an idea which was correct for an earlier situation but not for a later one. Who would deny that this borders on the pathological? If it happens beyond a certain degree it is directly a symptom for mental disorder. But on the other hand, who would deny that there are people who are unable to advance in their work because of their long-windedness, their laboriousness. Here there is a situation in normal soul-life — the impossibility of progressing from an idea — where the point is approached at which it is necessary to stop speaking of error and start speaking of pathological mental disorder. Let us assume, for example, that someone is prone to the error — and this really does happen — that when someone in the vicinity clears their throat this does not sound to him like a normal cough but gives him the illusion that people are saying unkind things about him. If that person then adjusts his life and actions in response to this illusion he will be considered as someone who is mentally disordered. And yet there is a thin line between this and occurrences in normal life where it happens that someone has overheard something and interprets the meaning in such a way that he thinks he hears something completely different to what was actually said. One meets cases where someone says: “Some person or other said this or that about me” and no trace can be found that the other person actually said that. It is not very easy to determine where the normal soul-life turns from its healthy course into disorder of the soul. This may seem paradoxical, and it may provoke some reflection in this field, if we imagine that someone in an avenue of trees has the quite normal perception of seeing the trees nearby at their proper distance whilst those further away appear to move closer together and, deciding to tie ropes between the trees, he thereupon makes the lengths of rope shorter the further the trees are away. There we have an example of a person drawing the wrong conclusions from a perfectly healthy observation. But healthy observation only comes about because there is illusion. The illusion is also an observation. The unhealthy, harmful aspect of illusion only comes about when it is considered to be the same reality as a table standing before one. Only when the observations cannot be interpreted in the correct way can it be described as pathological. Now we can compare the case that someone has a hallucination and considers it to be reality in the normal physical sense with the paradox that someone was going to tie the trees of an avenue together with pieces of rope which became shorter and shorter. Logically, in principle, there would be no difference between the two things. Nevertheless, how easily can an illusion lead us to make a wrong judgment and how rarely would we make a similar wrong judgment in observing an avenue! Some people might consider all this silly. But all the same it is necessary to take such particulars into account, for otherwise one can quickly become side-tracked and does not see how easily normal soul-life can become disordered. Now we can give further examples of still more striking cases concerning people whose soul-life is considered healthy and clear-sighted to the highest degree. I want to mention a German philosopher who is currently considered among the foremost in his field by those who work in it. The philosopher told of his following experience: He was once in conversation with a person and this conversation led them to talk about a scholar known to both of them. At the moment when the conversation turned to the scholar, the philosopher was reminded of an illustrated book on Paris and immediately following that of a photograph album of Rome. Meanwhile the conversation continued about the scholar. The philosopher reflected how it was possible that during the conversation the image of first the illustrated book on Paris and then the photograph album of Rome could appear. And, indeed, he managed to establish the correct connections. For the scholar about whom they were talking had a noteworthy goatee. This goatee immediately called forth in the subconscious of the philosopher the image of Napoleon III, who also had a goatee; and this idea of Napoleon III which had pushed its way into his consciousness led via France to the illustrated work about Paris. And now the image of another man appeared before him who also had a Van Dyke beard, the image of Victor Emanuel of Italy; and this image led via Italy to the photograph album of Rome. There we have an arbitrary, haphazard sequence of ideas which unfolds whilst something completely different is happening in the fully conscious soul-life. Let us assume, now, that a person reached the point where the illustrated work about Paris arose in him and he then could no longer keep hold of the thread of the conversation, and immediately afterwards he had the subsequent idea of the photograph album of Rome; he would be subject to a haphazard life of ideas; he would be unable to hold an orderly conversation with anyone but would be enmeshed in a pathological soul-life which would lead him without rhyme or reason from one set of ideas to the next. But our philosopher proceeds further and contrasts this with another case by which he hopes to recognise how these things are related. Once he went to the tax office to pay his taxes. He had to pay 75 marks. And since, in spite of his philosophy, he was an orderly man, he had entered these 75 marks in his expenditure book and had then proceeded with his other work. Later he wanted to remember the amount of tax which he had paid. He could not remember. He thought; and, being a philosopher, went to work systematically. He tried to recall the amount by the association of ideas. He concentrated on his walk to the tax office and he recalled the picture of the four gold twenty mark pieces which he had in his purse and, further, the image of the five marks which had then been given to him as change. He recalled these two images and was now able to discover by a simple subtraction that he had paid 75 marks tax. Here we have two completely different cases. In the first the soul-life acts of its own accord, as it were, without any kind of control by the conscious sequence of ideas; it produces the image of the illustrated work about Paris and the image of the photograph album of Rome. In the second case we see how the soul acts quite systematically, choosing every step it takes. There really is a considerable difference between the two soul processes. But the philosopher fails to draw attention to something which the spiritual researcher would immediately notice. For the essential thing in the first case is that his attention is fixed on the other person, that the whole of his conscious soul-life is taken up with holding the conversation with the other person and that the haphazard images surface as if on a different level of consciousness, left to themselves. In the second case, the philosopher turns the whole of his attention to determining the sequence of ideas. This explains why the images occur haphazardly in the first case, whilst in the second they are under the control of the conscious soul-life. But why are there images in the first place? The philosopher fails to answer that. Those who observe life, who know similar cases and are in a position to take into account the nature of the philosopher concerned (I happen to know not only the case but also the man) will be able to set up the following hypothesis. The philosopher was talking of a man who did not particularly interest him. A certain effort was necessary to keep up the concentration on the conversation. Because of this he had a certain amount of soul-life to spare which was not engaged in the conversation and which turned inwards. But he did not have the strength to control the resultant sequence of images so that they occurred haphazardly because he had to give his attention to the uninteresting conversation. This gives an indication how such images occur in the background of conscious soul-life as shadows. Numerous other examples could be given. I chose this example because it is very characteristic and much can be learnt from it. Now the question may be asked: does such an event not prompt us to investigate human soul-life more deeply? And also: how can such a split in the soul-life come about in the first place? And here we come to the realm where experience of that unhappy subject we are dealing with today can be fitted quite naturally into what we have dealt with so often this winter. The philosopher mentioned in the example is faced with a riddle when recounting his experiences. He does not like to continue once he has told the facts because our external science stops short of knowledge about the essence of things and the human being, however much it may be descriptive. Our observation of the essential nature of the human being has demonstrated that man must be looked at in more ways than is done by external science, that we have to distinguish an outer and an inner human being. We have shown in numerous areas that sleep has to be regarded differently from the way it is understood in ordinary science. We have shown how what remains in bed of the sleeping human being is only the outer man and that ordinary consciousness cannot follow the invisible higher true inner human being who leaves the outer human being in sleep. Ordinary consciousness just does not see that something leaves the human being which is just as real as that part which remains in bed, that the inner human being is given over to his real home, the spiritual world, between going to sleep and waking up. And it also fails to recognise that he extracts from there what he needs between waking up and going to sleep in order to sustain the ordinary soul-life. That is why we have to regard separately and clearly differentiate the outer human being, who is present with his laws also in sleep, and the inner human being, who is only present in the outer human being in the waking states, but separates himself in sleep. As long as this distinction is not made we will not be able to understand the most important events in human life. Those, who for reasons of convenience see everything as a unity and without a second thought want to establish monism everywhere, will accuse us of being dualists because we divide the human being into two members — an inner and an outer one. But such people should also admit the horrible dualism of the chemist splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen. It is not possible to be a monist in the higher sense if one does not recognise that the monon is something which lies much deeper. But those who see unity only in the most immediate things hinder themselves from being able to observe the manifold nature of life, from recognising those things which alone can explain life. Now it was also shown that we have to distinguish individual members within the outer and the inner human being. In the outer human being we first distinguished the physical body which we can see and feel. Then there is another member which we call the ether body, which fashions and builds up the physical body. Physical body and ether body remain in bed during sleep. Then the parts which withdraw from the physical and ether bodies during sleep into the spiritual world were described in these lectures as the astral human body which, in turn, encloses the bearer of the ego. But we made still more subtle distinctions. In the astral body we distinguished three soul members, and a careful differentiation of these three members permitted an explanation of many occurrences in life. We called the lowest soul member the sentient soul, the second member we noted as the intellectual or mind soul and the third one as the consciousness soul. Therefore, when we refer to the inner human being, we do not speak of a chaotic, undifferentiated intermingling of all kinds of will impulses, feelings, concepts and ideas, but we can carefully differentiate in the soul between these three members. Now in ordinary human life there is a certain interrelationship between the outer and the inner human being. The interrelationship can be characterised as follows: the sentient soul, our lowest soul member which contains our desires and passions to which we are slavishly subject if the higher soul members are little developed, is interrelated with the sentient body; this is similar to the sentient soul, but in the human being it is considered as belonging to the outer human being. The astral body has to be described separately from the sentient body here. For the three individual soul members are only modifications of the astral body, not only fashioned but also separated from it. In the waking state the sentient soul is in constant exchange with the sentient body. Similarly, the intellectual or mind soul is in constant interchange with the ether body, and the consciousness soul is in a certain sense intimately connected with the physical body. That is why we are dependent on waking consciousness as far as everything which is to enter the consciousness soul is concerned. The things transmitted by the physical body, the senses, the activity of the human brain, initially enter the consciousness soul. Thus we have two three-membered sections of the human being which correspond to one another: the sentient soul and the sentient body, the intellectual or mind soul and the ether body, the consciousness soul and the physical body. This correspondence can help us to unravel the threads leading from the inner to the outer human being which can show us how man's normal soul-life may be disturbed if they fail to function in their normal way. Why does this happen? The sentient soul is dependent on the effects of the sentient body, and when there is an incorrect correspondence between the sentient soul and the sentient body the healthy soul-life of the sentient soul is interrupted. A similar thing occurs when the intellectual soul cannot regulate the ether body in the correct way to make it a proper instrument for the intellectual soul. And the consciousness soul, too, will appear abnormal when the physical body is a hindrance and obstacle for the normal expression of the consciousness soul. If we divide the human being systematically in this way, an order of correspondence can be seen which is essential for a healthy soul-life. And it can also be understood that all sorts of interruptions can occur in the interrelationship between the sentient soul and the sentient body, the intellectual soul and the ether body, the consciousness soul and the physical body. And only the person who can recognise the threads running through this intricate organism and the irregularities which can arise will be able to recognise the disorder which can occur in the soul. Disorder only occurs when there is disharmony between the inner and the outer human being. Let us take the case of the philosopher once more. The soul-life which takes place under the full control of the consciousness shows what is present in the consciousness soul on the one hand and in the intellectual soul on the other. But in the sentient soul the hardly noticed images follow one another: the illustrated work about Paris, the photograph album of Rome. This occurs because the philosopher brings about a split between his sentient soul and sentient body by diverting his attention whilst still relating to the person standing in front of him. The images of the illustrated work on Paris and the Rome photograph album must be sought in the sentient body; the uncontrolled process which was described takes place there. In the consciousness soul the conversation between the two people occurs; and the necessity of being forced to prevent attention from wandering from the conversation in this case causes a split between the sentient body and the sentient soul. These are only passing states. For the least disturbance of our soul-life occurs when the sentient body alone becomes independent. We can still maintain reason and the inner thread of consciousness which preserves awareness: we are still present, too, beside the compulsive images which appear because of the sentient body which has become independent. When such a split occurs in respect of the intellectual soul and the ether body, then the situation is a much more difficult one. Then we enter more deeply those states which verge on the pathological. Nevertheless, it is difficult to decide where the healthy state ends and the pathological one begins. An intricate example will make clear how difficult it is to maintain the experiences of the intellectual soul in complete independence when the ether body goes on strike, when it refuses to be merely a tool of our thinking. When the ether body goes independent and resists the intellectual soul it prevents the thought from coming to expression fully, so that the thought becomes stuck half way and cannot be completed. This can happen with the most clever people, so-called. Let us take a grotesque example. Everyone will smile at and easily recognise the logical absurdity of the statement: it is a logical conclusion that you still possess what you have not lost. You did not lose big ears, therefore you still have big ears. The absurdity arises because the thought is not in accord with the facts. But on exactly the same pattern — that there is a preceding statement “what you have not lost” which make an unjustified assumption which goes unnoticed — the most unbelievable errors can be committed in the most important questions in life where the matter is a little more complicated. Thus there is a philosopher 44 The reference is likely to be to Johann Gottlieb Fichte, whose philosophy of the ego bases on the principle that the true ego, as the founding principle which determines subject and object, can never become object itself. who greatly emphasised a theory set up by him about the human ego. We have often mentioned here how even in its definition the ego is different from all experiences which we can have. Everyone can call a table “table”, a glass “glass” and a watch “watch”. Only the word “I” cannot be used by anyone else when it describes ourselves. This is indicative of a fundamental difference between the experience of the ego and all other experience. Such things can be observed; or they can be half observed. And they are only half observed when conclusions are drawn such as by the philosopher: “therefore the ego can never become object, therefore the ego can never be observed.” And it seems a clever view when he continues: if the attempt were made to grasp it, the ego would have to be present externally whilst at the same time being present within itself. That would be no different to someone running around a tree and saying if only he runs fast enough he can catch up with himself from behind. Who would not be convinced when the dogma that the ego can never be grasped in itself is backed by such an example! And yet: the whole thing is based on the fact that such a comparison is not valid. For it is based on the assumption that the ego cannot be observed. If the comparison with the tree were to be used, it would be possible to say only: the ego must not be compared with the person running round the tree but at most with a person who winds himself round a tree like a snake; then perhaps the feet could be held with the hands. Thus the ego is something quite different from everything else within our experience. It is a substance which we can grasp as the coincidence of subject and object. This has been hinted at by mystics at all times in the language of symbols, in the image of the snake biting its own tail. Those who used this symbol understood that they were observing themselves, as it were, in the image before them. This example demonstrates how we advance from the feelings and perceptions of our immediate perception which can become disharmonious only with the sentient body, to those things which affect not only pure feeling, pure perception, but the intellectual or mind soul. Where we have to digest thoughts internally, which is already a much less arbitrary process, a hindrance is caused not only by the images themselves, but there is something which offers quite a different sort of resistance which cannot be recognised by a thinking which fails to pursue its processes rigorously to their conclusion. We had an example how the human being can enmesh himself in a logic whereof he does not notice that it is only his logic and not the logic of the facts. A logic of the facts is only present when we retain mastery over the link between the intellectual soul and the ether body, and thus the mastery over the ether body. Therefore those pathological expressions of our soul-life which are primarily the result of a breakdown in the link between our ideas turn out to be caused by the ether body not being able to serve as a healthy tool for the expressions of our intellectual soul. But now the question is justified: if an ether body which creates a hindrance for our intellectual soul to unfold, is part of our nature, is there any choice but to say that the causes affecting the soul such that it passes from mere error to mental disorder lie in something over which we have no control? In a certain sense such an example, if it is truly understood, makes us aware of something which has been emphasised here repeatedly and which is considered to be nonsense by many of our contemporaries — even the most enlightened. We observe that our ether body throws obstacles in the way of our intellectual soul, thus not allowing it to finish any train of thought. So instead of admitting here that we are powerless and can go no further, we pass muddled and distorted judgment. Our judgment from the intellectual soul becomes mixed up with the intrusions of our ether body. A peculiar situation: we think that the ether body belongs to the outer human being and then it interferes with the activity of the intellectual soul as if it were on an equal level. How can this be explained? Purely on a verbal level one can point to “inherited characteristics”, etc. That is done by those who, because of certain fixed patterns of thinking, are unable to reflect logically on matters concerning the soul. But the philosophers who are able to reflect on the soul say: the error, the chaotic confusion which enters the soul in such a case cannot be the result merely of physical heredity. In contrast, a well-known modern philosopher describes our internal processes which go beyond the purely physical with a remarkable phrase. It might be described as a pretty phrase, were we not dealing with a serious subject, when Wundt 45 Wilhelm Wundt, 1832–1920. Philosopher. says: “This leads us into the perpetual darkness of evolution!” A person used to rigorous thinking will find such a phrase by a world famous philosopher strange. Compare with this the truth of spiritual science which says: soul and spirit can only originate from soul and spirit — a statement on a higher level which we have often seen as comparable with another truth which the great natural scientist Francesco Redi voiced in the 17th century in a different field: living matter can only originate from living matter. Spiritual science not only reveals physical heredity, but shows that the spiritual element is active in everything physical. And in the situation where the contrary effect of our ether body on the intellectual soul becomes too great, it is plausible that something must have formed and prepared our ether body which is similar to our intellectual soul — only it has badly prepared it. If we therefore find such an error in our intellectual soul in the present, and if we are able to maintain our reason, we can correct the error in such a way that it does not penetrate as far as our corporeality. And one must not think that every emotion immediately results in sickness. No one is more rigorous than spiritual science in the view that it is nonsense to ascribe to external influences without a second thought when a person becomes mentally disordered. But on the other hand it must be understood, even if we have no power to change our ether body, that it is saturated and imbued with the same laws of error which exist when a mistake is made, but that we become sick when the error comes to expression in the ether body. Such error cannot normally take effect immediately in our present life between birth and death. This only happens if it becomes repeated and habitual. For it is another matter if we continually compound error upon error between birth and death in a specific case, if we regularly succumb to certain weaknesses of the thinking, feeling and willing and live with them between birth and death. The outer bodily nature can only change a limited amount between birth and death. When we pass through the gate of death the physical body with all the good and bad qualities is destroyed and we take with us in our thinking, feeling and willing everything good and bad which we have created. And in constructing our outer bodily nature in the next existence we transmit into it the errors and the chaos, our weaknesses in thinking, feeling and willing from our present existence. Therefore, with reference to an ether body which holds us back, an error in our present soul-life cannot immediately take shape in our ether body, but the error which at present is only content if our soul participates in the organisation of our next existence. What appear in our ether body as causes and as certain characteristics will not be traced back to our present existence, but they can certainly be found if we return to an earlier incarnation. This shows us that we can understand a wide field of mental disorder only if we grope not merely in the secret “perpetual darkness of evolution” but if we go to an earlier existence of the human being. Nevertheless, this truth also must not be taken to extremes; for we must be aware that the human being has within him besides the qualities from an earlier life also those which are inherited, and that certain qualities of our outer human being must be considered as hereditary. It is necessary to distinguish carefully between what the human being carries with him from one existence to the next and his characteristics as descendant of his ancestors. Now a similar disharmony can arise between our consciousness soul, which forms the basis of our self-consciousness, and our physical body. Then not only do those characteristics appear in our physical body for which we are responsible from earlier incarnations, but also those which can be found in the line of descent. But here, too, the principle is the same. The work of the consciousness soul can find an obstacle in the active laws of the physical body. And when the consciousness soul meets these obstacles then all the things arise which appear so cruelly in certain symptoms of mental disorder. Similarly all the unhappy aspects of a particular organ appear when that organ is particularly prominent in our physical body. When the organs of our physical body work properly together and none of them is more developed than the others, our physical body is a proper instrument for our consciousness soul, just as a healthy eye presents no obstacle to seeing. In this context we can draw attention to a case told by an important scientist of our time. A person had impaired vision in one eye. As a result of this it seemed to him particularly at dusk, as if he saw something of the nature of apparitions. Because this impairment of the eye influenced his vision, he often felt as if someone was standing in his way. Where such an effect by the eye creates an obstacle normal sight is not possible. These partial defects can appear in all different forms. When the consciousness soul finds an obstacle in the physical body, this is attributable to the special prominence of the one or the other organ. For when all the organs of the physical body are working together normally it causes no resistance to the consciousness soul and we can give expression to our self-consciousness in a regular way. An obstacle is noticed only when an organ gains special prominence, for then resistance is encountered, but if this free intercourse with the outside world is obstructed and we do not notice the obstacle in our consciousness, ideas of megalomania and paranoia appear as symptoms of the actual, more deeply seated sickness. In thus observing man as a complex being, disharmony and harmony in life can be understood. It was not possible to indicate more than briefly how the various members interact and how spiritual science can bring order and clarification to the wonderful results which are presented in the relevant literature today. If we understand this we will be able to gain further insights. Insights into the reality of the inner human being and the interaction of the outer and the inner human being from incarnation to incarnation; how in certain failings of the outer human being, in failings of the ether body for example, there appear the consequences of weaknesses and mistakes from earlier stages of existence. But this also shows us that we will not always manage to overcome them by an inner regulated, strong soul-life, if the obstacles are too great. But it is possible in many respects, because if in abnormal soul-life there is only the conflict between outer and inner human being, then we can also understand that it is important to strengthen the inner human being as much as possible. A weak person who does not like to pursue his thinking rigorously to its conclusion, who does not want to define his ideas clearly, who is not intent on developing his feelings in such a way that they are in accord with his experiences, such a person will be able to show only weak opposition to the resistance of the outer human being: and if he bears the seeds of illness within him he will succumb to mental disorder when the time comes. But the situation is different if we can oppose sickness of the outer human being with a strong inner being, because the stronger of the two will win! From this we can see that although we cannot always be assured of victory over our outer nature, we can do much to keep the upper hand over it by the development of a strong, regulated soul-life. And we can see the reason for trying to develop our feelings and emotions and our will in such a manner that we do not feel affected by every minor inconvenience; for trying to expand our thinking to encompass the greater context; for seeking to pursue with our thinking not only the most obvious threads but to pursue them to their most detailed entailments; for being concerned to develop our desires in such a way that we do not want the impossible but are in accord with the circumstances. If we develop a strong soul-life we may still encounter a limit, but we will have done the utmost to make our inner being predominate over all external resistance. Thus we can see the significance for the human being to develop his soul-life correspondingly. In the present there is little understanding for what is meant by developing the soul-life. It has been mentioned on similar occasions before that much weight is given today to gymnastics, for example, going for walks, training the physical body. I do not want to comment on the principle contained therein; these things can be healthy. But they quite certainly do not lead to good results if only the outer human being is taken into consideration, as if he were a machine, when exercises are done which only aim to strengthen physiologically. In gymnastics such exercises should not be undertaken at all which are characterised by the view that this or that muscle should be strengthened in particular; but we should take care that we experience an inner joy with every exercise, that we fetch the impulse for every exercise from an inner feeling of well-being. The impulses for the exercises should come from the soul. The gym teacher, for example, should be able to put himself in a position emotionally of experiencing how the soul feels one or another sort of well-being when one or another exercise is undertaken. Then we strengthen the soul; otherwise we strengthen only the body, and the soul can remain as weak as ever. Those who know life will find that exercises which are undertaken from this point of view have a health-giving effect and make quite a different contribution to the well-being of the human being than the exercises which are undertaken merely as if the human being were an anatomical machine. The connection between the life of soul and the life of the physical body is only revealed by the exact investigation of spiritual science. Those who believe that the physical can balance spiritual effort are unaware of an essential element. The spiritual scientist knows that he can become extremely tired, for example, when he is required to communicate a truth to another person and then has to listen to the other speak who is not yet able to express himself properly about the subject, who cannot yet form proper images in his thinking — whilst for example he does not become exhausted however much he researches into the spiritual world; that could be continued indefinitely. The reason for this is that when one is listening to someone else one is dealing with physical communication whereby the physical brain is involved, whilst spiritual research still requires the physical organs to some extent on lower levels, but requires them less and less the higher it reaches and therefore becomes correspondingly less exhausting. When the outer human being no longer has to participate exhaustion and tiredness no longer arise. It can be seen that differentiation must be made in spiritual activity, that there are differences whether spiritual activity is given its impulse from the soul itself or whether it is prompted from the outside. That is something which should always be taken into account: in the various stages of the human being's development those events always take place which correspond to the inner impulses. Let us take an example which has been emphasised before and which can be found in my little work The Education of the Child in the Light of Anthroposophy . 46 Rudolf Steiner, The Education of the Child in the Light of Anthroposophy , Rudolf Steiner Press, London, 1980. There it says that the child up to the seventh year of age primarily feels the impulse in all its actions to imitate. Then, between the changing of the teeth and puberty, its development is characterised by what might be called “orientating oneself according to an authority” or acting according to the impression made on us by another person. Let us assume that these two stages of imitation and bowing to authority are ignored. If no account is taken of them the outer body, instead of becoming an instrument of the soul, will develop irregularly and the soul will then no longer have the opportunity in the consecutive periods of human development to affect in the correct way the irregular nature of the outer human being and interact with it. Then, when the human being enters a new stage of development at significant periods in human life, we see that to a certain degree a member of his being may have fallen behind if these rules are not observed. Ignoring this law lies at the basis of schizophrenia, dementia praecox. By ignoring the correct processes in earlier periods dementia praecox can arise as disharmony between the inner and outer human being, a symptom of belated imitation. It is often the case that the disharmony of those things which are cleanly divided by spiritual science is in many cases the cause of abnormality in the soul. Similarly we can see in the appearance of senile dementia towards the end of life the disharmony between inner and outer human being, brought about because the human being did not live in such a manner that harmony could exist between inner and outer man in the period between puberty and the time when the astral body is fully developed. This shows us that knowledge of the human being can illuminate the nature of error and mental disorder. And even if we find only a superficial link, if a person cannot say that error, in so far as it is part of normal soul-life, can affect our outer nature, it has to be said in contrast that the law according to which the development of a strong logic, a regulated soul-life harmonious in feeling and willing can strengthen us against the obstacles which arise from the outer human being is greatly encouraging. Thus spiritual science gives us the possibility, perhaps not always, but most of the time, of countering the superiority, the supremacy of the outer human being. It is important that when we strengthen and nurture the inner human being we strengthen and nurture it against the predominance of the outer human being. Spiritual science gives us the healing power to do this. It therefore always emphasises the importance of developing ordered thinking which avoids irrelevancies, not to stop with one's thoughts half-way but to pursue them consistently to the end. That is why spiritual science, with its strict demands to order our soul-life in such a manner that it appears internally disciplined and in harmony, is itself a medicine against the predominance of the pathological symptoms of our outward bodily nature. And the human being can be victorious over pathological pre-dispositions when he can envelop bodily weakness, bodily mis-formation with the light of a healthy willing, a healthy feeling and a self-disciplined thinking. That is something which is unpopular today, and yet it is important for an understanding of the present. Thus spiritual science even gives us some consolation, namely that in the spirit, if we truly strengthen it, we continue to have the best remedy for everything which can affect us in life. By means of spiritual science we learn not merely to theorise about the spirit, but we learn to turn it into a healing power within us when we make the effort to continue where philistines like to stop: the half-finished thought. For it is nothing but half-finished thinking when it is said: “Prove what you say about repeated earth lives and so on!” It cannot be proved to the person who refuses to lead his thoughts to their conclusion. Whole truths cannot be proved with half thoughts. They can only be proved to whole thinking, and whole thinking has to be developed by the human being within himself. If the indications which have been given here are developed further, it will be seen that this is central to the evil of our time: the disbelief in the spirit, But it will also be seen that an indication has been given here where the means lie to transform disbelief into belief, into true strong spirituality. The belief in reason is lacking in large measure in mankind today. Therefore the reasoned objectivity which is necessary to understand the truths of spiritual science is not always present. It is not with ridicule and irony, but with a certain sadness that the lines in Faust about certain people might be applied to our present time. “If they possessed the philosopher's stone, The philosopher would not match the stone.” 47 Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Faust II , Act 1, Imperial Palace, 11.5063/64. Reason can understand spiritual science and reasoned understanding of spiritual science can heal the furthest reaches of the bodily nature. That, by the way, is claimed by others than only by spiritual scientists today. This claim has also been made by those who tried to approach the spirit by other paths than modern spiritual science, but such people, too, are little understood in the present. Who would not ridicule Hegel today precisely because he emphasised the existence, the work and the necessity of reason everywhere? He emphasised it in such a manner that he thought of the work of reason in the human being today in the following way: “I imagine this human life as a cross”, and for Hegel the roses on the cross were equivalent to reason in the human being. That is why he prefaces one of his works with the motto: “Reason is the rose on the cross of the present”, 48 Cf. the Introduction to G.W.F. Hegel's Philosophy of Right . ( Grundlinien einer Philosophie des Rechts oder Naturrecht und Staatswissenschaft im Grundriss ). and belief in reason will make the cross victorious. Belief in reason and belief in disciplined thinking, in harmonious feeling and willing will attach the roses to the cross. We have the strength in us to counter what we call mental disorder, at least to a certain degree, when we have belief in harmonious feeling which can be developed, harmonious willing which can be developed and self-disciplined reason which can be developed and which must be developed. If we develop these three, then under all circumstances we will be more strong and triumphant in life. And because Hegel draws together in reason a harmonious feeling, willing and disciplined thinking, a reasoned intellectuality, he makes the statement which can serve as motto for us in developing our soul-life, that for the human being reason should be the rose on the cross of the present.

Metamorphoses of the Soul: Paths of Experience II

Error and Mental Disorder

https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA059/English/RSP1983/19100428p01.html

Berlin

28 Apr 1910

GA059-7

Allow me to begin today's lecture with a personal recollection. As a quite young man, I once had a slight experience of the kind which seem unimportant and yet can yield pleasant memories again and again in later life. I was attending a course of university lectures on the history of literature. 49 Held by his teacher and friend Karl Julius Schröer, 1825–1900. Cf. also Rudolf Steiner's remarks in the lecture of 29th October 1914 in Berlin, in: Aus schicksaltragender Zeit , Rudolf Steiner Verlag, Dornach, Switzerland. (GA 64) The lecturer began by considering the character of cultural life in the time of Lessing, with the intention of going on to discuss various literary developments during the later eighteenth century and part of the nineteenth. His opening words were deeply impressive. In order to characterise the chief innovation which appeared in the cultural life of Lessing's time, he said: “Artistic consciousness acquired an aesthetic conscience.” His lecture showed that what he meant by this statement — we need not now ask whether it was justified — was roughly as follows: All the artistic considerations and intentions connected with the endeavours of Lessing and his contemporaries were imbued with a deeply earnest wish to make something more of art than a mere appendage to life or a mere pleasure among others. Art was to become a necessary element in every form of human existence worthy of the name. To raise art up to the level of a serious human concern, worthy to be heard in the concert of voices which speak of the great and fruitful activities of mankind — such was the aim of the pioneer thinkers of that period. That is what the lecturer wanted to say when he emphasised that an aesthetic conscience had found its way into the artistic and literary life of those times. Why was this statement important for a soul seeking to grasp the riddles of existence, as reflected in one or another human mind? Because a conception of art was to be ennobled and given expression in a way that left no doubt as to its importance for the whole character and destiny of human life. The serious nature and significance of artistic work were intended to be placed beyond discussion, and it is indeed true that the experiences denoted by the word “conscience” are such that all the situations to which they apply are ennobled. In other words, when “conscience” is spoken of, the human soul recognises that the word refers to a most valuable element in its own life, and that to be without this element would indicate a serious deficiency. How often has the significance of conscience been brought out by the words, no matter whether they are taken literally or metaphorically: “When conscience speaks in the human soul, it is the voice of God that speaks.” And one could scarcely find anyone, however unprepared to reflect on higher spiritual concerns, who has not formed some idea of what conscience is. Everyone feels vaguely that whatever conscience may be, it is experienced as a voice in the individual's breast which determines with irresistible power what is good and what is bad; what man must do in order to gain his own approval and what he must leave undone if he is not to despise himself. Hence we can say: Conscience appears to every individual as something holy in the human breast, and that to form some kind of opinion about it is relatively easy. Things are different, however, if we glance briefly at man's history and his spiritual life. Anyone who is trying to look more deeply into a spiritual situation of this kind will surely wish to consult those in whom a knowledge of such matters may be presupposed — the philosophers. But in this case, as in so many others of wide human concern, he will find that the explanations of conscience given by various philosophers are very different, or so it seems, though a more or less obscure kernel is similar in all of them. But that is not the worst of it. If anyone were to take the trouble to inquire what the philosophers of ancient and modern times mean by conscience, he would be met with all sorts of very fine phrases and also by many that are hard to understand, but he would find nothing of which he could say beyond question that it reflected his feeling: that is conscience. Of course it would lead us too far if I were to give you an anthology of the various explanations of conscience that have been given over the centuries by the philosophical leaders of mankind. But we may note that from about the first third of the Middle Ages and on through mediaeval philosophy, whenever conscience was spoken of, it was always said to be a power in the human soul which was capable of immediately declaring what a man should do and what he should leave undone. However, these mediaeval philosophers say also that underneath this power of the soul there is something else, something of finer quality than conscience itself. A personality often mentioned here, Meister Eckhart, 50 See notes 14 and 13. tells of a tiny spark that underlies conscience; an eternal element in the soul which, if it is heeded, declares with unmistakable power the laws of good and evil. In modern times, we encounter once more the most varied accounts of conscience, including some which make a peculiar impression, for they clearly fail to recognise the serious nature of the divine inner voice that we call conscience. There are philosophers who say that conscience is something that a man acquires when, by extending continually his experience of life, he learns what is useful, harmful, satisfying and so on for himself. The sum of these experiences gives rise to a judgment which says: “Do this — don't do that.” There are other philosophers who speak of conscience in terms of the highest praise. One of these is the great German philosopher, Johann Gottlieb Fichte, who pointed above all to the human ego not the transient personal ego but the eternal essence in man — as the fundamental principle of all human thought and being. At the same time, he held that the highest experience for the human ego was the experience of conscience, 51 See J.G. Fichte, Die Bestimmung des Menschen , 1800, Book 3: Glaube. when a man hears the inward judgment: “This you must do, for it would go against your conscience not to do it.” The majesty and nobility of this judgment, he believed, could not be surpassed. And if Fichte was the philosopher who laid the strongest emphasis on the power and significance of the human ego, it is characteristic of him that he ranked conscience as the ego's most significant impulse. The further we move on into modern times, and the more materialistic thinking becomes, the more do we find conscience deprived of its majesty — not in the human heart, but in the thinking of philosophers who are more or less imbued with materialism. One example will be enough to illustrate this trend. In the second half of the 19th century, there lived a philosopher who for nobility of soul, harmonious human feelings and generous breadth of mind must rank with the finest personalities. I mean Bartholomew Carnieri: 52 Bartholomew Carnieri, 1821–1909. Cf. his characterisation of conscience in the introduction to Der moderne Mensch. Versuch einer Lebensführung , Stuttgart, 1904. he is seldom mentioned now. If you go through his writings, you find that in spite of his fine qualities, he was deeply imbued with the materialistic thinking of his time. What, he asks, are we to make of conscience? Fundamentally, he says, it is no more than the sum of habits and judgments instilled in us during early youth and strengthened by the experience of life. These influences, of which we are no longer fully conscious, are the source of the inner voice which says: “This you must do — this you must not do,” Thus the origin of conscience is traced back to external influences and habits, and even these are confined to a very narrow range. Some even more materialistically-minded philosophers of the 19th century have gone further still. Paul Ree, 53 Paul Ree, 1849–1901. Die Entstehung des Gewissens , Berlin, 1885. for example, who at one time had great influence on Nietzsche, wrote on the origin of conscience. His book is interesting as a symptom of the outlook of our times. His ideas — allowing for some inevitable distortion of details in any brief sketch of them — are roughly as follows. Man, says Paul Ree, has developed in respect of all his faculties, and therefore in respect of conscience. Originally he had no trace of what we call conscience. It is gross prejudice to hold that conscience is eternal. A voice telling us what to do and what not to do did not exist originally, according to Ree. But in human nature there was something else which did develop — something we can call an instinct for revenge. This was the most primitive of all impulses. If anyone suffered at the hands of another, the instinct for revenge drove him to pay back the injury in kind. By degrees, as social life became more complicated, the carrying out of vengeance was handed over to the ruling authorities. So people came to believe that any deed which injured another person had by necessity to be followed by something that had previously been called vengeance. Certain deeds which had bad results had to be requited by other deeds. In the course of time, this conviction gave rise to an association of certain feelings with particular actions, or even with the temptation to commit them. The original urge for revenge was forgotten, but a feeling became ingrained in the human soul that a harmful action must be paid for. So now, when a man believes he is hearing an “inner voice”, this is in fact nothing but the voice of vengeance, changed into an inward form. Here we have an extreme example of this kind of interpretation — extreme in the sense that conscience is portrayed as a complete illusion. On the other hand, we must admit that it is going much too far to assert, as some people do, that conscience has existed as long as human beings have been living on the earth; in other words, that conscience is in some sense eternal. Since mistakes are made both by those who think more spiritually about it, and by those who regard conscience as a pure illusion, it is very difficult to reach any agreement on the subject, although it belongs to our everyday inner life, and indeed to a sacred part of it. A glance over the philosophers will show that in earlier times even the best of them thought of conscience differently from the way in which we are bound to think of it today. For when we say that conscience is a voice speaking out of a divine impulse in the breast of the simplest man, saying, “This you must do — that you must leave undone” this is somewhat different from the teaching we find in Socrates 54 Socrates, 470–399 B.C. and in his successor, Plato. 55 Plato, 427–347 B.C. They both insist that virtue can be learnt. Socrates, indeed, says that if a man forms clear ideas as to what he should and should not do, then gradually, through this knowledge of what virtue is, he can learn to act virtuously. Now one could easily object, from a modern standpoint, that things would go badly if we had to wait until we had learnt what is right and what is wrong before we could act virtuously. Conscience speaks with elemental power in the human soul and is heard by the individual as saying “This you must do, and that you must leave alone”, long before we learn to form ideas concerning good and evil and thus begin to formulate moral precepts. Moreover, conscience brings a certain tranquillity to the soul on occasions when a man can say to himself: “You have done something you can approve of.” It would be bad — many people might say — if we had to learn a lot about the nature and character of virtue in order to arrive at an agreed estimation of our behaviour. Hence we can say that the philosopher to whom we look up as a martyr of philosophy, whose death crowned and ennobled his philosophical work — I mean Socrates — sets before us a concept of virtue which hardly tallies with our view of conscience today: and even with later Greek thinkers we always find the assertion that perfect virtue is something that can be learnt, a doctrine not in keeping with the primitive, elemental, power of conscience. How is it, then, that so pre-eminent and powerful a person as Socrates is not aware of the idea of conscience that we have today, although we feel whenever we approach him, as Plato describes him, that the purest morality and the highest degree of virtue speak through his words? The reason is, that the ideas, concepts and inward experiences which feel today as though they were innate, were in fact acquired laboriously by the human soul in the course of time. When we trace the spiritual life of humanity back into the past, we find that our idea of conscience and our feeling for it were not present in the same way in ancient times, and therefore not among the Greeks. Conscience, in fact, was born . But nothing about the birth of conscience can be learnt by the easy methods of external experience and scholarship, as Paul Ree, for example, tried to do. We have to go more deeply into the matter if we are to gain enlightenment for the human soul. Now our task in these lectures has been precisely to illuminate the constitution of the soul, with the aid of the light that comes from raising the soul to higher levels of knowledge. The whole life of the soul has been described, as it reveals itself to the inner eye of the seer: the eye which does not gain knowledge of the sense-world only, but looks behind the veil of the sense-world into the region where the primary sources, the spiritual foundations of the sense-world are to be found. And it has repeatedly been shown — for example in the lecture, “What is Mysticism?” — that the consciousness of the seer opens the way into deeper regions of the soul, over and above the soul-life we experience in everyday life. We believe that even in ordinary life we come to know something of this deeper level when we look into ourselves and encounter the experiences of thinking, feeling and willing. But it was pointed out also, that in ordinary waking consciousness the soul reveals only the outer aspect of the spiritual. Just as we have to penetrate behind the veil that is spread over the sense-world if we are to discover the underlying causes of these appearances as they are revealed behind everything we see and hear and our brain apprehends, so we must look behind our thinking, feeling and willing, and thus behind our ordinary inner life, if we are to get to know the spiritual background of our own lives. From these starting-points, we set out to throw light on the life of the human soul in its many interwoven branches. We saw that it must be conceived as made up of three members which must be distinguished but not — please note — treated as quite separate from one another. We named these three members the sentient soul, the intellectual soul and the consciousness soul, and we saw how the ego is the unifying point which holds the three members together, plays on them as though on the strings of an instrument, causing them to sound together in the most varied ways, harmonious or dissonant. This activity of the ego developed by gradual stages, and we shall understand how our present-day consciousness and soul-life have evolved from primeval times if we glance at what man can become in the future, or even today, if from within the consciousness soul he develops a higher, clairvoyant form of consciousness. The consciousness soul in its ordinary condition enables us to grasp the external world perceived through our senses. If anyone wishes to penetrate behind the veil of the sense-world, he must raise his soul-life to a higher level. Then he makes the great discovery that something like an awakening of the soul can occur — something comparable to the outcome of a successful operation on a man blind from birth, when a hitherto unknown world of light and colour breaks in upon him. So it is with someone who by appropriate methods raises his soul to a higher level of development. A moment comes when those elements in our environment which we normally ignored, although they are swarming around us all the time, enter into our soul-life as a wealth of beings and activities because we have acquired a new organ of perception for them. When someone achieves by training, a conscious seership of this kind, his ego is completely present throughout. This means that he moves among spiritual facts and beings, on which our sense-world is based, just as he finds his way among chairs and tables in the physical world: and he now takes up into a higher sphere of soul-life the ego which had led him through his experiences of sentient soul, intellectual soul and consciousness soul. Let us now turn back from this clairvoyant consciousness, which is illuminated and set aglow by the ego, to the ordinary life of the soul. The ego is alive in the most varied ways in the three soul-members. If we have a man whose life is given over to the desires, passions and instinctive urges that arise from his sentient soul, we can say that his ego is hardly at all active; it is like a feeble flame in the midst of the surging waves of the sentient soul and has little power against them. In the intellectual soul the ego gains some freedom and independence. Here man comes to himself and so to some awareness of his ego, for the intellectual soul can develop only in so far as man reflects upon and elaborates, in inner tranquillity, the experiences that have come to him through the sentient soul. The ego becomes more and more radiant and at last achieves full clarity in the consciousness soul. Then a man can say to himself: “I have grasped myself — I have attained real self-consciousness.” This degree of clarity can be activated by the ego only when it has reached the stage of working in the consciousness soul, after progressing from the sentient soul through the intellectual soul. If, however, a human being can further rise in his ego to clairvoyant consciousness beyond the consciousness soul, comparable to yet higher soul-principles, we can well understand that the seer, looking back over the course of human evolution, should say to us: just as the ego rises in this way to higher states of soul, so did it enter the sentient soul from a subordinate condition. We have seen how the soul-members sentient soul, intellectual soul and consciousness soul — are related to the members of his bodily organisation — physical body, etheric and astral or sentient body. Hence you will find it understandable that as spiritual science indicates — the ego, before rising to the sentient soul, was active in the sentient body, and earlier still in the etheric and physical bodies. In those times the ego still guided man from outside. It held sway in the darkness of bodily life; man was not yet able to say “I” regarding himself, to find the central point of his own being within himself. What are we to think of this ego which held sway in the primeval past and built up man's exterior bodily organisation? Are we to regard it as less perfect, compared with the ego we bear within our souls today? We look on our ego as the real inner focus of our being: it endows us with inner life, and is capable, through schooling, of endless progress in the future. We see in it the epitome of our human nature and the guarantor of our human dignity. Now when we were not yet aware of this ego, while it was working on us from out of the dark spiritual powers of the world, was it then less perfect, by comparison with what it is now? Only a quite abstract way of thinking could say so. Consider our physical body; we look on it as having been formed out of the spiritual world in the primordial past as a dwelling for the human soul. Only a materialistic mind could believe that this human body had not been born originally from the spirit. Seen merely from an external point of view, the physical body must appear a miracle of perfection. What do all our intellectual ability and technical skill amount to, compared with the wisdom manifest in the structure of the human heart? Or take the engineering technique that goes into the building of bridges, and so forth — what is it compared with the construction of the human thigh-bone, with its wonderful crisscross of support members, as seen through the microscope. It would be sheer boundless arrogance for man to suppose that he has attained in the slightest degree to the wisdom inherent in the formation of the external physical body. And consider our soul-life, taking into account only our instincts, desires and passions — how do they function? Are we not doing all we can to undermine inwardly the wisdom-filled organisation of our body? Indeed, if we consider without prejudice the marvel of our physical organisation, we have to admit that our bodily structure is far wiser than anything we can show in our inner life, although we may hope that our inner life will advance from its present imperfection towards increasing perfection. We can hardly come to any other conclusion, even without clairvoyance, if we simply look impartially at the observable facts. Is not this wise activity, which has built up the human body as a dwelling-place for the ego, bound to have something in common with the nature of the ego itself? Must we not think of this formative power as having the character of an immeasurably more advanced ego? We must say: Something related to our ego has worked during primordial times at building a structure which the ego could come to inhabit. Anyone who refuses to believe this may imagine something different, but then he must also suppose that an ordinary house, built for human habitation, has not been designed by a human mind but has been put together merely by the action of natural forces. One assumption is as true as the other. Thus we look back to a primordial past where a spiritual power endowed with an ego-nature of unlimited perfection worked upon our bodily sheaths. In those times our own ego was hidden in subconscious depths, thence it worked its way up to its present state of consciousness. If we look at this evolution from the far-distant past, when the ego was hidden within its sheaths as though in the darkness of a mother's womb, we find that although the ego had no knowledge of itself, it was all the closer to those spiritual beings who worked on our bodily vehicles and were related to the human ego, but of incomparably greater perfection. Clairvoyant insight thus looks back to a far-distant past when man had not yet acquired ego-consciousness, for he was embedded in spiritual life itself, and when his soul-life, too, was different, for it was much closer to the soul-forces from which the ego has emerged. In those times, also, we find in man a primal clairvoyant consciousness which functioned dimly and dreamily, for it was not illumined by the light of an ego; and it was from this mode of consciousness that the ego first came forth. The faculty that man in the future will acquire with his ego was present in the primeval past without the ego. Clairvoyant consciousness entails that spiritual beings and spiritual facts are seen in the environment, and this applies to early man, although his clairvoyance was dreamlike and he beheld the spiritual world as though in a dream. Since he was not yet shone through by an ego, he was not obliged to remain within himself when he wished to behold the spiritual. He beheld the spiritual around him and looked on himself as part of the spiritual world; and whatever he did was imbued, for him, with a spiritual character. When he thought of something, he could not have said to himself, “I am thinking”, as a man might do today; his thought stood before his clairvoyant vision. And to experience a feeling he had no need to look into himself; his feeling radiated from him and united him with his whole spiritual environment. Such was the soul-life of man in primordial times. From out of his dreamlike clairvoyant consciousness he had to develop inwardly in order to come to himself, and in himself to that centre of his being which today is still imperfect but will advance ever more nearly towards perfection in the future, when man with his ego will step forth into the spiritual world. Now if light is thrown on those primordial times by means of clairvoyance in the way already described, what does the seer tell us concerning the human consciousness of those times when a man had, for example, committed an evil deed? His deed did not present itself to him as something he could inwardly assess. He beheld it, with all its harmfulness and shamefulness, as a ghostly vision confronting his soul. And when a feeling concerning his evil deed arose in his soul, the shamefulness of it came before him as a spiritual reality, so that he was as though surrounded by a vision of the evil he had wrought. Then, in the course of time, this dreamlike clairvoyance faded and man's ego came increasingly to the fore. In so far as man found this central point of his being within himself, the old clairvoyance was extinguished and self-consciousness established itself more and more clearly. The vision he had previously had of his bad and good deeds was transposed into his inner life, and deeds once clairvoyantly beheld were mirrored in his soul. Now what sort of forms were beheld in dreamy clairvoyance as the counterpart of man's evil deed? They were pictures whereby the spiritual powers around him showed how he had disturbed and disrupted the cosmic order, and they were intended to have a salutary effect. It was a counteraction by the Gods, who wished to raise him up and, by showing him the effect of his deed, to enable him to eliminate its harmful consequences. This was indeed a terrifying experience for him, but it was fundamentally beneficial, coming as it did from the cosmic background out of which man himself had emerged. When the time came for man to find in himself his ego-centre, the external vision was transferred to his soul in the form of a reflected picture. When the ego first makes its appearance in the sentient soul, it is weak and frail, and man first has to work slowly upon himself in order that his ego may gradually advance towards perfection. Now what would have happened if, when the external clairvoyant vision of the effects of his misdeeds had disappeared, it had not been replaced by an inward counterpart of its beneficial influence? With his still frail ego, he would have been torn to and fro in his sentient soul by his passions, as though in a surging boundless sea. What, then, was it that was transferred at this historic moment from the external world to the inner life of the soul? If it was the great cosmic Spirit that had brought the harmful effects of a man's deed before his clairvoyant consciousness as a healing influence, showing him what he had to make good, so, later on, it was the same cosmic Spirit that powerfully revealed itself in his inner life at a time when his ego was still weak. Having previously spoken to man through a clairvoyant vision, the cosmic Spirit withdrew into man's inner life and imparted to him what had to be said about correcting the distortion caused in the world-order. Man's ego is still weak, and the cosmic Spirit keeps a perpetual, unsleeping watch over it and passes judgment where the ego could not yet judge. Behind the weak ego stands something like a reflection of the powerful cosmic Spirit which had formerly shown to man through clairvoyant vision the consequences of his deeds. And this reflection is now experienced by him as conscience watching over him. So we see how true it is when conscience is naively described as the voice of God in man. At the same time we see how spiritual science points to the moment when external vision became inward experience and conscience was born. What I have now been saying can be drawn purely from the spiritual world. No external history is required; the facts I have described are seen by the inward eye. Anyone who can see them will experience them as incontestable truths, but a certain necessity of the times may lead us to ask: Could external history perhaps reveal something that would confirm, in this case, the facts seen by inner vision? The findings of clairvoyant consciousness can always be tested by external evidence, and there is no need to fear that the evidence will contradict them. That could seem to happen only if the testing were inexact. But we will give one example that can show how external facts confirm the statements here derived from clairvoyant insight. It is not so very long since the time when the birth of conscience can be seen to occur. If we look back to the fifth and sixth centuries BC, we encounter in ancient Greece the great dramatic poet Aeschylus, 56 Aeschylus, 525–456 B.C. , in his Oresteia trilogy. and in his work we find a theme which is especially remarkable for the reason that the same subject was treated by a late Greek poet in a quite different way. Aeschylus shows us how Agamemnon, on returning from Troy, is killed by his wife, Klytemnestra, when he arrives home. Agamemnon is avenged by his son Orestes, who, acting on the advice of the gods, kills his mother. What, then, is the consequence for Orestes of this deed? Aeschylus shows how the burden of matricide calls forth in Orestes a mode of seeing which was no longer normal in those times. The enormity of his crime caused the old clairvoyance to awake in him, like an inheritance from the past. Orestes could say: “Apollo, the god himself, told me it was a just act for me to avenge my father upon my mother. Everything I have done speaks in my favour. But the blood of my mother is working on!” And in the second part of the Orestean trilogy we are powerfully shown how the old clairvoyance awakens in Orestes and how the avenging goddesses, the Erinyes — or Furies, as they were later called by the Romans — approach. Orestes sees before him, in dreamlike clairvoyance, the effect of his act of matricide in its external form. Apollo had approved the deed; but there is something higher. Aeschylus wished to indicate that a still higher cosmic ordinance obtains, and this he could do only by making Orestes become clairvoyant at that moment, for he had not yet gone far enough to dramatise what today we call an inner voice. If we study his work, we feel that he was at the stage when something like conscience ought to emerge from the whole content of the human soul, but he never quite reached that point. He confronts Orestes with dreamlike, clairvoyant pictures that have not yet been transformed into conscience. Yet we can see how he is on the verge of recognising conscience. Every word that he gives to Klytemnestra, for example, makes one feel unmistakably that he ought to indicate the idea of conscience in its present-day sense; but he never quite gets that far. In that century, the great poet could only show how bad deeds rose up before the human soul in earlier times. Now we will pass over Sophocles and come to Euripides, 57 >Euripides, c. 480–406 B.C. , deals with this subject in Electra and in Orestes. < who described the same situation only a generation later. Scholars have rightly pointed out — though spiritual science alone can show this in its true light — that in Euripides the dream-pictures experienced by Orestes are no more than shadowy images of the inward promptings of conscience — somewhat as in Shakespeare. Here we have palpable evidence of the stages whereby the idea of conscience was taken hold of by the art of poetry. We see how Aeschylus, great poet as he was, cannot yet speak of conscience itself, while his successor, Euripides, does speak of it. With this development in mind, we can see why human thinking in general could work its way only slowly towards a true conception of conscience. The force now active in conscience was active also in ancient times; the pictures showing the effects of a man's deeds rose before his clairvoyant sight. The only difference is that this force became internalised; but before it could be inwardly experienced, the whole process of human development, which led gradually to the concept of conscience, had to take its course. Thus we see in conscience a faculty which comes to the fore by degrees and has to be acquired by man's own endeavours. Where, then, should we look for this most intense activity of conscience? At that point where the human ego was beginning to make itself known and was still weak, that is something which can be shown in human development. In ancient Greece it had already advanced to the stage of the intellectual soul. But if we look further back to Egypt and Chaldea outer history knows nothing of this, but Plato and Aristotle were clairvoyantly aware of it — we find that even the highest culture of those times was achieved without the presence of an inwardly independent ego. The difference between the knowledge that was nurtured and put to use by the sanctuaries of Egypt and Chaldea and our modern science is that our science is grasped by the consciousness soul, whereas in pre-Hellenic times it all depended on inspirations from the sentient soul. In ancient Greece the ego progressed from the sentient soul into the intellectual soul. Today we are living in the epoch of the consciousness soul, which means that a real ego-consciousness arises for the first time. Anyone who studies the evolution of mankind, and in particular the transition from eastern to western culture, can see how human progress has been marked by ever-increasing feelings of freedom and independence. Whereas man had formerly felt himself entirely dependent on the Gods and the inspirations that came from them, in the West, culture first came to spring from the inner life. This is especially evident, for example, in the way Aeschylus strives to bring about a consciousness of the ego in the human soul. We see him standing on the frontier between East and West, with one eye on the East and the other on the West, gathering from the human soul the elements that will come together to form the concept of conscience. He strives to give this new form of conscience a dramatic embodiment, but is not yet quite able to do so. Comparisons are apt to be confusing; we must not only compare, but also distinguish. The point is, that in the West everything was designed to raise the ego from the sentient soul to the consciousness soul. In the East the ego was veiled in obscurity and had no freedom. In the West, by contrast, the ego works its way up into the consciousness soul. If the old dreamlike clairvoyance is extinguished, everything else tends to awaken the ego and to evoke conscience as guardian of the ego as a divine inner voice. Aeschylus was the corner-stone between the worlds of East and West. In the Eastern World men had retained a living awareness of their origin in the divine cosmic Spirit, and this made it possible for them to gain understanding of the event which took place a few hundred years after endeavours had been made by many — or Aeschylus for example — to find something that spoke as the voice of God within themselves. For this event brought to mankind the impulse which from all spiritual standpoints must be seen as the greatest impulse ever to enter into the evolution of the earth and man — the impulse we call the Christ-Impulse. It was the Christ-impulse that first made it possible for humanity to realise that God, the Creator of things and of the external sheaths of man, can be recognised in our inward life. Only by understanding the divine humanity of Christ Jesus were men enabled to understand that the voice of God could be heard within the soul. In order that men should be able to find something of the divine nature in their own inner life, it was necessary for Christ to enter into the evolution of humanity as an external historical-event. If the Christ, a Divine Being, had not been present in the body of Jesus of Nazareth, if he had not shown once and for all that God can be discerned in our inner life, because he had once been present in a human body; if he had not appeared as the conqueror of death through the Mystery of Golgotha, men would never have been able to comprehend the indwelling of Divinity in the human soul. If anyone claims that this indwelling could be discerned even if there had been no historical Christ Jesus, he could equally well say that we should have eyes even if there were no sun. As against this one-sided view of some philosophers that, since without eyes we could not see the light, the origin of light must be traced to the eyes, we must always set Goethe's aphorism: The eye is created by light for light. 58 See note 4. If there were no sun to fill space with light, no eyes would ever have developed in the human organism. The eyes are created by light, and without the sun there would be no eyes. No eye is capable of perceiving the sun without having first received from the sun the power to do so. In the same way, there could be no power to grasp and recognise the Christ-nature if the Christ-Impulse had not entered into external history. What the sun out there in the cosmos does for human sight, so the historical Christ-Jesus makes possible what we call the entry of the divine nature into our inner life. The elements necessary for understanding this were present in the stream of thought that came over from the East; they needed only to be raised to a higher level. It was in the West that souls were ripe to grasp and accept this impulse — the West, where experiences which had belonged to the outer world were transferred to the inner life most intensively, and in the form of conscience watched over a generally weak ego. In this way souls were strengthened, and prepared to hear the voice of conscience now saying within them: The Divinity who appeared in the East to those able to look clairvoyantly into the world — this Divinity now lives in us! However, what was thus being prepared could not have become conscious experience if the inward Divinity had not spoken in advance in the dawning of conscience. So we see that external understanding for the Divinity of Christ Jesus was born in the East, and the emergence of conscience came to meet it from the West. For example, we find that conscience is more and more often spoken of in the Roman world, at the beginning of the Christian era, and the further westward we go, the clearer is the evidence for the recognised existence of conscience or for its presence in embryonic form. Thus East and West played into each other's hands. We see the sun of the Christ-nature rising in the East, while in the West the development of conscience is preparing the way for understanding the Christ. Hence the victorious advance of Christianity is towards the West, not the East. In the East we see the spread of a religion which represents the final consequence — though on the highest level — of the eastern outlook: Buddhism takes hold of the eastern world. Christianity takes hold of the western world, because Christianity had first created the organ for receiving it. Here we see Christianity brought into relation with the deepened element in western culture: the concept of conscience embodied in Christianity. Not through the study of external history, but only through an inward contemplation of the facts, shall we come to knowledge of these developments. What I am saying today will be met with disbelief by many people. But a demand of the times is that we should recognise the spirit in external phenomena. This, however, is possible only if we are at least able initially to discern the spirit where it speaks to us in the form of a clear message. Popular consciousness says: When conscience speaks, it is God speaking in the soul. The highest spiritual consciousness says that when conscience speaks, it is truly the cosmic Spirit speaking. And spiritual science brings out the connection between conscience and the greatest event in the evolution of mankind, the Christ-Event. Hence it is not surprising that conscience has thereby been ennobled and raised to a higher sphere. When we hear that something has been done for reasons of conscience, we feel that conscience is regarded as one of the most important possessions of mankind. Thus we can see how natural and right it is for the human heart to speak of conscience as “God in man”. And when Goethe says that the highest experience for man is when “God-Nature reveals itself to him”, we must realise that God can reveal himself in the spirit to man only if Nature is seen in the light of its spiritual background. This has been provided for in human evolution, on the one hand by the light of Christ, shining from outside, and on the other by the divine light within us: the light of conscience. Hence a philosopher such as Fichte, who studies human character, is justified in saying that conscience is the highest voice in our inward life. On this account, also, we are aware that our dignity as human beings is inseparable from conscience. We are human beings because we have an ego-consciousness; and the conscience we have at our side is also at the side of our ego. Thus we look on conscience as a most sacred individual possession, inviolable by the external world, whose voice enables us to determine our direction and our goal. When conscience speaks, no other voice may intrude. So it is that on one side conscience ensures our connection with the primordial power of the world and on the other guarantees the fact that in our inmost self we have something like a drop flowing from the Godhead. And man can know: When conscience speaks in him, it is a God speaking.

Metamorphoses of the Soul: Paths of Experience II

Human Conscience

https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA059/English/RSP1983/19100505p01.html

Berlin

5 May 1910

GA059-8

This last lecture of the winter series will be devoted to that realm in the life of the soul which has been enriched by so many of the greatest treasures that spring from man's inner life. We will consider the nature and significance of art in the evolution of mankind. Since the field is so wide, we will confine ourselves to the art of poetry, and you will understand that we have time to consider only the highest achievements of the human spirit in this realm. Now someone might say: “The lectures this winter have been concerned with various aspects of the human soul, and their central purpose has been to seek for truth and knowledge in relation to the spiritual world — what have these studies to do with the human activities which strive, above all, to give expression to the element of beauty?” And in our time it would be easy to take the view that everything connected with truth and cognition should be kept far, far apart from the aims of artistic work. A widely prevalent belief today is that science in all its branches must be subject to strict rules of logic and experiment, whereas artistic work follows the spontaneous promptings of the heart and the imagination. Many of our contemporaries, accordingly, would say that truth and beauty have nothing in common. And yet, the great leaders in the realm of artistic creation have always felt that true art should flow from the same deep sources in the being of man as do knowledge and cognition. To take one example, only, we will turn to Goethe, a seeker both for beauty and for truth. As a young man he strove by all possible means to acquire knowledge of the world and to find answers to the great riddles of existence. Before the time of his journey to Italy, which was to take him to a country enshrining longed-for ideals, he had pursued his search for truth, together with his Weimar friends, by studying, for example, the philosopher Spinoza, 59 Baruch Spinoza, 1632–1677. For Goethe's relationship to Spinoza cf. Goethe's description in Dichtung und Wahrheit , Part III Book 14. who sought to find a uniform substance in all the phenomena of life. Spinoza's dissertations on the idea of God made a deep impression on Goethe. Together with Merck 60 Johann Heinrich Merck, 1741–1791. Writer. and other friends he believed he could hear in Spinoza something like a voice which spoke through all surrounding phenomena and seemed to give intimations concerning the sources of existence — an idea which could appease in some way his Faustian aspirations. But Goethe's soul was too richly endowed for him to gain from a conceptual analysis of Spinoza's works a satisfying picture of truth and knowledge. What he felt about this, and what his heart longed for, will emerge most clearly if we accompany him on his travels in Italy where he beheld great works of art and caught in them an echo of the art of antiquity. In their presence he experienced the feeling he had hoped in vain to draw from the ideas of Spinoza. Thus he wrote to his friends in Weimar: “One thing is certain: the ancient artists had as much knowledge of Nature, and as sure an idea of what can be represented and of how it should be done, as Homer himself. Unfortunately, works of art of the highest order are all too few. But when one contemplates them, one's only desire is to get to know them rightly and then to depart in peace. These supreme works of art have been created by men as the highest products of Nature in accordance with true natural laws. Everything arbitrary or merely fanciful falls away; there is necessity, there is God.” 61 See Italienische Reise , Rome, 6th September 1787. Goethe believed he could discern that the great artists who had created works of art of this high order had drawn them out of their souls in accordance with the same laws that Nature herself had followed. This can mean only that in Goethe's view of the laws of Nature, which operate in the mineral, plant and animal kingdoms, are raised to a new level and gain new strength in the human soul, so that they come to full expression in the soul's creative powers. Goethe felt that in these works of art the laws of Nature were operative again and thus he wrote to his Weimar friends: “Everything arbitrary or merely fanciful falls away; there is necessity, there is God.” At such moments, Goethe's heart is stirred by the recognition that art in its highest manifestations comes from the same sources as do knowledge and cognition, and we realise how deeply Goethe felt this to be true when he declares: “Beauty is a manifestation of Nature's secret laws, which would otherwise remain forever hidden.” 62 See Goethe, “Sprüche in Prosa”, in: Goethes Naturwissenschaftliche Schriften , ed. Rudolf Steiner, reprint Dornach 1975, vol. V, p. 495. Thus Goethe sees in art a revelation of Nature's laws, which in its own language confirms the findings of cognition in other fields of investigation. If now we turn from Goethe to a modern personality who also sought to invest art with a mission and to bestow on mankind, through art, something related to the sources of existence — if we turn to Richard Wagner, we find in his writings, where he tries to clarify for himself the nature and significance of artistic creation, many similar indications of the inner relationships between truth and beauty, cognition and art. In writing of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, for example, he says that these sounds convey something like a revelation from another world something quite different from anything we can grasp in merely rational or logical terms. 63 Cf. “Beethoven,” 1870, in vol. XI of Wagner's Gesammelte Schriften und Dichtungen . Of these revelations through art, one thing at least can be said with certainty. They act upon the soul with convincing power and permeate our feeling with a conviction of their truth, in face of which all merely rational or logical considerations are powerless. Again, in writing about symphonic music, Wagner says that something resounds from it as though its instruments were an organ for revealing the feelings that went into the primal act of creation, when chaos was ordered and harmonised, long before any human heart was there to echo those feelings. Thus in the revelations of art Wagner saw a mysterious truth that could stand on an equal footing with knowledge gained by the intellect. Something else may be added here. When we make acquaintance with great works of art in the sense of spiritual science, we feel that they communicate their own revelation concerning man's search for truth, and the spiritual scientist feels himself inwardly related to this message. Indeed, it is no exaggeration to say that he feels more closely related to it than he does to many of the so-called spiritual revelations that people accept so light-heartedly today. How is it, then, that truly artistic personalities attribute to art a mission of this kind, while the spiritual scientist feels his heart so strongly drawn to these mysterious revelations of great art? We will approach an answer to this question by bringing together many things that have come before our souls during these winter lectures. If we are to study the significance and task of art from this point of view, we must not go by human opinions or the quibblings of the intellect. We must consider the development of art in relation to the evolution of man and the world. We will let art itself speak to us of its significance for mankind. If we wish to trace the beginnings of art, as it first appears among men in the guise of poetry, then according to ordinary ideas we have to go back very far indeed. Here we will go back only as far as the extant documents can take us. We will go back to a figure often regarded as legendary — to Homer, the originator of Greek poetry, whose work has come down to us in the two great epics, the Iliad and the Odyssey. Whoever was the author — or authors, for we will not go into that question today — of these two poems, the remarkable thing is that both poems begin on a quite impersonal note: Sing, O Muse, of the wrath of Achilles ... Sing, O Muse, of much-travelled man ... are the opening words of the second Homeric poem, the Odyssey . The author thus wishes to indicate that he is indebted to a higher power for his verses, and we need only a little understanding of Homer to realise that for him this higher power was not a symbol but a real, objective Being. If this invocation to the Muse means nothing to modern readers, this is because they no longer have the experiences from which a poem as impersonal as Homer's could derive. And if we are to understand this impersonal element in early Western poetry, we must ask: What preceded it? Whence did it arise? In speaking of human evolution, we have often emphasised that in the course of millennia the powers of the human soul have changed. In the far-distant past, beyond the reach of external history but open to spiritual-scientific investigation, human souls were endowed with a primitive dreamy clairvoyance. In times before men were so deeply embedded in material existence as they came to be later on, they perceived the spiritual world as a reality all around them. We have pointed out also that the ancient clairvoyance was different from the trained, conscious clairvoyance that can be attained today, for this is bound up with the existence of a firm centre in the life of the soul, whereby a man takes hold of himself as an ego. This ego-feeling, as we now have it after its gradual development through long ages, was not present in the far-distant past. But for this very reason, because man lacked this inner centre, his spiritual senses were open and with his dreamy, ego-less clairvoyance he looked into the spiritual world from which his true inner being had emerged in the primal past. Powerful pictures, like dream-pictures, of the forces behind our physical existence came before his soul. In this spiritual world he saw his gods, he saw the actions and events that were played out among them. And present-day research is quite wrong in supposing that the sagas of the gods, found in various forms in different countries, were the product merely of popular fantasy. If it is thought that in the remote past the human soul functioned just as it does today, except that it was more prone to imagine things, including the imaginary gods of the sagas that is sheer fantasy and it is those who believe it who are imagining things. For people in that remote past, the events described in their mythologies were realities. Myths, sagas, even fairy-tales and legends, were born from a primeval faculty in the human soul. This is connected with the fact that man had not yet acquired the firm central point in his soul which now enables him to live within himself and in possession of himself. In the far past he could not shut himself up in his ego, within the narrow boundaries of his soul, separated from his environment, as he came to do later on. He lived in his environment, feeling that he belonged to it, whereas a modern man feels that he stands apart from it. And just as man today can feel in his bodily organism the inflow and outflow of the physical strength he needs to sustain his life, so primeval man, with his clairvoyant consciousness, was aware of spiritual forces flowing in and out of him, so that he lived in inward reciprocity with the forces of the great world; and he could say: “When something takes place in my soul, when I think, feel or will, I am not a separate being. I am open to forces from the beings who come before my inward sight. By sending their forces into me, they stimulate me to think and feel and will. “That was the experience of man when he was still embedded in the spiritual world. He felt that spiritual powers were active in his thinking, and that when he accomplished anything, divine-spiritual powers had poured into him their willing and their purpose. In those primeval times, man felt himself to be a vessel through which spiritual powers expressed themselves. Here we are looking back to a period far away in the past, but this period extended, through all sorts of intermediate stages, right up to the time of Homer. It is not difficult to discern how Homer was giving continued expression to the primeval consciousness of mankind: we need only look at some features of the Iliad . Homer describes a great armed struggle between the Greeks and the Trojans, but how does he do this? What did the struggle signify for the Greeks of that time? Although Homer may not start out from this aspect, there was more in this struggle than the antagonism generated by the passions, desires and ideas which stem from the human ego. Was it merely the personal and tribal emotions of Trojans and Greeks that clashed in this fighting? No! The legend which provides a connecting link between primeval and Homeric consciousness tells how three goddesses, Hera, Pallas Athene and Aphrodite, competed at a festival for the prize of beauty, and how a human connoisseur of beauty, Paris, son of the king of Troy, was appointed to judge the contest. Paris gave the prize to Aphrodite, who had promised him the most beautiful woman in the world for his wife. The woman was Helen, wife of king Menelaus of Sparta. In order to gain possession of Helen, Paris had to abduct her by force. In revenge for this outrage, the Greeks armed themselves for war against the Trojans, whose country lay on the far side of the Aegean sea, and it was there that the struggle was fought out. Why did human passions flare up in this way, and why did all the events described by Homer's Muse take place? Were they merely physical events in the human world? No. Through the consciousness of the Greeks we see depicted the antagonism of the goddesses behind the strife of men. A Greek of that time could have said: “I cannot find in the physical world the causes which have brought human beings into violent conflict. I must look up to a higher realm, where the gods and their powers are set against one another.” The divine powers, as they were seen at the time in the images which we have just described, were actively involved in human conflicts. Thus we see the first great work of poetic art, Homer's Iliad , growing out of the primeval consciousness of mankind. In Homer we find presented in metrical form, from the standpoint of a later consciousness, an echo of the clairvoyant vision which came naturally to primeval humanity. And it is precisely in this Homeric period that we must look for the first time when clairvoyant consciousness came to an end for the Greek people, and only an echo of it remained. A primeval man would have said: “I can see my gods battling in the spiritual world, which lies open to my clairvoyant consciousness.” In Homeric times this was no longer possible, but a living memory of it endured. And just as primeval man had felt inspired by the divine worlds wherein he had his being, so the author of the Homeric epics felt the same divine forces holding sway in his soul. Hence he could say: “The Muse that inspires me inwardly is speaking.” Thus the Homeric poems are directly connected with primeval myths, if these are rightly understood. From this point of view, we can see arising in Homer's poetic imagination something like a substitute for the old clairvoyance. The ruling cosmic powers withdrew direct clairvoyant vision from man, and gave him, instead, something that could live similarly in the soul and could endow it with formative power. Poetic imagination is compensation for the loss of ancient clairvoyance. Now let us recall something else. In the lecture on Conscience we saw that the withdrawal of the old clairvoyance occurred in quite different ways and at different times in various countries. In the East the old clairvoyance persisted up to a relatively late date. Over towards the West, among the peoples of Europe, clairvoyant faculties were less widely present. In the latter peoples, a strong ego-feeling came to the fore while other soul-powers and faculties were still relatively undeveloped. This ego-feeling emerged in the most varied ways in different parts of Europe — differently between North and West, and notably different in the South. In pre-Christian times it developed most intensively in Sicily and Italy. While in the East men remained for a long time without an ego-feeling, in these regions of Europe there were people in whom the ego-feeling was particularly strong because they had lost the old clairvoyance. In the proportion that the spiritual world withdraws externally from man does his inward ego-feeling light up. Hence there was bound to be a great difference at certain times between the souls of the Asiatic peoples and the souls living in the parts of Europe we are concerned with here. Over there in Asia we see how the cosmic mysteries still rise before the soul in great dream-pictures, and how man can witness the deeds of the gods as they unroll externally before his spiritual eye. And in that, which such a man can relate, we can discern something like a primeval account of the spiritual facts underlying the world. When the old clairvoyance was succeeded in Asia by the substitute for it, imagination, this gave rise especially to visionary symbols in picture form. Among the Western peoples, in Italy and Sicily, a different faculty, arising from a firmly-grounded ego, produced a kind of excess of strength, an enthusiasm that broke forth from the soul, unaccompanied by any direct spiritual vision but inspired by a longing to reach up to things unseen. Here, therefore, we find no recounting of the deeds of the gods, for these were no longer evident. But when with ardent devotion, expressed in speech and song, the soul aspired to the heights it could only long for, primitive prayer and chant were born, addressed to powers which could not now be seen after the waning of old clairvoyant consciousness. In Greece, the intermediate country, the two worlds meet. There we find men who are stimulated from both sides. Pictorial vision comes from the East; from the West comes the enthusiasm which inspires devotional hymns to the unseen divine-spiritual powers. This intermingling of the two streams in Greek culture made possible a continuation from Homeric poetry, which we can locate in the 8th or 9th century B.C. , to the works of Aeschylus, three or four hundred years later. Aeschylus comes before us as a personality who was certainly not open to the full power of Eastern vision, the convincing power we find in Homer as an echo of the old clairvoyant vision of the deeds of the gods and their effect on mankind. This echo was always very weak, and in Aeschylus so weak that he came to feel a kind of unbelief in the pictorial visions of the world of the gods that ancient clairvoyance had brought to men. Homer, we find, knew very well that human consciousness had once been open to these visions of the divine-spiritual powers which stand behind the interplay of human passions and emotions in the physical world. Homer, accordingly, does not describe merely a human conflict. Zeus and Apollo intervene where human passions are involved, and their influence is apparent in the course of events. The gods are a reality which the poet brings into his poem. How different it all is with Aeschylus. The stream of influence from the West, with its emphasis on the human ego and the inward isolation of the human soul, had a particularly strong effect on him. For this reason he was the first dramatist to portray man as acting from out of his ego and beginning to release his consciousness from the inflow of divine powers. In Aeschylus, in place of the gods we find in Homer, the independent man of action appears, though still at an initial stage. As a dramatist, Aeschylus puts this kind of man at the centre of things. The epic had to emerge under the influence of the pictorial imagination that came from the East, while Western influence, with its emphasis on the personal ego, gave rise to drama, wherein the man of action is the central character. Let us take, for example, Orestes, who is guilty of matricide and as a consequence sees the Furies. Yes, that is still Homer: things do not pass away so quickly. Aeschylus is still aware that the gods were once visible in picture form, but he is very near to giving up that belief. It is characteristic that Apollo, who in Homer acts with full power, incites Orestes to kill his mother, but after this no longer has right on his side. The human ego begins to stir in Orestes, and we are shown that it gains the upper hand. The verdict goes against Apollo, he is repudiated, and we see that his power over Orestes is no longer complete. Aeschylus was thus the right and proper poet to dramatise the figure of Prometheus, the divine hero who titanically opposes the might of the gods and represents the liberation of mankind from them. Thus we see how the awakening ego-feeling from the West mingles in the soul of Aeschylus with memories of the pictorial imagination of the East, and how from this conjunction drama was born. And it is decidedly interesting to find that tradition wonderfully confirms the findings derived entirely from spiritual-scientific research. One remarkable tradition partly acquits Aeschylus of the charge that he had betrayed certain secrets of the Mysteries; he replied that he could not have done so, for he had not been initiated into the Eleusinian Mysteries. It certainly never was his intention to present anything derived from temple secrets, from which Homer's poems had originated. In fact, he stood somewhat apart from the Mysteries. On the other hand, the story goes that at Syracuse, in Sicily, he had gained knowledge of secrets connected with the emergence of the human ego. This emergence took a particular form in regions where the Orphic devotees cultivated the older form of ode, the hymn, addressed to the divine-spiritual worlds that could no more be seen but only aspired to. In this way art took a step forward. We see it emerging naturally from ancient truths and finding its way to the human ego. Inasmuch as man, after living predominantly in the outer world, took possession of his own inner life, the figures in the Homeric poems became the dramatic characters of Aeschylus; and so, side by side with the epic, drama arose. Thus we see primeval truths living on in another form in art, and the achievements of ancient clairvoyance reproduced by poetic imagination. And whatever was preserved from ancient times by art was applied to the human personality, to the ego becoming aware of itself. Now we will take an immense step forward in time — on to the 13th and 14th centuries of the Christian era. Here we encounter the great mediaeval personality who leads us so impressively to the region which the human ego can reach when, by its own endeavours, it ascends to the divine-spiritual world. We come to Dante, whose Divine Comedy (1472) was read and re-read by Goethe. It affected him so strongly that when an acquaintance sent him a new translation of it, he wrote his thanks to the sender in verse: Great gratitude is due to him Who brings us freshly to this book once more, The book which in a glorious manner makes us cease All our searchings and complaints. 64 Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Zahme Xenien VIII, dated 23rd July 1824. How did art progress from Aeschylus to Dante? How does Dante bring before us a divine-spiritual world once again? How does Dante lead us through its three stages, Inferno, Purgatory and Heaven — the worlds which lie behind our physical existence? Here we can see how the fundamental spiritual impulse that guides human evolution has continued to work in the same direction. Aeschylus, quite clearly, is still in touch with spiritual powers. Prometheus is confronted by the gods, Zeus, Hermes and so on, and this applies also to Agamemnon. In all this we can discern an echo of the ancient clairvoyance. With Dante it is quite different. He shows us how, solely through immersing himself in his own soul, developing the forces slumbering there and overcoming all the obstacles to this development, he was able, as he says, in “the middle of life” — which means his thirty-fifth year — to gaze into the spiritual world. Where as men endowed with the old clairvoyance directed their gaze to their spiritual environment, and whereas Aeschylus still reckoned with the old divinities, in Dante we see a poet who goes down into his own soul and remains entirely within his personality and its inner secrets. By pursuing this path of personal development he enters the spiritual world, and is thus able to present it in the powerful pictures we find in the Divine Comedy. Here the soul of Dante is quite alone with his personality; he is not concerned with external revelations. No one can imagine that Dante could have taken over from tradition the findings of the old clairvoyance. Dante relies on the inner development that was possible in the Middle Ages, with the strength of human personality as its only aid; and he brings before us in visionary pictures something often emphasised here — that a man has to master everything that clouds or darkens his clairvoyant sight. Whereas the Greeks still saw realities in the spiritual world, Dante here sees pictures only — pictures of the soul-forces which have to be overcome. Such are those lower forces of the sentient soul, the intellectual soul and the consciousness soul which tend to hold the ego back from higher stages of development. The good, opposite forces were already indicated by Plato: wisdom for the consciousness soul, self-reliant courage for the intellectual soul, moderation for the sentient-soul. When the ego goes through a development which enlists these good forces, it comes gradually to higher soul experience which lead into the spiritual world; but the hindrances must first be overcome. Moderation works against intemperance and greed, and Dante shows how this shadow-side of the sentient soul can be met and mastered. He depicts it as a she-wolf. We are then shown how the shadow-side of the intellectual soul, senseless aggression, depicted as a lion, can be overcome by its corresponding virtue, self-reliant courage. Finally we come to wisdom, the virtue of the consciousness soul. Wisdom which fails to strive towards the heights, but applies itself to the world in the form of mere shrewdness and cunning, is pictured as a lynx. The “lynx-eyes” are not the eyes of wisdom, able to gaze into the spiritual world, but eyes focused only on the world of the senses. After Dante has shown how he guards against the forces which hinder inner development, he describes how he ascends into the world which lies behind physical existence. In Dante we have a man who relies upon himself, searches within himself, and draws from out of himself the forces which lead into the spiritual world. With him, poetry takes closer hold of the human soul and becomes more intimately related to the human ego. Homer's characters are woven into the doings of the divine-spiritual powers, as indeed Homer felt himself to be, so that he says: “Let the Muse sing the story I have to tell.” Dante, alone with his soul, knows that the forces which will lead him into the spiritual world must be drawn from within himself. We can see how it becomes less and less possible for imagination to depend on external influences. A small fact will show that on this point we are concerned not with mere opinions but with forces deeply rooted in the human soul. Gottlieb Friedrich Klopstock 65 Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock, 1724–1803. He concluded his “Messias” in 1773. was a deeply religious man and a profounder spirit even than Homer. He wished to write a sacred epic poem, with the conscious intention of doing for modern times what Homer did for antiquity. He sought to revive Homer's manner, but without being untrue to himself. Hence he could not say, “Sing for me, O Muse,” but had to open his Messias with the words: “Sing, immortal soul, of the redemption of sinful man.” Thus we see how progress in artistic creation does indeed occur among men. Now let us take a further giant stride over several centuries, from Dante to another great poet, Shakespeare. Here again we see a remarkable step forward in the sense of a progression. We are not concerned with criticism of Shakespeare or with setting one poet above another, but solely with facts that point to a necessary, legitimate advance. What was it about Dante that specially impressed us? He stands there by himself, with his own revelations of the spiritual world, and describes the great experience that came to him from within his own soul. Can you imagine that Dante would have given so effective expression to the truth as he saw it if he had described his visions five or six times over in various ways? Do you not feel that the world into which Dante has transposed himself is such that it can be described once only? That is indeed what Dante did. The world he describes is the world of one man at the moment when he feels himself to be at one with what the spiritual world is for him. Hence we must say: Dante immerses himself in the element of human personality, and in such a way that it remains his own. And he sets himself to traverse this human-personal aspect from all sides. Shakespeare, on the other hand, creates an abundance of all possible characters — a Lear, Hamlet, Cordelia, Desdemona; but we have no direct perception of anything divine behind these characters, when the spiritual eye beholds them in the physical world, with their purely human qualities and impulses. We look only for what comes directly from their souls in the form of thinking, feeling and willing. They are all distinct individuals, but can we recognise Shakespeare himself in them, in the way that Dante is always Dante when he immerses himself in his own personality? No — Shakespeare has taken another step forward. He penetrates still further into the personal element, but not only into one personality but into a wide variety of personalities. Shakespeare denies himself whenever he describes Lear, Hamlet and so on; he is never tempted into presenting his own ideas, for as Shakespeare he is completely blotted out; he lives entirely in the various characters he creates. The experiences described by Dante are those of one person; Shakespeare shows us impulses arising from the inner ego in the widest diversity of characters. Dante's starting-point is human personality; he remains within it and from there he explores the spiritual world. Shakespeare has gone a step further: he, too, starts from his own personality and slips into the individuals he portrays; he is wholly immersed in them. It is not his own soul-life that he dramatises, but the lives of the characters in the outer world that he presents on the stage, and they are all depicted as independent persons with their own motives and aims. Thus we can see here, again, how the evolution of art proceeds. Having originated in the remote past, when human consciousness was devoid of ego-feeling, with Dante, art reached the stage of embracing individual man, so that the ego itself became a world. With Shakespeare, it expanded so far that other egos became the poet's world. For this step to be possible, art had to leave the spiritual heights from which it had sprung and descend into the actualities of physical existence. And this is just what we can see happening when we pass on from Dante to Shakespeare. Let us try to compare Dante and Shakespeare from this point of view. Superficial critics may reproach Dante for being a didactic poet. Anyone who understands Dante and can respond to the whole range and richness of his work will feel that his greatness derives precisely from the fact that all the wisdom and philosophy of the Middle Ages speak from his soul. And for the development of such a soul, endowed with Dante's poetic power, the totality of mediaeval wisdom was a necessary foundation. Its influence worked first on Dante's soul and was again evident, later on, in the expansion of his personality into a world. We cannot properly understand or appreciate Dante's poetic creation unless we are familiar with the heights of mediaeval spiritual life. Only then can we come to appreciate the depths and subtleties of his achievement. Certainly, Dante took one step downwards. He sought to bring the spiritual down to lower levels, and this he did by writing in the vernacular, not in Latin as some of his predecessors had done. He ascends to the loftiest heights of spiritual life, but descends into the physical world as far as the vernacular of his place and time. Shakespeare descends still further. The origin of his great poetic characters is nowadays the subject of all sorts of fanciful speculation, but if we are to understand this descent of poetry into the everyday world — still often looked down on by the highly placed — we must bear in mind the following facts. We must picture a small theatre in what was then a suburb of London, where plays were produced by actors who, except for Shakespeare, would not be rated highly today. Who went to this theatre? The lower orders. It was more fashionable in those days to patronise cockfights and other similar spectacles than to go to this theatre, where people ate and drank and threw eggshells to mark their disapproval and overflowed on to the stage itself, so that the players acted in the midst of their audience. Thus it was before a very low-class London public that these plays were first performed, although many people today fondly imagine that from the first they were acclaimed in the highest circles of cultural life. At best, unmarried sons, who allowed themselves to visit certain obscure resorts in disguise, would go now and then to this theatre, but for respectable people it would have been highly improper. Hence we can see that poetry came down into a realm of the most unsophisticated feelings. Nothing human was alien to the genius who stood behind Shakespeare's plays and the characters in them. So it happened — in respect even of external details — that art, after having been a narrow stream flowing on high levels, descended into the world of ordinary humanity and broadened into a wide stream running through the midst of everyday life. And anyone who looks more deeply into this will see how necessary it was that a lofty spiritual stream should be brought down to lower levels in order that such vital figures as Shakespeare's highly individual characters should appear. Now we will move on to times nearer our own — to Goethe. We will try to connect him with his own creation — the figure of Faust, in whom were embodied all his ideals, endeavours and renunciations during the sixty years he worked on his masterpiece. Everything he experienced in his innermost soul in the course of his rich life, while he climbed from stage to stage of knowledge in his search for higher answers to the riddles of the world — all this is merged in the figure of Faust that we encounter today. What sort of figure is he in the context of Goethe's poetic drama? Of Dante we can say that what he describes is portrayed as the fruit of his own vision. Goethe had no such vision: he makes no claim to having had a special revelation at a particularly solemn time, as Dante does with regard to the Divine Comedy . Everywhere in Faust Goethe shows that he has worked inwardly on what he presents. And whereas the experiences that came to Dante could be described only in his own one-sided way, Goethe's experiences were no less individual but they were translated into the objective character of Faust. Dante gives us his most intimate personal experience; Goethe, too, had personal experiences, but the actions and sufferings of Faust are not those of Goethe's life. They are free poetic transformation of what Goethe had experienced in his own soul. While Dante can be identified with his Divine Comedy , it would take almost a literary historian to identify Goethe with Faust. Faust is an individual character, but we cannot imagine that an array of Faust-like figures could have been created, as numerous as the characters created by Shakespeare. The ego depicted by Goethe in his Faust can be created once only. Besides Hamlet, Shakespeare created Lear, Othello, and so on. Goethe, it is true, also wrote Tasso and Iphigenia , but the difference between them and Faust is obvious. Faust is not Goethe; fundamentally he is every-man. He embodies Goethe's deepest longings, but as a poetic figure his is entirely detached from Goethe's own personality. Dante brings before us the vision of one man, himself; Faust is a character who in a certain sense lives in each one of us. This marks a further advance for poetry up to Goethe. Shakespeare could create characters so individualised that he immersed himself in them and enabled each one of them to speak with a distinctive voice. Goethe creates in Faust an individualised figure, but Faust is not a single individual; he is every-man. Shakespeare entered into the soul-natures of Lear, Othello, Hamlet, Cordelia and so on. Goethe entered into the highest human element in all men. Hence he creates a representative character relevant to all men. And this character detaches himself from Goethe's personality as a poet, and stands before us as a real objective figure in the outer world. Here is a further advance of art along the path we have outlined. Starting from the direct spiritual perception of a higher world, art takes hold of man's inner life to an ever-increasing degree. It does so most intimately when — as with Dante — a man is dealing with himself alone. In Shakespeare's plays the ego goes out from this inwardness and enters other souls. With Goethe, the ego goes out and immerses itself in the soul-life of every-man, typified by Faust. And because the ego is able to go out from itself and understand other souls only if it develops its own soul-powers and sinks itself in another's spirituality, so it is in line with the continued advance in artistic creation that Goethe should have been led to depict not only physical acts and experiences in the outer world, but also the spiritual events that everyone can experience if he opens his ego to the spiritual world. Poetry came from the spiritual world and entered the human ego; with Dante it took hold of the ego at the deepest level of the inner life. With Goethe we see the ego going forth from itself again and finding its way to the spiritual world. The spiritual experiences of ancient humanity are reflected in the Iliad and the Odyssey ; and in Goethe's Faust the spiritual world comes forth again and stands before man. That is how we should respond to the great final tableau in Faust , where man, after having descended into the depths, works his way up again by developing his inner forces until the spiritual world stands open to him once more. It is like a chorus of primal tones, but ever-renewed in ever-advancing forms. From the imperishable spiritual world resounds the imagination, bestowed on man as a substitute for spiritual vision and given form in the perishable creations of human genius. Out of the imperishable were born the perishable poetic figures created by Homer and Aeschylus. Once more poetry ascends from the perishable to the imperishable, and in the mystical chorus at the very end of Faust we hear: Everything transient is but a parable ... 66 Concluding lines to Goethe's Faust ( Faust II , 1. 12, 104ff.). And so, as Goethe shows us, the power of man's spirit ascends from the physical world into the spiritual world again. We have seen artistic consciousness advance with great strides through the world and in representative poets. Art emerges from the spiritual, its original source of knowledge. Spiritual vision withdraws more and more in proportion as the sense-world commands ever-wider attention, thereby stimulating the development of the ego. Human consciousness follows the course of world evolution and so has to make the journey from the spiritual world to the world of the ego and the senses. If man were to study the world of the senses only through the eyes of external science, he would come to understand it only intellectually in scientific terms. But in place of clairvoyance, when this passes away, he is granted imagination, which creates for him a kind of shadowy reflection of what he can no longer perceive. Imagination has had to follow the same path as man, entering eventually into his self-awareness, as with Dante. But the threads that link humanity to the spiritual world can never break, not even when art descends into the isolation of the human ego. Man takes imagination with him on his way; and when Faust appears, we see the spiritual world created anew out of imagination. Thus Goethe's Faust stands at the beginning of an epoch during which man is to re-enter the spiritual world where art originated. And so the mission of art, for all those who cannot reach the spiritual world through higher training, is to spin the threads that will link the spirituality of the far-distant past with the spirituality of the future. Art has indeed already advanced so far that it can give a view of the spiritual world in imagination, as in the second part of Faust . Here we have an intimation that man in his evolution is at the point when he must learn to develop the powers which will enable him to re-enter the spiritual world and to gain conscious knowledge of it. Moreover, having led man towards the spiritual world with the aid of imagination, art has prepared the way for spiritual science, which presupposes clear vision of the spiritual world, based on full ego-consciousness. To point the way towards that world — the world that human beings long for, as we have seen in the examples drawn from the realm of art — that is the task of spiritual science, and it has been the task also of this winter's lectures. Thus we see how great artists can be justified in feeling that reflections of the spiritual world are what they have to give to mankind. And the mission of art is to mediate these revelations during the time when direct revelations of the spiritual world were no longer possible. So Goethe could say of the works of the old artists: “There is necessity, there is God!” They bring to light the hidden laws of nature which would otherwise never be found. And so could Richard Wagner say that in the music of the Ninth Symphony he could hear revelations of another world — a world which a mainly intellectual consciousness can never reach. The great artists have felt that they are bearers of the spirit, the original source of everything human, from the past, through the present, into the future. And so with deep understanding we can agree with words spoken by a poet who felt himself to be an artist: “The dignity of mankind is given into your hands.” 67 Friedrich von Schiller in the poem “Die Künstler”. In this way we have tried to describe the nature and mission of art in the course of human evolution, and to show that art is not as separate from man's sense of truth as people today may lightly suppose. On the contrary, Goethe was right when he refused to speak of the idea of truth and the idea of beauty as separate ideas. There is, he said, one idea, that of the necessary workings of the divine-spiritual in the world, and truth and beauty are two revelations of it. Everywhere among poets and other artists we find agreement with the thought that the spiritual foundations of human existence find utterance in art: or there are artists with deeper feelings who will tell you that art makes it possible for them to believe that their work carries a message to mankind from the spiritual world. And so, even when artists are most personal in expression, they feel that their art is raised to a universal human level, and that in a true sense they speak for humanity when the characters and revelations of their art give effect to the words spoken by Goethe's Mystical Chorus: Everything transient is but a parable ... And on the strength of our spiritual-scientific considerations we may add: Art is called upon to transfuse the transient and the perishable with the light of the eternal, the imperishable. That is the mission of art.

Metamorphoses of the Soul: Paths of Experience II

The Mission of Art

https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA059/English/RSP1983/19100512p01.html

Berlin

12 May 1910

GA059-9

Translator Unknown Already for several years, I attempted to hold talks about spiritual science here from this place during the winter months. In this winter, I want also to give a picture of facts of the spiritual world from this viewpoint in the series of the talks announced to you. We shall consider the big questions of existence, the relation of life and death, of sleeping and wakening, of the human soul and animal soul, of the human spirit and animal spirit, and of the spirit in the realm of plants. Then we want to consider the development of the human being through the different ages, through childhood, youth, and the later years, the interest of education in the main character of the human being. We will light up the spiritual life turning our look to the great individualities of the human development, to Zarathustra, Moses, Galilei, and Goethe. Using single examples, I want to show in which way spiritual science relates to the natural sciences: at the example of astronomy and geology. Then I want to explain what spiritual science can say about the riddle of life. A kind of orienting, general consideration preceded the considerations every year. I follow this custom also this year speaking about the meaning of the spiritual science, its significance, its nature, and its task within the different spiritual needs of the present. One may be allowed to say that spiritual science (German: Geisteswissenschaft ) is a rather unpopular thing even today in wide sections of the population. Indeed, one also speaks about “humanities” (German: Geisteswissenschaft ) outside our spiritual science. One understands, for example, something by history that one calls humanities, and probably also by other fields of knowledge of the present. In another sense than one normally speaks of humanities, I want to speak here. If one speaks of “humanities” today and applies the term possibly to history, one admits in the utmost that beside the human observation, the sensory experience, and intellectual experience still certain big trends come into consideration. These are effective like forces in the stream of the world evolution and cause as it were the talents of the single peoples and states. One probably speaks also of general ideas in history and in the human life. He who reflects what is meant in such a case soon remembers that one appeals to abstract ideas speaking of the forces, of that which guides the human destinies. These are general ideas in certain respect to which the human intellectual capability can attain a relation of knowledge. In another sense, one speaks about humanities here assuming a spiritual world as a world that is essential as the human world is essential within the physical existence. I want to show: if one exceeds with the human cognitive faculties what presents itself to the external sensory observation, the intellectual experience, and goes to the guiding forces of human existence and world existence generally, one does not come to abstractions, to sapless and feeble concepts. However, one comes to something essential, to something that is living, full of contents, spiritually impregnated existence as the nature of the human being is. One speaks about an existing spiritual world here. That is why spiritual science is no popular thing for the widest circles of our present cultural striving. It is still the least if one calls those who devote themselves to such spiritual-scientific research blabbers, dreamers, or daydreamers. It is even today something ordinary to say that everything that wants to be or to appear as a strict method, as real scientificity on this ground is a quite dubious thing. Big, immense progress always exercised a suggestive effect on humanity also concerning thinking and feeling. The big progress of the general human life does not lie in the spiritual-scientific field, but rather in that field, of which humanity is rightly proud and on which it still sets big hopes for its further development. Until our days, this progress of the last centuries lies in the field that grows out of the natural sciences. Imagine the immense theoretical progress of science which one has attained and will attain, and which big significance these scientific achievements have for the outer life, then one must say: the blessing of this scientific progress must exercise a suggestive power on the human beings. Thus, it has happened that this suggestive effect has expressed itself also to another side. If it had expressed itself only in such a way that above all the human mind felt something like a kind of worldly cult compared with this immense progress, who could even speak a single word against it? However, this suggestive power has also expressed itself in such a way that one does not only recognise the scientific research and the progress following from it for our time, but within wide sections of the population the faith originated that any knowledge of humanity can be gained only on scientific ground. Because one regards oneself as entitled to conclude from this faith that the spiritual-scientific method contradicts these scientific methods that it is impossible for that who is on scientific ground to speak generally of the investigation of a spiritual world, the prejudice is spread that spiritual science must be rejected compared to the entitled requirements of natural sciences. With this refusal, one hears very serious objections. The scientific method, one says, is such a one whose research results, whose knowledge can be checked by every human being at any time, and that for the production of this knowledge, of these research results no subjective feeling, sympathy or antipathy, longing or desire are allowed to come into the picture. Nothing is allowed to interfere from the requirement that one would like to have this result so or so; the human element must exclude itself from the research and let the objectivity of the things speak if it concerns results of scientific research. Spiritual science cannot put up this demand just like that. To someone who regards this demand as generally valid it is a sufficient reason to reject spiritual science that it cannot satisfy this demand. Why is this the case? The natural sciences have the objects of their research round the human being. They start from that what can be put before every human being what every human being can think about it with the physical-scientific methods, if he is led before the thing. It is apparently completely irrelevant with which requirement the human being approaches what presents itself in his surroundings. It is just that what expresses itself in the general demand: physical-scientific knowledge must be able to be checked by any human being at any time. The true spiritual science cannot go forward at all, as the natural sciences obtain their results. It cannot say at first, it is necessary that any human being can check the results at any time. Since it must assume that these research results are obtained because the human being does not consider his inside as anything solid, anything concluded that he does not regard his subjective being as anything ready, but says to himself: my subjective being is nothing concluded, is nothing ready, it can be developed; the soul life can be deepened. The soul life can run so that that what one finds if one turns the senses to the outer world and applies the mind to what the senses say is only a base of other soul experiences. Other soul experiences arise if the soul becomes engrossed in itself, if it regards the immediate life experience only as a starting point and then struggles with forces slumbering in it at first. These forces can be got out, however, through the stages of existence that one cannot regard in such a way that one could check them with an outer eye. What the spiritual researcher must experience for the preparation of his studies is an inner struggle of the soul that is completely independent of that what the human being has in himself. If one demands from science generally that the human being should add nothing to the results that face him outside, then it could not be talk of spiritual science at all. However, he who reflects a little and asks himself: which is the most important part of the demands which are asserted there for spiritual science, could say to himself that its results are valid for any human being that they are not subject to the personal arbitrariness, and are significant for all human beings. This is the characteristic of everything scientific that it does not only apply to somebody whom the objects of science face, but that — if the objects have been investigated — this can lead to knowledge that can be valid for all human beings. If it were true that that what I have characterised in such a way as a development of the human being were only subjective, applied only to the one or the other person, and that only a personal faith were due to it, one could not speak of spiritual science really. It will still become apparent, however, in this winter that this inner life of the human being, the struggle of the soul can develop from the forces that slumber at first but can awake and guide him from experience to experience, and that this soul life can still ascend to a stage, where his experiences have a particular peculiarity. Considering the human life as it happens inside of the human soul, it is a quite personal one at first, for the one this way, for the other that way. Someone who has a healthy self-reflection can realise with this or that what surges up in his soul as sympathy or antipathy what has as it were a personal touch only, that this and how this is the case. However, the inner experience leads to a certain point where just a methodically achieved, pure self-knowledge, uninfluenced by anything personal, must say to itself, the personal has just been cast off, forms a special area. However, then one comes to a certain point where for the inner experience, for the supersensible experience arbitrariness stops exactly the same way as it stops if one faces these or those sense-perceptible phenomena, and where one can also not think as one wants but must think according to the object. Thus, the human being also comes internally, emotionally to a certain sphere, to a certain area where he clearly realises that his personal subjectivity does no longer speak but that now not sense-perceptible but supersensible beings and forces speak for which his individuality has just as little significance as for that which the outer sensory objects say. However, one has to attain this knowledge if one wants to be entitled to call the statements of the spiritual world “science.” These winter talks shall be again a proof that we are permitted to call the considerations about the investigation of the spiritual world science. Thus, one must say, spiritual science is founded on that what the human soul can investigate if it has come in its inner struggle and experience to a point where the personal does no longer have a say in the case of the considerations of the spiritual world, but where it lets the spiritual world say its peculiarities. If one compares spiritual science to the natural sciences, some people maybe say, then, however, spiritual science lacks the important characteristic that it can make a persuasive impression on all human beings, which the natural sciences have. Since one has the consciousness, wherever scientific results appear, even if you had not investigated and seen them yourself, you would be able to do it if you went to the observatory or to the laboratory and used the telescope and the microscope and you would recognise them in the same way as someone who imparted them to you. He could say: if in the way of spiritual science the proof is an inner one, and the soul struggles with itself, until it says: now you give nothing of your personality to that what the objects say to you, — nevertheless, it is a single struggle. One would have to say to someone who attains certain results this way, or whom the spiritual-scientific researcher informs of these results: these results remain an unknown land to me, until I myself ascend to the same point! Also this — this will still appear to us — is a wrong objection. Indeed, this lonesome struggle of the human soul, this uncovering of forces slumbering in the human soul is necessary in order to reach the spiritual world where it speaks objectively to us. However, the spiritual world is in such a way: after the spiritual-scientific results have been informed, the results are effective. What someone, proved by spiritual-scientific research, communicates to his fellow men can be checked by everybody again, in a certain sense, however, not in such a way that one can see in the laboratory what the other has found, but in such a way that one can accept it. For in every soul a sense of impartial truth, a healthy logic, a healthy reasonableness lives. If the results of the spiritual research are dressed in healthy logic, in that what speaks as our healthy sense of truth, then in every soul or at least in every impartial soul a string can sound or resonate with the informing soul. One can say, any soul has the disposition — even if it has not still dedicated itself to the lonesome struggle — to take up by an impartial logic and by a healthy sense of truth what spiritual science informs. Even if one has to admit that also within the spiritual-scientific movement the communications of spiritual research are not always accepted with this healthy sense of truth and healthy logic, but this is a lack of every spiritual movement. However, in principle, this is right what I have said. In principle, one should even consider that it must lead to mistakes about mistakes if one accepts light-heartedly and with blind faith what is often brought as spiritual science to humanity today. Who really stands on the ground of spiritual science feels strictly obliged to inform logically and reasonably what he has to say, so that one can really check with a healthy sense of truth and with any logic. - Thus, we have explained the being of spiritual science showing how one has to find its results. Only this science can prove that there is such an objective fact of the spirit. However, I want to call attention to the fact that this science just leads to the real contents of the spiritual world, to contents that are fulfilled vividly with such essentiality as for example a human being is fulfilled with essentiality. From this viewpoint, spiritual science gets clear about the fact that at last a spiritual world forms the basis of any physical-sensuous existence that the human being as well as all the other things is born and developed out of this spiritual world. It states also that behind the sense-perceptible world, behind the physical outer existence the region of the spiritual world extends. If now spiritual science goes over gradually to showing from its observations how it looks in this spiritual world how the spiritual world underlies our sense-perceptible world, then the aversion just arises in many circles as it was characterised at the beginning of this talk. In wide circles of the present, spiritual science is a quite unpopular thing. It is difficult by no means to understand that spiritual science still meets an immense opposition today. It is a matter of course because that what is incorporated as something new to the cultural life like spiritual science was always forced back in a certain respect like all small and big achievements of humanity. However, because there are many mental pictures, which the human being gets from the scientific observation, which cause just the necessity that someone who believes to stand completely on the ground of natural sciences is involved in nothing but contradictions if he hears what spiritual science says. Someone who stands on the ground of spiritual science does not doubt at all that with a certain right hundreds upon hundreds of disproofs of this spiritual science can be brought up. Only as in brackets I would like to insert that I myself hold two talks in the next time at different places and also here once, so that clearness is brought in this question. The first of them reads: How Does One Disprove Theosophy? and the other: How Does One Found Theosophy? For a test, this should happen in order to show how that who stands on the ground of spiritual science can really gather everything that can be alleged as disproofs against spiritual science. Yes, I would like to say even more than that what has already been stated in this case that the disproofs of spiritual science, as one normally speaks today of disproofs, are not so particularly difficult in relation to its various results at all. It is easy to disprove the spiritual-scientific researches. I would not like to compare these disproofs directly, but to make clear what I want to say, and go back to something that often strikes one if one reads works of certain philosophers about Hegel's philosophy. — I do not want to speak here about the importance of Hegel's philosophy about what is true and what is wrong; we want to leave this undecided. — There will be few people among the experts of Hegel, who do not recognise that Hegel is a significant spirit. In Hegel's writings, one finds a strange sentence that can make, so to speak, a deep impression on those who want to disprove Hegel light-heartedly. This sentence reads, “Everything real is reasonable!” Imagine which inner laughter such a sentence must cause in someone who disproves with pleasure! A philosopher should be great who speaks such nonsense: “Everything real is reasonable!” One needs only to cast a single glance at the world and sees how unreasonable this sentence is! There is an easy method to disprove the correctness of this sentence, and it consists in the fact that someone himself gets up to mischief. Since one can state then that it is certainly not reasonable. Should the fact that a disproof becomes easy also lead to the fact that it is simply taken easy and is easily taken as important? This is another question, which answers itself maybe by the fact that one considers the following: should Hegel really have been so silly — one may relate to Hegel as one wants — that he would not have realised that this sentence is easily disproved? Should he have thought really that no one could get up to mischief? Should one not feel compelled to consider in which sense Hegel could have meant this sentence and that one does not meet what he meant with such a disproof at all? In the same way, it may also be with many things of spiritual science. We go back to something concrete: spiritual science has to assume that the nervous system and the brain as the tools of thinking, imagination, feeling, and will-impulses are built by a spiritual. Brain and nervous system are tools of something essential that one cannot show in the sensory world, but that one has to investigate with the characterised methods of spiritual science. Spiritual science has to go back from that what science, resting on the sense-perceptible phenomena, knows to say about the brain and nervous system to something working in the human being mentally-spiritually that can no longer be investigated with the senses that can be investigated only on the inner ways of the soul. One can very easily now disprove what the spiritual research tells about something supersensible that forms the basis of the human brain. One can say, all that you talk is only a product of the brain. If you do not realise this, consider once how the spiritual abilities rise in the evolution. With the lower animals, the spiritual abilities are still imperfect, with the higher animals and especially with the higher mammals they are quite significant and more perfect, and with the human being they are most complete because his brain has attained the biggest perfection. This shows that the spiritual life grows out of the brain. If you do not yet believe this, then turn once to someone who can show you how in certain cases of illness certain parts of the brain can become ineffective and the human being can no longer exercise certain abilities, so that, as it were, certain parts of the brain are demolished and the spiritual life is disabled. There you see how a sense-perceptible organ can demolish your spiritual life! Why do you still speak about the spiritual beings that should stand behind the sense-perceptible things? One can make this objection very easily. The fact that it is done not from the scientific results, but from the suggestion which is formed for many people from certain scientific theories, must seem to us natural in the present. All that is connected with the fact that our time stands under the suggestive power of that opinion that one can only gain truth, knowledge if one directs the senses outwardly and ignites the reason by the gained observations. Even if — this must be said concerning spiritual science — these results deliver as many disproofs as possible, nevertheless, one can say that on the other side in our present a deep need, a deep longing exists for hearing something of those lands about which spiritual science knows to report something. A deep longing for it has developed at the same time and is alive with a group of human beings. With a big part of the human beings it slumbers, so to speak, under the surface of consciousness, however, it will appear more and more. The need for spiritual-scientific results will become bigger and bigger. This longing, this need for spiritual-scientific results occurs as an outgrowth beside the admiration, the devotion of the scientific achievements. Just because the scientific achievements must necessarily face the human being outwardly, like a counter-pole the longing for spiritual-scientific results emerges. Concerning that, we have reached another viewpoint in the nineteenth and our centuries than humanity had hundred years ago. If one wants to speak of the worth of the spiritual-scientific researches of the present, it is important to realise that a century ago even greater spirits did not yet feel the need of speaking of spiritual-scientific results in the way as this should happen today in the sense of this course of lectures. Because the great individualities have the greatest say for humanity, in certain sense they only express what the need of the whole time is, also of the minor individualities, such a thing can present itself clearly, if we look at the greater individualities. There one can say rightly, such a human being like Goethe felt the need to express himself about spiritual-scientific results by no means a century ago as this happens today on the ground of spiritual science. Where the question arose to speak about something that lies beyond the sense-perceptible, Goethe referred also like so many human beings often to the fact that this should be a thing of faith but not of strict science. He also often said that strictly speaking the communication of generally valid results on this ground could be hardly very fertile if one person communicates them to the other. We are so advanced in the course of a century concerning the whole development of humanity not only that Goethe lived in an age which had no telegraphs, phones, railways and no such prospects as they come up to the aeronautics; we also face results of the spiritual development which are different from those at Goethe's lifetime. You can see this in a concrete case. There is a nice conversation that Goethe had with a certain Falk (Johannes Daniel F., 1768-1826, poet) at the occasion of Wieland's death (Christoph W., 1733-1813, poet and writer). There he expressed himself about the fields that deal with that which goes beyond birth and death of the human being that is not frail with his sensuous cover, which is immortal. The immediate occasion of the death of Wieland, very respected by him, urged Goethe to express himself in popular way towards a person like Falk who met him with understanding. What he said there is extremely typical if we go into the question of the significance of the spiritual science for the present. “You know for a long time that the ideas which are without a firm foundation in the sensory world do not convince me in spite of their remaining value because relating to nature I want to know and not to suppose and believe only. Concerning the personal continuation of our soul after death, it is like that: it does not at all contradict the long-term observations, which I have done of the state of our and all beings in nature; on the contrary, it arises from it with new strength of evidence. However, it is another issue how much of this personality deserves to continue, we must leave that to God. Provisionally, I want to note this only at first: I assume different classes and hierarchies of the primeval components of all beings, as it were, of the starting points of all phenomena in nature which I would like to call souls, because the ensoulment of the whole starts from these, or even monads — let us maintain this Leibniz expression! To express the simplicity of the simplest being, there would be no better one. Now some of these monads or starting points are — as experience shows — so small, so slight that they are suited at most only for a subordinated service and existence; others against it are strong and tremendous. Hence, the last capture everything into their circle that approaches them and transform it into a body, into a plant, into an animal, or even into something higher, into a star. They continue doing this, until the small or the big world whose intention lies spiritually in them also appears bodily. I would like to call the last only souls. It follows from this that there are world monads, world souls, like ant monads, ant souls, and that both in their origin even if they are not completely one, however, are related in their primeval being. Every sun, every planet carries a higher intention, a higher mission in itself, so that its developments must come about as regularly and according to the same law as the rosebush develops leaves, stalks and blossoms. You may call this an idea or a monad as you want, I also have nothing against it; it is enough that this intention exists invisibly and earlier than the visible development in nature...” In certain sense, Goethe speaks at that time of that about which we shall often speak in these talks here: about the reincarnation of the human soul. He remarks: after all what he has formed as a view of the human world, animal world et cetera, and such a view would not contradict what he built up as science. One can now easily consider what Goethe's quotation means if one reflects that Goethe had made a discovery in 1784 which would be sufficient to keep his name until the most distant times, even if he had performed nothing else: the discovery of the so-called inter-maxillary in the upper jaw of the human being. There is in the upper jaw of the human being — as with the animals also — an intermediary bone. Just at that time, one denied this when Goethe entered the natural sciences. One looked only for externally discerning attributes where it concerned the differentiation of human being and animal, and had the opinion that the animals would have an intermediary bone in the upper jaw that would not exist with the human being. This differentiates the animal organisation from the human one. Goethe did not want to admit it, he could not believe that in this subordinated state the difference is to be given between human being and animal, and attempted with all available means to show that the human inter-maxillary grows together, indeed, already shortly after the birth, but exists as rudiment and is not absent with the human being. He succeeded in proving the fact that there is no outer difference between the human being and the animal. From this starting point Goethe looked around in all fields of the natural sciences and knew the scientific way of thinking of his time very well. Yes, he was so far ahead of his time that today Darwinists who want to reinterpret Goethe in the sense of Darwin can allege: Goethe is a precursor of Darwin. Although Goethe is rooted in the scientificity of his time this way and goes beyond it, he can say, nevertheless, what he has formed as a view of the immortal part of the human being what is reminiscent of reincarnation and is compatible with his scientific ideas. What Goethe could say at that time, every human being could say to himself. Other researchers who tried to gain knowledge for life scientifically were in the same position. It is typical for it that one refers on Haeckel's ground to a great action of Kant, to the foundations of the mechanical worldview by Kant, and to the General Natural History and Theory of the Sky or Attempt of the Constitution and the Mechanical Origin of the Whole World Edifice that Kant wrote in 1775. You need only to take the Reclam booklet (cheap edition) and to examine the end. Then you ask, how do those who stand on the ground of mere Haeckelism face Kant if he speaks of the immortality of the human soul where he speaks about the great secrets of the human soul, about the prospect of the habitability of other heavenly bodies and of the human soul living on on other planets? How do such followers of Haeckel position themselves to the possibility of the reincarnation of the human being as it appears in this writing by Kant? Today one refers to things so that one is surprised, if those who refer to Kant would have really read these things! The things are quite different in the present from those one or one and a half centuries ago. At that time, the tendency prevailed that one spoke about the matters of the spiritual life in a certain way, which wanted to have nothing to do with science. Since one felt that one speaks there of something that does not contradict what science can claim. Everybody who opens himself to the science of that time feels if he takes up anything scientific only by the popular portrayals that he can speak like Goethe: the convictions which I have formed of a spiritual life may they be like a personal faith, however, they contradict in no point what is science today. The things have changed and become very difficult compared with science. One must consider that after Goethe's death the big discoveries of the human and animal cells by Schleiden (Matthias Jacob Sch., 1804-1881, botanist) and Schwann (Robert Sch., 1810-1882, physiologist) happened, and that an elementary organism presented itself to the senses first. What does one need to talk of a “life on other heavenly bodies” et cetera, if one can see the bodies building themselves up with an animal or a plant by cooperation of the wholly material, sense-perceptible cells? Then there came the other immense achievements. We only need to consider the impact on the human thinking, when Kirchhoff (Gustav Robert K., 1827-1884, physicist) and Bunsen (Robert Wilhelm B., 1811-1899, chemist) brought the spectral analysis that extended the view of the human being to distant worlds. From this spectral analysis, one could conclude that the material existence, which we find on the earth, is the same also on the most distant heavenly bodies, so that one was allowed to speak of a unity of the material in the whole universe. Every day increases what can face us in this field. I could point to hundreds and hundreds of such things that worked revolutionary. That is why the conviction originated that one has to speak of the results of the scientific method in the following way, wait for what the scientific research has to say about the reasons of life, about the origin of the intellectual life from the brain activity, and do not talk of a spiritual world fantastically that should form the basis of all! -- One can understand this very easily. Thus, the sight of the scientific has changed for the human power of persuasion. Goethe is in this respect really a predecessor of Darwin. Nevertheless, he rose according to the spirit of his time from his physical-scientific researches, from the development of the living beings from the imperfect to the perfect, to a wholly spiritual worldview that searches the supersensible, the spiritual behind everything sensuous. The human beings who go forward in the same way in our time believe that the scientific results urge to stop at that what these scientific results should be, and that every spiritual region originates from the sensuous background. The human being today cannot say in the same way as a century ago that that does not contradict the scientific results what he knows by his personal religious conviction or believes to know or has appropriated of the supersensible world, but it seems that it contradicts even very much. It seems not only to this or to that serious researcher of truth and striving human being in such a way. If this is the case, we must say: for our present that persuasive power, the reasons of conviction which could be still presented a century ago or still later, without contradicting the external scientific results, are no longer immediately authoritative. Today it requires more serious impulses in order to maintain what is said about the supersensible world compared with the strict scientific results of science. We must be able to dress what we are authorised to believe about the spiritual world in the same way, to gain it in the same objective way, as the scientific results — only on other ground — can be attained. Only of a spiritual science which works with the same logic, with the same healthy sense of truth as the natural sciences one will feel that it can position itself beside the immensely advanced natural sciences. If one considers this, one understands in which sense spiritual science has become a necessity for our present. One also understands that this spiritual science can meet solely the longings of which I have spoken. And these longings exist because unconsciously works with many human souls what has just been characterised — just with the best seekers of truth and in a field where one does not anticipate it at all — if one quotes how the human thirst for knowledge strives out of that which one always said in the scientific field once. Indeed, the mathematical field, the field of geometry seems to be confirmed concerning its application to the sensuous world. Who would like to believe, so to speak, light-heartedly that anybody can allege that the statements of mathematics, of geometry could be shaken anyhow? Nevertheless, it is typical that there were spirits in the course of the nineteenth century who have soared to invent geometries, mathematics purely mathematically, by strict mathematical investigations that do not apply to the sensuous world, but to quite different worlds. That means there were mathematically thinking people who felt that they could exceed what there has been up to now as mathematics and geometry and could invent a geometry that applies to another sensuous world! There are not only one, but also several such geometries. Mathematically trained people know something about the names Riemann (Bernhard R., 1826-1866), Lobatschewski (Nikolaus L., 1793-1856), Bolyai (Johann B., 1802-1860). We do not want to go into that closer, because it matters only that such a thing can originate from the human recognising. — There are, for example, geometries, which do not acknowledge the sentence: the three corners of a triangle amount to 180 degrees but for which the triangles have another quality, so that, for example, the three corners of a triangle are always less than 180 degrees. Another case: in our Euclidean geometry, one can draw only one parallel through a point to a given line. Geometries have been invented where one can draw endlessly many parallels through a point to another line. That is, there were spirits who felt urged not only to be keen on other worlds but also to invent geometries for them! This is very indicative that even in mathematical heads a longing prevailed to exceed what is in the immediately surrounding world. I want still to state one thing only that our time needs something that one can obtain from spiritual science. It will turn out That, indeed, the real spiritual-mental nature of the human being repeatedly appears in renewed lives on our earth, That reincarnation is a similar fact in the spiritual-mental field as the theory of evolution on a subordinated stage for the animal realm, That the human soul has developed through incarnations that it experienced during past lives, and experiences in future lives. Indeed, the art of disproving will very vehemently oppose such things in the present. However, one can already state that the present has a deep need for such results that are connected with that by which the human being can orientate himself about his determination, his position to the outer world. The human being has only started for short time to position himself properly as a historical being in the world evolution. This has happened by the external educational means. Think of the limited scope of view of the humanity of the fourteenth, fifteenth centuries, before the art of printing spread the educational means. Questions did not yet arise to the human heart like that: how can our soul face with satisfaction what we recognise as the historical progress? Here is the origin of a question that has become a question of the heart for many human beings today. The historical progress shows that new achievements, which are also valuable for the inner development of the soul that new facts enter the stream of the progressive humanity. There the human being must ask himself, what is the innermost nature of the human being? Were the human beings of the past condemned to have experienced their lives in a vague existence and not to take interest in the products of a later progress? What is the share of the human being of the successive developments of the human race? Against this question, one may object many things. Here should be talk of the fact only that, indeed, from a deep feeling of the human soul the question, the riddle originates: is it possible that today a human soul lives which cannot integrate achievements which are stamped on the stream of the human evolution in future because its life is enclosed between birth and death? This question gets a basic meaning for the confessors of Christianity. He, who stands on the ground of a purified Christianity, differentiates the pre-Christian epoch and the post-Christian epoch in the evolution of humanity and speaks of the fact that a stream of new spiritual life flowed from the Christ event, which was not there earlier for the earthly humanity. There the question must arise for such a human being: what about the souls, which have lived before the Christ event, before the announcement of that which streamed out of the Christ event? The human being can put such a question. Spiritual science answers to it not only theoretically, but in such a way that it is also adequate to him. For it shows that the same human beings who took up achievements of the pre-Christian time, are reincarnated, after the stream of the Christian development had begun, so that nobody can lose what enters the culture. Thus, something grows out of history for spiritual science that is not only abstract ideas, but spiritual science speaks of history as of something in which the human being is involved with his innermost being everywhere. Because the human horizon has expanded by the modern educational means, now one puts this question in another sense than a century ago when the scope of view of the human beings was more limited. A desire for answer exists which spiritual science can only satisfy. If we take into consideration this — and we could continue speaking for hours that way and could bring in many examples that are indicative that spiritual science has significance for the present because the present must ask very much for its results -, then we get an idea of the significance of spiritual science for the present. All talks of this winter shall serve only to collect material from the most different sides to show the spiritual-scientific results and their significance for the human life, as for the satisfaction of the highest need of the human being generally. I would only like to say at the end, today one of the most usual allegations against spiritual science is that one says, fortunately, the natural sciences have succeeded in getting a uniform principle to explain the world monistically. Spiritual science is almost a term that causes antipathies by itself in many people because it puts up a sort of dualism compared with this epistemologically beneficial monism! One sins a lot with such catchwords. Is the principle explaining the universe uniformly broken because two currents co-operate in the universe, an outer one, and an inner one, which meet in the soul? Is it not allowed to assume that what approaches the soul from two sides — namely from the sensory experience on one side and from the spiritual-scientific research on the other side -, is still based on a uniform existence and appears only for the human view at first in two streams? Has one to take monism definitely superficially? If this were the case that the monistic principle would be thereby broken, then somebody may also state that the monistic principle is broken if he concedes that water consists of hydrogen and oxygen. Hydrogen and oxygen can still have a uniform origin even if they combine to water. The sensuous and the supersensible worlds can also have a uniform origin even if one is also forced by the facts of the natural sciences and spiritual science to say: in the human soul two streams unite, one of which from the sensory side, the other from the spiritual side. Then, indeed, one cannot show the uniform, the monon (the only), straight away, but it does not contradict the view of a monistic world. What appears from two sides that way attains the strength of the full reality only if we recognise it consisting of two currents. If we look at the outside world, we get a worldview by our senses and our reason that does not show its origin: the spirit. If we go the ways of the spiritual-scientific research and experience the impetus in our soul, we find the spirit. Matter and spirit meet in the soul. Joining spirit and matter within our soul delivers the true spiritual reality only! Thus, you allow me to summarise the just said in the words, which give the same possibly in poetic form what all human beings felt at all times who impartially endeavoured to obtain a view of spirit and matter. Spiritual science relating to natural sciences teaches us to recognise that it is true: The wealth of materials approaches the human sense Mysteriously from the depths of the universe. The spirit's word flows clarifying In the soul's grounds from cosmic heights full of contents. They meet in the human inside to reality full of wisdom.

The Answers of Spiritual Science to the Big Questions of Existence

https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA060/English/eLib2015/19101020p01.html

Berlin

20 Oct 1910

GA060-1

This is the 2nd of 15 lectures given by Rudolf Steiner at Berlin, that date from October, 1910 through March of 1911. There are also two “extra” lectures included in this lecture series, from December 14th 1911 and January 25th 1912. The title of these lectures is: Spiritual Science's Answer to the Large Questions of the Present Time , in German the title is: Antworten der Geisteswissenschaft auf den Grossen Fragen des Daseins . Translator Unknown If we take note of many an observation which is made on the relation of man to Life and Death to-day, we may be reminded of a sentence which Shakespeare gives to the gloomy Hamlet: Imperious Caesar, dead, and turned to clay, Might stop a bold to keep the wind away; O, that the earth, which kept the world in awe, Should patch a wall to expel the winter's flaw! Such an utterance might be made by many an one who is subject to the suggestive effect of the many conceptions of the times which are acquired in the field of natural science, and who, might feel himself moved to follow up all the movements after death of the separate substances which compose the human body. He might feel himself justified in asking first of all: “What becomes of the oxygen, nitrogen, carbon, etc., which build up the human body after the death of man?” Quite apart from the fact that there are many people to-day who are influenced by the suggestive phrase: “the indestructibility of Matter,” there are, again, others who entirely lose the ability of imagining anything in the whole vast unending space other than matter and its operations. We can see from many an observation on the nature of death, or one which establishes the idea of an antithesis between life and death, how much depends, in expositions of this kind, on establishing conceptions and ideas in the most exact manner possible. It happens again and again that no account is taken of the fact that “death” and “life” form an antithesis which depends on the nature of that to which it refers, and that, one who makes a closer observation dare not speak in the same way of the death of a plant or an animal as of a man. To what extent this is the case shall be explained in this lecture. How little we understand the expressions used in this sphere may be shown by the fact that in the physiology of the great naturalist, Huxley, for instance, the following is to be found. It is there said, that we must distinguish between the local death and the death of the tissue in an organism, and it is expressly stated that the life of man depends on the brain, lungs and heart, but that this is a threefold condition which we could really reduce into a twofold one; that, in fact, if we could maintain the breathing by artificial means, we might quite well remove the brain of a man and he would continue to live. That means that life would continue, even if the brain were taken away. That is to say, that when a man is no longer able to form a conception of what is around him or of what is taking place within him, and if life could be maintained merely as a life-process in the organism through artificial breathing, the organism would still continue to live in the sense of this definition of natural science, and we could not really speak of death, although no brain were there at all. That is an idea which ought to make clear to anyone who — though he might not care for a life without a brain, at least find such a definition plausible — that this explanation just shows that the definition of life given by natural science is not at all applicable to man in this form. For no one would be able to call the life of an organism — even a human one — the life of man himself, even if other respects the facts hinted at were quite correct. Now to-day we are, perhaps, somewhat further advanced even in the field of natural science than ten years ago, when one was almost embarrassed in speaking of life at all, and when all life was traced back to the life of the smallest living creatures. This life in the smallest organisms was looked upon as a complicated chemical process. According to this view, if this definition were extended to a conception of the universe, one could only speak of the smallest parts of life as living on, so that only a conservation of matter could then be spoken of. Now, to-day, on account of the investigations on radium, for instance, the idea of the indestructibility of matter has become a more uncertain one. I will now only draw your attention to the fact that natural science to-day is already attempting to speak of a sort of independence, at least of the smallest living creatures. It states that the smallest living creatures propagate themselves by fission; one divides itself into two, two into four, and so on. There we could not admit of a death, for the first lives on in the second and when these die they both live on in the next ones. Now those who wished to speak of the immortality of unicellular beings have sought for a definition of death, and just this definition of the nature of death is extremely characteristic. They have found the main characteristic of death is that it leaves a corpse behind, and as unicellular beings leave no corpse behind, they, therefore, cannot really die. Thus the characteristic of that which has to do with the deepest foundations of life is sought in what life leaves behind. Now it will be clear without further explanation, that what remains behind of life passes over gradually into lifeless matter. So lifeless matter now becomes in death the outer organism of the smallest, most complicated living creature. Yet if we wish to take into account the significance which death has for life, we must not look at what is left, at what becomes lifeless matter; but must seek the cause, the principles of life, in life itself, while it is there . I said that one cannot speak in the same sense of death in plants, as in animals and man, because an important phenomenon is not taken into consideration there. It is also found in certain of the lower animals, for example, in the ephemera; and consists in the fact that most plants and lower animals have the peculiarity that as soon as the process of fructification is established and the possibility of a new living being is created, the dying off of the old one then begins. In the plant the backward process, the process of dying off, begins the moment it has taken into itself the possibility of forming a new plant. One can therefore say quite certainly of those plants in which this can be observed, that the cause which has taken away life from them lies in the new living being or beings, which have left no life behind in the old being. Through simple reflections one could convince oneself that this is so. There are certain plants which endure, which blossom again and again and bear fruit; and on which ever new plant-forms, like parasites, are, as it were, planted on to the old stem. But there you can convince yourself that they purchase the possibility of recreating themselves by thrusting certain parts of themselves into the realm of the lifeless, into death, — that is to say, they surround themselves with bark. We are quite justified in saying of a plant which can surround itself with bark, which can bear lifeless matter and yet continue to live, that it has a surplus of life; and because of this superfluity which it will not give up — only giving up what is necessary for the young organism — it must make itself secure by thrusting death outside. Thus it can also he said that every living being which possesses the possibility within itself beyond the bringing forth of a new creation, is confronted with the necessity of continually mastering life within itself, since it takes up inorganic lifeless matter. This can be adequately observed both in the animal and in man. There we have a separation between life and death in the being itself. We have an exchange between a living member which develops in one direction, and a continual sinking-into itself of another member which is developing in the direction of death. If we now wish to draw near to the inmost being of man from this point of view, we must certainly bear in mind something of what has often been said before, but which is never superfluous, because it does not as yet belong to the ordinary recognised truth. If we rest on quite ordinary conceptions — as we will to-day in the first half of the lecture — and then proceed to the question of life and death from the point of view of Spiritual Science, we must remember that what is taken into account here is certainly very little recognised to-day, for it has to do with a truth which is just as new to the man of to-day as another truth, which now belongs to the trivialities, was new, and even unknown, to the world of three centuries ago. I have often, pointed out that it is taken for granted to-day by the natural scientist, or by one who builds up his observations on natural-scientific conceptions, that it is an acknowledged fact that “everything living is born from the living.” (Of course, I am speaking here with the limitation which this sentence bears in the world of natural science. We need not embark on the question of primeval generation for instance, for it can be noticed right away that the analogous sentence which is mentioned there is also made use of in the world of Spiritual Science). Not long ago the great natural scientist, Francesco Redi, had to fight for this sentence, “Everything living is born from the living,” with all his energy. For before the appearance of this Naturalist of the 17th century, it. was considered quite possible, not only in lay circles. but even in scientific ones, for new organisms to generate from putrefying river-mud or from decaying organic matter. This was believed of worms and fishes. The idea, that the living can only develop from the living is not yet old, for only a few centuries ago Francesco Redi called forth such a storm of passion that he only just escaped the fate of Giordano Bruno. When we consider how the “fashions of the time” alter, we can judge of the fate of this truth that we must again proclaim here. For this truth, “Life can only originate from life”, called forth at that time a storm of anger. Those who feel themselves impelled to draw from the well of knowledge similar truths in other spheres, are no longer delivered to the flames of the funeral pile to-day. That is no longer the fashion. But they are made fun of; a man who communicates such things is turned into ridicule; those who are impelled to proclaim such things as relate to Spiritual, development, are condemned to suffer a Spiritual death. But the fate of the above-mentioned truth also consists in its having become a self-evident fact, a, triviality, for him who is capable of judging. That error, then, was the cause of this truth, “Life can only originate from life”, not being recognised? A quite simple error in observation! The scientists looked at that which was immediately before than, but did not try to penetrate to the fact that the origin of a living creature lies in a seed left behind by another living creature; so that a new living organism of a certain kind can only originate because a former living organism leaves behind it a seed of a similar kind. That is to say, they looked at the environment of the developing organism, but should really have looked at that which was left behind by another living organism which was developing within this environment. This was done all through the centuries, up to the time of Francesco Redi. Quite interesting details might be gathered from books which had just as much weight in the 7th and 8th centuries as the authoritative writings of the most modern natural scientist of to-day, and in which was noted and classified quite exactly how, for instance, hornets develop from the decaying carcase of an ox; wasps from a donkey's carcase, etc. That was all nicely set out. Exactly in the same way in which mistakes were made in those times, mistakes are being made to-day in regard to the soul and spirit of man. How is this? A human being enters into existence and his individual development, begun at birth, is observed. on into later life. It is seen how the form, the different capacities and talents develop. (We will speak more exactly of this development in a later lecture). But if the scientists wish to know the nature of the human form, the nature of that with which we are dealing, they ask the question: “What are the hereditary relationships? From what sort of environment was the man born?” That is just the same method as when they look at the mud surrounding the worm which is coming forth from it, and not upon the egg. In what is formed as disposition, as different capacities in man, an exact distinction must. be made between what is characteristic, what is brought over from parents and grandparents and so on, and a certain kernel which he who observers truly will not fail to recognise. Only he who approaches the spirit and soul-element as did the naturalists before Francesco Redi will be able to deny that there is a kernel in man which presents itself clearly and which cannot be referred back to what is inherited from parents and grandparents, etc. In what is developing in a man we therefore have to distinguish that which comes from the environment from that which can never be produced from that environment. As regards the exterior of a living plant or animal, we shall always find that the new being coming forth is in reality concerned with developing according to the species of its predecessors. Take the highest animals. How far do they carry that out? As far as is in accordance with the species, and for this they are planned. Certainly many will say: “Has, then, a horse, a dog or a cat no individuality?” And they will suppose that one might just as well describe the individuality of a cat, a horse and so on — perhaps even write their biography — as we could that of a human being. If anyone likes to do this, let him do so, but we should not take it as real, but only as symbolical, as when, for example, a school task is set for pupils, such as was set for myself and my school-fellows, for which we had to write the biography of our pens! One could, then, even speak of the biography of a pen: But where truth is concerned it is not a question of attending to analogies and comparisons, but of laying hold of the essentials. What is individual in man is not that which makes him one of the species, but that which makes of him the quite distinct individual that every man is. Every man is working towards the formation of what is individual in him, just as the plant works towards the formation of the species. Every development, every advance in education or in historical evolution, rests on the fact that man goes a stage further than the mere species, in the development of the individuality. If there were in each man no individual spirit and soul kernel which develops in a Spiritual way, as the animal develops in his species, there would be no history. One could then only speak of an evolution of the human race, but not of a history or of a cultural development. Therefore, natural science speaks of the development of the species, of a kind of evolution in the horse, but not of a history. In the development of every man we have to see a spirit and soul kernel which has the same significance as the species for an animal. The species in the animal kingdom corresponds to the individual in man. Now in the animal kingdom every creature which tends towards what is according to species, repeats the species of his ancestors and can only originate on the basis of the physical nature of the seed of his ancestors; so the individual part of each separate man cannot originate from anything which is here in the physical world, but solely from something which is of a Spiritual nature. That is to say that a Spiritual kernel, which enters into being at the birth of man, does not merely refer back to the species “man”, in so far as man goes back to a Spiritual ancestor, to a being who has progressed, who does not belong individually to the species “man”, not, indeed, to any “species”, but to this same human individuality. If then, a man be born, there is born with him an individual kernel which is not attached to anything else than to this individual human substance. As the animal seeks his species so does man seek his own individual human being. That is to say that this individual kernel when it appears at birth has been here before, just as the germ of the species was there for the animal. We must look in the past for the spirit and soul-substance, which is the Spiritual — not physical — kernel of this individuality which is developing Spiritually. Only a man who cannot see that the soul and spirit do not develop from within the general human organism, will deny that the conclusions just drawn are correct. Every individual human life thus carries within itself the proof that it already existed before. We are, therefore, led back from an individual human life to an individual Spiritual seed and from this again to another Spiritual seed; that is, we are led from our own individual life back to a former individual life — and then, of course, to our next life. An unbiased observation of human life proves this to be just as much a necessity as the truth proclaimed in the sphere of natural science. Suppose anyone with an unprejudiced mind were to say: “Nothing can be known about that”, then if he draws this conclusion again and again he might end by saying: “I cannot do otherwise than accept this conclusion; if I do not I am sinning against all observation and logic.” In spite of this, however, this truth about the repeated earth-lives is still but little recognised; but this truth that the Spiritual can only originate from the Spiritual, will certainly make its mark in human cultural life and will be more quickly accepted than the other truth which has been characterised. The time will come when men will realise that beliefs have changed in this respect, just as we do not now believe that lower animals, fish, etc., could originate from river-mud. If we follow, in the further course of its life, this individual kernel of the human being which one can see, as it were, come into being at birth, it appears to a certain extent in a. two-fold aspect; and this more especially in the growing human being, in youth. It appears there as something which requires a progressive development of the whole man. And he who can truly observe the intimate life of youth, who has learned to observe the child, not only from the outside but also from within, who remembers what he himself experienced in this respect, will admit that what is in him now was not there up to a certain age, but only showed itself later as a feeling of power, as a feeling of life, as a content of life which works in an extremely elevating way. What we carry within us as the individual core of our being works not only on the outer living form, but continues to work even into the most elementary formations and functions of life. When man arrives at a certain maturity and has the opportunity of taking up many things in the outside world, then this individual kernel of his being works so that he enriches himself, adapts himself to the outer world and gathers experiences. When, however, we observe this correlation between the individual core of man's being and what comes to pass in the course of his life — not only through what he learns and hears but also through experiences such as happiness and sorrow, pain and joy, we shall then see in this Spiritual life itself the same correlation on a higher plane, to that between the new embryo of the plant which develops in the blossom of the old one and the old plant whose life is taken away from it by the new seed. If we extend this observation to the tree, we shall be able to say: “There, also, life is ever taken away, in that the tree turns into wood in the plant kingdom, but in its place certain things in the tree change into dead lifeless products: inorganic bark surrounds the tree.” In the same way we see, when we look at human life more closely, not only a progressive development but one which allows the Spiritual being of man to advance and grow, allows it to unite itself to the outer world; and as it grows ever more and more, we see it coming into conflict with the old condition; that is to say, it comes into conflict with its own self. That happens because it could in its youth build up and form organs according as it required them, while now in the further course of life this process is no longer possible; it must now go on living in a hardened life condition. So we see that when our life enriches itself by development in the course of time, when we take in what is new and thereby enrich the individual core of our being, we come into conflict with what envelops this kernel, with what we have built around it, and which is in process of growing. As long as we grow, and in so far as we thus grow, we do not take up into ourselves any Spiritual process of death. Only when we receive what is exterior to ourselves do we take in the Spiritual process of death. That is really the case throughout the whole of life, though it is less apparent in childhood than in later life. So we can say that in the realm of the spiritual, a Spiritual growing and dying takes place in the inner being of man. But in what does that process which takes place there consist? We can understand it well if we look at it for once in a lower form and take under observation anything from the realm of ordinary life, in order to form, as it were, conceptions and ideas concerning the higher realms of being. Let us take fatigue, for instance. We speak of fatigue both in the animal and human being. We must first gain an idea of the nature of fatigue. I cannot now go into all the ideas which have been collected on the subject, but we will observe the whole process of fatigue in relation to the life process. We can say that man becomes tired because he uses his muscles, and therefore fresh forces must be carried to the muscles. In this case we might say that man tires because he uses up his muses through work of some kind. Such a definition appears very plausible at first sight, only, it is not true. But it is the case to-day that we work with ideas which just merely touch the surface of things lightly, we do not wish to penetrate to the depths, For just think, if the muscles could really become fatigued, how would it be then with the muscles of the heart? They do not tire at all; they work day and night continuously, and the same is the case with other muscles in the human and animal bodies. This gives one the notion that it is not correct to say that in the relationship between work and muscle there is anything which can explain fatigue. When does an animal or a man become tired? When their work is not occasioned through the organism nor through the life-process, but by the outer world itself; that is to say, by the world with which a living being may come into relationship through its organs. Thus, when a living being carries out work by means of it consciousness, the organs concerned becomes fatigued:. In the life-process itself there is nothing which could occasion fatigue. So that the life-process, the whole of the life organs„ must be brought in contact with something which does not belong to them, if they are to become fatigued. I can only draw your attention to this important fact, in the development of which some extremely fruitful points of view can be found. Thus, only that which is brought to a living being by way of a conscious process, of an incitement to consciousness, can occasion fatigue. It would consequently be absurd to speak of the fatigue of plants. We can, therefore, say that in everything that can fatigue a living being something which is foreign to it must really be present, something which does not belong to its own nature must be introduced into it. We, can therefore, say that every disturbance of the life-process which comes about though fatigue, points to the fact, even in a quite inferior realm, that that which we have in our soul-life is not born simply from our physical life, rather does it stand positively in contradiction to the laws of that life. The contradiction between the laws of the life of consciousness and those of life and the life-process alone explains what is present in fatigue — of this you can convince yourselves if you consider it more exactly. For this reason we can say that fatigue is an expression testifying that that which comes to a life-process must be foreign to it, if it is able to disturb it. Now, the life-process can really equalise what is used up through fatigue, by sleep and rest. What is used up is compensated for by something new, which enters in place of the life-processes. Now, an inner process of exhaustion appears in the individual human life, for the reason that man enters into relationship with the outside world. The old, which was present in the germ, enters into an exchange with the new. The result is expressed in that the individual life-kernel is transformed during individual life, but it must also for this reason throw off what has become wooden, as it were, what it has itself formed from its birth onwards. The cause of death is the calling to a new life within the human soul, just as in the animal organism the disposition to fatigue can only be caused by its entering into exchange-relationship with what is new and foreign to it. We might, therefore, say that the process of death, of gradually dying off, is one which is better understood if one takes its opposite into consideration, in which the soul stands in relationship with the organic, and which expresses itself in fatigue. Hence, we really have the seed of death in our innermost being during the whole of our individual life. We could not develop further, however, we could not possibly carry what we already are at birth a step further, if we did not in ourselves associate death with life. As fatigue is connected with the execution of exterior work, so is the thrusting off, the killing of the outer covering, with enrichment and higher development of the individual life-kernel. The psychic and Spiritual process of life and death — represents with great clarity what we might express thus; “We purchase the higher form, the further development of our life, by the beneficial act of thrusting off from us what we were before. No development would be possible if we could not thrust-off the old, for we advance through, and together with what we have worked into the new of our soul and spirit. What forces are in that? Such forces as are the fruits of our past life! We certainly can experience the seeds of these fruits, and can experience our observations of life, we can do much else in life, but we cannot organise these into ourselves nor really carry them over into our external covering. For we do not build our covering of what we learn in one life — or at most only to a limited extent — we build it according to what we have become in our last life. We can, therefore, only build up our life by making use of what we have acquired in our past life, and we can continue to develop by thrusting off the old from us — as the tree does its bark — and passing into death. With what we then take with us through death, we are able to build up our next life, for it contains in itself the same forces as have built up our Spiritual growth when we develop freshly and happily in our youth. It is of the same nature as these. We have absorbed it from our life experiences and with it build ourselves a future living organism, a future bodily covering, which will carry within it as the germ of a future blossom, what we have gained in one life. With regard to such things as these the question is always asked, over and over again: “What help is it, after all, to man, to hear about repeated earth-lives, if he is not able to remember his former lives, if the memory of his former lives is not present?” It lies, indeed, in the nature of the Spiritual culture of to-day that we are not yet in a position to meditate and reflect upon questions of the soul and spirit life as freely as over the things of natural life. But we must make it clear to ourselves that it is possible to develop ideas and conceptions on these questions of the soul and spirit life, in exactly the same way. We can only do this if we really observe it more exactly, if we ask ourselves what must be the position of the human memory in general; what is the nature of the human memory? There is a point of time in the personal human life, which can lead very easily to the gaining of opinions on these questions. It is the following: We all know that there is a time in the normal life of man to-day, of which there is no memory in later life. It is the time of his earliest childhood. In the normal life of to-day man remembers up to a certain point of his childhood, then memory disappears. Although it is quite clear to him that it is his own Spiritual I, or ego, which has built up his life, yet he lacks the power of stretching his memory beyond this point. He who examinee many children's lives, will be able to make one observation from them. It can of course only be substantiated in external life, but notwithstanding this, it is correct. From the observation of the soul of a child we discover that remembrance goes back just as far as to the point of time when the idea of “I,” the conception of his own Ego, arises within him. That is an external important fact At the moment when the child, of his own accord, no longer says: “Charles: wants this,” or, “May wants that,” but says “I want this,” from the point of time when the conscious conception of the Ego begins, remembrance also begins. Whence comes this remarkable fact? It comes because something else is necessary for remembrance, besides the coming into contact, as it were, once or always with an object. We can come into contact with an object ever so often without any recollection of it being necessarily called forth. Remembrance rests, namely, on a quite definite soul-process, a quite definite Spiritual inner life-process, of which we can become aware if we take the following into account. One must distinguish between the perception of an object or experience, and the conception or idea of this object or experience. In the process of perception we have something that can always recur if we stand before the object again; but in the experience we have something else besides. When we come into contact with something, and have taken in an impression of it through the eye or ear, we have then taken into ourselves something more than an inner impression of it; what we take with us is that which remains in the conception or idea and which can embody itself in the memory. That, however, must first come into being. I know that what I have just said will be very much doubted by valiant followers of Schopenhauer, by those who assert that our conception of the universe is only our idea of it. But that lies in the confusion of perception with idea. Both must be emphatically differentiated. The idea is something which is reproduced. No matter how often the outer experience can arise, if it does not receive the inner impression of the idea, it cannot be incorporated in the memory; when, on the other hand, it is stated that the idea is nothing more than what presents itself to the perception, we need only bring to notice that the idea of a hot piece of steel, no matter how hot, will quite certainly not burn any one; but the sense-experience of it will. There we have the difference between idea and sense-perception. Therefore we an say that the idea is a sense-experience turned inwards. But with this turning inwards, with this outer rebound of the object, which is in reciprocal relationship with the inner being of man, and through which the inner impression is occasioned, something else comes into consideration. Whatever is experienced inwardly in our sense-life is embodied in our Ego by every sense-impression, and by everything that we can experience in the outer world. A sense-perception can even be there without being incorporated in the Ego. In the outer world it is impossible for an idea to be kept in the memory, if it be not received inwardly into the realm of the Ego. So that in every conception we form from a sense-experience and which can be retained in the memory, the Ego stands as the point of departure. An idea which comes into our soul-life from outside, can in no way be separated from the Ego. I know, indeed, that I am speaking figuratively; but all the same these things signify a reality, as we shall see in the course of the next lectures. We can imagine that the experience of the Ego presents something like the inner surface of a sphere, seen from outside; then the sense-experiences come along and the self-mirroring of these experiences within the sphere give rise to the idea. For that, however, the Ego must be present in every single sense-perception. The Ego-experience is in everything which can be embodied in the memory; it is actually like a mirror which rays back the experiences to us within; but the Ego itself must be there. From this we learn that as long as the child does not receive the perceptions of ideas in such a way that they become conceptions, as long as they only approach the child from the outside as sense-perceptions, and are only experienced externally between the Ego and the outer world without being transformed into an Ego-experience, as long as the child has no conception of the Ego, then no Ego-mirror, as it were, veils from him what is round about him. Just as long as that lasts, one notices that the child imagines into the surroundings many things which adults do not understand. Only through the memory of what is past, can that emerge which the Ego has already taken up, so that it is thereby pressed into the memory. When the Ego-perception appears, the Ego places itself before the ideas as a mirror; but what lies before the time of the Ego-perception can not be called forth into the memory. Therefore man always comes into touch with the outer world in such a way that his Ego experiences all the events with him, his Ego is always there. This does not imply that everything must enter his consciousness, only that his experiences do not remain merely as sense-perceptions but are transformed into ideas. So we can now say that the inmost kernel of man, from whose centre has developed that which has now been described as passing on from incarnation to incarnation, is veiled by the Ego-conception, as is usually found in man. Man places himself before his memory with his Ego-development of to-day. It is thus quite explicable that his memory only extends as far as the sense world. Now, can a proof be offered, through experience itself, that this can become other than it is? Can we speak of an “Extension of Memory” back into former incarnations? That is self-evident from the mere definition, if it is grasped, of what lies behind the individual Ego centre, which we ourselves cover over, as it were. If we begin to grasp it we met also perceive our inmost nature and being, we see what man does in human life; — not only what he does in common, but in his own individual life. Is there a possibility of looking behind the Ego, as it were? Yes, certainly there is. This lies in that inner soul-life of which I have already spoken, in the introductory lecture. If a man really undertakes to develop his Soul, by a severe and methodical training, in such a way that the slumbering forces within it begin to germinate, and the soul stretches out beyond itself, he can only do so by appropriating, with a certain inner renunciation, ideas which are not such as those in which the ego-experience is immediately present. The Ego-experience places everything in which it takes part before the kernel of one's being. For the training of the soul man must therefore appropriate ideas in which the Ego-experience is not present. For that, reason the inner soul exercises which a man undertake must be done in a quite definite way. What he embodies in his soul-life depends on the content of the meditation, and he must embody something that certainly in acceptable to the inner nature of the soul, but which does not, relate to anything external. What is there that is not related to anything external? Only meditation; but meditation is as a rule applied to the outer world, therefore it is not serviceable to him who wishes to rise to the higher worlds. A life of idea must therefore be developed which calls forth, in pictures and symbols which are continually placed before the soul, such an activity in the Ego that it would form ideas it never could have formed before when it wished to acquire the truth of the ordinary sense-world. The soul must therefore incorporate into itself pictures and symbols which do not appear when we survey the external through out Ego-experience. When we observe this, we have the following experience, about which we can only say something definite by pointing to that condition into which men enters again and again, namely, the condition of sleep. Through felling asleep, all ideas, all pain end sorrow, and so on, which man has experienced during the day, sink into indefinite obscurity, The whole conscious life of man goes down into indefinite obscurity and returns when the man wakes up again in the morning. Compare the life of consciousness in waking-up and in going to sleep. So long as man obtains only conscious impressions from the external life of the senses, he brings back with him in the morning, only what he had in his consciousness in the evening. He wakes up again with the same content in his consciousness; he remembers the same things, thinks the same thoughts, and so on. But when a man undertakes, in the specified manner, an inner training in which the Ego is not present, the position is different. He then notices, certainly, that his first step in progress consists in feeling on awaking, enriched through sleep; he feels that what he had taken up before going to sleep comes back to him with a richer content. So that he can now say: “Now I have looked behind the Spiritual world which the Ego does not cover up and, as a fruit of that, I embody into the life of my consciousness something that I had not gained from the sense-world, for I have brought it with me out or the world of sleep.” Such are the first steps of progress in one who is leading a Spiritual life of the soul. Now, the further possibility steps in that he may now, even during the waking-day life, fill himself with a content not permeated by the Ego-experience, although the Ego is there. The Ego-experience must take its place beside this content, just as it does with the content of all physical experiences. If. we take this into account we must say that he alone who is able to look behind the Ego can gaze into the Spiritual content of a human being — he who treads such a path will often come near to developing certain feelings. The nature or these feelings will also show the nature of the way. Thus we must learn: — to be free from desire and especially to overcome fear and anxiety as regards coming events. We must learn to say in a calm and passionless way: “No matter what comer to me, I will accept it.” and we must not only put this to ourselves as a dry abstract conception, but must make it part of our innermost feeling. We need not become fatalists on this account (a fatalist thinks, that everything happens of itself), but we must use this means of intervening in life. If we are able to instil into the Ego this absolute balance as regards feeling and sensation, it drives with such force towards the Spiritual being of man that it separates the Ego from the perceptions which are already in our consciousness. So we remain standing within the Ego-world, yet receive a new world of inner soul-experiences. These make it alone possible for us to see, in its true individual form, the inmost kernel of man's being, which certainly develops from birth onwards as that which springs from a former life, but which could not be recognised before in its true reality. We must first see it as it is, as it really is in the present, and how it works. Now can we remember something towards which we had never turned our eyes? Just as the child has not that in his consciousness which took place before the development of his Ego-perception, so can man not keep in his memory those experiences of his former births which are not based on a knowledge of the inner kernel of man's being, on the feelings and sensations of the soul and spirit kernel, which is in every man. He who really goes through this, who learns above all to purchase for himself a retrospect into former lives by looking towards the future with equanimity and resignation, will see that the former earth-lives are not merely a logical sequence, but that they prove to be a reality through a newly-born memory, which is really called forth. For that, however, one thing is necessary. The possibility of looking into the past can only be purchased by desirelessness, equanimity and passivity towards the future. To the extent to which we are prepared to experience the future in our feelings and sensations and are able to shut out our Ego with regard to the experience of the future, so far are we in a position to look into the past. The mere man develops this equanimity, the more nearly does he approach the point of time when the past earth-lives will become a reality for him. Thus we can give the reason to the objection often made, that for the ordinary human life no remembrance is there. This objection is just as if a child of four were brought to us, with the remark: “This child cannot count”, concluding from this that consequently a man could not, wither count! To this one could only reply: “Wait till the child is ten years old, he will then be able to count; therefore, man can count.” The recollection of former lives is a question of development ! Therefore is it necessary that one should learn to think over what, through the force of logical conclusion. has been taken as the point of the lecture to-day. It will then he found that a living spiritual soul-kernel may be present in man and that we carry it through death into a new life, as we have carried it through birth into this life. So Spiritual Science points in no simple way, yet in a way that is substantially correct, to what, is eternal in man as regards “life” and “death.” And we may say that the logical conclusion about death and life in regard to the human being informs right away that in this human individuality the possibility is also present of gaining the memory of past lives. Then people need no longer say that unless we can remember our past lives they are of no use! Is only that which we can remember of use to us? We bear in us the fruits of past lives; we develop in ourselves in the present life without our knowledge, what we have brought over from former lives; and when we begin to look back into former earth-lives, the memory of them is certainly there. We can then say to ourselves what a good thing it was that in former times we were unable to remember back. This memory of the past can only be won in the way I have characterised as regards feelings and sensations towards the future life, but that is not all; it can only be made endurable by an attitude of soul such as has been described. Should it be aroused by artificial means and should man at the same time lead a life of desires and appetites permeated by egotism, then his soul and spirit-life must lose its balance and he must become unhinged. For certain things belong together, and others repel each other. What is eternal in man, what comes into life through birth, that goes over from life into the Spiritual worlds through death and reappears in new embodiments; and bound up with that is the fact, that we can only evolve higher in new embodiments if we make use of the fruits of the former life. To-day I wished to point out the relations to the kernel of man's being and these two ideas. When we have this in view we shell no longer give as our answer to the question as to the nature of life and death; “The nature of death is to be learnt from the corpse”. Rather shall we say: We sought in the innermost being of man that which must bring forth new life; but in order that new life may come into being, the old must gradually die off and finally be quite extinguished, just as the old plant when it is one year old dies off, so that the new plant may take life from it. He who observes the world of death in this manner will not consider that which remains behind as a corpse, but will look in every being for those characteristics of life which are carried over into a new life. Although Shakespeare may make the gloomy Danish Prince utter that which to many appears evident from the absolute facts of the science of to-day: Imperious Caesar, dead and turn'd to clay Might stop a hole to keep the wind away; O, that the earth; which kept the world in awe, Should patch a wall to expel the winter's flaw. If such a remark applied to the process of dying, we will yet turn, while observing man from the point of view of Spiritual Science, to the Spiritual kernel of man's being which goes through birth and death and through ever new life. We then gain the assurance, if we do not follow the ways of Oxygen, Carbon, and Nitrogen, but seek the ways of life by considering what the real kernel of Man's being experiences, that we may place opposite the words of Shakespeare this other point of view. The humblest man on Earth, Is a son of Eternity, And overcomes in ever new life The ancient death.

Life and Death

https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA060/English/Singles/19101027p01.html

Berlin

27 Oct 1910

GA060-2

You may have noticed that the lecture today on “The Human Soul and the Animal Soul” is to be followed by another in a week's time on “The Human Spirit and the Animal Spirit.” The reason why spirit and soul must be dealt with in two separate lectures will not become completely clear until the next lecture has been given. In the meantime let it be emphasized that when life and existence are viewed in the light of spiritual science, the task is in one respect more difficult than it is in modern science as we know it today, where concepts and ideas which — if things are to be truly comprehended — must be kept separate, are thrown together. And it will be realized that the riddles connected with soul and spirit in animal and in man cannot be solved unless the distinction between soul and spirit is clear and unambiguous. When we speak of “soul” in the sense of spiritual science, the idea of inwardness, of inner experience, is always bound up with this concept. And when we talk of “spirit” with reference to the world around us, we are clear that in everything we can see or with which we can be confronted, there is a manifestation of spirit. Man would find himself involved in a strange self-contradiction were he not to take for granted the presence of spirit in all the phenomena of existence around him. Without falling into disastrous self-contradiction, nobody can have an intelligent grasp of the external world unless he admits that what he eventually finds in his own spirit concerning this external world — the concepts and ideas he acquires in order to understand outer phenomena — has something to do with the things themselves. If when a man believes he has learned anything from the concepts he has formed about the things of the outer world, he will not admit that there lives in these concepts something that is contained in the things themselves, he can never advance to knowledge — if he is to be true to himself and understand the nature of his own acts of cognition. He alone can speak of knowledge in the real sense who says to himself: “What I can ultimately discover and retain, what I can bring to realization in my spirit in acts of knowledge, must be contained, primarily, in the things themselves. And insofar as I take something into my spirit from the things of the world, no matter to which kingdom they belong, then in all kingdoms I must presuppose the existence of spirit.” This acknowledgment, of course, will not always be forthcoming. But it can only fail to be made when a man has given way to the self-contradiction referred to above. Therefore in speaking of “spirit” we realize that it reveals itself in all worlds, and we try to understand how it pours into, becomes manifest, in these worlds. We speak differently of “soul.” We speak of “soul” when the spiritual — that which we assimilate with our intellect, our reason, and through which we cognize things — when a being experiences the spirit inwardly. We ascribe soul to a being which not only takes in but inwardly experiences spirit, creates out of the spirit. Thus we speak of the soul only when spirit is active in a being confronting us. In this sense we find spirit inwardly creative in man and in animal. If one clings to current ideas it is easy to disavow many things and above all to disavow the results of spiritual investigation which make it clear that man is not a single-membered but a many-membered being. There are, of course, very many people today — one can well understand this, one can feel with them and discern what is in their minds — who, from their point of view, have reason to be skeptical when it is said as the outcome of spiritual investigation that man must be thought of as composed not only of the physical body that is perceived through the senses and investigated by science, but also of a higher body, the so-called “etheric body” or “life-body” — which is not to be associated with the hypothetical ether of physics. Equally, according to spiritual science, there is a third member of the human being; namely, the astral body; and also a fourth member, the “Ego,” the “I.” If the existence of these members is not acknowledged, it is extremely easy, from the standpoint of modern scientific research, to deny the validity of what is stated by spiritual science; it is easy because before the validity of these things can be recognized the whole character and method of spiritual-scientific research must to some extent be understood. To the spiritual investigator himself, these four members of the human being — physical body, etheric or life body, astral body and ego — that is to say, one visible and three invisible, super-sensible, members — are realities because he has developed the faculties slumbering in his soul in such a way that he can perceive the “higher” bodies of man just as ordinary eyes can perceive the physical body. These “higher” members of man are realities, and as invisible members underlie the visible member, the physical body. But although they are perceptible realities only to the spiritual investigator, it may nevertheless be said that thinking can apprehend what is meant when reference is made to these higher members of man's being. In the etheric body the spiritual investigator recognizes the bearer of all the phenomena of life, of the living, in man. Death ensues when the physical body is deserted by the etheric or life body. Therefore the spiritual investigator sees in this etheric or life body that which prevents the physical body from coming under the sway of the physical and chemical forces active in the physical body. The moment death occurs the physical body becomes a combination of purely chemical and physical forces and processes. That the human body during life is extricated from the sway of these chemical and physical processes which take possession of it immediately [after] death occurs, is due to the etheric or life body. During life the etheric body wrenches the chemical and physical substances and forces from their purely physical operations and surrenders them again to these physical activities only at the moment of death. It is very easy to argue against this, but these arguments fall to the ground when the matter is more deeply understood. Quite apart from the fact that the etheric body is a reality to the spiritual investigator, logical thinking will itself disclose that a living organism is inconceivable without the existence of an etheric or life body. Therefore in spiritual science we ascribe an etheric body also to the plants. We say: Whereas man has still higher super-sensible members — the astral body and the “I” — the plant has only physical body and etheric body; and a mineral, as we see it in the outer world, consists of physical body only. Of the animal we say that an astral body is membered in the physical body and etheric body — associating with these terms for the time being nothing beyond what has just been said. In the astral body, the spirit which, in the crystal, for example, produces the structure, becomes inward , inwardly and organically formative. In an animal the sense organs, the functions of the animal soul, arise out of the inner organization itself. Whereas in the mineral the spirit expends itself in elaborating the form, it remains inwardly alive in the animal. And we speak of this inner, living activity, this existence of the spirit within the animal organization itself, as an activity of the astral body. But of man we say that in him the astral body is also permeated by an “I,” an ego, and we shall presently see what significance this has for human life. What do we really mean when we speak of “spirit”? We ascribe to spirit that reality which we ourselves experience, as it were, in our intelligence . Through our intelligence we execute one thing or another; we bring the forces of different beings into an ensemble. This creative intelligence of ours has a particular characteristic. In that it enters into us in temporal existence, and is a creative force, we form a concept of intelligence, of reason, of creative intelligence, and then we look at the universe around us. — We should have to be very shortsighted before we could possibly ascribe intelligence, all that we call “spirit,” to ourselves alone. The incapacity to penetrate the riddles of existence is due, fundamentally, to the fact that man is nevertheless prone to ascribe intelligence to himself alone and can never answer the question: How comes it that I am able to apply intelligence to existence. But when we look around us and see that the things of space and time manifest in such a way that our intelligence can apprehend the existence of law, then we say: What lives within us as intelligence is also outspread in space and time, is actively at work in space and time. When we look at the lifeless realm of nature, we say that there the spirit is, as it were, frozen into matter, that our intelligence can apprehend, can lay hold of what comes to expression in the forms, in the law-determined workings of matter — and thereby we have in our intelligence a kind of reflection of the spirit weaving and working through the world. If we thus contemplate the spirit in the great universe, and then compare the way in which it is frozen, as it were, in the lifeless realm of existence with the way it confronts us in the animal, we say to ourselves: If we look at any particular animal, we see before us a self-enclosed existence, creative in the same way as the spirit outspread in space and time is creative. And a feeling will dawn in us of why those who knew what they were doing called this spirit working actively in the animal, the “astral body.” They turned their eyes to the great universe through which the stars move in their courses and which men apprehend through their intelligence, and they said: “The spirit lives in the ordering of the universe and in a single animal organism we see a certain conclusion, we see the spirit confined within the space bounded by the animal's skin.” That which is active in the animal and is identical with what is outspread in space and time, they designated as the “astral body” in the animal organism. Now between a dim feeling of the kinship of what comes to expression in the animal with what is spread out in space and time, and the knowledge resulting from strict investigation carried out by spiritual science, there is a long, long path. But this feeling is a trustworthy guide and it will enable many a man, before he himself is capable of this investigation, to perceive the truth of what the spiritual investigator says. When we observe how this spirit which with wonder and awe we see outspread in time and space, works in the animal, we can say: In the animal we see springing forth from its very organism the spiritual activity which is made manifest in all the laws of spatial and temporal existence. There is no need to study strange or rare phenomena, for those lying close at hand will suffice. A man of discernment need not go far field to perceive how, from the activity of animals, there go forth workings of the spiritual which are also to be discovered in the whole range of existence. — When he sees the wasp building its nest, he says to himself: There I can see intelligence springing forth as it were, from the animal organization itself; the intelligence which I perceive out yonder in the cosmos when I direct my own intelligence to the laws of existence, that same intelligence I perceive in the spirit that is working in the animal organization. Observing the activity of this spirit in the animal organization — no matter where — he will say with truth: This spirit that is active in the animal organization, this inwardness of the spirit in the animal, far surpasses what man is able to produce in the way of intelligence! An example lying near to hand has often been mentioned. — What a long time man has had to wait in the course of his existence before his own intelligence rendered him capable of producing paper! Think of the forces of intelligence which man was obliged to apply and master in his own soul life before he was able to produce paper. You can read in any simple textbook of history what a great event it was when men succeeded in making paper. But the wasps have been able to do it for thousands of years! For what is to be found in the wasps' nest is exactly the same as what man produces as “paper.” So we see unmistakably that what flows out of man's intelligence in his struggle for existence, springs from the animal organism with full vigour of life. But as people generally go the wrong way to work, they have been indulging for a long time in strange speculation as to whether the animal is intelligent or not intelligent — never noticing that the essential point has been ignored. For the question cannot be whether the animal is or is not intelligent, but whether in all that it accomplishes, the animal unfolds what man can perform only through his intelligence. Then the answer can be given that in the animal there is an inwardly creative and powerful intelligence, operating directly out of animal life. And it will then be possible to have an inkling of what the spiritual investigator observes in the astral body and which he sees inwardly and outwardly active in the animal, in that the intelligence is creative in the organism itself , and creates from out of the organism. The spiritual investigator speaks of the astral body when there are present in the organism, organs which, through their activity, accomplish something that man can accomplish only through his intellect. And we see how this inner, spiritual activity is distributed as it were among the different animals, how it comes out in the faculties and skill of the various animal species. One species can do this, another that — and this is due to differentiation of the astral body in the various animal species. We come now to consideration of the individual activity of the spirit in the animal organism. This inner working of the spirit in an organism, this experiencing of the spirit in its activity, is what we call soul experience. Now when we study this soul experience without bias or preconceptions, we find that it develops quite differently in man and in the animal. A great deal has been and is still being said on the subject of instinct in the animal and conscious activity in man. It would be well, in this connection, to cling less to words and to keep the real point more in mind — to try to understand the nature of instinct. Our study has already shown that instincts may far outstrip human intelligence, and that the qualities here brought into evidence are not to be connected with the word “instinct” in its ordinary sense. Man is so ready to ask in his infinite pride: “Am I not greatly superior to the animal?” But he would also do well to ask: “In what respect have I remained behind the animal?” Then he would find that he has remained behind the animal in respect of many faculties — faculties which are innate in the animal, but which man, if he is to develop them himself, has to acquire and master by dint of effort. Man comes into existence at birth as a helpless being, whereas when the animal is born, natural forces abound in its organism and it brings with it as inherited “capital,” as it were, what enables it to live as it has to live. We do not, of course, ignore the fact that, to begin with, the animal too has much to learn. — The chick is able to peck as soon as it is born but cannot at once distinguish between what is good or not good for it, between what it can or cannot digest. But that is only for a short time. The point is that certain faculties of the animal come into evidence in a way which makes it obvious that they lie in the line of heredity, they are truly innate, and they emerge at the proper time. The fact that some faculty does not begin to function until a particular time is no proof that it could have been acquired only after cultivation. The whole organization of animals and also of plants makes it obvious that something which lies in the line of heredity can emerge only when the organization of the being in question has already been in existence for a considerable time. Just as a human being gets his second teeth without having to wait until he himself acquires them by his own efforts, so it is with certain faculties and abilities of the animal. These faculties come into evidence only later, but for all that they belong to heredity. Take the hermit crab as an example. When it has lived for a time it has the urge to search for a snail shell, because the back of its body is too soft to be a firm support. This search for a snail shell in order to have protection for the back of its body is undertaken at a definite time out of the urge of self preservation, but then it occurs with certainty — that is to say, it is innate in the very organization of the hermit crab. Thus the moment the animal comes into existence we can perceive the whole circuit of its life in broad outline; the manner in which the animal is to develop is laid down at the moment of its birth and is then further elaborated. In this process of development and elaboration we recognize the activity of the spirit, and in the way in which the animal participates in the process we recognize its life of soul . If the expression is not misunderstood, one could call the soul life of the animal an “enjoyment of the spirit within the organism,” and if we keep this idea in mind it will be a great help in characterizing this soul life. But then we shall see — for the time being we will confine ourselves to the higher animals — that this experiencing of spiritual activity by the animal is largely expended inwardly, that it lives itself out inwardly. Soul experience in the animal consists in the hankerings of its organs, in the cravings of its organs — and especially in the activity of those organs that are directed to the inner life. An inkling of how the animal as it were “enjoys” the work of the spirit within it can be gained — although full clarity can be reached only by spiritual investigation — by observing an animal engaged in the process of digestion. While an animal is digesting its food, that is to say, is experiencing the inner activity of the spirit, it has its greatest feelings of well being. In its soul, the animal experiences the inner, bodily reality in which the spirit is directly at work. Thus in the animal kingdom, soul experience is in a certain way bound up with the bodily nature. It is a delightful sight to see a herd of cattle lying down to digest immediately after grazing and to observe the soul life that is kindled in each animal. This experience is even more intense in animals which sink into a kind of digestive sleep. They are then experiencing the activity of the spirit in their organs. In the animal, the activity of the spirit is closely knit to the organization. In that the spirit has built up a certain sum total of organs, the animal has to bring to expression the manner in which the spirit has worked in and is manifest in the organs; and it is not possible for the animal to go beyond the bounds of the spirit manifesting in the organs. When we observe the outer, psychic life functions, the outer life processes of the animal in this or that species, we see how closely the expressions of soul life are bound up with its inner organization, that is to say, with what has been wrought in the animal by the spirit. If we notice under what conditions an animal shows fear, we can say: When it shows fear, this is due to its particular organization. Again, when an animal shows a tendency to thieve, we can say the same. What has here been said from the standpoint of spiritual science has been well put in the essay entitled “Is the Animal a Being of Intelligence?” by Zell, a writer of great value in the realm of research into the animal soul. Although this short essay is written from a different standpoint, it gives most useful examples of how psychic experience in animals is bound up with their organization, and it can be taken as confirmation of what the spiritual investigator discovers from quite another side. Soul life in the animals is graduated in many variations in the different animals because, in creating the organs, the spirit has in each case given them a particular stamp. But we see that the spiritual activity of creation — which is anchored in the astral body — expends itself in organic formations, in what the animal actually brings with it into the world. In creating these specific formations, the spirit expends itself. The animal brings with it into the world what it is able to bring and what existence allows it to experience. It can go very little beyond this. This is evidence that the spirit has spent itself, has poured itself out, in the fashioning of the organs. In the formation of the organs, however, the species of animal is revealed to us. Therefore to the question: “What is it that the animal enjoys and experiences in its life of soul?” we can answer: From birth until death the animals' experiences are determined by its species. — It experiences in its soul life, and from out of its own organism, what it has been given by the spirit to accompany it into existence. Goethe was one who reflected deeply about the life of the animals and of man and he wrote these fine words: “The animals are instructed by their organs — so said the men of old. I add to that: men, too, but they have the advantage of being able to instruct their organs afresh.” (Letter to Wilhelm von Humboldt, 17th March, 1802.) These are words of great profundity. Of what is an animal capable in life? What its organs make possible. And so an animal is nervous, courageous or cowardly, rapacious or gentle, according to how the spirit has poured itself into its organization. The creative activity of the spirit has poured itself into its organization. The creative activity of the spirit in its organs is mirrored in the soul life and soul experiences of the animal. This means that soul experience in the animal is confined within its species; it cannot go beyond the species, the genus; it experiences itself as species, as genus. Contrast with this, man's life of soul. Man's life of soul as it comes to expression in his willing, his feeling, his thinking, in his cravings, his interests and in his intelligence, is something that when he enters existence at birth is not bestowed upon him by heredity and cannot be passed on by the man himself to his descendants. Far too little attention is paid to this latter fact. Yet it is of infinite importance, a fact upon which all observation of life should be based, and which may be put in somewhat the following way. — As soon as an animal or human being has acquired the power to reproduce his kind, the development of the etheric body is, to a certain point, complete. This etheric body has the power to bequeath what it contains within it to the descendants. But if a human being lives beyond this point he cannot bequeath to his descendants faculties which still remain to be developed. That is obvious. The moment a human being reaches puberty, he possesses all the faculties upon which hereditary transmission depends. Therefore faculties which remain capable of development after the time of puberty cannot be possessed by man in the same way as those which originated in the etheric body and can be transmitted by heredity. This is a cardinal truth of which sight must never be lost. An important consideration in the study of human life is that from birth to death a man is capable of learning new languages, and what is equally significant is that if a man were to grow upon a distant, uninhabited island, he could not develop this faculty at all. The same applies to the faculty of forming concepts, and the development of the mental picture of the “I.” These are things which have nothing to do with heredity, and which cannot be transmitted by heredity, because they do not belong to the species or genus. In what does not belong to heredity, in faculties that remain capable of development beyond and apart form heredity, man has something that is not conditioned by the species or genus, but belongs to the individuality . And in the faculty of speech, in the possibility of forming ideas, and in the experience of the Ego concept, there lies what man himself so brings into the world that by means of it he instructs his organs afresh, teaching them what they have not yet received, but which they must acquire. This is a “transaction” between the human being and the spirit, lying beyond the horizon of what he is able to experience. Its results cannot be transmitted nor received into the qualities which lie within the line of heredity. Man unfolds something which cannot flow into the species, which is removed from the species. Insofar as man is a generic being, he has inherited all the faculties accruing to him as a generic being, just as the animal has inherited them; only he does not inherit as much skill, as much spirit, as does the animal. There is still something besides, which man can acquire as individuality. And the life of the spirit connected with these non-inherited qualities, constitutes his soul experiences — which transcend those of the animal. In that man enjoys the fruits of his work and activity insofar as they are acquired in life through qualities that are not inherited, he unfolds a life of soul transcending that of the animal. Man comes into existence with less skill than the animal. He is less skillful for the reason that the transaction with the spirit cannot be undertaken until some time after birth, whereas in the animal it has already been completed. Thus in its life of soul the animal enjoys what heredity can bequeath to it. That is to say, the soul life of the animal points to the past . And the moment we see the soul life of the animal passing into death, all that the animal can experience through its species also passes into death. Everything that is individual soul experience in the animal is something that has come to it from the past. In its existence the animal expends its life of soul and there is no basis for immortality. On the other hand, what is experienced in the animal soul lives on, ever and again, in the life of the species. Therefore in the sense of spiritual science we speak of a species — soul of the animal, which constantly arises anew, constantly lives on within the species. No one who desires clear concepts can deny the justification of this. The work of the spirit in the animal genus and species is experienced in the single animal individuality. But we see, too, that this experience points to the past, and that the very moment this past is exhausted, when the soul life must go towards death, towards its ending, the sunset glow begins. It is different when, without preconceived ideas, we observe the soul life of man. There we see that when man is born, something comes with him that has not been expended in his organs; we see how he works further upon his organs, how he really teaches his organs. From this, however, we realize that in his individual life man is in direct interconnection with the spirit; he experiences in his life of soul not only what is transmitted to him by the past, but also what comes from outside to meet him in life, what is presented to him directly as spirit. Thus man's life of soul is twofold: like the animal, his soul experiences the species to which he belongs as a human being; this he lives out as a being of the past, and it is this that goes forward to death when the spirit withdraws from the organs, when the organs begin to lignify, to wither away. But man's own dealings with the spirit do not belong to his organs; this is something that man has taken into his etheric body independently of the organs. Hence it is something that does not relegate him to the past that is inherited but is a seed for further life. In the measure in which we see that the inner man emancipates himself from his organs, that is to say, becomes individual, in that same measure we can say with logical truth that here we see the immortal part of man crystallize out of the bodily life. So do we learn to feel that this grows in the human being, whereas in respect of what has been inherited he experiences the past in his life of soul. Thus there grows in man something that goes forward to the future that cannot be absorbed into the line of heredity. This is evident if we observe the life of soul in man and in animal. We see how closely the soul life of the animal is bound to its organism, how closely its faculties and skill, indeed all its experiences, are bound up with its organs and with its inherited characteristics. We can rightly observe the soul life of the animal only when we look for it in the self enjoyment of its bodily nature. That is the essential point. We see very little of the essential nature of an animal by watching the delight it takes in the outer world — but a great deal when we observe how it experiences its own digestion. The highest level of experience in the soul life of an animal lies within the boundaries of the organs. In its soul experiences the animal spends itself within its organization; and what remains to it for its outer life is significant for the animal only insofar as it can be experienced inwardly in its life of soul. It is of course the case — and this is also confirmed by the spiritual investigator — that the heights where the eagle passes its existence do give rise to experiences in its life of soul. But this experience lies in the activity of what lives in its organs and comes to expression within them. In man, soul experience emancipates itself from the inner enjoyment, the inner experiencing of the organs — and man has to pay the price for this. The animal has a certain security in its instincts; it knows which food is harmful and which is good for it. The animal injures itself very much less than it is injured by man. Animals are injured most of all when man keeps them in captivity. But in the freedom of nature, when the animal follows what is innate in its organism, its instincts are unerring, because it is so closely united with its organs. The human being, on the other hand, emancipates himself from his organs; and the consequence is that he can no longer directly adhere to what is good or bad for him. He becomes insecure. And whereas the animal displays passions that are in keeping with its organs, the human being unfolds passions which are possibly far more injurious and are not fitting for his organs. Whereas the spider spins its web with unerring certainty and it would be absurd to talk to it of reasoning, man is obliged to think a great deal before he can perfect any handiwork. For he can make great errors. Man's life of soul has emancipated itself from his bodily nature, but at a cost. But man can unite with the spirit from the other side; he can receive into his soul what the spirit conveys to him. He is able to receive the spirit without the spirit having first to pour through the organs, through the bodily nature, whereas the animal is dependent upon how the spirit pours into its organs. The animal experiences within itself how the spirit flows into its organs. Man, on the other hand, wrests his organs away form the life of soul and thus experiences the direct inpouring of the spirit into his soul. Once we have grasped what the spirit really is and how the spirit lives itself out within the soul, these things are of infinite significance. We shall, however, have to wait for the lecture on “Human Spirit and Animal Spirit” before they can be fully clarified. But when we think about the inner life of soul we get a feeling of the difference between man and animal if we contrast the inward bodily life of the animal soul with the outward bodily life of the human soul. Because of this outward bodily life, the human soul can become spiritually more inward. The fact that the human soul can delight in the things of the external world, can take in what the spirit in its external manifestations says to the soul, man owes to the circumstance that his soul has emancipated itself from the bodily nature, has separated from the inward bodily experience of the spirit and has gained the certainty of experiencing the spirit itself at the cost of uncertainty and lack of skill, of imperfectly developed instincts. It is quite easy to say: How is it possible to speak of an animal “soul,” since “soul” implies the notion of inwardness and man cannot look into the inner life of another being. The people who base themselves on this glib objection are the very ones who refuse to listen to any talk of soul experience, because — so they contend — soul experience can only be “within ourselves” and can therefore be inferred in another being only by analogy. But if these things are taken as they really are and not talked about in the abstract, it is quite clear that the very way a being lives reveals what it actually experiences inwardly. Anyone who refuses to believe that a being lives according to what it experiences inwardly will be incapable of any real observation of the world. Admittedly, without demonstration, there is no absolute guarantee in direct observation that the animal experiences something in its life of soul when it shows pleasure in digesting. But a man who compares things in the world, and does not confine his observation to one phenomenon only, will soon recognize that there are many good reasons for speaking in this way. Once we have acquired a feeling of the difference of soul experience in the animal and in the human being, this feeling and perception will help us to understand the nature of soul life in the animal. Above all we shall feel with greater and greater clarity how man's life of soul is emancipated from spirit as a bodily experience. It is the spirit that creates the organs and works in the organism, building it into what it is, and when we speak of the building of the organs we are speaking of the spirit as it works in the etheric body. When the astral body inserts itself into the organization, this spirit can, under certain preconditions, be experienced in a particular way. If we take seriously what has been said above about physical body, etheric body and astral body, we can say: In human beings and animals the physical body is the lowest member of their being; the etheric body so fashions the chemical and physical substances that they become life processes. The etheric body lives within the physical body, comprises and embraces the chemical and physical processes. In all this lives the astral body, experiencing — as soul experience — everything that is going on in the etheric body. Thus the etheric body is the active, creative principle working on the physical body, and the astral body is that part of the animal or human being which experiences the deeds of the etheric body. Thus the physical body is united with the etheric body in the building up of the organs; and the etheric body is united with the astral body in the inner experiencing of this upbuilding and activity of the organs. Everything in the physical body, the etheric body, and the astral body is mutually related. Now what is it that evokes soul experience of a particular kind? That which pours, as it were, over the whole inner organization in man and animal. We can best understand this particular kind of experience by observing it in certain circumstances. Is there anyone who is not familiar with the characteristic form of soul experience which is present only while the animal is growing and the size of its organs is increasing and which stops when growth is completed? What expresses itself there in the experience of exuberant energy is connected with certain work that is being performed by the etheric body on the physical body and is an indication that the work is proceeding in the proper way. But what stands out prominently in this condition is always present as a certain feeling of well being in the soul, a feeling of life, of comfort or discomfort; and this depends upon whether the etheric body has or has not command over the physical organization, is able to master it or not. If the etheric body is unable to assert itself properly in the physical organs, this expresses itself in the astral body in a feeling of discomfort. But if the activity of the etheric body can everywhere find access to the physical organs, if that activity can take effect with the help of the physical organs, this engenders the feeling of general well being in men — either in a subtler or cruder form. If indigestion occurs, this can only mean that the etheric body cannot carry out an activity which it ought to carry out. This makes itself manifest in the accompanying discomfort. Or let us suppose someone has so exhausted himself by thinking that the organ of the brain “goes on strike.” In such a case the etheric body is still able to think, but the brain is no longer able to participate. Then the thinking begins to cause headaches; and from there the discomfort spreads into the general feeling of life. This is particularly intensified when the part of the organ that is built up by the etheric body is completely disorganized. We say then: “It is as though the skin cannot expand when outer heat makes it want to expand,” or, “I feel as if a burning brand is being held to my head.” In such a case the etheric body is meeting with resistance. Not being absorbed or seized by external impressions, it then comes up against a physical body to which it is not adjusted, and this expresses itself in the astral body as a feeling of pain . So we understand “pain” in the astral body by conceiving it as the expression of weakness of the etheric body in relation to the physical body. An etheric body that is in harmony with its physical body works back upon the astral body in such a way that the feeling of well being is an inner experience of health. On the other hand, an etheric body that is at odds with its physical body works back upon the astral body in such a way that pain and discomfort are bound to arise in it. Now we shall be able to realize that because in the higher animals — it will be better to speak of the lower animals in the next lecture — the life of soul is so intimately bound up with the bodily nature, this soul experience will be much more deeply felt — as will also be the case in a disordered body — than it can be in a disordered human body. Because the soul life of man is emancipated from the inner, bodily experience, pain that is merely due to bodily circumstances is far less torturing, it gnaws much less deeply into the soul than in the higher animals. We can also observe that bodily pain in children is a much keener psychic pain than in later life, because in the measure in which the adult human being becomes independent of his bodily organization, he finds in the qualities which arise immediately out of his soul, the means to struggle against bodily pain; whereas the higher animal, being so closely bound up with its bodily nature, feels pain with infinitely greater intensity than man. Those who maintain that human pain can be more intense than pain felt by the animals, are talking without foundation. Pain in the animal is far, far more deep-seated than purely bodily pain in man can ever be. So we see that in rising above this bodily nature, man draws out something from the innermost depths of his being; namely, his “I”, his ego. That which he does not inherit, which can sustain its existence above and apart from the species, which he must develop more and more through his individuality — that pertains to the ego. It is this that must enter human existence; it cannot be imparted by heredity, for it proceeds from the human individuality which comes from the spiritual realms into existence at birth and after death returns again to the spiritual realms. Therefore we speak of a core of being in man which passes on from life to life, because we can apprehend it in actual existence, provided only that we observe life with unprejudiced eyes. I have tried today to indicate how it can be established from direct experience that we may speak of a being in man who is not inherited but enters human existence from quite another side and when what man inherits is dissolved by death can pass into another spiritual existence. When further principles of spiritual science are understood, this needs no more explanation because spiritual investigation relies on direct vision and can bring from quite another side the proof and evidence for what was intended to be made clear today from experiences of everyday life. But it is also possible for spiritual science so to relate together these everyday experiences that they reveal to us that which can establish in man the hope — based upon observation of facts — of an enduring life of soul that transcends bodily existence. So we see how observation of existence everywhere confirms the words of Goethe already quoted. Soul experience in the animal is enclosed within the circle of its organs. The organs are everywhere the masters, fashioned by the spirit in order that the animal can experience a soul life in keeping with its organs and is able to make use of them. Man, on the other hand, enters existence in such a way that his organs themselves give him no guidance upon what he must take from life and impress into his life of soul. But just here we find that which gives him his guarantee of immortality, that which is eternal because it cannot originate in heredity. That is what Goethe meant by the words: “The animal is instructed by its organs, but man has the advantage of being able to instruct his organs afresh.” Anyone who understands this in the right way — that in the course of his existence man is capable of teaching his organs afresh — will say to himself: How a man teaches his organs becomes manifest in the life of soul and here his union with the spirit is revealed, a union that is indissoluble because it does not spend itself and does not come from the past but points the way to, and is the seed for, the future, the means whereby man can attain that which in his soul will engender the power to vanquish the old death in life that is ever and again renewed.

The Human Soul and the Animal Soul; The Human Spirit and the Animal Spirit

The Human Soul and the Animal Soul

https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA060/English/UNK1955/19101110p01.html

Berlin

10 Nov 1910

GA060-3

Let me in a few words recall some of the things dealt with in the last lecture. Particularly important for us were the views we were able to form, from immediate observation, concerning the difference between the human life of soul and that of the animals. We realized that the animal soul life may not be distinguished from that of man in such a way as to justify the assertion that man is superior to the animal in respect of certain spiritual attributes. To refute such a view we need only point to how certain achievements, obviously attained only by man struggling to a definite stage of intelligence, are brought about objectively within the animal world in the building of their dwellings and in the whole of their life. So that in what the animal does, in what it produces, in what it creates, we have exactly the same intelligent activity that is shown by man in the tools and products he makes. It might really be said: Into what the animal does there flows, and then congeals, the same intelligence that we find in man. Therefore we may not speak of animal soul and human soul by simply saying that the animal is to a definite extent behind man or man to a definite extent in advance of the animal. When speaking of the soul — and we describe the soul life as the inner life, in contradistinction to the spirit life seen pre-eminently in formation and development — we referred to the fact that we discover how intimately bound up is the soul life of the animal with its own organization; and what the animal can experience in its soul appears to us as predetermined by its whole structure and the whole arrangement of its organs. Thus it must be said: the animal's life of soul is determined by the fashion of its organization, and in its soul life the animal lives, as it were, within itself. But the essential feature of man's life of soul lies in the human soul being emancipated to a high degree from the immediate organism, and in the fact that — I beg you not to misunderstand me, I mean relatively only — independently of the bodily organization he experiences the spirit as such, in the way we have understood it; in other words, that the human soul is able to surrender itself directly to the spirit. If we now rise to the consideration of the spirit in man and in animal we shall have to start from the concepts and ideas developed in our consideration of the soul in man and animal; we shall have to concern ourselves rather more deeply with a phenomenon arising out of what was said last time; namely, that in the animal all spiritual achievements immediately connected with its organs and experienced in its soul have been implanted into, and bound up with, what is hereditary in its species. We may also say that there lives itself out in the animal's soul that which belongs to the species, and because this is hereditary the animal comes into existence with the predisposition towards all the activities conditioned by the spirit which can be experienced through its soul nature. Thereby the animal enters existence fully equipped, and bequeaths to its racial descendants its inherited characteristics which we may call an outpouring of the animal spirit. It is different with man who in his life of soul emancipates himself from his bodily organism. But because in the course of nature this is transmitted through lineal descent, he enters existence helpless, to a certain extent, where the functions that should serve him in life are concerned. On the other hand, however, this helplessness is the one thing that enables man to develop in soul and spirit. Thus we find it to be the most important thing for man that, when he enters life through birth, everything determined from without should remain indeterminate. With this we have indicated how we have to consider the relation of the spirit to the bodily nature in animal and man — the soul lying between the spirit and bodily nature. In the way the animal appears to us as member of a species, gradually attaining its instinctive aims in life, we have a direct activity of the spirit in the organic bodily nature. The organic body in which the animal experiences its life of soul is, as it were, the spirit that has entered reality. An immediate relation exists in the animal between spirit and body. And if we look at the animal, study it — whether superficially as a layman, or more thoroughly with all the facilities comparative anatomy and physiology or any other science can offer — we see everywhere in the animal form, in the conditions of animal life, congealed spirit being lived out in this way in the individual animal species. And the external form — the external life in the same way — is for us the direct imprint of what we call the spirit lying behind the animal, so that in the animal we have to look for the closest relation between spirit and bodily nature. This is quite different when we come to man. And when we have to draw attention to the most important differences between man and animal, it is essential not to look for them too far afield. In considering things in the right way, what is most important lies so near that there is no need for us to enter into all manner of intimate details in the investigation. Observing man, we find something standing between spirit and bodily nature which we need not take into consideration in the animal. This is important. In the animal form and organization the spirit works as it were directly. In man it does not work directly; an intermediate member thrusts itself in, which can be very easily observed in life. As man confronts us when we observe him, this intermediate member which brings about a looser connection between spirit and bodily nature is expressed in what we call the self-conscious ego. I do not want to refer now to the way in which this self-conscious ego takes shape in the body; I wish only to say: In the way man appears to us, in the way he confronts us as a phenomenon of soul, this self-conscious ego stands between his spirit and his bodily nature. Certainly from the point of view of those who believe they are standing on the firm ground of natural science, it is child's play to find objections to the expression “self-conscious ego.” But, at the moment, we are wanting to follow up the way in which this self-conscious ego is inserted between the spirit and the bodily nature. Here we find above all — we drew attention to this last time — that man is dependent on the life of his environment, of the world outside, in relation to his language, his way of thinking and also to the extent he has developed a consciousness of self. It is a generally recognized fact that man, if shut out from all contact with humanity, if obliged to grow up alone, would never arrive at speaking, nor definite thinking, nor consciousness of self; he would be forced to remain in the state of helplessness in which he was born. Thus we see that in the case of the animal all the activities necessary for animal life, for animal existence, come to it through heredity. And we see human activities arise in such a way that they may not be looked for in the line of heredity any more than, let us say, the original warmth necessary for hatching a hen's egg may be sought within the egg; it has to come to it from without. So we find that the things of which man has need for his development have to be acquired through something within him; whereas in the case of the animal it is imprinted into him by the spirit. Thus there remain open to man certain possibilities of development into which he takes up definite organizing forces through his self-conscious ego. For, naturally, no one will doubt that changes in the organization are bound up with man's gradual acquisition of speech, thinking, consciousness of self, and the activities connected with these; so that tendencies possessed by the animal from the beginning through hereditary activities, are taken up by man from the environment, just as warmth is taken up by the hen's egg that is being hatched; in other words, it is introduced from outside. Thus possibilities of development remain open to man as regards the inter-working of the environment. Naturally Spiritual Science does not adopt the view that man could achieve anything without organs. So we must be clear that everything working into man changes his organization. If we investigate the human organization closely, we see that this organization is actually changed by forces coming from without, which have to reach man by way of his ego. And then we see something else — if we consider man as he takes his place in the world, to become what he is able to become through speech, through his way of thinking and his consciousness of self, we grasp him as it were at one pole, at one end. We must, however, grasp him also at the other end. If we would penetrate him with thought, this is not so easy a matter. But it is in fact necessary to lay hold of man's other end. Man actually enters the world as a helpless being. It is perfectly easy to see what we are dealing with here, but not so easy to make it the subject of observation. In the course of his life the human being has to do something that the animal is spared. This is done by the human being when he learns to walk, or, rather, learns to stand. Connected with this learning to stand, a great deal in human life lies concealed; namely, the gaining control over what we may call our bodily equilibrium. If we carefully study the design for the animal's organization, the organization of its structure, we find that the animal is so organized that a certain balance is imprinted into it making it possible for it to carry on its life. It is so formed that his body is endowed with a firm balance. It constitutes man's helplessness, from one point of view, and, from another, his advantage over the animal, that he has to make the effort to acquire balance with the help of his ego. There is no question here of comparing man with the animals nearest to him. Where the comparative anatomy of all the individual organs is concerned, it would be childish were Spiritual Science to assume a gulf between man and the animals nearest him. But whereas in the design of the animal organization there lies a predetermined balance, to human beings the possibility is open to acquire this balance after birth; but still more possibilities are open to them. The direction of its movement is laid down for the animal through the predetermined organization imprinted into him — if one may use the word imprinted; whereas for man the possibility is open to develop, within limits, his own sense of movement. Other things too are open to the human being, and we shall come back to the various manifestations of this. It is open to man to be able to imprint life itself into his organization. It is certainly possible to speak of this imprinting of life into the living being. Who with any mind for these questions would fail to notice that the organization of a duck comes to expression in plastic form, or that this is also the case where the elephant is concerned? Who would fail to see how the skeleton, if one looks at it, as distinct from the single animal species, discloses riddle upon riddle; how life is as it were discharged into the form, is caught up into the form, appearing to us as if frozen there? Here, too, man has come in a certain way to pour life into his own form. We need therefore only make the preliminary remark that in studying an animal form with open mind, we are interested far more in the universal, the general, what has to do with species, bestowing little thought on the individual forms. What interests us in man's skeleton is the noblest organ, the structure of his skull, above all, its plastic art. And in every human being this structure is different, because it is open to what lies at the basis of the human ego — to what is individual; whereas in the animal it is what belongs to the species that comes to expression. Thus when we lay hold of man by his other end we find that during certain periods of life he has full scope for imprinting into himself his sense of balance, the sense of his own movement and his whole sense of life. The interesting point here is that at the beginning of human life we are able to watch this working of the spirit in man, this imprinting of the spirit into form and movement; how in the struggle for upright gait, in the struggle to acquire a sense of one's own movement, in the imprint of bodily form, these forces are really active and coming to expression. Then at a certain age, however, the possibility ceases for the further working of the forces which in childhood had free play. At a certain period of life, in regard to the activity we have been describing, these forces close down. But when they are really within the individual man, having finished their work in a particular sphere, they cannot at once vanish; they come to meet us at a later time in life, and at this later time we should be able to show that these forces are there in human life as realities. Now in fact we find these forces clearly arising in man again in a quite characteristic way for the progress of the spirit. What is accomplished by man in the development of his sense of balance, we find again in his later life, when he applies the same force to the development of his gestures. Gesture is something actually leading us into the deeper parts of the human organization, insofar as the spirit lives in man. And by bringing what is within him to expression in gesture, man has recourse to the same force he applied to the effort of gaining a sense of balance, for the setting up of a certain balanced poise. What man developed manifestly through learning to walk and stand, appears in later life in a finer, deeper, more intimate form when, instead of coming to physical expression, it is expressed more through the soul, in gesture. Hence we feel ourselves really intimately within man when we confront him and can let his gestures, the whole manner in which what is within him is expressed in outer movement, work upon us. In this respect every man is actually more or less of a gifted artist when confronting his fellows. For if we would penetrate to the finer psychological influences passing from man to man, we should see what an infinite amount depends — without it rising into consciousness — upon how gestures taken as a whole play upon a man. This need not enter into the broad light of external consciousness, yet it enters the soul and comes to expression when external consciousness sums up a host of intimate details, played out beneath the surface of consciousness, into everyday words such as “I like him,” “I don't like him”, or “I like her”, “I don't like her”. We can also see how the forces organizing individual movement work on in later life. This we see when, passing from the gesture expressed in movement, we turn more to where the inner being of man may be found poured into the external form, but still in movement, in mimicry and in the physiognomy. There in fact what begins as individual sense of movement works on further, giving scope to the human being to go on developing out of helplessness, and then keeping this helplessness in check. When we notice how man, in his mien and in the play of his physiognomy, keeps his external self in continuous movement through his inner self, we find how what actually first appears in the organization more as a mere expression of bodily activity, then appears rather as poured into the soul-nature and intensified. What worked more directly in the earlier days of the human being is caught up more within him, in the self-conscious ego, to pour itself then from within outwards into the bodily regions; whereas to begin with self-conscious ego and spirit had, as it were, come to terms. If we now see that what justifiably interests us in man is the particular form of his skull, we have to say: In this particular form of the skull of man something indeed is also expressed of his innermost being. Everyone knows that, broadly, this is the case, and that in the form of the brow, in the form of the skull, of each human being, we shall always find individual differences in men's inner nature. It goes without saying that we are not speaking here of those spheres of the spiritual life which are emancipated from the soul bound up with the body. There exists, however, as a certain ground work what may be described as an expression of the spirit that has become soul — what is wrongly developed in the sciences called phrenology, craniology, and things of that kind. It is above all essential for us to be clear that the forms coming to expression in the human skull are not general but individual to man, as he confronts us as a moral, intellectual being. When we begin to generalize, we fail to understand the whole connection. From this aspect, all phrenology practiced in this way is mischievous materialism. It should never be counted as science in its legitimate sense, for that it cannot be. What confronts us in the formation of the human skull is individual, different in each man. And the way in which we seek to form an opinion of each man in accordance with these characteristics must also be individual, just as our attitude is individual to each work of art. As there are no universal, fixed rules, as we have to take up our own attitude to each work of art, that is a work of art, if we consider according to universal rules what in an artistic sense lies hidden in man, we shall come to some kind of judgment but a judgment quite different from the ordinary one. And the following will make itself felt — that in observing the human skull we shall see how the spirit works in direct relation to the form, how forces of the spirit, of the ego, from within outwards push against the form of the skull which encases what works from without inwards. Only when we have a feeling for this working from without inwards and from within outwards, can we enter into what meets us in the form of the human skull that envelops the brain. Thus, direct observation show us how in reality the spirit lives itself out in the animal forms. And since the animal's soul life is immediately bound up with its organization, the instinctive life being an expression of this organization, it will always be possible to see why some particular instinct or impulse must appear in the animal as part of its life of feeling. On the other hand, it may be said of man that in him we also see the spirit working on his organization, but from within; we see, too, however, that what lies at the basis of the self-conscious ego is in opposition to the organization and forces its way into it, at the same time forcing its way into the work of the spirit. Now let us consider man in a rather different way. In him we see the capacity for speech — which is quite obvious; then a definite way of thinking and a certain consciousness of self as the result of education. These capacities arise through man's contact with the external world. But it is not enough simply to take things on trust; we must realize that something far more profound lies at the basis of speech, of the way of thinking and of the consciousness of self brought about through the environment. What lies at their basis is the fact that man possesses three senses not found in the animal. The word sense has to be taken literally, but let us keep to fact and not to words. In the realm of speech-sound, of concept and of what we call ego being, the animal shows itself quite incapable of taking things in, in the way of human beings. Of all the senses, the animal gets as far as that of tone. For outer perception this is for the animal a kind of zenith. Its sense faculty rises to tone. But beyond that no possibility is offered by its general organization for an understanding of speech-sound, concept or ego being as in other beings. The animal recognizes its own species, the dog the dog, the elephant another elephant, and so on. But no spiritual investigator would ascribe to animals any perception of their own ego being. And materialistic investigation will never succeed in producing any proof of a perception of ego being in the animal organization; thus scientific investigation should not, and spiritual investigation will not, be in doubt about this. — So we see in man that the possibilities of development remain open where perception of the inner nature of sound, the inner nature of concept and idea, and the inner nature of the ego being are concerned. Were the possibility of development in these three activities closed to man, the other forces I named would have no nourishment pouring from within, and would be unable to find expression. Animals have no organs to make it possible for them to develop in these three ways. For all that man shows in life as superiority over the animal ears the imprint of what is within him as capacity for expression — his conception of sound, his conception of concepts, and his conception of the ego, of the ego consciousness. Meanwhile we find in the animal the expression of how the spirit is poured into form; we therefore see in the animal gestures and physiognomy determined by the nature of the species. This all expresses how the spirit can be active while becoming, as it were, congealed directly in the form. In man we find each individual has his characteristic gesture, his own particular physiognomy and facial expression; in this there comes to very clear expression what, on the other hand, he has in the way of capacity for developing speech-sound, concept or idea, and consciousness of self. In reality the capacity for this development pours itself into gesture, physiognomy, facial expression, into the whole way his consciousness of self is manifested. Here we see flowing from within outwards, expressing itself in the human being, what can be experienced only through the direct intercourse of the self-conscious ego with the spirit. If we experience things in this way, we may say: If we do not approach man with abstract, dry, prosaic concepts but perceive him in a living way, we see how ego being, the being in idea and the being in speech-sound, work directly on external form and movement. It is indeed as if, as crystallographers, we were to study the forming forces of a crystal, then discover that we have in front of us a cube in the rock salt, an octahedron in the sulphur, and in the garnet a rhombododecahedron. Just as there we see how inner forces pour their activities into form, when perceiving man in a living way we see immediately living in his external form all that he actually is, what in his being makes a strong impression on us — what meets us as congealed ego idea, congealed concept or conception, and as congealed sense of sound. We should be able indeed to picture quite vividly this congealed sense of sound that meets us. For that intercourse with the spirit which man cherishes perhaps in the most intimate way, which every man, artist or not, is able to cherish, which works into this being as the finest weavings of his soul, this intercourse is experienced by man in a characteristic way, the whole importance of which for man's life should not be overlooked. We dare not indeed overlook it in its content, in its inner nature — I am not speaking here of word content — in the inner nature of the “how” in the word content, in the inner nature of the character of sound, or the soul in language. Language does not only have the spirit expressed in the content of words; language also possesses a soul. And much more than we think, a language works upon us in the character of its sound. A language with many “ah” sounds works upon us in one way; a language that in the character of its words is more prone to “ee” or “o” in quite another way. For in the timbre of the sound character there is poured out as if in the unconscious, the soul that flows over the whole of mankind. This builds us up, works upon us, and comes to expression in life as a special kind of gesture. For man's speech is a special kind of gesture — not as to the words but insofar as it has soul — in the way man lives in speech with his soul and expresses himself. In all that, indeed, we should be able to mention significant differences. Everyone knows that, apart from what is said, there belongs to what flashes from man to man in that queer indefinable way the inner quality of the way in which it is said. If we take this into consideration we shall say: We learn an infinite amount of what is deepest in human beings just from the way in which they speak. In ordinary life we have often to disregard this, for higher points of view may drive it into the background. Yet there is something in us that is very alive to the harshness or the pleasing tone of a voice. Those who really observe the soul know that harshness of voice is far more unpleasant in a man than in a woman, for the simple reason that this sphere is closely connected with our organization, and that the pitch of the voice in a man is more intimately related to, far more deeply bound up with, the life of soul than is the case in a woman. It is true but it cannot be proved. It can only be indicated, and if you are observant you will soon see it is so. Anyone able to understand such things, if wanting to give expression to something important, will therefore need to convey in his speech what has just been referred to, and not merely the word content. To give you an example of what I mean, really not from lack of modesty, I should like to refer to the Rosicrucian Mystery play I wrote — “The Portal of Initiation.” In all the most important passages in it, it is clear that what cannot be expressed in the content is brought out in the use of language, in the vowel sounds. You will find that where you get the sound “oo” after “ah,” “ee” cannot follow “ah.” It is of outstanding importance that we bear in mind that this realm is the “gesture” of speech, recognizing how the might of the spirit is working into the organization; and that we pay heed to this direct working of the spirit on the soul that contains the self-conscious ego. And then we look back on how the human soul pours itself into the bodily nature. I am coming now, it is true, to a language that obviously for many of you must be hypothetical; to talk of it may seem bold to some of you and to others even offensive. That, however, is beside the point. We see how in man the ego being, what the sense of forming ideas can yield and undergo, and what the sense of sound can experience, pour themselves into gesture, physiognomy and facial expression, also, within the limits I have indicated, into the form. So that in man, in that period of his life between birth and death when the ego inserts itself between spirit and bodily nature, we see the direct activity of the spirit. Now let us just consider the following; and because the matter is more or less subtle, I shall speak figuratively. Let us imagine that what man accomplishes with his ego being, his power of conception and his sense of sound, in the way this flows more or less into his balance, individual movement and consciousness of self, and later into freedom of gesture, facial expression and the physiognomy revealing what is within him — let us imagine all this working together out of necessity, so that no conscious ego intervenes between these two, or three, aspects. Let us therefore imagine the ego to be eliminated, allowing the two sides of human nature to work on each other, so that through a sense of sound that does not enter consciousness but lives itself out in the innermost being, there is realized from the outset, in experience, the setting up of a balance that is not promoted by the ego; you would then have something which remains free for man, established without the intervention of the ego. This is what from the very beginning determines balance in the animal. And imagine the conception through which man grasps his laws and the animal species — in other words the whole organization so far as it is individual movement, physiognomy and facial expression, expressed in all animal movement, expressed also in animal instincts, passions and so on — and you have, bound up in the animal through the necessity of natural laws, what man has in his life through the intervention of the ego. We have, too, bound up from the outset with the animal, through the necessity of natural law, what in man is directly expressed only in life. In man the formative force of life works right into his form. But imagine it was no longer kept in reserve for individual life but from the beginning it acquired its form through Nature's activity, and then you have it in accordance with species, and in the way it confronts us plastically in the various animal species. — Thus we see in man a being with a sense world lying between two poles. He has his sense world, the world of perception, sound world, world of taste and world of smell and so on, lying between, on the one side, the way in which, conscious of himself, he finds a relation to his sense of balance in the different spatial directions, in the way he feels his existence in his own body; and on the other side, his sense of sound, his comprehension of concept, and his ego conception. As with inner necessity the inner life stands in relation to the intervening sense, so for the animal the inner life is related as something intervening, which, out of necessity, forms the whole organization. Let the two sides in man come together without the intervention of the ego and you have the direct working of the spiritual into the bodily without the intervention of the soul. In man we have what may be thus described — according to the spiritual and physical side he is an unfolding in space, gestures and so on, which on both sides stands open to the working of the spirit. And with this we must reconcile ourselves to the fact that through it in a certain way a foundation is laid for the whole understanding of man and the human spiritual life altogether, insofar as it plays its part in the history of the spirit. We see that we may not confound what man experiences conceptually with what he experiences when he realizes and develops the concept itself. In a certain relation man is in a quite different situation where the realization of a concept is concerned from his situation in respect of understanding it. The development of a concept is quite a different story from the means of understanding it. In this connection I should like to refer to an actual fact. In the year 1894 Laurenz Müllner, a great admirer of Galileo, on being appointed Rector of the University of Vienna, gave his inaugural address, and in it he drew attention to a remarkable fact which indeed is very interesting. He pointed out that in Galileo we have a spirit able to grasp the physical laws of mechanics, the laws of oscillation, of the motion of projectiles, of the velocity of falling bodies, of equilibrium, which perhaps — said Professor Müllner — are expressed in the most grandiose way in Michelangelo's wonderful work — the lofty dome of St. Peter's in Rome. This is indeed true and must be admitted by anyone upon whom the work of art in question has made an impression. Thus it might be said — Laurenz Müllner went on: In Galileo's intellect these laws first arise in the form of concepts, which we then see in Rome rising to the heavens in the symmetry and equipoise of the gigantic cupola of St. Peter's. In Galileo man has learned to grasp in concepts what is presented in St. Peter's as the artistic creation of Michelangelo. Added to this we have the actual fact that the day of Galileo's birth and the day of Michelangelo's death fell in the same year. In 1564 Michelangelo died on 18th February and in the same year, almost on the same day — the 15th of February — Galileo was born, Galileo who discovered for mankind the physical laws of mechanics. That is really an extraordinarily interesting fact. For it goes to prove that man brings about in a direct way the intercourse with the spirit through which he is able to imprint upon things the laws discovered afterwards; he does not accomplish this with his understanding, nor through concepts — not through the intelligence at all. But this points us to something else; namely, that in his organization man is in touch with the spirit before the intelligence has worked upon his soul inwardly. Hence in a certain way it can be said: Man is so constituted that he himself is able to incorporate into his substance what lives in him as outpouring of the spirit, what has worked upon him before he has been able to grasp it with his intelligence. This is so in the creation of any work of art. This fact is of interest because it enables us to see that man in physical life in regard to all that he lives, and all that comes to clear expression in an organ, before understanding the laws of that organ has something within him which carries out these laws plastically, gives them plastic form. So that if we follow up this thought it is quite clear that the sense for these laws of the spirit, expressed, for example, in a work of art, is there — must be there — in the soul before the laws are given bodily form. Hence, at the spiritual end of man, so to speak, we have also the reverse side — if we use the word in its better sense, raising it to the proper spiritual sphere. For then we are definitely shown that through an ennobled and purified instinct man creates what he discovers only later. As animals create instinctively, in the way bees, for example, organize their wonderful bee community, so man creates directly out of the spiritual world, before the spiritual world is reflected into this intelligence. Thus we see that even in this direction everything points to the meeting of the self-conscious ego with the working of the spirit. Through instinct the animal arrives even in its feeling life at reflecting into its intelligence what it puts into its buildings, and so on. Take, for example, the beaver and what it builds. Among beavers Michelangelos will always be found, but never a Galileo who understood the same laws to which the beaver gives form in its constructions. In man there is something confronting his self-conscious ego, something created by the spirit when it enters the organization. So in our study of human development, we have seen that between spirit and bodily organization the expression of the self-conscious ego intervenes, that the purified organization of the human being has immediate experience of the spirit, as it is seen in the imaginative creations of the artist; and that a self-conscious being lives in him which can oppose the ordering of the spirit in the body. Thus it is not a question of giving man preference over the animal or not; that would be the wrong way to approach the matter. We have, however, to realize that in the animal the spirit comes into direct contact with the bodily organization, and the soul passes its life in accordance with this bodily organization; whereas in man the living ego which is found in the soul pushes its way between spirit and bodily organization, establishing itself as mediator — thus working there between spirit and bodily organization. Through this the human ego has direct intercourse with what lives in the spiritual world. And it lives out this direct intercourse primarily by strenuous efforts to establish spiritual conditions in its environment which the animal is able to establish only instinctively. We see strongly marked a certain life of rights, a moral life among animals. But we understand the life of rights, the life of the State, and the whole course of world history, only when we see in man the emancipation of the spirit from the bodily nature by the intervention of the ego between spirit and bodily nature, through which the ego enters into immediate intercourse with the spiritual world. The way in which this ego enters into direct intercourse with the spiritual world constitutes the normal condition of the human being. But as the intervention of a self-conscious ego between spiritual and bodily nature signifies progress beyond animal evolution, it is possible for man to go farther on this path by again developing within him the spirit which he set free from the bodily nature — developing it in the free intercourse experienced. The possibilities for this will be found in the lecture “The Nature of Sleep”, and its full significance appears in Knowledge of the Higher Worlds . There we see how in normal human beings the emancipation of the spirit from the bodily nature has arrived at a certain stage, but can be carried further by developing slumbering germinating forces in man, through the unfolding of which he can advance to direct vision into the spiritual world. We had first to lay a foundation for what we are able to cultivate as actual contemplation of the spiritual world, by seeking the real significance of the human being in this intervention of the ego between spirit and bodily nature. But this again is given us also in an external bodily way, since the self-conscious ego as it confronts us in life does so in the inner being of man, entirely in his physiognomy and in accordance with his gestures. Some of you may remember that I have not only mentioned but have also substantiated that the old saying “Blood is a very special fluid” 1 A lecture called in English: “The Occult significance of Blood” is founded on deep truth. This is really so, and in what is thus expressed simply as a direct working of the soul on the blood circulation, we can divine something of that working of the self-conscious ego into the bodily nature, into the organization. That is, so to say, the nearest gate for the ego, fertilized by the spirit, to enter the bodily nature and work upon it. We see this on observing how the soul works upon the blood circulation. In the phenomena of blushing and turning pale I have often given you common examples for the direct working of what goes on in the soul and expresses itself physically; for fear and shame are actual processes of the soul. Anyone wanting to deny this would have to be an unconscious materialist, like, for example, William James: for although he wishes to be spiritual he is actually a materialist in wishing to defend the assertion: “Man does not weep because he is sad, he is sad because he weeps.” According to this we should have to imagine that man experiences sadness in his soul because some kind of material influence has an effect on the organism and squeezes out tears: and if man notices this — so says William James — he becomes sad. If we do not recognize how untenable this conclusion is, we shall not be able to understand that in affairs like laughing and weeping, and also in blushing, where a rush of blood takes place from the centre to the periphery, we have to do with material processes directly under the influence of soul and spirit. If we think this over we shall be able to admit that in man what belongs to the soul does in very truth express itself in the circulation of the blood. What we say here about man; namely, that in the blood, and in the circulation, the self-conscious ego has its life, we cannot directly apply to the animal, because in it a self-conscious ego cannot work into the blood circulation, and — what is essential — because the animal does not open itself directly to the influence of the spiritual world which works into it; rather, from necessity. Whereas in the animal's blood circulation we have before us something in which the soul life of the animal finds immediate expression, in the blood circulation of the human being something is to be seen of the way in which the spirit works on the ego. If some day people will begin to give a little thought to what is here in question; namely, the importance for human life that man should not be organized from the outset to receive a definite imprint, of balance, of individual movement and of the sense of life, but must himself struggle to attain them — when they can discover how true it is that in spatial directions we have to do with realities, whether a spine is in a horizontal or vertical relation to space, or whether the blood circulates in this or that direction — then they will see how essential is the way in which such organizations are inserted into the whole cosmic connection. We should be obliged to see in reality, for example, in the spatial direction of a certain line, something of essential importance. When this is understood we may judge how great is the significance of the position and all the processes in the blood, in the human blood system. Today it is believed that the theory of the blood circulation is complete in itself. It is not so at all. We are only beginning to learn something of the secrets of the blood circulation. And not dogmatically to make bare assertions I will point to the following. Not more than twenty-five years ago, a scientific investigator in this sphere, the criminologist Moritz Benedict, celebrated for his mathematical qualifications in this direction, was first to draw attention to the important fact — generally ignored today — that the corresponding beats in the right artery and the left are different — an important fact for knowledge of the connections in the human being. And of special importance is something found in this sphere, not by anyone famous but by a very simple man, a Dr. Karl Schmidt. It was published by him in 1892 in the Vienna Medical Weekly in his article “Heartbeat and Pulsation,” in which quite important observations were indicated. Only when these things, still in their infancy, are studied to some degree, will a beginning have been made in knowledge of the connection between the self-conscious ego and the blood circulation, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, the connection between the animal spirit working in the animal and the animal blood circulation. Last time, I pointed out that we, indeed, are able to go into details in the sciences of the organs and their individual functions, and are able to give evidence of the different ways the spirit shows itself in man and in animal. In this connection it is quite comprehensible that modern investigations into the relation of man's blood to that of apes say little, because they go only into externals — the purely physical substance, the chemical reactions, and so forth — not into the real question. Were it only a matter of physical substance it would necessarily be quite immaterial whether a wheel was used as a child's toy or for a watch. But it always depends on how a member or an organ is used in the whole of a being or of a thing. It has nothing to do with how man's blood is related to the blood of the ape, or the like, but with how the organs in question are placed in the service of the organization as a whole. How the actual truth is treated by external investigation is best shown in Goethe's dealings with natural science. In Goethe's days, where the things of Nature are concerned, a rigid materialism was already prevailing, and even the most eminent scientists who wished to maintain the difference between man and animal founded their claims on something purely material. They were of the opinion that this difference was to be seen in the fact that in the upper jawbone of the animal there is an intermediate bone not found in man. They said: What distinguishes man from the animal is that the animal possesses an intermaxillary bone to accommodate the upper incisors, and this bone is not found in man! For Goethe this was inadmissible. His concern was not to find the difference between man and animal in anatomical details, but in the way the spirit in man and the spirit in the animal made use of the organs. (Incidentally I will just refer you to Goethe's “Theory of Metamorphosis” in which may be found information about all the individual human organs.) Thus from the outset Goethe could never reconcile himself to the idea that man's superiority to the animal was to be sought in a material detail. Therefore his one wish was to prove that this assertion was incorrect, that this chasm did not exist; and he set himself to work to find this intermaxillary bone in man. If Goethe had never accomplished anything but this one deed, if he had discovered nothing further than the presence in man of the intermaxillary bone, though no longer in a developed state and not apparent, through this alone for human evolution he would still remain a mighty genius. Said Goethe to himself — and I do not relate this because he did it but because it came to light through his experience: With Herder, and with others who are at pains to understand man spiritually, I have directed attention primarily to how man rises above the animal because the animal is bound up with its organization; but man is emancipated from it and enters into immediate intercourse with the spirit, thus being able to work back upon his organs. Goethe says this, as I have indicated, but in the following words: “Animals are taught by their organs, said the men of old. I add to this: man, too, is taught by his organs; however, he has the advantage of in turn teaching them.” Goethe could not but admit that the organs are the same but formed from different sides. Hence his great joy when at last he found the intermaxillary bone in man. At this point he writes to Herder: “... I have found — neither gold nor silver but something that gives me infinite joy — the ‘os intermaxillary’ in man! With Loder I compared man's skull with that of the animal and got on its track — when, lo! There it was. But I beg you to keep quiet about it, for this affair must be handled with caution. This should, however, make you too rejoice, for it is a kind of keystone to man; it is not lacking, it is there — actually there. I have imagined it in connection with your ‘whole’ — how splendidly it will fit in. ...” (Letter of 27th March, 1784.) The difference between man and animal cannot be found in any particular detail. It has to be found entirely in the way the spirit makes use of things. For through this we behold man's relation to the spirit, how he has emancipated himself from what belongs to the body and is able to enter into direct intercourse with the spirit. Hence the difference in the sensation we experience on contemplating something spiritual from what we experience on contemplating anything physical and material. We seek to use words in quite different ways according to whether we look upon the spiritual or the physical. Among Goethe's works two poems may be found together. Each contains three remarkable lines: “In all things the eternal's moving past, For everything must come to naught at last If in being it still would stay.” “Das Ewige regt sich fort in Allen: Denn Alles muss in Nichts zerfallen, Wenn es im Sein beharren will.” Thus ends one poem, and the other begins: “No being can come to naught at last! In all the Eternal's moving past. In being know thyself, then, blessed.” “Kein Wesen kann zu Nichts zerfallen! Das Ewige regt sich fort in Allen, Am Sein erhalte dich beglückt!” A complete contradiction! How may we explain it? And Goethe has put it so blatantly in two poems next to one another. In truth if we contemplate the spirit in material existence, in our heart we may call forth the feeling: If the spirit would continue in material being, if it were not to break up all form, it would have to crumble into nothingness. The moment we see the spirit in the bodily nature we have to say: We have here to do with the eternal, immortal being, with the spirit with which we can unite in man's emancipated soul. Then we may say: “No being can come to naught at last, In all the Eternal's moving past. In being know thyself, then, blessed.” if we bear in mind the immortal, the eternal, in a being. If we see the soul, if we see the spirit in the bodily nature, we have to say: If it lived itself out entirely in the body, if it would hold fast to the body, then it would have to fall into nothingness. Thus the study of the animal's spirit and the human spirit leads us gradually upwards to a premonition of what in reality may be called the spirit. But before it is wished to find the way in which knowledge about the spirit can be acquired, it is necessary to know the way in which the spirit shines forth in the human soul which it frees from the body in order within it to live a life independent of the bodily organization, a life in its own sphere.

The Human Soul and the Animal Soul; The Human Spirit and the Animal Spirit

The Human Spirit and the Animal Spirit

https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA060/English/UNK1955/19101117p01.html

Berlin

17 Nov 1910

GA060-4

In the present scientific considerations is little talk of such phenomena to which we want to dedicate this hour. Any human being should still feel that the sleep is something that positions itself in our life phenomena in such a way, as if it gives us the biggest riddles of life. One has probably always felt this mysterious and the important of the sleep when one spoke of the sleep as “the brother of death.” We have now to restrict ourselves at the discussion of the sleep as such, because the following talks still lead us to the consideration of death in certain respects. All that the human being must count to his soul experience in the immediate sense, all mental pictures, all sensations and feelings that represent the soul drama of the human being, all pains, and sufferings, also the will-impulses sink down as it were in an uncertain darkness if the human being falls asleep. Some philosophers could doubt about themselves, so to speak, if they speak of the being of the soul and spirit, which reveals itself in the human nature, and from which they must admit that it seems to lose itself in nothing within every course of the day — even if it may be conceptualised and investigated ever so well. If we look at the phenomena of the soul life in such a way as one is used to look at them, actually, academically, as well as unprofessionally, we must say, they are extinguished during the sleeping state, they are away. For that who wants to look only at that of the soul, which expresses itself in the bodily, the human being is as it were a riddle if he thinks deeper. For the real bodily functions, bodily activities continue during sleep. Only the mental stops. Now one has to ask oneself only whether one speaks quite correctly about the bodily and the mental if one really encloses this mental in its entirety in that what appears as extinguished with falling asleep. Alternatively, whether already the usual observation of life — refraining now completely from spiritual-scientific or anthroposophic considerations — can show, nevertheless, that this mental is also active and effective when it is enveloped by the sleep. However, if one wanted to gain some clearness about these concepts, one could also say, if one wants to observe the phenomena of life in the right sense in this field, one must have precise concepts. I would like to mention from the start that also in relation to this issue spiritual science or anthroposophy is not able to speak as in general as one likes it today. If we speak of the nature of sleep, we speak only of the sleep of the human being. For spiritual science knows very well — this has been touched repeatedly in the last talks concerning other fields — that the same outer appearance of various beings can be based on quite different causes within the concerning beings. We have indicated this for the death, for the entire spiritual life and for the arrangement of the spiritual life with the animal and the human being. Today it would lead too far to speak still about the sleep of the animals. Therefore, we want to say in advance that I speak about the sleep of the human being only. We human beings are able to speak of soul phenomena within ourselves by our consciousness, because we are aware of that what we imagine what we want what we feel. Now the question must arise — and it is exceptionally important just for our today's observations: are we allowed throwing together the concept of consciousness, as we know it as the normal human consciousness in the present, automatically with the concept of the human soul and mind? I would like to use a comparison at first in order to argue about these concepts clearer. A human being can walk around in a room and he is nowhere able to look at something of his face at the different places of the room. At one single place where he is able to look in a mirror, he can see something of his own face. There the figure of his face faces him in the picture. Is it not an immense difference for him whether he walks around only in the room and lives in himself or whether he sees what he lives in such a way also in the mirror? Perhaps, it could be with the human consciousness in a somewhat enlarged scale. The human being could live, so to speak, his soul life, and he would become aware of this soul life — as he lives it — only because it faces him in a kind of mirror. This could be very well. We could say, for example, it is conceivable that the human soul life continues, no matter whether the human being wakes or sleeps. However, in the awake state the human being perceives his soul life by a reflection — we say by a reflection within his physical nature at first — and he cannot perceive it in the sleeping state, because it is not reflected in his corporeality. Indeed, we would have proved nothing with it; however, we would have obtained two concepts at least. We could differentiate the soul life as such and the awareness of the soul life. We could imagine that for our consciousness, for our knowledge of the soul life, as we stand in the normal human life, everything depends on the fact that we get the soul life reflected by our corporeality because we could know nothing of it if we did not get it reflected. Then we would completely be in a state like in sleep. We try now, after we have obtained these concepts, to imagine the phenomenon of the awake life and sleep. Someone who is able to observe life really can feel very clear, one would like to say, “behold” how the moment of falling asleep takes place really. He can perceive the mental pictures, the feelings becoming weaker, their brightness and intensity decreasing. However, these are not the very essentials. While the human being wakes, he lives in such a way that he creates order in his whole image life from his self-aware ego, summarises all mental pictures, as it were, with his ego. Since at the moment when we would not summarise our mental pictures with our ego in the awake life, we would not lead a normal soul life. We would have a group of mental pictures that we would call our mental pictures, and another group at which we would look as something strange, as an outside world. Only the human beings who experience a splitting of their ego what is a morbid state for the present human being could have such a splitting of their image life in different groups. With the normal human being, it is essential that all mental pictures relate to a point in perspective: to the self-conscious ego. At the moment of falling asleep, we feel clearly how, so to speak, the ego is overpowered by the mental pictures at first, even though they become darker. They assert their independence, live an own way of life. Single clouds of mental pictures form, as it were, within the horizon of the consciousness, and the ego loses itself to the images. Then the human being feels the sense-perceptions becoming duller and duller and he feels finally how the will impulses are paralysed. Now we must point to something that few human beings observe quite clearly. In addition, the human being feels that at the moment of falling asleep something makes itself noticeable like an enclosed being in an uncertain fog which works cooling now and again, or becomes noticeable with other feelings at certain places of the body: in the hands, in the joints, in the temples, in the spine et cetera. Someone who falls asleep can observe these feelings. This are — one would like to say — such trivial experiences, as one can do them every evening while falling asleep if one wants. Such human beings make better experiences already who more exactly observe the moment of falling asleep by a finer education of their soul life. Then they can feel something like waking up in spite of falling asleep. Everybody can observe these things really who gets into the habit of applying some methods because it is a generally human phenomenon. At the moment when the human beings feel something like waking up with falling asleep it is in such a way that one can really say, something wakes up like a spreading conscience, something like the morality of the soul wakes up. This is the case really. It becomes apparent in particular that such persons observe that experience of the preceding day life with which they are satisfied in their conscience. They feel this at this moment of the moral waking up in particular. At the same time, this feeling is completely contrary to the feeling of the day. The human being falling asleep feels, as if his soul poured out itself about a world that awakes now and which primarily expresses itself as a feeling extending about what the soul can experience by itself like by a spreading out conscience in relation to its moral inwardness. Then there it is a moment of inner bliss, which, however, seems much longer for the falling asleep, when it extends about such things with which the soul can agree and it is often a feeling of deep strife if it has to reproach itself. Briefly, the moral human being who is pressed down during the day by the stronger sensory impressions expands and feels as something particular when he falls asleep. Everybody who has appropriated a certain method or maybe a sensation only concerning such observations knows that a certain longing awakes at this moment that we can describe possibly in this way: one wants that this moment, actually, may extend in the uncertain that it does not find an end. Then, however, something comes like a jolt, a kind of inner movement. Now this is quite exceptionally difficult to describe for the most human beings. Spiritual research can describe this inner movement to a hair's breadth, of course. It is as it were a demand that the soul makes to itself: you must extend still further; you must pour out yourself even further! However, while it puts this demand to itself, the soul loses itself for the moral life in the surroundings. It is, as if you distribute a droplet of colour in water: at first, you still see the colour if, however, the drop is distributed in the whole water, the colour grows weaker and weaker, and, finally, it disappears. It is this way if the soul just starts swelling up, living in its moral reflection, there it still feels; but the feeling stops when the jolt, the inner movement occurs as the drop of colour loses itself in the water. This is no theory; one can observe this and it is accessible to everybody as a scientific observation. If we observe falling asleep this way, however, we are able to say, the human being intercepts with falling asleep as it were something that can no longer be in his consciousness afterwards. The human being has — if I may help myself now of the two ideas contrived before — as it were a moment of saying farewell to the mirror of the bodily in which the phenomena of life appeared reflected to him. Because he still has no possibility to let reflect what should be reflected in the body in something else, the possibility stops perceiving what he is. However, one is also able to perceive the phenomena of the day again in a certain way — if one is not arbitrary and does not want to be obstinate concerning the soul and the effect of that what goes there into an uncertain darkness. In another context, I have already drawn your attention to it that the human being who is forced to memorise this or that, to learn things by heart, manages this much easier if he sleeps on them, and that the biggest enemy of learning by heart is the avoidance of sleep. The possibility and the ability are there again to memorise easier if we have slept on the thing, than to learn something by heart in one go. However, it is this way also with other soul activities. However, we would be able to convince ourselves quite easily that it is impossible to learn something generally, to acquire something where the soul has to co-operate if we do not always insert the states of sleep in our states of life. One can conclude from such phenomena that our soul needs to withdraw from the body every now and then to get strength from a field that is not within the body because within the bodily the suitable forces are just worn out. We have to imagine if we wake up in the morning, we have brought recovering forces from the state in which we were to develop abilities which we could not develop if we were only always tied up to our body. The effect of sleep appears in our usual being this way if one wants to think straight and does not want to be obstinate. What appears in general and where one already needs some good will, if one stops in the usual life to hold together the single phenomena, appears in no uncertain manner if the human being goes through developments that can lead him to the real beholding in the spiritual life. I would like to explain here what happens if the human being has developed the forces slumbering in his soul to attain that state where he does not perceive by the senses and understand by the mind. — Further details of that follow in the talk How Does One Attain Knowledge of the Spiritual World? where the methods should be discussed quite comprehensively. — However, some of the experiences should be now emphasised which a human being can do who really goes through such exercises. They provide his soul as it were with spiritual eyes, with spiritual ears by which he is able to behold in the spiritual world that is not an object of speculation, but an object, as the human being perceives the colours and forms, warmth, cold and tones with his physical senses. Already in the former talks, I have explained how one attains true clairvoyance. This spiritual development, these exercises consist really of the fact that the human being gets out something what he has in himself, attains other cognitive organs, and experiences as it were a jolt in the soul and thereby perceives a world that is always around him he cannot perceive, however, in the normal state. If the human being goes through such exercises, his sleep changes at first. Everybody knows this who has come to real own spiritual researches. Now I want to speak of the very first state of the change of the sleeping life with the actually clairvoyant, spiritual-scientific human being. The first beginnings of this possibility of spiritual research let the human being appear not very different from the usual, normal state of consciousness. Since, if the human being carries out such exercises that we discuss later, he sleeps completely as well as another person at first and is unconscious exactly the same way as any other human being. Nevertheless, the moment of waking up shows something particular to someone who has gone through spiritual-mental exercises. I want to portray some quite concrete phenomena to you that are facts. Assuming that a human being who does such exercises thinks very sharply about something that also another human being could think, he tries — because he maybe faces a very hard problem — to tighten all his mental powers to come behind the matter. He may fare exactly the same way as a pupil fares: his mental strength is not sufficient to solve the task. This can absolutely happen. If he already has more possibilities of experience about inner mental states in connection with bodily ones by his exercises, however, he feels something particular if he is not able to do anything. Then he feels other than it is usually the case that he has an opposition in his physical organs, for example, in his brain. He feels properly, as if the brain resists to him as we feel resistance, for example, if we want to hammer down a nail with a too heavy hammer. There the brain starts gaining reality. As the human being normally uses his brain, he does not feel it in such a way, as he uses an instrument, for example, a hammer. The spiritual researcher feels his brain, he feels independent compared to his thinking. This is an experience. However, where he cannot solve a task, there he feels that he can no longer carry out certain activities that he must carry out with thinking. He loses the power of the instrument and feels this quite clearly. This is a fact that one can experience certainly. If now the spiritual researcher sleeps on the problem and wakes up, it can very often happen that he copes with the task. However, he feels quite exactly at the same time that he has done something before waking up that he has worked something. He feels that he was able to set something in motion, to make something active in himself during the sleep. He was forced to use his brain in the awake state. He knows this. However, he could no longer use it correctly because it resisted to him — as I have described. In the sleeping state — he feels this — he does not depend on the use of the brain. He could create a certain mobility without using the too strongly tired or claimed brain. Now he feels something quite peculiar: he perceives his activity that he has exercised in sleep, but not directly. The Lord does not give his friends their need in sleep (changed German saying referring to Psalms 127:2) . Nevertheless, he is not spared to solve the problem in the awake state. It can happen to him; but normally it is not in such a way, and in particular, not with such things which one has to solve with the brain. Then the human being feels something that he has not known before in the sensory world at all, he feels his own activity like in living pictures, in strange pictures which are in motion — as if the thoughts which he would need were living beings which strike up all kinds of interrelations. He feels his own activity of thought that he has exercised in sleep like a range of pictures. This feeling is hard to describe because one sticks to it in quite peculiar way and must say to himself, you are that! On the other side, he can distinguish this feeling again certainly from himself as he can distinguish an outer movement, which he does from himself. Thus, one has pictures, imaginations of an activity that has been carried out before waking up. Now one can notice if one has learnt to watch out for himself that these pictures of an activity, which was before waking up, combine with our brain and make it a more movable, more useful instrument. Therefore, one can accomplish something that one was not able to do before because a resistance was there to think, for example, certain thoughts. These are subtle things, but without them, one cannot come surely behind the secret of sleep. One feels that one has exercised no activity like in the awake state, but an activity that was used to the restoration of certain things in the brain, and that one has rebuilt the instrument, as one could not build up it before. One feels like a master builder of his own instruments. The sensation that one has with such an activity is substantially different from that of an activity of the day. For the activity of the day, one has such a feeling that one can compare to it, as if one draws something after a model. There I am forced to comply with every line or colour spot of the picture that stands before me. With those things which appear as pictures at the moment of waking up and which visualise an activity during the sleep, one has the feeling, as if one invented the lines and created figures from oneself without being bound to a model. With such a phenomenon, one has intercepted as it were what the soul has done, before it has woken up: one has intercepted the activity of the regeneration of the brain. For one finds out gradually that that what one feels like a kind of covering the cerebral organs with that what one reminds there as figures is nothing else than a reconstruction of that what was destroyed during the day. One really feels like a master builder. Now the difference between a spiritual researcher who perceives such thing and a usual human being consists only of the fact that the spiritual researcher just perceives this, while the usual human being cannot pay attention to it and does not perceive it. Since the same activity, which the spiritual researcher carries out, every human being carries out, only the usual human being does not intercept the moment when the organs are built up anew from the activity during sleep. We take such an experience and compare it with that what we have said before about the decreasing brightness of the everyday thought-life while falling asleep. One can look at this latter phenomenon really only in the right light if one either delivers oneself from the mental pictures of that worldview working very suggestively which believe to stand on the firm ground of natural sciences, or if one gets involved with the results of the present physical research. There the more exactly thinking human beings cannot help to admitting the independence of the mental from the bodily after the results of the physical research, for instance, of the brain research. It is very interesting that recently a popular book appeared where everything of that what deals with the spiritual life and the origins of the spiritual life is shown wrongly, completely without any insight. Nevertheless, some very clever things are stated in this book Brain and Personality or the Physical Relations of the Brain to the Mind by William Hanna Thomson (1833-1918, American physician and author). Above all, he went into the brain research of the present and into some things, which present themselves, otherwise, for example as symptoms of fatigue that are very instructive. However, I have already explained that conscious activity only tires the muscles or nerves. As long our muscles serve the organic activity only, they cannot get tired, because it would be bad if, for example, the heart muscle and other muscles had to rest. We get tired only if we exercise an activity that is not innate to the organism if we exercise an activity that belongs to the conscious soul life. Therefore, one must say, if the soul life were born out like the heart activity, the immense difference between getting tired and not getting tired would not be explicable at all. Hence, the author of that book feels just forced to concede that the mental relates to the physical like the rider to the horse, that it is quite independent of the physical. This is an immense concession from a scientifically thinking person. One could receive quite peculiar feelings if a person, forced by the physical research of the present, has to concede that the mental life relates to the physical like the rider to the horse that is after the picture of the centaur that one has imagined in former times when one looked more at the spiritual. It is evident by nothing that the author of this book has thought this, but this thought comes to the fore by the scientific idea again, and one gets feelings of such ideas, which are due to times, when many human beings still had a certain clairvoyance. Indeed, certain modern ideas about the centaur seem to comply better with that what a gentleman said to me once. The person concerned meant: the Greeks saw the Scythians or other horse peoples coming from the north, but they saw them maybe coming through a fog, they could not exactly distinguish those figures and thought that they would have grown out of the horses. The materialist may be content with such an explanation. Nevertheless, just the scientific researches of the present urge to concede the independence of the mental from the physical. Thereby something strikes us most certainly, and we can pursue such things best of all if we imagine certain phenomena that are not everyday; however, such phenomena exist and cannot be denied. I know the story that a simple peasant started talking Latin suddenly at his hour of death, a language that he had never used, actually, and from which one could prove that he had heard it only as a little boy in the church once. This is no fable, but reality. Of course, he understood nothing of it when he had heard or recited it. Nevertheless, it is true. From that, any human being would have to form the idea, that the surroundings working on us still contain quite different things in themselves than what we take up in our usual consciousness. Since that often depends on our education what we understand and the like. Nevertheless, not only that what we understand unites with us, but also we have the possibility in ourselves to take up endlessly more things than those we take up consciously. We can even observe with any human being that at certain times images appear with him, which were not so intensive at that time when he got to know them, so that he can maybe remember nothing at all. However, because of certain things they appear again, position themselves maybe even in the centre of the soul life. We must absolutely admit that the extent of our soul life is endlessly larger than that what we can take up and enclose in our day consciousness. This is very important. Since thereby our look is directed to an inside which can impress our corporeality a little only because it was hardly kept in mind, and, nevertheless, it still lives on in us. We are thereby referred to the subsoil of our soul life that, actually, must exist for every reasonable human being. Since every reasonable human being has to say to himself, what he consciously perceives looking at the world is dependent on the equipment of his senses and on that what he can understand. Nobody is entitled to want to limit reality by that what he can perceive. It would be quite illogical to want to deny to the spiritual researcher that there is a spiritual world behind the physical world, because the human being can only say what he sees and hears about which he can think, and he can never judge about what he cannot perceive. Since the world of reality is not the world of the discernible. The world of the discernible is limited by the senses. Therefore, one should never speak — as in the Kantian sense — of limits of knowledge, or about what the human being can know or cannot know, but only about that what one faces with his sense-organs. If anyone considers this, he must say to himself, behind the carpet of colours of the sensory world, behind that which the warmth sense perceives as warm or cold et cetera, there is an unlimited reality. Should influence us only what we perceive, or only that reality which we perceive? It is logical only if we imagine that a part of the whole reality is given by our perception that behind that an unlimited reality is which is real, however, also for us, because we are positioned in it, so that that lives on for us what lives outdoors and influences us. How does our conscious day life present itself then? Then we have to imagine the conscious day life in such a way — and there is no other possibility — that we open our senses, our cognitive faculties to an immeasurableness and oppose this immeasurableness. Because we have such eyes, such ears, such a warmth sense et cetera we face a certain part of reality; we reject, defend ourselves as it were against it, and exclude it from ourselves. In what does our conscious activity consist then? It is self-defending, excluding something. Exerting our sense organs is restraining something unperceived. What we perceive is the rest, that remains from that what spreads out around us, and which we push back for the most part. Thus, we feel actively positioned in the world, we feel connected with it. We defend ourselves as it were by our sensory activity against the plenty of impressions, while we cannot endure — figuratively spoken — the entire extensive infinity and take up a part of it only. If we think in such a way, we must still think relations between our whole organism, between our whole corporeality and the outside world quite different from those, which we can perceive or understand with our reason. Then it is no longer abstruse to remember that the relations that we have to the outside world live in us that also the invisible, supersensible is active in us that the supersensible, while it is active in us, uses the senses to produce a part of the whole reality. Then, however, our relation to reality is different from our sense-perception. Then there is something in our relations to the outside world that does not at all amount to nothing more than the sensory perception that escapes from the day consciousness. Then it is with us in such a way, as if we have to step with our being before a mirror and say to ourselves, you are something different; the mirror shows only the form, maybe also the colours. However, there you think inside, there you feel inside, the mirror cannot show all that to you, it shows only what is dependent on its laws. As you are, however, as a soul compared with your organism, you are something else than your senses show to you; they limit you to what is commensurate to their laws. So you face if you face a world — in similar way as you stand before a mirror — which becomes possible only by your senses! If you think this picture to an end, you are no longer surprised that all life of our day consciousness depends very much on the organisation of our senses and our brain, just as that what we see of ourselves in the mirror depends on the state of the mirror. Someone who looks at a distorting mirror and sees the caricatured face gladly concedes that his picture does not depend on him, but on the mirror. Thus, it depends on the organisation of our reflection apparatus, and our mental activity is limited, is reflected in itself so to speak, while it is reflected in the bodily life. Then it is not miraculous that the part — what one can also prove physiologically — depends on the bodily, while this or that takes place in the consciousness one way or the other, because everything that the soul does depends on the organisation of our body if we shall become aware of it. Observation shows that the concepts which we have only constructed in the beginning absolutely correspond to the facts. The only difference is that our corporeality is a living mirror. We let the mirror, into which we look, as it is. Indeed, we can also impair the reflection. If we breathe on the mirror, it also does no longer reflect correctly. But the reflection in our physical nature which experiences the activity of our soul is connected with the fact that, while we reflect ourselves in our physical nature, the reflection itself is an activity, a process in our corporeality, and that we put that reflection as an activity before ourselves. Thus, the bodily life presents itself really in such a way, as if we write what we think in a certain respect and have the letters then before ourselves. Thus, we write the activity of the soul in our bodily life. What the anatomist proves is only the letters, the outer apparatus, because we do not observe our soul life completely if we observe it only in the bodily life, we observe it only completely if we observe it independently from it. However, only the spiritual researcher is able to do this if he observes the soul life mirroring while it wakes up in the conscious day life. It becomes obvious that the soul life is like an architect who builds up something during the night, and destroys it in the day life. Now we face the soul life in the awake state and in the sleeping state. We have to imagine it as independent from the bodily life in the sleeping state, as the rider is independent from the horse. However, as the rider uses the horse and wears out its forces, the soul uses the activity of the body, so that chemical processes take place as the letters of the soul life. With it, we come to a point where we have worn out the bodily life, as it is limited in the senses, in the brain, so that we have exhausted it at first. Then we must start the other activity, initiate the reverse process, and rebuild the destroyed. This is the sleeping life, so that our soul exercises two contrary activities on our body. Indeed, while waking we have round ourselves our world of images surging up and down, of joy and grief, of feelings et cetera. However, while we have this before ourselves, we wear out our bodily life; we destroy it perpetually strictly speaking. While we are sleeping, we are the architects and rebuild what we have destroyed during the conscious life. What does the spiritual researcher perceive now? He perceives the architectural activity in peculiar pictures like in looping movements; this reconstruction is a real process that is contrary to the usual conscious day life. It is really no pipe dream if one speaks of the fact that one recognises in these intertwining movements that mysterious activity which the soul carries out in the sleep: we restore what we have destroyed in the day life. Hence, the recovering and the necessary of the sleep. Why does now the sleeping life not become conscious? Why does the wake life become conscious? Because we have something like reflections with the processes which we carry out in the day life. However, while we perform the other activity, restoring the worn out, we have nothing at which it can be reflected. We lack the mirror for it. Only the spiritual researcher can show again what forms its basis. From a certain point the spiritual researchers does not only experience the mental activity, as I have described it, like a dream recollection of the sleep, but in such a way, as if he is not dependent at all on the instrument of the body, so that he can perceive an activity then which takes place only in the spiritual. There he can say to himself, you do not think with your brain now, but you think in quite different forms, you think pictures independently from your brain. However, the spiritual researcher can only get around to experiencing such a thing as I have described if he experiences that the whole that wraps around him as something nebulous does not disappear falling asleep. He perceives this fog at the temples, in the joints, in the spine. It becomes something from which that is reflected which he does — as that is reflected which we experience in the coarse bodily life — if he can limit and withdraw his activity in himself. The whole difference of the real clairvoyance from the usual wake day life consists of the fact that the wake day life needs another mirror to become conscious of the mental activity using the corporeality, whereas the activity of the clairvoyant is so strong if it radiates as soul activity that the emitted ray withdraws in itself. Thus, a reflection takes place as it were in the own inner experience, in a spiritual organism. In this spiritual organism, our soul exists at night, even if we are no spiritual researchers. Therein it pours out. We do not manage with the whole life of sleep if we do not get clear that, indeed, our bodily processes — everything that anatomy, physiology can investigate — cause nothing else than the reflection of the soul processes, and that these soul processes always live on in a spiritual existence from falling asleep to waking up. If we think different, we cannot manage it at all. We have to speak as it were of a mysterious soul life that cannot enter at all the consciousness that the body gives. If one sees images appearing with a human being that he has not kept in his consciousness long since, one must say: there is something else in the human being than the images of the conscious soul life that have been taken up consciously. I have indicated already once that it is very easy to disprove the things that are real for the spiritual researcher. However, they are true. The spiritual research must speak of the fact that the human being has the physical body that we see with eyes, can touch with hands, and which anatomy and physiology know. In addition, we have an inner member of the human being: the astral body, the bearer of everything that the human being takes up consciously that he really experiences during the day life in such a way that he can receive it reflected by the body. Between the astral body and the physical body is the bearer of imaginations that remain unnoticed for years, which are brought up into the astral body then and become conscious life then. Briefly, between the astral body, the bearer of consciousness, and the physical body the etheric body of the human being is active. This etheric body is not only the bearer of such imaginations going unnoticed, but it also is generally the builder of the entire physical body. What happens now, actually, in the sleep? It happens that the astral body, the bearer of consciousness, leaves the physical and etheric bodies together with the ego, so that a splitting of the human nature takes place. If the human being is in the wake day life, the astral body and the ego are in the physical body and etheric body, and the processes of the physical body work like reflecting processes by which everything that goes forward in the astral body becomes conscious. Consciousness is the reflection of the experiences by the physical body, and, hence, we must not confuse consciousness with the experiences. If the astral body goes out in the sleep, it is not able to perceive anything in the world of the astral. The human being is unconscious there. Which ability does now the spiritual researcher attain, while things also become conscious to him in sleep even if he does not rely on his brain? He attains the ability to perceive in something and to reflect his soul activity that lives for him between the things and that can be perceived in the wake day consciousness also as the own etheric body. The etheric body is woven of that by which the clairvoyant perceives; so that for him the external world becomes reflecting as for the soul life of the normal human being the physical corporeality becomes reflecting. Now there are interstates between waking and sleeping. Such an interstate is the dream. In relation to its origin the spiritual research shows that, indeed, the dreams are based on something similar as the clairvoyance is, only the latter is something trained, whereas the dreams are always fantastic. The human being loses the possibility that the physical body reflects his soul life if he leaves it with the astral body. However, under certain unusual conditions that happen for every human being, he can get the ability to receive the mental experiences reflected by the etheric body. Indeed, we must regard not only the physical body as an apparatus of reflection, but also the etheric body, because as long as the outer world makes impressions on us, the physical body works like an apparatus of reflection. However, if we become quiet in ourselves and process the impressions of the world, then we work in ourselves, however, our thoughts are real, nevertheless. We live our thoughts, and we feel that we are dependent on something subtler than our physical body is, namely on the etheric body. Then the etheric body reflects what is in the lonesome contemplation that is not based on outer impressions at first. Nevertheless, we are in our etheric body in the wake day consciousness; we perceive what is reflected, but we do not perceive the activity of the astral body directly. While we are not able in an interstate between waking and sleeping to receive outer sensory impressions but still something in certain way that is connected with our etheric body, the etheric body can reflect what we experience in our soul with our astral body. These are the irregular dreams, because the human being is in a quite unusual position. If we consider this, we realise something of the dream world that is rather mysterious, otherwise. Hence, we have to imagine the subsoil of the soul life narrowly tied up with the dream life. While the physical body is the player of the soul life and our day interests affect it, we are connected by the etheric body often in the most remote kind with experiences which are long behind us and which we become aware of only weakly because the day life works strongly on us. Hence, they remain something very strange to us. However, if we consider dreams now, which are based on good observation, something strange can appear. For example, a good composer experiences the picture that a somewhat diabolical figure plays a sonata. He wakes — and can write down the sonata. There something has become active in him that worked like something strange in him. This was possible because something was in him for which the soul of the composer was ripe but could not appear in the wake day life because the bodily life is only an obstacle and not suitable to reflect. There we see that the bodily life is an obstacle and that this is its significance. In the day life we can only experience for which the bodily life — figuratively spoken — is lubricated as a machine. The bodily life is always an obstacle. However, we succeed to a certain degree in using the bodily life. One needs “inhibitions” everywhere. If a locomotive drives on the rails, there are also inhibitions, the frictions by which it can drive, because without friction the wheels could not rotate. Our bodily processes are the obstacles of our soul life in truth, and these inhibitory processes are the reflecting processes at the same time. If we are mature in our soul for something and if we have not yet succeeded in “smearing our machine,” the wake day life is a good hindrance. However, if we leave our physical body, our etheric body — that must appear to us as something completely strange because it is of subtler nature — can express what lives in the soul life. If then it is strong enough, it squeezes in the dream life like in this case of the composer. This is less connected with the daily interests than with concealed interests, which are remote in the fine subsoil. Thus, for example, also in the following. I note, I tell only something really observed. A woman dreams — although she has children, whom she loves very much, and a husband, who loves her exceptionally — that she is engaged for the second time and experiences all events with big joy. What does she dream? She dreams experiences that are very far from her current life, which she experienced once but which she does not recognise again, because the usual daily interest is connected only with the physical body. The etheric body reflects here what still lives on in her etheric body due to another event because any happy sensation has maybe released the dream. A man dreams that he goes through childhood experiences. These childhood experiences are reflected quite wonderfully. An especially important event grieving him deeply causes that he wakes up. At first, the dream is very dear to him; however, he soon falls asleep again and continues dreaming. Now a whole sum of disagreeable experiences goes through his soul, and an especially painful event wakes him. All that is extremely far from his present experiences. He gets up because he is shaken at the dream very much, walks around for a while in the room, then he lies down again, and experiences in the dream events that he has not experienced. All events that he has gone through are tangled, and now he experiences something quite new. The whole becomes a poem that he can even write down and set to music afterward. This is a real fact. Now it will not be difficult to imagine with the concepts that we have already attained what has happened there. For the spiritual researcher it presents itself this way: the man has suffered a break of his development as it were at a particular moment of his life. He had to give up something that lay in his soul. However, even if he had to give up it, his etheric body has not left it. The usual interests were only so strong to force back it. Where it was strong enough because of inner elasticity, it squeezed in the dream because the human being is delivered there from the inhibitions of the wake day life. That is the person concerned was on the brink to coming really to that what expressed itself in the poem; but then it has been drowned. Thus, we clearly recognise the independence of the soul life from the outer bodily life in the dream. This must prove that the idea of the reflection of the soul life in the bodily life is very justified. Just the fact that the interests, in which we are involved, do not impress themselves straight in our immediate experience, shows that beside the life, as it runs in the everyday life, another life runs alongside which I have called a kind of waking up for the conscious finer observing. Everything lives in it that is for our spiritual life — as for example the conscience — independent of the bodily life. Everybody feels this. Nevertheless, in the daily life this other life turns out to be very much limited by our daily interests. In the sleep, our soul appears completely fulfilled with this moral quality. It really means immersing oneself in the spiritual what we can call a jolt, an inner movement. Spiritual-scientific research will arise as something by which we consciously settle in the world in which the normal human being settles unconsciously every time when falling asleep. The human beings have to familiarise themselves gradually with the fact that the world comprises much more than what we can understand with the senses and pursue with the reason, and that the life of sleep is an area which we need because we just wear the noblest organs in the daily life which serve for the life of imagination. In the sleep, we restore them, so that they can face the world strongly and can reflect our soul life in the wake day life. Everything typical of the soul life could thereby become clear to us. Who would not know that he feels drawn, exhausted after a good, deep sleep? People often complain it; but this is no symptom, but comprehensible. Since strictly speaking the entire rest takes place only one or one and a half hours after sleep. Why? Because we have well worked on our organs, so that they do not only endure for some hours again, but for the whole day. There we are not yet trained immediately after waking, we can use them well only after some time. One would have to speak about a certain kind of weariness that one could be glad after one and a half hours that one can familiarise oneself with the recovered organs. Since from the sleep comes what we need: the architectural forces for the organs, which are worn during the day. Thus, we can say, our soul life is a life in independence, a life from which we have something in the wake day life by our consciousness that is a reflection. Consciousness is a reflection of the relations of the soul to the surroundings. In the wake day life, we are given to our surroundings, to something strange, to something that we are not ourselves. During sleep, however — and this is the nature of sleep — we withdraw from all outer activity in order to work on ourselves. The comparison for it is suitable: in the ship that was on high sea, the sailors carpenter and mend when it drives in the harbour. Who believes that nothing happens with us during sleep could also believe that nothing needs to happen with the ship when it is in the harbour after a trip. However, it will drive out again, and there he will already see what happens if it is not repaired. Thus, it would be if the soul did not work on us during sleep. We are returned to ourselves in sleep, while we are given to the outside world in the day life. The normal human being is only unable to perceive what the soul does in sleep in such a way, as he perceives the outside world during the day. In the talk How Does One Attain Knowledge of the Spiritual World? , we shall see that also in the spiritual a reflection can be attained as knowledge by which the human being can get perception in the higher worlds. All that shows that just the soul if it is not aware of itself knows nothing about its own activity, however, that it is occupied with itself, works in itself, and gets the forces independently from any corporeality that shall just serve the construction of the bodily. Thus, I would like to summarise what I have said and characterise the nature of sleep with the words: The soul returns itself. It withdraws embraced by sleep To spiritual regions, If sensory narrowness depresses it!

The Nature of Sleep

https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA060/English/eLib2015/19101124p01.html

Berlin

24 Nov 1910

GA060-5

These lectures were published under the title Spiritual Science's Answer to the Large Questions of the Present Time . In German: ‘Der Geist im Pflanzenreich,’ in Antworten der Geisteswissenschaft auf die Grossen Fragen des Daseins . Translated by Gerald Karnow, with revisions by Alice Wulsin How spiritual science must recognize the living and weaving spirit in all beings surrounding us by proceeding from the principle that the knowing human being should understand himself in his knowing has been touched upon in the lectures about The Human Soul and the Animal Soul and The Human Spirit and the Animal Spirit. 1 Berlin, November 10 and 17, 1910 It was said that the person knowing himself could never think of taking into his own spirit — as spiritual content — ideas, concepts, and mental images of things and beings if these concepts and ideas, this spiritual content through which the human being wants to make comprehensible what resides in the objects, were not first present in these objects, were not placed into them. All drawing forth of the spiritual from things and beings would be pure fantasy, would be a self-made fantasy, if we were not to presuppose that wherever we gaze and are able to discover the spirit, there this spirit is actually present. Although still only in small circles, this general presupposition of the spiritual content of the world is made rather frequently. Even those who speak of the spirit in objects, however, usually remain with speaking about the spirit in general, i.e., they speak about the existence of spiritual weaving, of spiritual life lying at the basis of the mineral, plant, and animal realms, etc. To enter into the means by which the spirit individualizes itself for us, how it manifests itself particularly in this or that form of existence, is not yet given much thought in the wider circles of our educated contemporaries. Offense is usually taken to those who speak not only of the spirit generally but of its particular forms, its particular ways, how it makes itself felt behind this or that phenomenon. Nevertheless, in our spiritual science, we should not speak about the spirit in the vague and general way indicated today; rather, we should speak in such a way that we recognize how the spirit weaves behind the mineral or plant existence, how it is active in the animal and human existence. Our task today is to say some thing about the nature of the spirit in the realm of plants. It must be admitted that if we do not begin with abstract philosophy, or with abstract theosophy, but if we begin with unbiased observations of reality and at the same time — as it must be on the healthy ground of spiritual science — we stand firm on the ground of natural science and then want to speak about ‘the spirit in the realm of plants,’ we not only collide with unjustified prejudices of our scientists or other educated contemporaries but also come into conflict with more-or-less justified concepts that have, and must have, the power of strong suggestion. Especially in this contemplation, which is to concern itself with the spirit that finds its expression, its physiognomy, as it were, in the realm confronting us in the gigantic trees of the primeval forest, or those growing on Teneriffa thousands of years ago, as well as in the small, unassuming violet hiding in the quiet woods or elsewhere — especially in such a contemplation a person may feel himself in a rather difficult position, if the natural scientific concepts of the nineteenth century have been absorbed. Yes, a person feels himself in a rather difficult position if he has worked through to what should be said about the spirit in this area, for how could it be denied that great and wonderful discoveries in the realm of material research — even in the realm of the nature of plants — were made in the nineteenth century, thoroughly illuminating the nature of plants from a certain standpoint. Again and again we should be reminded that in the second third of the nineteenth century the great botanist, Schleiden, discovered the plant cell. He was the first to place before humanity the truth that every plant body is built up out of small — they are called ‘elementary organisms’ — independent entities, ‘cells,’ which appear like the building blocks of this plant body. While previously plants were able to be considered only in relation to their crude parts and organs, now attention was directed to how every leaf of the higher plants consisted of innumerable, tiny microscopic formations — the plant cells. No wonder such a discovery had a powerful influence on all thinking and feeling in relation to the plant world! It is entirely natural that the person who first discerned how the plant is built up out of these building blocks would arrive at the thought that by investigating these small formations, these building blocks, the secret of the nature of plants could be revealed. The ingenious Gustav Theodor Fechner must already have experienced this idea when, around the middle of the nineteenth century, he actually tried to take into his thought sequences something like a ‘plant soul,’ although it could be said that his excessively fantastic elaboration of the nature of plants may have appeared somewhat too early. Fechner spoke comprehensively about a soul of plants (e.g., in his book Nanna ), and he spoke not only as one who merely fantasizes but as one thoroughly and deeply acquainted with the natural scientific advances of the nineteenth century. He was unable, however, to think that plants are merely built up out of cells; rather, when he looked at the forms, the structures, of individual plants, he was led to assume that sense reality is the expression of an underlying soul element. Now, you must admit that in contrast to what spiritual science has to say today about the life of the spirit in the realm of plants, Fechner's explanations appear rather fantastic, but his thoughts were actually an advance. In spite of this, Fechner had to experience the resistance that can come especially through the thinking into which the human spirit had penetrated by the discoveries of the nineteenth century. It must simply be understood that even the greatest individuals were fascinated by what they beheld when, under the microscope, the plant body revealed itself as a structure of small cells. They could in no way conceive how someone could still come up with the idea of a ‘plant soul’ after the material aspects had shown themselves in such a grandiose way to the searching human spirit. It is therefore easy to understand that even the discoverer of the plant cell became the greatest and most vehement opponent of what Fechner wished to say concerning the soul nature of plants. And it is rather interesting to see the fine and subtle mind of Fechner in battle with Schleiden, who became famous through his epoch-making discovery for botany but who did away, in a materialistically crude way, with everything that Fechner wanted to say about plants out of his intimate contemplations. In a battle such as the one between Fechner and Schleiden in the nineteenth century, something basically took place that must be experienced by every soul who penetrates into the science of our time, working through the doubts and riddles that arise nevertheless, especially when one enters into the achievements of natural science. He will have grave doubts if he is able to work himself out of the frequently quite compelling concepts in such a realm. Whoever is not acquainted with this compelling quality of the materialistic natural scientific concepts of the nineteenth century may find trivial, possibly even narrow-minded, what is said out of the world view that wishes to place itself on the firm ground of natural science. One who approaches matters with a healthy sense for truth and a serious concern for solving life's riddles, however, and is at the same time armed with the botanical concepts of the nineteenth century, can have quite tragic inner soul experiences. Something about this need only be suggested here. Thus we can learn, for example, what the botany of the nineteenth century has brought. There is much in this botany that is actually magnificent and truly astounding. A person who approaches the natural scientific concepts with a healthy sense for truth reaches the point where these concepts affect him like suggestion, with a tremendous power; they do not let him loose but whisper in his ears again and again, ‘You are doing something stupid if you leave the sure path on which one studies how cell relates to cell, how cell is nourished by cell,’ and so on. Finally it becomes necessary to tear oneself loose from the materialistic concepts in this realm. There is no other choice, no matter how firmly one wishes to be held by the suggestive power of the world views that are merely a consequence of outer materialistic concepts. After a certain point it no longer works. Not many people today experience that point. The suggestive power is experienced by most people who feel fascinated by the natural scientific results, and they do not dare take even a single step beyond what the microscope shows. The next step is taken only by very few. It is clear, however, to whoever maintains a healthy sense for truth, especially regarding the natural sciences — and this is necessary if one wishes to approach the spirit in the realm of plants — that first a person must occupy himself with a certain mental image, for otherwise he will always succumb to error, will always enter a labyrinth such as happened to Fechner despite his serious attempts to examine the symbolic, the physiognomic aspects of individual plant forms and structures. I would like to suggest to you what is significant here first by means of a comparison. Imagine that someone found a piece of matter, some kind of tissue, on a path. If he examines this piece of tissue, in certain cases it may happen that he doesn't get anywhere. Why not? If this piece of tissue is a piece of bone from a human arm, the examiner will not get anywhere if he wants to look merely at this piece of bone and to explain it out of itself, for it would be impossible for this piece of tissue to come into existence without the prior existence of a human arm. One cannot speak about the tissue at all if it is not considered in connection with a complete human organism. It is impossible, therefore, to speak about such a formation other than in connection with an entire being. Consider the following comparison. We find an object somewhere, a human hair. If we wanted to explain how it may have originated there, we would be led completely astray, because we can explain this only by considering it in connection with an entire human organism. By itself it is nothing; by itself it cannot be explained. This is something that the spiritual investigator must consider in relation to the whole scope of our observations, of our explanations. He must direct his attention to the question of whether any object confronting him can be considered by itself or whether it remains inexplicable by itself, whether it belongs to something else or can be examined better as an isolated entity. Curiously enough, the spiritual investigator becomes aware that it is generally impossible to consider the world of plants, this wonderful covering of the earth, as something existing by itself. When confronted with the plant he feels just as he does regarding a finger, which he can consider only as belonging to a complete human organism. The plant world cannot be considered in isolation, because to the view of the spiritual investigator the plant world at once relates itself to the entire planet earth and forms a whole with the earth, just as the finger or piece of bone or the brain forms a whole with our organism. And whoever merely looks at plants by themselves, remaining with the particular, does the same as one who wishes to explain a hand or a piece of human bone by itself. The common nature of plants simply cannot be considered in any other way than as a member of our common planet earth. Here, however, we come to a matter that may annoy many today, though it is valid nevertheless for the spiritual scientific view. We come to look differently at our whole planet earth than is done customarily by today's science, for our contemporary science — be it astronomy, geology, or mineralogy — basically speaks about the earth only in so far as this earthly sphere consists of rocks, of the mineral element, of lifeless matter. Spiritual science may not speak in this way. It can only speak in such a way that everything found on our earth — that which a being coming from outer space, as it were, would find in human beings, animals, plants, and stones — belongs to the whole of our earth, just as the stones themselves belong to our earth. This means that we may not look at the earth planet as a dead rock formation but rather as something that is in itself a living whole, bringing forth the nature of plants out of itself, just as the human being brings forth the structures of his skin, of his sense organs, and the like. In other words, we may not consider the earth without the plant covering that belongs to it. An outer circumstance might already suggest to us that, just as every stone has a certain relationship to the earth, so also everything plant-like belongs to it. Just as every stone, every lifeless body, shows its relationship to the earth by being able to fall onto the earth, where it finds a resistance, so every plant shows its relationship to the earth by the direction of its stem, which is always such that it passes through the center of the earth. All stems of plants would cross at the earth's center if we extended them to that point. This means that the earth is able to draw out of its center all those force radiations that allow the plants to arise. If we look at the mineral realm without also adding the plant covering, we are looking only at an abstraction, at something thought out. We must also add that the natural science that proceeds purely out of the outer material likes to speak about how the origins of all life — including plant-life — must lie in the lifeless, the mineral element. This issue does not exist at all for the spiritual investigator, because the lower is never a precondition for the higher; rather the higher, the living, is always the precondition for the lower, the nonliving. We will see later, in the lecture, What Has Geology to Say About the Origin of the World , 2 Berlin, February 9, 1911. that spiritual research shows how everything rock-like, mineral — from granite to the crumb of soil in the field — originated in a manner similar to what natural science says today about the origin of coal. Today coal is a mineral, we dig it out of the earth. What was it millions of years ago according to natural scientific concepts? Extensive, mighty forests — so says natural science — covered large portions of the earth's surface at that time; later they sank into the earth during shifts of the earth's crust and were then transformed chemically in regard to their material composition, and what we dig up today out of the depths of the earth are the plants that have become stone. If this is admitted today in relation to coal, it should not be considered too ridiculous if spiritual science, by its methods, comes to the conclusion that all rocks found on our earth have in the final analysis originated from the plant. The plant first had to become stone, as it were. Thus the mineral is not the precondition for the plant-like, but rather the reverse is the case, the plant-like is the precondition for the mineral. Everything of a mineral nature is first something plant-like that hardens and then turns to stone. Thus in the earth planet we have something before us concerning which we must presuppose the following: it was once, with respect to its densest quality, of a plant nature, was a structure of plant-like being, and only developed the lifeless out of what was living, progressively hardening, turning to wood, turning to stone. Just as our skeleton first separates itself out of the organism, so we have to look at the earth's rock formations as the great skeleton of the earth being, of the earth organism. Now, if we are able to consider this earth organism from a spiritual scientific viewpoint, we can go still further. Today I can give only the first outlines of this, because this is a cycle of lectures in which one thing must lead to the next. We can ask ourselves, what is the situation with the earth organism as such? In studying an organism we know that alternations of different conditions are revealed. The human and animal organ isms reveal a waking and a sleeping condition alternating in time. Can we, from a spiritual scientific viewpoint, find something similar regarding the body of the earth, the earth organism? To outer consideration, what follows may appear to be a mere comparison, but for spiritual research it is not a comparison but a fact. If we study the curious lawfulness of summer and winter, how it is summer on one half of the earth and winter on the other half, how this relationship alternates, and if we pay attention to how this lawfulness — as wintertime and summertime — is to be discerned in relation to all earthly life, then it will no longer appear absurd if spiritual science tells us that winter and summer in the earth organism correspond to waking and sleeping in the organisms around us. It is simply that the earth does not sleep in time in the same way as other organisms but is always awake somewhere and al ways asleep at some other portion of its being. Waking and sleeping move around spatially: the earth sleeps in the part where there is summer, and it is awake in the part of its being where there is winter. Thus the whole earth organism con fronts us spiritually with conditions like waking and sleeping in other organisms. The summer condition of the earth organism consists of a very specific relationship of the earth to the sun, and because we are dealing with a living, spirit-filled organism we may say that it surrenders itself to an activity that proceeds spiritually from the sun. In the winter condition the earth organism closes itself off from this sun activity, drawing itself together into itself. Now let us compare this condition with human sleep. I will now speak of what appears to be a mere analogy; spiritual science, however, provides the evidence for these observations. If we study the human being in the evening, when he is tired, as his consciousness is diminishing, we find that all thoughts and feelings that enter our soul during the day from the outside, all pleasure and suffering, joy and pain, sink into an indefinite darkness. During this time, the human spirit being — as we have shown in the lecture about the nature of sleep 3 Berlin, November 24, 1910. — passes out of the human physical body and enters the spiritual world, surrendering itself to the spiritual world. In this sleep condition it is a curious fact that the human being becomes unconscious. For the spiritual investigator (we will see how he comes to know this) it is revealed that the inner aspect of the human being, the astral body and ego, actually draw themselves out of the physical and etheric bodies, but they do not simply draw themselves out and float over him like a cloud formation; rather this whole inner aspect of the human being spreads itself out, pours itself out over the whole planetary world around us. As incredible as it may seem, it is nevertheless revealed that the human soul pours itself out in a unified way over the astral realm. The investigators who were acquainted with this realm knew well why they called what departs from the physical the ‘astral body.’ The reason was that this inner element draws out of heavenly space, with which it forms a unity, the forces it needs in order to replace what the day's efforts and work used up from the physical body. Thus the human being in sleep passes into the great world and in the morning draws himself back within the limits of his skin, into the small human world, into the microcosm. There, because his body offers him resistance, he again feels his ego, his self-consciousness. This breathing out and breathing in of the soul is a wonderful alternation in human life. Of all those who have not spoken directly from an occult, spiritual scientific point of view, I have actually found only one individual who made so fitting a remark about the alternation of waking and sleeping that it can be taken directly over into spiritual science, be cause it corresponds with spiritual scientific facts. It was a thoroughly mathematical thinker, a deeply thoughtful man, who was able to encompass nature magnificently with his spirit: Novalis. He says in his Fragments : Sleep is a mixed condition of body and soul. In sleep, body and soul are chemically united. In sleep the soul is evenly distributed throughout the body — the human being is neutralized. Waking is a divided, a polar condition; in waking the soul is pointed, localized. Sleep is soul-digestion; the body digests the soul (removal of the soul stimulus). Waking is the condition of the soul stimulus influence: the body partakes of the soul. In sleep the bonds of this system are loosened; in waking they are tightened. Thus sleep for Novalis means the digestion of the soul by the body. Novalis is always conscious that in sleep the soul becomes one with the universe and is digested, so that the human being can be further helped in the physical world. With respect to his inner being, then, the human being alternates in such a way that in the daytime he draws himself together into the small world, into the limits of his skin, and then expands into the great world during the night, drawing forth through surrender forces from that world in which he is then imbedded. We will not understand the human being unless we understand him as formed out of the entire macrocosm. For that part of the earth where it is summer, there is something similar to what goes on in the human being in the condition of sleep. The earth gives itself to everything that comes down from the sun and forms itself as it should form itself under the influence of the sun activity. In that part of the earth where it is winter, it closes itself off from the influence of the sun, lives within itself. There it is the same as when the human being has drawn together into the small, inner world, living in himself, while for the part of the earth where it is summer it is the same as when the human being is surrendered to the whole outer world. There is a law in the spiritual world: if we direct our attention to spiritual entities far removed from one another — such as, for example, the human being here on one side and the earth organism on the other — the states of consciousness must be pictured as reversed in a certain sense. With the human being, stepping out into the great world is the sleep condition. For the earth, the summer (which one would be inclined to consider a waking condition) is something that can only be compared with the human being falling asleep. The human being steps out into the great world when he falls asleep; in summer the earth with all its forces enters the realm of sun activity, only we must be able to think of the earth and the sun as spirit-filled organisms. In wintertime, when the earth rests within itself, we must be able to think of its condition as corresponding to the waking condition of the human being, although it may be tempting to consider winter as the earth's sleep. When we consider entities as different from one another as the human being and the earth, however, the states of consciousness appear re versed in a certain way. Now, what does the earth accomplish when it is under the influence of surrender to the sun being, to the sun spirit? To have an easier comparison, we would do well to turn the concepts around now. The earth's surrender to the sun being is simply something that may be compared spiritually with the condition of the human being when he awakens in the morning and emerges out of the dark womb of existence, out of the night, into his joys and sorrows. When the earth enters the realm of sun activity — although this could be compared with the sleep condition of the human being — all the forces that sprout forth from the earth allow the resting winter condition of the earth to pass over into the active, the living, summer condition. What, then, are the plants in this whole web of existence? We could say that when spring approaches, the earth organ ism begins to think and to feel, because the sun with its being lures out the thoughts and feelings. The plants are nothing but a kind of sense organ for the earth organism, awakening anew every spring, so that the earth organism with its thinking and feeling can be in the realm of the sun activity. Just as in the human organism light creates the eye for itself in order to be able to manifest through the eye as ‘light,’ so every spring the sun organism creates for itself the plant covering in order to look at itself, to feel, to sense, to think by means of this plant covering. The plants cannot directly be considered the thoughts of the earth, but they are the organs through which the awakening organization of the earth in spring, together with the sun, develops its thoughts and feelings. Just as we can see our nerves emanating from the brain, developing our feeling and conceptual life through the eyes and ears together with the nerves, so the spiritual investigator sees in what transpires between earth and sun with the help of the plants the marvelous weaving of a cosmic world of thoughts, feelings, and sensations. The spiritual investigator finds that the earth is surrounded not merely by the mineral air of the earth, by the purely physical earth atmosphere, but by an aura of thoughts and feelings. For spiritual research the earth is a spiritual being whose thoughts and feelings awaken every spring, and throughout the summer they pass through the soul of our entire earth. The plant world, however, which is a part of our entire earth organism, provides the organs through which our earth can think and feel. Woven into the spirit of the earth are the plants, just as our eyes and ears are woven into the activities of our spirit. In spring a living, spirit-filled organism awakens, and in the plants we can see something that is pushed out of the countenance of our earth in some realm where it wants to begin to feel and think. Just as everything in the human being tends toward a self-conscious ego, so it is also in the realm of plants. The whole plant world belongs to the earth. I have already said that a person would be close to insanity if he did not think of how all feelings, sensations, and mental images are directed toward our ego. Similarly, everything the plants mediate during summertime is directed toward the earth's center, which is the earth ego. This should not be said merely symbolically! As the human being has his ego, so the earth has its self-conscious ego. That is why all plants strive toward the earth's center. That is why we may not consider plants by themselves but rather must consider them in interaction with the self-conscious ego of the earth. What unfolds itself as thoughts and sensations of the earth is similar to the thoughts and sensations that live in us, similar to whatever arises and disappears in us during our waking state, what lives in us astrally, if we speak from the viewpoint of spiritual science. Thus we cannot picture the earth only as a physical structure, for the physical structure is for us something like our own physical body, which can be seen with the outer eyes and touched with the hands, and which is observed by outer science. This is the earth body that present-day astronomy or geology studies. Then we have to direct our attention to what in the human being we have come to know as the etheric body or life body. The earth also has such an etheric body, and it also has an astral body. This is what awakens every spring as the thoughts and feelings of the earth, which recede when winter approaches so that the earth rests in its own ego, closed off within itself, retaining only what it needs in order, through memory, to carry over the preceding into the following, retaining in the plant's seed forces what it has conquered for itself. Just as the human being, when he falls asleep, does not lose his thoughts and sensations but finds them again the next morning, so the earth, awakening again from sleep in the spring, finds the seed forces of the plants in order to permit what has been conquered in an earlier time to emerge again from the living memory of the seed forces. When regarded in this way, the plants can be compared with our eyes and ears. What our senses are for us, the plants are for the earth organism. But what perceives, what achieves consciousness, is the spiritual world streaming down from the sun to the earth. This spiritual world would not be able to achieve consciousness if it did not have its sense organs in the plants, mediating a self-consciousness just as our eyes and ears and nerves mediate our self-consciousness. This makes us aware that we speak correctly only if we say that those beings who stream from the sun down to the earth, unfolding their spiritual activity, encounter from spring through summertime the being that belongs to the earth itself. In this exchange the organs are formed through which the earth perceives those beings, for the plants do not perceive. It is a superstition, shared also by natural science, when it is said that the plant perceives. The spiritual entities that belong to the earth activity and the sun activity perceive through the plant organs, and these entities direct toward the center of the earth all organs they need in order to unite them with the center of the earth. Thus what we have to see behind the plant covering are the spiritual entities that weave around the earth and have their organs in the plants. It is remarkable that in our time natural science is actually moving toward a recognition of such spiritual scientific findings, for it is nothing less than full recognition of the situation to say that our physical earth is only a part of the whole earth, that the gaseous sun ball is only a part of the whole sun, and that our sun, as it appears to us physically, is only a part of the soul-spiritual entities who interact with the soul-spiritual entities of the earth. Just as the human world is connected with its environment, and just as human beings have their organs in order to live and to develop themselves, so these entities, which are real, create for themselves in the plant covering an organ in order to perceive themselves. As I said, it is superstitious to believe that the plant as such perceives or that the single plant has a kind of soul. This is just as superstitious as speaking of the soul of an eye. Although a remark able linking of facts, self-evident to spiritual science, impelled outer science throughout the nineteenth century to recognize what has just been said, it is nevertheless a fact that outer science does not know its way around very well in this realm; this is still so today, for what science has brought together so far about the sense life of plants completely sup ports what I have just said about the spirit and its activity in the realm of plants, but in outer science it cannot be comprehended as such. We can see this in the following example. In 1804 Sydenham Edward discovered the unusual plant called the Venus fly-trap, which has bristles on its leaves. When an insect comes near this plant so that contact with the bristles occurs, the insect is trapped by the leaf and then seemingly devoured and digested. It was remarkable when man discovered that plants can eat, can even take in animals, are meat eaters! But it was not known quite what to do with this, and this is interesting, because this discovery has repeatedly been forgotten and then rediscovered, in 1818 by Nuttal, in 1834 by Curtis, in 1848 by Lindley, and in 1859 by Oudemans. Five people in succession discovered the same thing! And science could not do much more with this discovery than for Schleiden, who made such a contribution to research of the plant world, to say that one should be on guard and not succumb to all kinds of mystical speculations attributing a soul to plants! Today, however, science is again prepared to attribute a soul to the individual plant, for example the Venus fly trap. This would be as superstitious as attributing a soul to the eye, however. Especially people such as Raoul France, for example, have immediately interpreted these things in an outer sense, saying, ‘There the soul element is evident, manifesting in a way analogous to the soul element of the animal!’ This shows how necessary it is, especially in the realm of spiritual science, not to succumb to all kinds of fantasies, for here outer science has succumbed to the fantasy that by attributing a soul nature to the Venus fly-trap, it can be thrown together with the human or animal soul nature. If this is done, a soul should also be attributed to other entities that attract small animals and, when these animals have come near, surround them with their tentacles so that they remain caught within. If one speaks of a soul in the Venus fly-trap, a soul can also be attributed to a mouse trap! We should not speak like this, however. As soon as there is the wish to penetrate into the spirit, things must be understood accurately and exactly, and one must not conclude from apparently similar outer qualities that the inner qualities work in the same way. I have already directed attention to the fact that some animals exhibit something similar to memory. When an elephant is led to the drinking trough and on the way there someone irritates him, it can happen that when the elephant returns he has retained water in his trunk and sprays the person who irritated him earlier. It is said that here we can see that the elephant has a memory, that he remembered the person who irritated him and resolved: ‘On the way back I will spray him with water!’ But this is not the case. With the soul life it is important for us to follow the inner process exactly and not immediately to speak of memory when a later event occurs as an effect of an earlier cause. Only when a being truly looks back to something that took place at an earlier time do we have to do with memory; in every other case we are dealing only with cause and effect. This means that we would have to look exactly into the structure of the elephant's soul if we wished to see how the stimulus applied results in something that calls forth an effect after a certain time. Therefore we must not interpret things such as what we encounter in the Venus fly-trap by thinking that the entire arrangement of the plant is there in order to determine an inner soul nature of the plant, but rather that what goes on there is brought about from outside. The plant serves as organ of the entire earth organism even in such a case. How the plants on the one hand pertain to the ego of the earth and on the other hand to the aura of the earth — the astral body, the earth's world of sensations and feelings — was shown particularly by this research in the nineteenth century. One can actually be grateful to those natural scientists — such as Gottlieb Haberlandt — who simply presented the facts they discovered in their research, and did not — like Raoul France or others — draw from these results purely outer conclusions. If the natural scientist were to present things as they really are, then one could be grateful to him; if he draws from them conclusions regarding the soul life of a single plant, however, then he should also immediately conclude something about the soul life of the single hair or tooth. If we now study grain-producing plants, we discover remarkable little organs present in all these plants. Small structures in the starch cells are discovered. These cells are constructed in quite a remarkable way, so that within them there is something like a loose kernel. These structures have the unique property that the cell wall remains insensitive to the kernel at only one spot. If the kernel slips to another spot, it touches the cell wall, leading the plant to return to its earlier position. Such starch cells are found in all plants whose main orientation is toward the center of the earth, so that the plant has an organ within that always makes it possible for it to direct itself in its main orientation toward the center of the earth. This discovery, made during the nineteenth century by various scientists, is certainly wonderful, and it is most remarkable if it is simply presented as it is. Even if Haberlandt, for example, believes that this is a matter of a kind of sense perception by plants, he nevertheless presents the facts so clearly that one must be especially grateful for his dry and sober presentation. But now let us turn to something else. If the leaf of a plant is studied, it is discovered that the outer surface is actually always a composite of many small, lens-like structures, similar to the lens in our eye. These ‘lenses’ are arranged in such a way that the light is effective only if it falls onto the surface of the leaf from a very specific direction. If it falls from another direction, the leaf instinctively begins to turn in such a way that the light can fall into the center of the lens, because when it falls to the side it works in another way. Thus there are organs for light on the surface of the leaves of plants. These light organs, which actually can be compared with a kind of eye, are spread out over the plants, but the plant does not see by means of them; rather the sun being looks through them to the earth being. These light organs bring it about that the leaves of the plant always have the tendency to place themselves perpendicularly to the sunlight. In this — in the way the plant surrenders itself to the sun's activity in spring and summertime — we have the plant's second main orientation. The first orientation is that of the stem, through which the plants reveal themselves as belonging to the earth's self-consciousness; the second orientation is the one through which the plants express the earth's surrender to the activity of the sun beings. If we now wished to go still further, we would have to find, if the previous considerations are correct, that through this surrender of the earth to the sun, the plants somehow ex press how the earth, through what it brings forth, really lives in the great macrocosm. We would have to perceive some thing in the plants, so to speak, which would indicate to us that something works into the plant world that is brought about outside especially by the sun being. Linnaeus pointed out that certain plants open their blossoms at 5 a.m. and at no other time. This means that the earth surrenders itself to the sun, which is expressed in the fact that certain plants are able to open their blossoms only at very specific times of the day; for example, Hemerocallis fulva , the day lily, blossoms only at 5 a.m.; Nymphaea alba , the water lily, only at 7 a.m., and Calendula , the marigold, only at 9 a.m. In this way we see a marvelous expression of the earth's relationship to the sun, a relationship that Linnaeus termed the ‘sun clock.’ The plant's falling asleep, the folding together of the petals, is also limited to very specific times of the day. A wonderful lawfulness and regularity is evident in the life of plants. All of this shows us how the earth is surrendered — like the human being in sleep — to the great world, living within it. Just as it allows the plants to bloom and wilt, it shows us the spiritual weaving between sun and earth. Looking at matters in this way, however, we would have to say that we gaze there into deep, deep mysteries of our environment. For the serious seeker after truth, this puts a stop to the possibility — regardless of how fascinating the results of purely material research are — to think of the sun merely as a ball of gas racing through space; it puts a stop to the possibility that the earth can be considered as it is by astronomy and geology today. There are compelling reasons that must lead the conscientious natural scientist to admit the following: ‘In what natural science reveals, you may no longer see anything but an expression of the spiritual life lying at the foundation of everything!’ Then we regard the plants as a physiognomic expression of the earth, as the expression of the features of our earth. Thus what we call our aesthetic feeling in relation to the plant world deepens especially through spiritual science. We stand before the gigantic trees in the primeval forest, before the quiet violet or lily of the valley, and we look at them as single individualities, yes, but in such a way that we say, there the spirit that lives throughout space expresses it self to us — sun spirit! earth spirit! Just as we recognize in a human being the piety or impiety of his soul, so we can come to an impression, from what looks at us out of the plants, of what lives as earth spirit, as sun spirit, of how they battle with one another or are in harmony. There we feel ourselves as living and weaving within the spirit. Just as an illustration of how spiritual science can be verified by the natural science of the nineteenth century, I will relate to you the following. Listeners who have heard lectures here in the past will recall how I have indicated that there are plants in the earthly world that are misplaced, that do not belong in our world. One such plant is mistletoe, which plays such a remarkable role in legends and myths, because it be longs to an earlier planetary condition of our earth and has remained behind as a remnant of a pre-earthly evolution. This is why it cannot grow on the earth but must take root in other plants. Natural science shows us that mistletoe does not have those curious starch cells that orient the plant toward the center of the earth. I could now begin briefly to take apart the entire botany of the nineteenth century bit by bit, and you will find little by little how the plant covering of our earth is the sense organ through which earth spirit and sun spirit behold each other. If we pay heed to this, we receive a science — as seems appropriate for the plant world that we love and that gives us so much joy — a science that can at the same time raise our soul, bring it close to this plant world. With our soul and spirit we feel ourselves belonging to the earth and to the sun; we feel as if we had to look up to the plant world, as it were, we feel that it belongs to our great mother earth. We must do this. Everything that as animal or human being seems to be independent of the immediate effect of the sun is actually, through the plant world and its dependence on the plant world, indirectly dependent on the sun. The human being does not undergo the kinds of transformations that plants go through in winter and summer, but it is the plant that gives him the possibility of having such a constancy within himself. The substances that the plant develops can be developed only under the influence of the sun, through the interrelationship of sun spirit and earth spirit. The carbohydrates can arise only if the sun spirit and the earth spirit kiss through the plant being. The substances developed here yield what the higher organisms must take into themselves in order to develop warmth. The higher organisms can only thrive through the warmth developed by taking up the substances prepared by the sun via the plants. Thus we must look to mother earth as to our great nourishing mother. We have seen, however, that in the plant covering we have the physiognomy of the plant spirit, and through this we feel as though standing in soul and spirit. We gaze, as it were — just as we gaze into the eyes of another person — into the soul of the earth, if we understand how it manifests its soul in the blossoms and leaves of the plant world. This is what led Goethe to occupy himself with the plant world, which led him to an activity that consisted fundamentally of showing how the spirit is active in the plant world and how in the plant the leaf is formed out of the spirit in the most diverse forms. Goethe was delighted that the spirit in the plant forms the leaves, rounds them, and also leads them to wind around the stem. And it was remarkable when a man who truly recognized the spirit — Schiller, who met Goethe after a botanical lecture in Jena — when Schiller, who was not satisfied by the lecture, said, “That was just an observation of plants as they are in isolation!” whereupon Goethe took out a sheet of paper and sketched in his way, with a few lines, how for him the spirit is active in the plant. Schiller, who was un able to understand such a concrete presentation of the spirit of the plant, said in reply, “What you are drawing there is only an idea!” to which Goethe could only say, “Isn't it nice that I can have ideas without knowing it and can even see them with my own eyes!” Especially in the way in which a man like Goethe studied the plant world on his journey over the Brenner — when he looked at the coltsfoot with completely different eyes — the way in which he saw in this how the spirit is active on the earth and forms the leaves, shows us how we can speak of a common spirit of the earth that brings itself to expression only in the manifold plant being as in his own special organ. What is physical is spirit; we simply have the task of pursuing the spirit always in the right way. Whoever pursues the plant as it grows out of the common spirit of the earth will find the earth spirit that Goethe already had in view when he let his Faust address the spirit active in the earth, who says of him self: In Lebensfluten, in Tatensturm Wall' ich auf and ab, Webe hin and her! Geburt and Grab, Ein ewiges Meer, Ein wechselnd Weben, Ein gluhend Leben, So Schaff ich am sausenden Webstuhl der Zeit Und wirke der Gottheit lebendiges Kleid. In the tides of life, in action's storm, Up and down I wave, To and fro weave free, Birth and the grave, An infinite sea, A varied weaving, A radiant living, Thus at Time's humming loom it's my hand that prepares The robe ever-living the Deity wears. The person who beholds in this way the spirit in the plant life of the earth feels himself strengthened by seeing what he must consider his inner being poured out over the whole environment he is allowed to inhabit. And he must say to himself, “If I study what encircles my space, I find it confirmed that the origin of all things is to be found in the domain of the spirit.” And an expression of the relationship of human spirit and human soul, and also the relationship of plant soul and plant spirit, we can encompass in these words: Die Dinge in den Raumesweiten, Sie wandeln sich im Zeitenlauf. Erkennend lebt die Menschenseele Durch Raumesweiten unbegrenzt Und unversehrt durch Zeitenlauf. Sie findet in dem Geistgebiet Des eignen Wesens tiefsten Grund. To the sense of man there speak The things in breadths of space Transforming themselves in course of time. Knowing lives the human soul Unbounded by the breadths of space, Unaltered by the course of time; It finds in the realm of spirit Its own being's deepest ground!

The Spirit in the Realm of Plants

https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA060/English/Singles/19101208p01.html

Berlin

8 Dec 1910

GA060-6

Translator Unknown Before I start with the today's issue, I would like to draw your attention to the fact that these discussions are the beginning of a whole range of such discussions, and that all following issues could carry the same title as the today's issue in this winter. Referring to the most different phenomena of the human life and the scientific life, to the most different cultural personalities generally in the course of the next talks the way is discussed which the human being has to go if he wants to come to the knowledge of the spiritual world. Allow me — although this subject, this consideration, so to speak, shall lead to the region of the most impersonal, to the objective-spiritual-scientific — that I start, nevertheless, in the introduction from something personal, because the way into the spiritual world has to lead from the most personal to the impersonal. Hence, the personal will often be a symbolic sign of this way in spite of the impersonal, and one attains the possibility to point to various significant just because one starts as it were from the more intimate immediate experience. To the beholder of the spiritual worlds some allegorical things will be more important than it may appear at first. Something that may pass the human look maybe without being touched by attention may appear deeply significant to somebody who intensely wants to deal with such a consideration, as it should also form the basis of the today's discussions. I can say, the following belongs to the unforgettable things for me — what may appear as a trifle of life at first — which really showed the longing of the present human beings for the spiritual world. At the same time, it also showed the more or less admitted impossibility to get access to the spiritual world anyhow with the means which not only the present, even the last centuries give. I sat once in the cosy flat of Herman Grimm (1828-1901, German author). Those of you who are somewhat familiar with the German cultural life connect something with the name Herman Grimm. You maybe know the brilliant, significant biographer of Michelangelo and Raphael and know maybe that as it were the sum of the education of our time at least of Central Europe or of Germany was combined in the soul of Herman Grimm. In a conversation with Herman Grimm about Goethe, affiliated to him, and about Goethe's worldview it happened what is a trifle, what just belongs to the most unforgettable things of my life. To a remark which I did — we see afterward how just in relation to the rise of the human being to the spiritual world this remark can be significant -, Herman Grimm answered with a negative movement of his left hand. What lay in this movement of the hand is that which I count as it were to the unforgettable experiences of my life. It should concern of speaking about Goethe's specific way to the spiritual world — we still have to discuss Goethe's way to the spiritual world in the course of these talks. Herman Grimm gladly followed the ways of Goethe to the spiritual world — but in his way. It was completely abstruse to him to show an interest in such a way that one regards Goethe as the representative of a human being who really — also as an artist — gets down spiritual realities from the spiritual world to embody them in his pieces of art. It was more obvious to him to say, oh, we cannot get to this spiritual world with the means we have today as human beings; however, we can only get to it by imagination. Indeed, imagination offers things, which are great and can fulfil the human heart with warmth; but knowledge, well-grounded knowledge was something that Herman Grimm, such an intimate beholder of Goethe, did not want to find with Goethe. When I said that Goethe wanted to embody truth in beauty, in art, and when I tried to show that there are ways beyond imagination, ways into the spiritual world that lead on firmer ground than imagination, it was possibly not the refusal of someone who would not like to go with such a way. It was not the refusal of such a kind what Herman Grimm put in this movement of his hand, but in the kind, which only that knows who understood him more exactly, he laid the following: there may probably be such a way; nevertheless, we human beings cannot feel called to recognise something of it! As I have said, I would not like to bring this forward as a personal affair in a pushy way, but it seems to me that such a gesture represents the position just of the best human beings of our age concerning the spiritual world. For I had a long conversation with Herman Grimm on the way from Weimar to Tiefurt (today a quarter of Weimar) where he explained that he had delivered himself completely from any only materialistic view of the world process, from the view that the human mind produces the real mental wealth out of itself in the successive epochs. In a big plan which — as those know who have dealt with Herman Grimm — was no longer carried out in a work, Herman Grimm told that he intended to write a History of German Imagination . He had in mind to represent the workings of imagination as a goddess in the spiritual worlds that produces what the human beings create to the welfare of the world progress. I would like to say: in that charming region between Weimar and Tiefurt I had a feeling with these words of a person whom I appreciate as one of the greatest spirits of our time, a feeling, which I want to express with the following words. Today many human beings say to themselves: one must be deeply dissatisfied with that what the outer science can say about the origins of life, about the secret of existence, about the world riddles; but there is no possibility to enter another world powerfully. There is no will-intensity of knowledge to recognise this world of the spiritual life as different from what the human being creates in his imagination. Many a person goes just with pleasure to this realm of imagination because it is the only spiritual realm for him. There I could just remember a passage in Grimm's Lectures on Goethe which he had held in the winter 1874/75 where he speaks of that impression which the wholly external, spiritless observation of nature must make on such a spirit like him. Already thirty years before this encounter in Weimar, Herman Grimm appeared to me as the type of a human being whom all feelings and sensations push to the spiritual world. However, he cannot find the spiritual world as reality but only in the imagination, in its workings. On the other side, he did not want — just because he was such a person — to admit that Goethe sought the origins and riddles of existence in another realm than only in that of imagination, namely in the realm of spiritual reality. I would like to quote a passage at the starting point of our today's considerations where Herman Grimm speaks of something whose significance spiritual science does not deny. However, it is not only impossible for the sensations and feeling but also for a knowledge that wants to understand itself as it is regarded by the outer natural sciences or by that worldview which wants to stand on the firm ground of the natural sciences. I mean the Kant-Laplace theory that explains our solar system in such a way, as if it consisted only of lifeless, inorganic materials and forces and as if it formed from a gigantic gas ball. I allow myself to read out the passage from Herman Grimm's lectures on Goethe that shows what such an intriguing worldview making such deep impression meant to a spirit like Herman Grimm. “However, no matter how much Goethe forbids the reason here to take more for truth than one can take, indeed, with the five fingers of the hand, he gives the imagination of the poet the right to create pictures of that from unaware, dreaming strength what the reason longs for to see. However, he maintains the border of both activities sharply. The great Laplace-Kant imagination of the origin and future fall of the globe had already gained ground in his youth. From the rotating world nebula, the central gas drop forms from which the earth originates that experiences all phases, as a solidifying ball, for unfathomable periods, included the episode of the habitation by human beings, to fall, finally as a burnt-out slag into the sun. It is a long, but for the public comprehensible process for whose realisation no other outer intervention is required than the effort of any outer force to maintain the hot temperature of the sun. One cannot imagine any more futile perspective for the future than that which should be forced upon us in this expectation as scientifically necessary today. A bone of a carrion around which a hungry dog creeps would be a refreshing appetising piece compared with this last excrement of creation as which our earth would become subject, in the end, to the sun again. It is the thirst for knowledge and a sign of ill imagination with which our generation takes up such things and believes it. Future scholars have to use a lot of astuteness to explain it as a historical phenomenon.” It was necessary to me to point to such a passage because it happens seldom today. The mental pictures of the scientific worldviews work so intriguing, that one seldom points to spirits who are connected deeply with the cultural life of our time and still behave in such a way to it about which countless human beings say, it is a matter of course that the things are in such a way; everybody is, actually, a poor devil who will not concede that the things are in such a way! Yes, today we already see many people who have the deepest longing for building a connecting bridge between the human soul and the spiritual world. On the other side, we see beyond those circles which deeper deal with spiritual science, few people dealing with the means, which can lead the human soul to the land of its longing. Therefore, if we speak of the ways which should lead the human being into the spiritual world, and speak in such a way as it were that the spoken should apply to a narrow circle, but is directed to all those who are equipped with the today's education, then we encounter big resistance in a certain respect. It cannot only happen that one regards our views as daydreaming and fantasy. But they can also annoy many people because they deviate so much from that which applies to the widest circles today — as the suggestive and intriguing mental pictures of those who consider themselves as the most educated ones. I have already indicated in the first talk that the ascent to the spiritual world is an intimate affair of the soul, and that it contradicts certainly very much what in popular and in scientific circles is usual for the life of feeling and thinking. In particular the scientist demands: what shall apply scientifically must be verifiable any time and for any person and then he probably points to his external experiment which one can prove any time, before any person. It is a matter of course that spiritual science cannot satisfy this demand. — We shall see at once, why. — Hence, spiritual science already defies the methodical demand that science and the worldviews put up today so easily: to be verifiable for everybody everywhere and every time. In popular circles spiritual science very often encounters resistance because in our time — even where one longs for the ascent to the spiritual world — one intermingles the sensations and feelings with materialistic views. With the best will in the world, one cannot help thinking the spirit anyhow materialistically, even if one longs for the spiritual world, or at least imagining the ascent to the spiritual world connected with something material. Hence, most people prefer that one speaks to them about wholly outer means, for example, what they should eat and drink or should not eat and not drink, or what they should undertake usually purely externally in the material world. They prefer that much more than if one demands from them that they introduce intimate moments of development in their souls. Nevertheless, just that matters while ascending to the spiritual world. Now we want — completely in the sense as spiritual science considers this - to try once briefly to outline this rise of the human soul to the spiritual world. The starting point must be taken always from that in what the human being lives at first. The present human being lives firmly in the outer, sensuous world. Try once to make clear to him how much is still left in this human soul if one turns the look away from what the outer sensory impressions of the physical world have sparked as images in us. Consider what has come in with the outer, physical experiences, with the senses, which sufferings and joys, desires and pains, and what then our reason has combined from these impressions of the sensory world. Try once to eradicate all that from the soul, try to imagine it as not existing, and consider once what would remain then. The human beings who can take this simple self-introspection seriously realise that very little remains in the soul of the present human being. However, at first, the rise to the spiritual world cannot start from that what the outer sensory world gives us, but the human being has to develop soul forces that usually slumber in him. It is a requirement of any rise to the spiritual world that the human being realises that he is internally developable that something else is in him that he surveys with his consciousness at first. It is an irritating idea for many people, for — taking a particular human being of the modern education — what does, for example, the modern philosopher if he wants to determine the entire significance and the being of knowledge? He says, I want to try once how far we can generally come with our thinking, with our soul forces, what can we understand of the world? There he looks in his way — depending on his present faculties — to grasp a worldview and put it before himself, and then he says as a rule, we cannot know the other things; they are beyond the limits of human knowledge! — It is generally the widespread expression that one can find in the modern literature: we cannot know this! However, there is another point of view, which goes beyond it quite different from the just mentioned one, while it says, truly, with my present soul forces, I can recognise this or that, but here in the soul is a developable being. This soul maybe has forces in itself that I must get out only from it. I have only to lead it certain ways beyond the current point of view, then I want to see whether I was not to blame when I said, this or that is beyond the limit of our knowledge. Perhaps I need to go on only a little bit in the development of my soul, then the limits extend, and I can deeper penetrate into the things. One stretches the logic if one wants to judge about that, but one would say, what we recognise depends on our organs. Therefore, for example, the blind-born cannot judge about colours, he can judge only about that if he has got his eyesight by a happy operation. It could also be — I do not want to speak of the “sixth sense” but of something that one can receive from the soul wholly spiritually — that we get spirit eyes or spirit ears out of our souls. Then for us the big event could take place which takes place on a lower level if the blind-born experiences if he is so happy to be operated, so that then for us the supposition could become truth: there is a spiritual world around us, but to behold into it we must have woken the organs in ourselves. This would be the only logical. However, one stretches logic, because in our time the human beings have quite different needs if they hear of a spiritual world than to familiarise themselves with this spiritual world. I have told already once that in a South German city when I had to hold a talk a well-behaved journalist who writes feuilletons started his feuilleton with the words: “The incomprehensibility of theosophy strikes the eye above all.” We gladly believe that for this man theosophy is incomprehensible above all. However, is this a criterion anyhow? Transfer this example on mathematics that somebody may say of it: the incomprehensibility of mathematics mostly strikes the eyes. Then everybody says, indeed, this may be; then, however, he should learn something at first if he wants to write feuilletons! — It would often be better to transfer what applies to a special field on another appropriately. Thus, nothing else is left than that people deny — they can do this only by a decree — that there is a development of the soul — namely if they refuse to experience such a development of the soul — or they start such a development. Then the spiritual world becomes reality, truth for them. However, in order to get to the spiritual world, the soul must become able — not for the physical life, but for the knowledge of the spiritual world — to transform its figure completely in a certain respect, to become another being. This can often warn us already, what I had often to emphasise here, that someone who feels the urge to ascend to the spiritual world must get clear about it above all repeatedly, whether he has got firm ground here in this world of physical reality whether he is able to be certain here. Since for all conditions which happen in the physical world we must have certainty, willpower and sentience, must not lose ground if we want to ascend from this world to the spiritual one. This is a preliminary stage: doing everything that strengthens our character in the physical world. Then it depends on bringing the soul to a feeling and a willing for the spiritual world different from the feeling and willing in the soul normally. Our soul has to become another organism of feeling and willing than it is in the normal life. There we get on what can bring spiritual science at first in contrast to that what is recognised today as “science” what puts spiritual science, however, on the other side, immediately beside this science with the same validity the outer science has. If one says that everything that should be science must be verifiable any time and for any human being, one thinks that science must not depend on our subjectivity, on our subjective feelings, on that what we carry in ourselves as will decisions, will impulses, feelings and sensations only individually. Now, however, that who wants to ascend to the spiritual world must make the detour through the inside of his soul at first, must reorganise his soul, must look completely away from that what is outside in the physical world. In the normal life, the human being looks away from that what is within the physical world only if he sleeps; then he lets nothing in his soul through his eyes, ears and through the whole organisation of his senses, but then he becomes unaware of it and is not able to live consciously in a spiritual world. I have said that it belongs to the basic elements of spiritual knowledge for the human being to find the possibility in himself to exceed himself. That is, however, nothing else than making the spirit effective in himself at first. We all know that we only turn away from the physical world in the normal human life if we become unconscious in sleep. The talk about The Nature of Sleep has shown how the human being is there in a real spiritual world even if he knows nothing about it. Since it would be absurd to believe that the centre of soul and mind disappears in the evening and originates in the morning anew; no, it outlives the states of falling asleep to awakening really. However, the inner force to be aware is absent in the sleep, even if no stimulation of the consciousness arises from the impressions of the senses or by the work of the reason. The soul life is then reduced, so that the human being is not able to inspire and to rouse what the soul lets itself experience internally. If the human being wakes up again, the experiences come in from the outside, and because soul contents are given to him this way, he becomes aware of these soul contents. He cannot become conscious if he is not stimulated from the outside. The strength of the human being is otherwise too weak when he is left to his own resources in sleep. The rise to the spiritual world is the stimulation of such soul forces that make the soul able to live in itself consciously if it becomes — compared with the external world — in such a way, as the human being is usually in the sleep. That is, the ascent to the spiritual worlds requires a stimulation of inner energy, a getting out of forces, which sleep, otherwise, which are paralysed in the soul, so that the human being cannot use them at all. All those intimate experiences, which the spiritual researcher has to go through in his soul aim at that which I have just characterised. Today I would like to tell something, to sum up something about the way to the spiritual world. In detail these things are shown in their elements — so to speak, in their ABC — in my book which appeared under the title How Does One Attain Knowledge of the Higher Worlds? However, today I do not want to recur exactly giving you an extract of this book, but I want to explain from another side what the soul has to do with itself in order to come into the spiritual world. He who is deeper interested in it can read up the details in the mentioned book. However, one must not believe that that what I have written there in detail can be shown here summarising it briefly that one can use the same words and sentences. Those who know the book will not think in such a way, that it is a summary of the book, but that it characterises the matter, nevertheless, from another side. It is exceptionally important that for the spiritual researcher, who wants to ascend to the spiritual world, many things that lead the other human beings directly to knowledge become simply a means of the intimate education of the soul. Let me illustrate this with an example. Many years ago, I wrote a book, The Philosophy of Freedom . I wrote this book in such a way that it differs completely from other philosophical books of the present that have the intention more or less to give something about the world according to the mental pictures of the authors. This is not the next purpose of this book, but it should give a kind of thought training to that who gets himself into the thoughts there, so that the way of thinking, the special way of getting himself into these thoughts sets his sensations and feelings in motion. What is usually only a means of knowledge is at the same time a spiritual-mental means of education in this book. This is exceptionally important. Hence, it does not matter with this book so much whether one can argue about this and whether something has to be understood one way or the other but that the thoughts which are combined to an organism can teach our souls, can help them. The same applies to my book Truth and Knowledge . That also applies to many things that at first shall be basic elements to train the soul to come into the spiritual world. Mathematics, geometry teaches the human being the knowledge of the triangles, quadrangles and other figures. Nevertheless, why do they teach all that? Because the human being should thereby get knowledge how the things are in space to which principles they are subject et cetera. Spiritual science also works with similar figures as symbols. It presents, for example, the symbol of the triangle, the quadrangle, or other symbolic figures to the pupil. That is not why he shall attain immediate knowledge by them which he can attain also otherwise, but that he receives the possibility to train his spiritual abilities with them in such a way that his spirit arises to the higher world getting impressions from these symbols. One deals here with training of thoughts or — do not get me wrong — with gymnastics of thoughts. Therefore, a lot of that what is dry outer science, dry outer philosophy, mathematics, or geometry becomes the living symbol for the spiritual training that leads us in the spiritual world. If we have opened ourselves to this, then we learn to understand what no outer science understands that the old Pythagoreans spoke under the influence of their great teacher Pythagoras about the universe as consisting of figures because they considered the inner principles of the numbers. Now we consider how the numbers face us in the world everywhere. Nothing is easier than to disprove spiritual science or anthroposophy. For one will easily be able to say from a seemingly very serene point of view, these spiritual scientists come out from their mystic darkness with the number symbolism again and say that an inner lawfulness is contained in the numbers, and that one must consider, for example, the heptad as the true basis of the human being. — However, Pythagoras and his pupils also meant such a thing if they spoke of the inner lawfulness of the numbers. If we open ourselves to those miraculous connections which are in the relations of the numbers to the spirit, we can train it in such a way that it wakes up where it sleeps, otherwise, and develops stronger forces in itself to penetrate to the spiritual world. Thus, it is a training by another science. It is also, actually, the study of that who wants to penetrate into the spiritual world. All that becomes an outer symbol for him that is crude reality more or less for the other human beings. If the human being is able to open himself to these symbols, he thereby does not only free his spirit from the external, physical world, but also penetrates it with strong forces, so that the soul can be aware of itself if no external stimulation is there. I have already mentioned that the human being if he opens himself to such a symbol, as it is the rose cross, can get an impulse to ascend to the spiritual world. We understand by the rose cross a simple black cross to which seven red roses are attached round the intersection of the beams. What should it say to us? Someone opens himself properly to it while imagining: I look, for example, at a plant; I say about this plant, it is an imperfect being, — and put a human being next to it who is in his way a more perfect being, but just only in his way. Since if I look at the plant, I must say, in it, I face a material being which is not filled with passions, desires, instincts, which lead it down from the height where it could otherwise be. The plant has its inner laws, it follows them from the leaf to the blossom, and to the fruit; thus it stands there chastely, without desire. On the other side, the human being lives, indeed, in his way a higher being but impregnated with desires, instincts, passions by which he can stray from his strict lawfulness. He must overcome something in himself first if he wants to follow his inner principles as the plant follows its inner principles. Now the human being can say to himself, the expression of the desires, instincts in me is the red blood. I can compare it in certain respect to the chaste plant juice, the chlorophyll, in the red rose. Then I can say, if the human being has become so strong in himself that the red blood is no longer an expression of that which presses down him beneath himself, but raises him above himself, — if the red colour of the rose expresses the pure inwardness, the purified nature of the human blood, I face the ideal of that which the human being can attain by overcoming the outer nature represented by the symbol of the black cross, the charred wood. The red colour of the rose symbolises the higher life that awakes if the red blood has become a chaste expression of the overcome nature of the human instincts. If one does not let this representation be an abstract image, it becomes the vividly felt idea of development. Then a whole world of feelings and sensations revives in us; we feel a development from an imperfect to a more perfect state in ourselves. We feel the development as something quite different from that abstract thing which gives us the external science in the sense of a wholly external Darwinism. Development becomes something that deeply cuts in our hearts that penetrates us with warmth, with soul warmth, becomes a force in us that carries and holds us. Only by such inner experiences, the soul can develop strong forces in itself, so that it can penetrate its innermost being with consciousness. One can easily say, of course, you recommend the idea of something quite imaginary, of something fictional. However, a mental picture is only valid if it is an effigy of an outer image, and, nevertheless, an image of the rose cross has no outer counter-image! — However, it does not matter that the image by which we train our soul is an effigy of an outer reality, but that the image wakes forces for our soul and elicits from the soul what slumbers covertly in it. If the human soul is given away to such a pictorial imagination if everything that is real, otherwise, becomes an occasion of pictures that are not got out of imagination arbitrarily, but are based on reality, as the rose cross, then we say: the human being takes care to ascend to the first level of knowledge of the spiritual world. — This is the level of Imaginative knowledge which leads us beyond what deals immediately only with the physical world. Thus, the human being works on himself who wants to go up to the spiritual world in his soul with particular images, with a particular kind of opening himself to the otherwise outer reality. He works in this soul himself. If he has worked in this way for a while, the external scientist may say to him, this has for you only a subjective, only an individual value. However, the outer scientist does not know that there is a level of inner development with such a strict, lawful training of the soul where for the soul the possibility completely stops letting subjective feelings and sensations speak. The soul arrives at that stage where it must say to itself, now in me images rise which face me as really as trees and rocks, rivers and mountains, plants and animals of the outer world to which my subjectivity can add or subtract nothing. Indeed, there is an intermediary condition for everybody who wants to ascend to the spiritual world where he is subject to the risk that he can possibly bring in his subjectivity that applies only to him. Nevertheless, the human being has to go through this intermediary condition, and then he comes to a level where the soul experiences become objectively verifiable as all things of the outer, physical reality. Since, in the end, the principle applies to the outer science: what should be scientifically valid must be verifiable for everybody any time, but only for someone who prepares himself sufficiently. Alternatively, do you believe that you can teach the principle of the “corresponding boiling temperature” to an eight-year-old child? I doubt it. You will not even be able to teach the Pythagorean tenet to it. This shows clearly that the human soul is already tied to this principle that the human soul prepares itself suitably if one wants to prove something to it. Like one has to prepare oneself — although it is possible for every human being — to understand the Pythagorean tenet, one must be prepared by a certain practise of the soul if one wants to get to know or to recognise this or that in the spiritual world. Then, however, that what can be recognised is learnable and observable by everybody who prepares himself appropriately. Alternatively, if those who prepare their souls to be able to look back at repeated earth-lives, so that these are facts, inform observations of spiritual science then people come and probably say, there he brings dogmas and demands that we should believe! However, the spiritual researcher does not expect that they should believe his knowledge. If people mean that this is dogmas what is said, then they should ask themselves: is the fact that there is a whale fish a dogma for that who has never seen one? Indeed, one can explain it with it: it is a dogma for him who has never seen a whale fish. However, the spiritual research does not approach the world with communications only. It does not do that if it understands itself; but it dresses what it gets down from the higher worlds in logical forms that are exactly the same logical forms with which also the other sciences are penetrated. Then everybody can check by healthy sense of truth and impartial logic whether this is right what the spiritual researcher has said. Always one has said: in order to find the spiritual facts a training of the soul is necessary, the soul must have gone through what is described now, but it is not necessary for the understanding of the informed; healthy sense of truth and logic without prejudice are sufficient. After the spiritual researcher has let such symbolic concepts and pictures work on his soul he notices that his sensory life and emotional life become quite different from that before. How are the sensory life and the emotional life in the usual world? It has become almost trivial today to use the term “egoistic” everywhere and to say, in the normal life, the human beings are egoistic. I would not like to express it in such a way, but I prefer to say, in the normal life, the human beings are tied up closely to the human personality, for example, if anything pleases us, like the most distinguished spiritual creations, the things of art and beauty. This expresses already itself in the proverb “there is no accounting for taste” that many things are bound to our personality and that it depends on it how we face the things subjectively. Examine how everything that can please you is connected with the fact how your education has been, to which place of the world, in which occupation your personality is put et cetera, in order to realise how the sensations and feelings are closely connected with our personality. However, if one does such soul exercises as the characterised ones, one notices that the sensations and feelings become quite impersonal. This is a big and tremendous experience if the moment occurs when our sensory life and emotional life become impersonal as it were. This moment comes certainly, if the human being is stimulated in the course of his spiritual way by those who take over his spiritual guidance to open him to the following things in particular. I want now to tell something that educates our complete sensory life and emotional life if the human being submits himself to it for weeks, for months. There the following can come into consideration. If we turn our attention to the spiritual centre of the human being, to the ego which accompanies all our mental pictures, the mysterious centre of any experience, and if we go on with that respect, that esteem and devotion which can associate itself with the fact — for many, however, no fact, but a chimera -: there lives an ego inside! — If this becomes the most striking event that this ego is the most essential of the soul, then in the “I am” immense, strong feelings develop which are impersonal and aim just at recognising how in the ego-point everything is crowded together that hovers around us as world secrets and mysteries to understand the human being from the ego-point. The poet Jean Paul (born Johann Paul Friedrich Richter, 1763-1825, German author), for example, tells about this ego becoming conscious in his biography: “I never forget the phenomenon in myself still told to no one where I stood at the birth of my self-consciousness the place and time of which I can give. In a morning, I stood as a very young child under the front door and looked at the woodshed on the left when all at once the inner face “I am an ego” as a streak of lightning penetrated me and stood still luminously since then, my ego had seen itself for the first time and forever. Deceits of memory are hard to imagine, because no other information could intermingle something in an event that took place only in the veiled sanctum of the human being the novelty of which made everyday minor details permanent.” It means very much to feel the devotion of this concentration of the world being in one point with all showers of reverence and with all sensations of the greatness of this fact. If the human being feels it over and over again and opens himself to it, it may be in such a way that it does not clarify all world riddles to him, but still gives him a direction leading to the impersonal and to the innermost nature of the human being. Thus, we educate our emotional life and sensory life by egoity. If we have done it for a while, we can bring our feelings and sensations in another direction, can say to ourselves, this ego in us is connected with what we think, feel, and sense, with our soul life. There we can study the human nature with the ego as the centre of thinking, feeling, and willing without considering ourselves or without becoming personal. The human being becomes a mystery to us, not we to ourselves. There our feelings increase from the ego about the soul. Then we change over to another feeling, can acquire that nice feeling in particular without which we cannot continue leading our soul into the spiritual knowledge. It is the feeling that in everything that faces us the access to an infinite presents itself to us. This is the most wonderful feeling if one allows it to appear before the soul repeatedly. This may happen where we go out and see a wonderful spectacle of nature: the mountains wrapped by clouds in thunder and flash. This works on our souls tremendously. But then we must learn to see the big and tremendous not only there, but we maybe take a single leaf, look at it exactly with all its veins and all the miraculous things which are in it, and we can perceive an infinite with the smallest leaf as with the biggest spectacle of nature. It may appear weird, but, nevertheless, it is some truth in it, and someone must express himself absurdly afterward: it may do a big impression if the human being sees the glowing lava mass coming out of the earth. Then, however, we imagine, anybody looks at warm milk or coffee, sees there something like small crater-shaped things and sees there a similar play happening in microcosm. Everywhere, in the smallest as in the biggest, you can find access to an infinite. If we do research on and on, and even if many things have still revealed themselves to us: there are still more things under the cover which we have maybe investigated on top. Thus, we feel just that in every point of the universe something infinite may be revealed. This fills our soul with sensations and feelings that are necessary to us if we want to attain what Goethe calls “spirit eyes,” “spirit ears.” Briefly, we live out our emotional life, which is, otherwise, the most subjective, up to that point where we feel only as the scene on which something happens where we do not at all count our feelings among ourselves. Our personality is quietened. It is almost as if we stretch a canvas and a painter paints a picture on it, that we stretch our soul, if we train ourselves and let the spiritual world paint on the soul. One senses this from a certain time on. Then one must realise only that it is necessary for the recognition of the being of the world to regard a certain stage of the soul life solely as decisive. Indeed, what the human being attains with warm endeavour becomes the decisive factor of truth. In the soul must be decided whether something is true or not. Not anything external can decide, but while the human being goes beyond himself, he must find the authority in himself to look for truth. Yes, we can say strictly speaking, we cannot yet differ completely from the other human beings. The other human beings look for objective criteria, for something in the outside that confirms truth. However, the spiritual researcher searches the confirmation of truth from the inside. He makes the reverse. If it were that way, one could maybe say for the sake of appearance, it is bad if the spiritual scientists want to turn the world upside down with their craziness. Since in truth the naturalists and philosophers do nothing else than the spiritual researchers do, only they do not know that they do it. I want to give you a proof that is taken from the immediate present. On the last naturalists' meeting Oswald Külpe (1862-1915, German psychologist and philosopher) held a talk about the relationship of the natural sciences to philosophy in which he goes into the relationship of the human being to the sensory world which he perceives as tone, colour, warmth et cetera, which are only subjective qualities. This is only somewhat different from that which Schopenhauer says: “The world is our (will and) representation (mental picture) .” But Oswald Külpe draws the attention to the fact that any sense-perception, briefly everything that appears as pictorial is subjective that, however, what physics and chemistry say has to be characterised as objective; so that we deal in our worldviews partly with something wholly subjective, partly with something objective like pressure, attractive and repulsive forces. I do not want to get involved with the criticism that was expressed, but go only into the way of thinking. This seems to be proved for the modern epistemologist very easily: because we cannot see without eyes, the light is only something that our eyes cause. However, what happens in the external world, one says, if a ball pushes the other what works there as forces, as resistance, pressure et cetera, one must move this, nevertheless, into the outside world, in the space. Why do people mean that? Oswald Külpe exposes himself at a certain passage very clearly speaking about the sense perceptions. Because he regards them as pictures, he says, they cannot attract each other, bang together, or warm up mutually, can also not have such-and-such big distance in space that they send the light in such-and-such velocity through the space, and cannot be arranged in such a way as the chemist arranges the elements. Why does he say that of the sense perceptions? Because he looks at them as pictures which are caused only by our senses. Now I would like to present a simple thought that shows that the pictorial nature changes nothing at all. The things bang together and attract each other. If Mr. Külpe looks, however, at the sensations, at this world that cannot bang together or attract, then it does not face Mr. Oswald Külpe as reality, but as a reflection. There he has pictures before himself certainly. However, hit, pressure, resistance and everything that is put there into the world as discerning from the sensations is explained in no other way objectively as by the pictorial nature of the sensations. Why is this that way? Because the human being if he feels pressure, a hit et cetera, changes that what lives in the things into the sensations of the things. He should study, if he says, for example, a billiard ball pushes the other that he puts what he experiences as an impact into the things! He who stands on the ground of spiritual science does nothing else, too. He makes that which lives in the inside of the soul the expression criterion of the world. There is no other principle of knowledge than what can be found with the development of the soul. That means, the others do the same as the spiritual research does. However, the spiritual research is aware of it. The others do it unconsciously, have no idea of the fact that they do the same on an elementary level, they stop only at the very first step and deny what they themselves do. Therefore, we can say, spiritual science does not contrast the remaining research of truth; the other researchers do the same, only they do the first step and know nothing of it, while the spiritual research does the steps consciously as far as a certain human soul can do it according to its level of development. If this is now attained that our feelings have become objective in certain way, this happens all the more what I have already indicated what is, however, a necessary condition of the progress in the spiritual worlds. That the human being learns to understand to live in the world so that one assumes, an all-embracing spiritual lawfulness weaves and lives in the spiritual world. In the usual life, the human being is far away from such a way of thinking. He gets angry if anything happens to him that does not suit him. This is quite comprehensible, because another point of view must be hard gained. This other point of view consists in saying: we come from a former life, have put ourselves in the situations, in which we are now, have led us to that what faces us from the future. What faces us there corresponds to a strictly objective spiritual lawfulness. We accept it, because it would be an absurdity not to accept it. What approaches us from the womb of the spiritual worlds whether the world reproves or praises us whether joy or pain appear to us: we accept it as the penetration of the world filled with wisdom. This is something that must become the basic principle of our being slowly and gradually. If it becomes this, our will starts to be trained. Whereas our feelings have to be reorganised before, our will is now reorganised, becomes independent of our personality and thereby an organ to perceive spiritual facts. Then after the level of Imaginative knowledge, the true Inspiration appears which one can call fulfilment with spiritual facts. However, we must get clear about that repeatedly that the human being can attain the training of the will only on a certain level if his feelings are already purified in a certain respect. Then his will can combine with the lawfulness of the world and he is there only as a human being, so that those facts and beings which want to appear to him, hold a wall before his will on which they can be reflected to him, so that they can be there for him. I could only describe something of that which the soul has to experience in quiet, patient devotion if it wants to ascend to the higher worlds. In the following talks, I have to describe many things of the world-historical development that the soul must experience to ascend to the spiritual worlds. Regard that which I have said today only as an introduction that by such a training our emotional life and willing life and our whole life of imagining develop in such a way that they become bearers of new worlds. Then we really enter a world, which we recognise as real, as we recognise the physical world in its kind as real. I have already mentioned on another occasion: someone who approaches reality with healthy thinking is able to distinguish a glowing piece of iron from one that exists only as a mental picture. Even if many Schopenhauerians may come, he will already be able to distinguish both from each other, — what is real and what is a mental picture. The human being can orientate himself towards reality. Therefore, he can only orientate himself towards reality about the spiritual world. Somebody said once that the human being if he only remembers of drinking lemonade also feels the taste of the lemonade on his tongue. I answered to him: as strong as the mental picture may be that somebody who has no lemonade before himself also feels the taste on the tongue by the lively mental picture of a lemonade, but I would like to see once whether anybody has extinguished his thirst with an only imagined lemonade. Then the criterion starts becoming more real. That also applies to an inner development of the human being that he gets to know not only a new soul life, new mental pictures, but collides in his soul with another world and knows: now you face a world that you can also describe as you can describe the outer world. This is not bare speculation, you can compare it only with a development of thought, but this is developing new senses and opening new worlds that stand really before us as our outer, physical world. I have indicated today that spiritual research is possible and is necessary because of the conditions of our time. However, I do not say that everybody must immediately become a spiritual researcher. For I have to stress the following. If a human being faces the communications of spiritual science with healthy sense of truth and unprejudiced logic, even if he is not able to behold in the spiritual worlds, everything that comes from such communications can become energy and feelings of strength for the soul, even if he believes in Haeckelism or Darwinism at first. What the spiritual researcher has to say is appropriate to speak more and more to the healthy sense of truth, all the more because it is connected with the deepest interests of every human being. There may be human beings who do not regard it as necessary for their soul welfare to know how amphibians and mammals relate to each other. However, what spiritual research resting on sure basis can say has to inspire all human beings: the fact that the soul belongs to the sphere of eternity — in so far as it belongs to the spiritual world descending by birth to the sensuous existence and again ascending through the gate of death to the spiritual world. This must be of the deepest interest for all human beings, what immerses itself in the soul as strength that is in such a way that the soul receives certainty to stand on its place in life. A soul that does not know about that strength can become hopeless, finally, can despair, and feel desolate and void. A soul, however, which fills itself with the achievements of spiritual science, cannot remain void and desolate if it absorbs the communications of spiritual research not as dogmas, but as life inspiring our soul. This gives consolation for all grief in life if we are led through all temporal sufferings to that what can comfort the soul. Briefly: spiritual science can give what the human being needs today because of the conditions of our time in the most lonesome and in the busiest hours of his life, — or if the strength was leaving him — what he needs in order to look into the future and to advance towards this future powerfully. Thus, spiritual science is always able to confirm, as it starts from the spiritual research, from those who want to do the steps into the spiritual world, what we want to summarise in few words, which express the characteristic of the way into the spiritual world and its significance for the present human beings in a sensation. What we want to summarise in such a way shall not be a consideration of the theories of life but a consideration of remedies, of fortifiers for life: The spiritual world — it remains closed to you, Unless you recognise in yourself The spirit that shines in the soul And can become light bearing you To the depths and heights of the universe.

How Does One Attain Knowledge of the Spiritual World?

https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA060/English/eLib2015/19101215p01.html

Berlin

15 Dec 1910

GA060-7

Translator Unknown If we look at the leitmotif of these winter talks if we look at the human nature, which we observe not only once between birth and death, but of which we assume as existing in repeated lives on earth, the question of the developmental basis of the human embodiment will appear to us quite essential in particular in our present. Since the human being of the present faces the peculiar appearance of predisposition, talent and education indeed questioning and researching. However, because he is little inclined to turn away his look from what appears in one life, and to look at the real builder, the real creator in the human being, the questions of this present human being easily get the character of half measure, of indefiniteness. If one assumes something in the human nature that penetrates many lives enlivening, then only the quite mysterious of this human being appears. One wants to consider the questions of predisposition, talent, and education in a new light, in another light than they can be considered if one only eyes what the present stresses so often: the inheritance, the qualities inherited by the ancestors. Spiritual science does not look away from such inherited predispositions, from the careful observations of the natural sciences. However, spiritual science knows that all that relates to the real nature of the human being like something that is used by it as the outer matter in the physical life is taken up by the small germ of a living being that determines its form from itself, but it takes the substantial, the material from his surroundings to live out its form in the outer life. Thus on the whole, we have to recognise in the way of someone's life a confluence of that what enters existence with its birth and of that in which the nature and the individuality of the human being are embedded and from which he takes his spiritual-mental food. If we face, for example, as educators an adolescent human being like a holy riddle which we have to solve which has come from infinity to us, so that we give him the possibilities to develop, then a whole sum of new tasks, new views, new possibilities arises or all human relations generally. We see a human being entering existence at birth and assume that he/she brings in the core of his/her being in a certain way. The outer science also shows if we do not look at catchwords and theories, but at facts how this spiritual-mental essence of the human being still works on the child after birth, how the bodily organisation changes, is formed plastically under the influence of the spiritual-mental. The outer science can also show, for example, that the brain is still an uncertain, plastically malleable matter when the human being is born and that then he takes up something from the spiritual treasure of his surroundings and works like an artist on the malleable mass of the brain. Assuming that a human being is exposed helplessly on a lonesome island after birth and cannot attain the faculty of speech. Then we must say: the spiritual-mental contents that approaches us from the birth on is not anything that comes from the inside as anything that he receives without influence of his spiritual-mental surroundings, but speech is something that works on the human being. It is real like a sculptor who forms as it were the brain. We can also pursue this formation of the brain scientifically in the first times, even for years. If then it is proved anatomically or physiologically that the faculty of speech, the memory of certain linguistic images is bound to this or that organ, that every word is kept as it were like a book in a library, we are allowed to ask on the other side: what has formed the brain first? Then we can answer: what was there as a spiritual-mental in the vocabulary of the surroundings of the human being. Thus, we must distinguish thoughts, mental pictures, sensations, will-impulses, and feelings — from something else that remains inner experience in such a way that it intervenes in the outer physical organisation, forms it plastically, and makes it a tool only for future spiritual abilities or the future spiritual-mental life. We can see this quite clearly if we pursue an ability through our life that shows quite different sides, although the outer psychology lumped these different sides together several times: if we pursue our memory. If we appropriate something by memory if we memorise, we appropriate this by repetition above all. We have appropriated it then, and can give it from us. Everybody now knows oblivion, an awkward thing. Since the things are forgotten again, disappear from our memory, so that we cannot reproduce them in a later time. For instance, can you not remember how many things you must learn by heart and recite in your youth, and how much you can no longer recite by heart now? However, does everything disappear that we have taken up in our memory? Now we want to look only at oblivion. Is that what the human being has forgotten no longer there? It is there in a similar way as something that we have already mentioned that is always forgotten in the normal human life: the miraculous, first experiences of the childhood years are forgotten. We remember only back to a certain point in time. Before this time, however, we had numerous impressions. Who does not concede this if he follows the development of a child impartially in the first years? However, it is forgotten in the sense as we normally speak of oblivion. However, is it not there at all? Does it play no longer a role in the human soul? On the contrary, it plays a significant role in the human soul. For much more of the entire mood and condition of soul depends on the first childhood impressions than the human being is capable in the later life than one normally assumes. It is more important what one has forgotten in the first years what forms us in our soul being than one admits normally. Thus, the same applies to that what we learn later, we forget the text, the thoughts, but it remains in us as a certain soul mood. For example, a human being has learnt ballads or other poetries of great heroes with particular tasks, particular qualities at a certain age, He may forget the thoughts, the events et cetera, so that he cannot reproduce them again. However, it remains what he has learnt in the structure of his own character maybe as a soul force, as a kind to face life and to let approach joy and sorrow to himself. What we forget changes into moods, feelings, will-impulses, to that what does not rest more or less consciously in our soul life what creates, however, and forms in us. Only sometimes, it appears by particular processes in the later life that something forgotten is not completely forgotten, so that one can prove that only something like a cover was put on the subconscious layers of his soul life that it exists, however, in him. Thus, we realise positively how that what we forget what disappears from our memory works on our soul and appears then in our mood as joy and sorrow, as courage, as bravery or cowardice, or also as fear and fear of life. What we see sinking from the treasure of memory into subconsciousness becomes creative in our soul. We are what the things that we have forgotten have made of us. Since what is the human being concretely else than how he can be glad, courageous et cetera. If we consider the human being not in the abstract, but concretely, we must say, it is the harmonious interweaving and interrelation of his qualities, so that he himself is caused by what flows down in deeper layers of his consciousness. We see this during life. From everything that was regarded up to now and what should be still stated can arise that that what sinks spiritual-mentally into even deeper layers when the human being passes the gate of death. Since he finds a certain organisation every time if he wants to form his outer physical organisation by that what he takes up in this life. It is organised one way or the other, with these or those predispositions he comes into life. What is creative in our soul must attack that. Assuming that by that what we take up in ourselves, a quality of bravery could be developed in us. If we have, however, an organisation that is more suited to a coward than to a courageous human being, we must attack something more or less that we have from our organisation. When we go through the time between death and a new birth, the essentials of this human development lie in the fact that we develop the prototype, the original figure of our new physical body, our new physical organisation. There we have no such limits and obstacles as they present themselves to our organisation in the life between birth and death, there we build plastically with that what we have acquired in life, the basis, the basic forces for a new corporeality within wider limits as it is the case between birth and death. Hence, we can say, what works on forgotten mental pictures during the life between birth and death only in our soul, this works if we walk through the gate of death, up to the time of reincarnation in the creation of our next organisation. It works on that which is connected with our new bodily organisation; so that we walk with such predispositions to the new existence that go down in even deeper layers of our being than the forgotten mental pictures in the life between birth and death. From all that it will be absolutely clear that the human being — because he has received the causes of the new corporeality from life, from the immediate surroundings — indeed, needs the same conditions again in a certain way. It is different with the animal whose organisation is determined by the line of heredity, as we have realised in the talks about Human Soul and Animal Soul and Human Spirit and Animal Spirit . The animal appears with particular formative trends that are not taken from the surroundings of the animal. We realise how little the animal gets by education, by training from the external world, how little it needs, hence, a scene which lies in the outer world to bring out again what is taken in as educational principles. However, the human being needs such a scene. Hence, he enters the world clumsily, so that we also have to give the finishing touch to the subtler arrangement of his organisation. Hence, the life and the interweaving of the individuality, his very basic nature, in the first years of his existence. Hence, his mind organ, the brain, enters existence as something malleable, and is provided only after birth with the ways, lines, and directions in which the predispositions should enjoy life. With it, we realise that that which is important for the development is to be regarded as coming from former levels of existence. Hence, it is less important to have certain stubborn principles of education, than to consider every single human being, every individuality as a problem, as a holy riddle which is to be solved, and that it is down to us to create the opportunities so that this riddle can be solved in the possibly best way. An education is uncomfortable which can generally put up no firm principles, but must appeal a principle related to the artistic in the educator to observe what comes out there of the essentiality of the human being. It is more uncomfortable, as if one says according to regulations, these or those abilities are to be expressed one way or the other. However, we face the adolescent human being only with the right attitude if we consider him in every single case as an individuality, as something special in itself. However, if one wants to take the things trivially — some people have already the talent to take everything trivially -, one can say, individuality appears not only with the human being, but also with any animal. Indeed, so it seems. However, nobody will also deny this who speaks out the basic positions of spiritual science. I have often said, if one speaks in this sense of individuality, one must go into it more exactly, must be aware that if one wants to take the things trivially one can also speak of the biography and the individuality of a quill. I knew a man who could already distinguish quills — when one still cut goosequills. Because everybody trimmed his feather himself, it always got a personal relation to him, and because the person concerned had an excellent imagination, he could have very well written a biography of any single quill with all details. However, one must not apply the criterion of triviality, but that which is got out of the depths of knowledge. We have realised that it is very important for the human being in the first years of his life that we maintain his abilities to intervene plastically in his physical or bodily-mental organisation, and that we do not obstruct this possibility. We obstruct this possibility mostly if we cram him with concepts and ideas too early which refer only to an outer sensuousness and which have the sharpest contours, or if we nail him down on an activity which is constricted theoretically in particular forms. There is no variability, no modification, also no possibility to develop the spiritual-mental abilities as the soul busies itself from day to day, from hour to hour. Assuming that a father would be a frightfully stubborn person who has as principle: my son must become in such a way as I was! I have made the shoes for my clientele for my whole life in such a way, and my son must make them in the same way! As I think, my son must think! — A spiritual-mental structure is there brought in the surroundings of the boy which works on his spiritual-mental organisation as it worked on the father, and the boy is thereby squeezed in particular forms, whereas one should investigate the individuality who enters existence to form the spiritual-mental organisation according to the knowledge one has obtained from it. The educational instinct of humanity has already created a wonderful means by the general consciousness by which the human being becomes able in the first years to work on the variable, modifiable, versatile of the spiritual-mental, so that a free margin is left for the organisation of the human being. This is the play. This is also the way in which we occupy a child best of all that we do not give it concepts which are constricted in solid contours, but those which leave a margin to the thought, so that it can stray here or there. Only then, one finds the course of the thought that is predetermined by the inner predisposition. If I tell a fairy tale, so that it stimulates the spiritual activity of the child that the concepts do not develop in certain contours, but that it leaves the contours of the concepts versatile, then the child works in such a way as somebody works who tries and gets out the right by doing. The child works to get out how its spirituality must move, so that it forms its organisation in the best way as it is prefigured internally. That applies to the play. The play differs from the activity pressed in solid forms by the fact that, nevertheless, one can do to a certain degree what one wants if one plays that one does not have sharp contours in the thought and mobility of the organs from the start. Thereby it is reacted again in a free, determinable way on the spiritual-mental organisation of the human being. Play and the just characterised spiritual-mental activity of the child in the first years arise from a deep consciousness of the real nature of the human being. Someone who wants to become a real educator will also have the consciousness for the later years that, indeed, he has first to study, to recognise, to determine any single ability in the developing human being. Nevertheless, there is the possibility to observe certain great principles. Such principles lead us then only to how the essence of the human being which goes from birth to birth, so to speak, uses the appearance which lies in the line of heredity. There it is of the highest interest to look in which way the spiritual-mental essence of the human being uses the features, the qualities, virtues et cetera of the father and mother, of the fatherly and motherly ancestors to build up something new. Indeed: the fatherly and motherly qualities are not used by the individual essence in the same way, but there a particular principle forms the basis. Just this principle is infinitely instructive. If we try to understand it in its completeness, we must understand how in the human soul two things make themselves noticeable. One is intellectuality to which we want to count also the ability to think in mental pictures faster or slower, cleverer or more stupidly. The other is the general direction of will and feeling, of the affects, the interest that we take in our surroundings. The whole way of performing something depends on whether we have a versatile or a slow mind, a dull or a mind penetrating into the things whether we are astute or not. What the human being can perform for his fellow men and how we perform this depends on whether we know to connect our interests in the right sense with that what goes forward in our surroundings. Some human beings have good preconditions, but they have little interest in the fellow men and in the environment. Here the interest does not elicit the abilities. Hence, it is necessary that the interest is also considered in us like that whether the mobility of our intellectuality allows us to perform this or that for our social environment. For the entire way of the soul life which is connected with our contact with the outside world, with our bigger or lower interests and with our skill for the outside world the human being takes the most important elements of heredity from the father. The soul takes the suitable elements from the father, so that it can develop those qualities in itself. However, our individuality entering existence takes what is intellectual mobility with which activity of imagination, pictorial imagination, ingenuity are also connected as heritage from the motherly qualities. You already find this exceptionally interesting chapter suggested by Schopenhauer in a certain way; he had a notion of it, however, was not able to point to the deeper things. However, an interesting difference now appears which can be only observed if one goes into the entire extent of life. Then you also find evidence of it everywhere. For an immense difference appears concerning the gender. The relation of a son to father and mother was described wonderfully in the Goethean words: “From the father I have the stature, the serious conduct of life.” That means everything that refers to the contact of the human being with the outer world. — “From mummy I have the glad nature, the desire of telling stories,” that is the entire way of the spiritual life. However, if we look now at the daughter, it becomes apparent quite strangely that the fatherly qualities appear with the daughter in such a way that they are raised a level from the realm of the will-impulses to the mental. Hence, one can find the fatherly qualities taken by the individuality of the daughter in such a way that they are raised to the mental whereby her soul life makes them more versatile, so that the most important qualities, which we see with the father more externally, are more internalised with the daughter. Hence, we can say, the characteristics of the father live on in the soul of the daughter, the soul qualities of the mother, the activity of the mind as well as talents and abilities that one can develop live on in the son. Goethe's mother was a woman who could tell stories with whom the imagination functioned most wonderfully. This went down a level to the son, became predisposition, organisation, so that the son Goethe had the ability to give humanity what lived in his mother. Thus, we see how the motherly qualities are led down one level with the son, so that they become abilities of organs, while the daughter takes the fatherly qualities up one level, so that she internalises them, ensouls them. Perhaps, nothing is more typical for it than the nice contrast of Goethe to his sister Cornelia who was now completely the old Councillor (Goethe's father) who was a quiet, serious nature and, hence, could be to the poet already in his childhood what he needed: an exceptionally good companion. Take into consideration now that Goethe could gain no favourable relationship to his father after his biography. This was because the fatherly qualities were externalised with his father. Goethe needed these qualities, but he could not understand them as they were with his father. They were right there. They lived then in the soul of his sister who could be, therefore, such a good companion to him. You find that confirmed in history. We have the nicest confirmation from the mother of the Maccabees in this respect who allows her sons to face death with heroic greatness for what she believes and what her fathers believed with the words, I have given you the body. However, He who created the world and the human beings has given you what I could not give you, and He will make sure that you receive it again if you lose it for your faith (according to 2 Maccabees 7:22-23). — How often just the motherly element is shown in history: from the mother of Alexander and the mother of the Gracchi brothers until our time we realise that qualities appear in a human being so that this person can work on the environment that she/he has the forces and talents and the bodily-mental organisation for it. There we could open any book about significant men: everywhere we find the motherly qualities translated so that they have descended one level that they have become abilities, which are put in life. We take the example of Bürger's (Gottfried August B., 1743-1794, German poet) mother and father from whom he had inherited the will-quality. He had little in common with his father; the father was glad if he did not need to look after the development of the little boy; the mother, however, had a wonderfully versatile mind, she could correctly express herself grammatically and stylistically. This was necessary for the poet; he took over these qualities from his mother, and they arose just because he belonged to the next generation. Another example is Hebbel's (Friedrich H., 1813-1863, German author) relationship to his father. Somebody, who more exactly knows the poet Hebbel, feels an echo of the fatherly inheritance in everything peculiar and stubborn of his interests. The old master bricklayer Hebbel handed down a lot on his son in this respect. However, the son and the mother understood each other, and the mother prevented that the son became a master bricklayer instead of giving humanity his dramas. It is touching when Hebbel tells in his miraculous diaries what connected him with his mother. These examples could be increased ad infinitum. However, we are not allowed at all — because we believe to observe in life that something else faces us here or there — to conclude that the things are wrong. This would be as if anybody said, the physicists prove the law of falling bodies; now I will prove that one can transgress the law applying all kinds of devices. — However, laws are not there that we take account of any fact, but have in mind what is possible. We have to do it in the natural sciences in such a way; we must do it in spiritual science in such a way. Only spiritual science is not far enough even today to proceed in the same way. If one regards this, one can find the law of the fatherly and motherly genotype confirmed everywhere. However, one has to realise if one considers the human being as a whole that the human soul that enjoys life in the entire, also bodily-mental organisation is not a simple one. One can want again wholeheartedly to be trivial and say, why do you anthroposophists have the strange habit to distinguish three soul members and even many members of the human nature? You talk there about a sentient soul, an intellectual soul, and a consciousness soul. Nevertheless, it would be much easier to speak of the soul as a uniform being which has thoughts, feelings and will-impulses. -- Certainly, it is easier, more comfortable — and more trivial, too. However, this is something at the same time that cannot promote the scientific consideration of the human being really. For it is not the longing for categorising and speaking many words. The arrangement of the human soul arises in the sentient soul, which is connected with the surroundings at first and receives the perception and sensations from the outside, in which the desires and instincts develop, and which is to be separated from the part in which already in a certain sense the received is processed. We activate our sentient soul, facing the outside world, perceiving its colours and sounds, but we also let appear what we, as normal human beings, cannot control at first: our desires and passions. However, if we withdraw and process what we have taken up by the perception et cetera in ourselves, so that the things of the outside world which are animated in us transform themselves into feelings, then we live in the second soul member, in the intellectual soul. As far as we control our thoughts and are not controlled by them, we live in the consciousness soul. In the Occult Science or in the Theosophy you see that three soul members have much more relations — in other way — to the outside world, not because we like to categorise, but the sentient soul is assigned in quite different way to the universe than the consciousness soul. The consciousness soul isolates the human being and makes him feeling as an internally closed being. The intellectual soul relates him to the surroundings and to the whole universe; thereby he is a being that appears as an essence, as a confluence of the whole world. By the consciousness soul the human being lives in himself, isolates himself. The most principal what one experiences in the consciousness soul is that what one develops as the latest of his arrangements: the ability of logical thinking that we have opinions, thoughts et cetera. This rests in the consciousness soul. Concerning these qualities, the individual essence of the human being that enters existence at birth is indeed mostly subject to isolation. This innermost essence works its way at the latest. While his cover, his bodily organisation emerges at the earliest, his real individuality emerges at the latest. Nevertheless, as the human being is in the present — he was different in the past and will be different in the future -, indeed, he develops his opinions, concepts, mental pictures in the most isolated part of his nature. Hence, these exert the least influence on the entire construction and arrangement of his personality and appear only as predispositions when the whole personality is formed plastically. There we realise how the talent of the human being develops in a certain order. We see appearing at first what lives in the least isolated, separated element, in the sentient soul. However, this has the biggest strength to intervene in the entire human organisation. Hence, we can understand that we can approach the child at least with opinions, theories, and ideas if this sentient soul wants to shape from the inside. We can approach the child only if we do not let theories and doctrines work on the sentient soul in the first years — as I have shown in my essay The Education of the Child from the Viewpoint of Spiritual Science . - However, one has to encourage the child to imitate what one sets an example of that what it should imitate. This is of infinite importance because this imitative instinct appears as one of the very first predispositions on which one can work. Admonitions and teachings are almost ineffective in this time. The child copies what it sees because it forms in such a way as it must form in accordance with its coherence with the outside world. We lay the first foundation of the entire personal being of the child if we give it examples during the first seven years what it can imitate if we guess how we have to behave in the surroundings of the child. However, this is an educational principle extremely strange for many people. Most people ask how the child should behave, and now there spiritual science comes with its requirements: the human being should learn from the child how one has to behave in the surroundings of the child — up to the words, attitudes, and thoughts! Since the child is much more receptive in its soul than one assumes usually, above all, more receptive than the adult human being. There are such human beings with a certain sensitivity who notice it immediately if, for example, a person comes in who dampens the good mood. This applies to the child in particular, even though one considers it little today. It depends much less on what one undertakes in detail, than on that one takes care which thoughts, which mental pictures one has. It is not enough that one keeps them secret and permits himself thoughts that should be not for the child, but our thoughts must be realised in such a way that we have the feeling: this can and should live on in the child. — This is uncomfortable, but it is right! When the second dentition has taken place, one has to consider the building on authority. This is the most important that the child can imitate in the first years what we speak, act and think, and that it feels us in the second epoch as a person on whom it can build, so that it can say: it is good what he does! — Not that we admonish the child from the seventh up to the fourteenth, sixteenth out of the principle to develop a moral theory: this must be done, this must be omitted. However, we should give the child the best treasure if it can have the sensation for the intellectual soul: it is good what the person beside me does; I must omit what he omits. — This is of infinite importance. The possibility begins only with the fourteenth, sixteenth years that the human being builds on the most isolated part of his being, on the consciousness soul, that is on that what forms in the consciousness soul: on his opinions, concepts and ideas. However, they must have a firm ground first, and this must be created. If we do not create it, while we cause the opportunity by education as the individuality reveals it to us, if we do not give free rein to the development, then the human being is seized by another element: by the firmness of his cover nature. Then he externalises himself; then his individuality going from life to life does not intervene, but then he becomes the slave of his bodily organisation that subjugates him from the outside. Then the human being does not control his soul and mind, is completely dependent on his bodily-mental organisation, shows rigid qualities, which are unalterable. Against it, a human being with whom we have minded that his predispositions appear keeps a certain mobility for his whole life, can still find the way in new situations in the later life. However, with the other the organisation externalises itself, gets rigid forms, and he keeps them for his whole life. We live in an epoch where the individuality of the human being is little estimated and where, hence, little opportunity is given to convince oneself that the individuality is still versatile in the later life and active and can familiarise itself with new situations and truths. There we come to a chapter in which we can realise how some human beings must simply position themselves to life. So many people take care if they have seen into a worldview so that they are convinced of it to convincing also other people. They believe that it is a very creditable endeavour if they say, because I understand it so clearly, nevertheless, I should be able to convince everybody. However, this is naive. Our opinions do not depend at all on whether to us something is proved logically. This is possible in the fewest cases. Since the opinions and convictions are formed from quite different subsoil of his soul — from his will nature, from his mood and feeling nature, so that someone can understand your logical discussions, your astute conclusions very well. Nevertheless, he does not at all accept them because that what a human being believes and what he confesses does not flow from his logic and his understanding, but from the whole personality, that is from those members, where the will where the mood arise. However, our thoughts are the latest of us that comes out from all our predispositions when the bodily organisation is finished long since. This is the most isolated field. There we find access to the other human beings at least. We can attain more if we seize them in those parts, which lie deeper: in the mood, in the will. There it is still intervened in the organisation. However, if a human being has grown up in a very materialistic sphere, a sum of will-impulses originate that shape his corporeality and his brain plastically. Then later he can appropriate a quite good logical thinking, however, this does no longer intervene in his brain plastically. Logical thoughts are the most powerless in the human soul. Hence, it depends especially on the fact that we find access to other human beings also in the soul, not only in the logic. If anybody has developed his brain already in a certain way, the brain that reflects the old mental pictures repeatedly does no longer transform any logic because it has become physical. Hence, one cannot expect from such worldviews, which are built on the purest, sharpest logic as spiritual science that one can work in the way that one goes from one human being to the other to persuade him. If anybody who understands the spiritual-scientific impulse wanted to believe that he could convince the human beings by persuasion or by logic, if he possibly wanted to believe that the spiritual scientist abandons himself to this illusion, he is wrong very much! Since there is a big number of such human beings in our time who do not consider what spiritual science and spiritual research means because of their entire personality. From the big mass of those who live around us those will come who tend to spiritual science, to what they anticipate darkly what they already have in their souls. A selection, a choice only can take place concerning a worldview, which is built on this what the logic, the human consciousness can encompass. Hence, the spiritual scientist approaches the human beings and knows to differentiate: there is one to whom you may preach for years, he will not be able to go into your thoughts. You must make him aware of it; you can speak to his soul, but he himself cannot reflect it to himself from his soul tool, from the brain. The other is built in such a way that he can go into that what spiritual science is in its logical way, and, hence, he finds his way in what lives already in his soul. We have to position ourselves in the big cultural tasks of the present or the future in this way. Only if we recognise how the whole human being relates to that what he can gradually take up of new truth in his development and education, one will also emphasise to develop the spiritual-mental of the human being, so that he can work powerfully on body and soul — especially during the years, where he is accessible to education. We must realise that one can sin a lot in this respect. We see from our considerations how human preference et cetera contributes even more to the views than pure logic. Pure logic could only speak if generally desires and instincts are completely quiet. One must be clear in one's mind before if we believe to have formed the predispositions of a human being one-sidedly somewhere in a special field, that then that appears in a strange way what we have left out of consideration. Assuming that we educate a human being in such a way that we express the abstract predispositions only as it is done frequently in the school. Then the pure concepts and abstract ideas cannot intervene in the entire mental and feeling life. This remains undeveloped, uneducated and appears to us later in all possible trivial ways of living. Then two kinds of people are visible often in life. Even with people of high standing — if they have not developed into that which is in the depths of personality — preference, inclination, and sympathy deeper sitting make themselves felt in other way. Which examinee would not have found out if he faces an ever so clever examiner who is able to survey a lot of his science that this one-sidedness is expressed by the fact that he has a preference for the way he wants just to hear the answers! Woes betide the examinee if he does not know to dress what he should say in the words as the examiner wants to have them! In a book about psychology by Moriz Benedikt (1835-1920, Austrian neurologist) some right thing is said just about the mistakes of human education in this direction. He tells: once two examiners examined two examinees, and the mishap took place that the one examinee gave the answers to the examiner A in the way, as if the examiner B put the questions. If he had given the answers to this, he would have passed the exam brilliantly. The other of the candidates was in the reverse case. Hence, both fell! This can show that one can dress what is unassailable quite well in logical forms. However, as soon as we are not able to immerse our concepts into the education of thought during education, no suitable field is to be found to form the human being from here. How must we behave then to the human being? We must behave in such a way that we give him abstract concepts and ideas as little as possible but give him very pictorial ideas in the time when he should still be formed mainly plastically and when abstractions and ideas are effective at least. Therefore, I have so emphasised, that the pictorial, the vivid in which the concepts are taken up and which shall diverge as little as possible from that what has picture, figure, and outline. Since what the imagination takes up as a picture, as a figure that way has a big power to intervene in our bodily organisation. The fact that the pictorial that faces us in the organisation intervenes in the bodily organisation, you can already recognise from the fact that you see how little it helps if you speak to a sick person who is in a certain situation: you should do this, you should leave this. — This helps very little. However, if you put an apparatus before him which is similar to an electrostatic generator, so that the sick person can get its picture, and you give him two handles, and let conduct no current, — if he has only the picture before himself, he feels the current, and then it helps! However where is so nicely declaimed that the imagination plays a big role, we have to recognise that it concerns not every imagination, but only the pictorial one. We live in a time in which it has gradually become common practice that one little considers the following principle of spiritual science. Only between the fourteenth, sixteenth and 21-st, 22-nd years the human being becomes able to develop concepts and ideas, that one takes up concepts that should be developed only later; but today the human being is already mature before the end of this age to write newspaper articles, which are printed and then accepted by the people. Then it is difficult to keep away abstractions up to the characterised age and to bring the pictorial, the vivid home to the human being. Since the pictorial has the power to intervene in the bodily-mental organisation. You can find always confirmed what I say now, however, one does not always pay attention to it. Moriz Benedikt complains, for example, that many high school students (grammar pupils) are often so clumsy in the later life. Where from does this come? Because the whole education is not vivid, goes so little into the vivid and adheres only to abstractions, even with the teaching of languages. Against it, we are able to feel the pictorial well into the hands because the objects themselves face us in pictures. There one could say, if you want to imagine an object, you must move in such a way that you feel the circle or the ellipse growing together with the object in pictures. Not only the imitation with the manual skill, but the feeling and learning to love the things shows us how the pictorial, vivid imagination twitches in our limbs, makes them agile and versatile. We can find many people who cannot sew a button back on if it was torn off. This is a big disadvantage. The important is that we can intervene in the outside world with all that we have. We cannot learn everything of course. Nevertheless, we can learn that the spiritual-mental slides down from the spiritual in the bodily-mental and makes our limbs agile. Nobody whom we have instructed in his youth to understand what is outside him will be a clumsy person later in life. Since what already lies beneath the threshold of our consciousness can work most substantially on our organisation. This also applies to the language. One learns a language best of all in the time when one is not able at all to understand this language grammatically, because there one learns with that part of the soul, which belongs to the deeper layers. Humanity has developed that way — the single human being has to develop that way. I have already referred elsewhere to Laurenz Müllner (1848-1911, Austrian Catholic theologian) who called attention to the St. Peter's Basilica in Rome standing there splendidly that the principles of space are hidden in the mechanics of the domed building, so that one sees the spatial mechanics expressed most wonderfully. However, he suggested then that Galilei found the laws, which Michelangelo expressed in it, by his lofty mind and gave us the mechanical science only. I have also drawn your attention to the fact that Michelangelo's day of death almost coincides with Galilei's birthday, so that the abstract laws of the mechanics — what lives in the consciousness soul of the human being — appeared later than that what Michelangelo built out of his deeper soul members in space. As the higher soul members develop on basis of the lower ones as we must develop our members on basis of the predispositions in order to look back at them and to get a concept of them, it is also in the single life. In the single life the human being has also to be surrounded by the human society, has to place himself in what immerses him like in an atmosphere, in the spiritual-mental of our surroundings. Then that what he brings in in existence is formed. Nevertheless, he brings in not only what is given him from the line of heredity, but this is determined in the manifold way by his everlasting individuality. This individuality needs the inherited qualities; it must appropriate and develop them. This also outranks what enters existence with our individuality. We enter existence with birth: a creative, productive spirituality appropriates, where we cannot yet form concepts, the sculptural material from the line of heredity. Later only the consciousness soul is added. Thus, we realise an individual in the human nature, which shapes the abilities and talents plastically. If we become educators, it is our task, that that what we consider as a spiritual riddle, is solved with every human being anew. All that refers us to a mood. After the excavation of Schiller's bones, Goethe found his skull and saw there the forms on which the human individuality had worked. When he realised that in this form the fluid mind of Schiller had to incorporate itself, so that he could become what he became — Goethe could express this with the saying: What can the human being gain more in life Than that God's nature reveals itself to him, How she lets the solid melt away to spirit, How she firmly retains the spiritually created! One must understand such a quotation out of the situation. Who takes it without regarding what expresses itself as spiritually created in the solid form, misunderstands it. However, someone does also not understand it who does not know which deep insight Goethe had into the everlasting weaving of an individuality that goes from birth to birth, embodies itself repeatedly, and is the real architect of the human being. As we have received the organs from the spirit, which are organs of the spirit again, one can easily say by a childish comparison, the clock shows the time, but we could not use it if the human mind had not invented it. — We use our brain for thinking in the physical world, but we could not use it for thinking if the world spirit had not created it. We would not have developed it with such an individuality if not our individuality had poured out itself as a spiritually created in our brain. There we deeper understand what we could express today. Goethe meant the same referring to that in the human being what is determining for all his talents and abilities, as if the stars were understood like any situation of the world, and as that, what affects the human being as an everlasting goes only for this reason through the gate of death to advance to new developmental forms. Briefly, we can summarise what we considered today in the mood of the Goethean thoughts, which he expressed in the Primal Words. Orphic. Daimon : As on the day that lent you to the world, the sun stood to greet the planets, you instantly thrives and continued to do so in accordance with the law, by which you made your appearance. Thus you must be, you cannot escape from yourself, thus sibyls and prophets have already spoken; and no passage of time nor any power can break into bits a molded form that develops as it lives.

Predisposition, Talent and Education of the Human Being

https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA060/English/eLib2015/19110112p01.html

Berlin

12 Jan 1911

GA060-8

Among the fundamental principles underlying Spiritual Science and to which your attention has been drawn in previous lectures, the most prominent is the idea of Reincarnation. According to this generally unpopular and little understood concept, it is maintained that human individuality is constrained to manifest again and again in a single personality, during its enfoldment in the course of repeated earth-lives. It has been previously pointed out that many and diverse questions are associated with this conception, and that such is the case will become more and more apparent as we proceed. What deep meaning, we might ask, underlies the fact that the span of man’s life on earth is destined to recur, not once only, but many times, and that during each successive period between rebirth and death human individuality persists. When we study the evolution of mankind in the light of Spiritual Science, we find therein a progressive purport, a design of such nature that each age and each epoch presents in some fashion a different content, and we realize that human evolution is ever destined to maintain a definite upward trend. Thus do we become aware of a profound latent significance, when we know that the varied influences which act upon mankind are indeed potent and become absorbed over and over again by the Ego during the course of human development. A condition which is only possible because man, with all that comprises his being, is brought into contact not once alone, but recurrently, with the great living stream of evolution. When we regard the whole evolutionary process as a rational progression, ever accompanied by fresh contents, there dawns a true comprehension of those Great Spiritual Beings who set the measure of progress. We are then able to realize the import and proper relation of these outstanding leaders, from whom have come new thoughts, experiences and impulses destined to further the advancement and progressive evolution of humanity. During this Cycle of Lectures I shall speak of many such Spiritual Beings who have acted as guides to mankind, and at the same time bring forward and elucidate various matters connected with this subject. The first human individuality to claim our attention from such a point of view is Zarathustra, about whom, although there is much discussion in these days, little is known; for as far as external investigation goes his history is especially problematical, as it is shrouded in mystery and unrecorded in ancient documents. When we consider the characteristics of such a personality as Zarathustra, whose gifts to mankind, as far as they are preserved for us, seem so strange to our present age, we at once realize how great is the dissimilarity in man’s whole being at different periods of earthly progress. Casual reflection might easily lead to the conclusion, that from the very beginning humanity has always had the same ideas concerning morality, the same general thoughts, feelings and conceptions as those which exist in our time. From previous lectures, however, and from others which will follow, you will know through the teachings of Spiritual Science that during man’s development great and important changes take place, especially as regards the life of the human soul, the nature of human apprehension, emotions and desires. Further, you will realize that man’s consciousness was very differently constituted in olden days; and that there is reason to believe that in the future yet other stages will be reached in which the conscious condition of mankind will vary considerably from its normal state to-day. When we turn our attention to Zarathustra we find that we must look back over an extremely long period. According to certain modern researches, he is considered to be a contemporary of Buddha; the approximate date of his life being fixed at some six to six and a half centuries before the birth of Christianity. It is, however, a remarkable and interesting fact that other investigators of late years, after carefully studying all existing traditions concerning Zarathustra, have been driven to the conclusion that the personality concealed beneath the name of the ancient founder of Persian religion must have lived a great many centuries before the time of Buddha. Greek historians have stated over and over again that the period ascribed to Zarathustra should be put back very many, possibly five to six thousand years before the Trojan War 1 the date of which has been placed at about 1200 B.C. From the above, and from what has been learned through research in many directions, we can now feel certain that historical investigators will in the end be unwillingly forced to acknowledge that the claims of Grecian scholarship regarding the great antiquity of the Zarathustran era, as indicated by ancient tradition, are justly founded and must be accepted as authentic. Spiritual Science, in its statements and theories, fully concurs with the old Greek writers who already in olden days had fixed the period of the founder of Persian religion so far back in time. We have, therefore, good reason for maintaining that Zarathustra, living as he did thousands of years before the birth of Christianity, was doubtless confronted with a very different class of human consciousness from that which exists in our present age. It has often been pointed out, and we will again refer to this matter, that in ancient times the development of human consciousness was such that the old ‘dream state’, or ‘clairvoyant condition’ (we will avoid misusing this term, as is so often done in these days), was in every way perfectly normal to man, so that his conceptions and ideas were such that he did not contemplate the world from that narrow perceptual point of view that is so prevalent to-day. We can best picture the impressions made by the world upon the consciousness of the ancients, if we turn our thoughts to that last enduring remnant of the old clairvoyant state, namely, dream consciousness. We all know those fluctuating dream pictures that come to us at times, the most of which carry no meaning, and are so often merely suggestive of the outer world, although there may now and then intrude some higher level of conscious thought; dream visions, which in these days we find so difficult to interpret and to understand. We might say that our sleep consciousness runs its course pictorially in ever-changing scenes, and which are at the same time symbolical. For instance, many of us have had the experience that events connected with some impressive happening — say, a conflagration — have been after a time once more figuratively manifested to us in a dream. Let us now consider for a moment this other horizon of our sleeping state, where clings in truth that last remnant of a conscious condition belonging to a by-gone age in the grey and distant past. The consciousness of the ancients was such that in reality they lived in a life of imagery. The visions which came to them were not merely indefinite unrelated creations, for they had reference to an actual outer world. In olden days primitive man was capable of intermediate conscious states, between those which prevail when we sleep and when we are awake; then it was that he lived in the presence of the Spirit-World, and the Spirit-World entered into his being. To-day this door is closed, but in those ancient times such was not the case. It was while in this intermediate condition that man became aware of visions which resembled to some extent dream pictures, but were definite in their manifestation of a spirit life and of spiritual achievement existing beyond the perceptual world. Although in the Zarathustran era, such visions had already become somewhat confused and vague, there was nevertheless still close contact with the world of spirit, therefore these ancients could say from direct observation and experience: ‘In the same way as I realize this outer physical world and this perceptual life, even so do I know that there exists another conscious condition belonging to a different region — a spiritual realm — related to that which is material, and where I do of a verity experience and observe the workings of the Divine Spirit.’ It is a fundamental principle underlying the evolution of the human race, that in no case can any one quality be developed except at the expense of some other attribute; hence it came about that from epoch to epoch, the faculty through which in olden times mankind obtained a clear inner vision of the spiritual realms became ever less and less pronounced. Our present day exact methods of thought, our power of expression, our logic, all that we regard as the most important driving forces of modern culture did not exist in the remote past. Such faculties have been acquired during later periods at the expense of the old clairvoyant consciousness, and it is now for mankind to regain and cultivate this long-lost power. Then in the future of human evolution a time will come when in addition to man’s purely physical consciousness, his intellectuality and his logic, he will again approach the condition of the ancient seer. We must differentiate between the upward and downward tendency of human consciousness. Evolution has a deeper meaning when we realize that in the beginning man was entirely of a spiritual realm, where he lived in the soul, and that when he descended into the physical world it was ordained that he should gradually relinquish his clairvoyant power in order that he might acquire qualities born of the existing purely physical conditions; such as intellectuality and logic. When this stage in his development has run its course he will again return to the world of spirit. Regarding the circumstances connected with these curious clairvoyant states and experiences of the ancients we have no historical record. Zarathustra lived in that same remote age, and was one of those great leading personalities who gave immense stimulus to the advancement of culture and civilization. Such guiding personalities must ever draw from the creative source that which we may term Illumination, whereby they are initiated into the higher mysteries of the world, irrespective of the standard of normal human consciousness existing in their time. Other such outstanding personalities of whom mention will be made during these lectures are: Hermes, Buddha and Moses. Zarathustra lived at least 8000 years before the present era, and those glorious gifts to civilization which emanated from his illumined spirit have been reflected in the great cultural progress of humanity. His influence has long ago been clearly recognized, and can be detected even to this day, by all who take note of the mysterious currents underlying the whole of human evolution. We now realize that Zarathustra belonged essentially to those Great Ones in whose souls lived a measure of the spiritual elements of truth, wisdom and perception, far surpassing the customary standard of human consciousness of their period. His mission was to proclaim to his fellow men, in that part of the world later known as the Persian Empire, those grand truths which emanated from the superperceptual regions — a world utterly beyond the apprehension of man’s normal consciousness in that dim and distant age. If we would understand the true significance of Zarathustra’s teachings, we must remember that it was his task to present to a certain section of humanity, in an intelligible manner, a particular world aspect; while on the other hand, various movements which had been in progress among the peoples of other regions, had given a different trend to the whole sphere of man’s culture. The personality of Zarathustra is of special interest because he lived in a territory, contiguous upon its South side to a country which was inhabited by Indian tribes, upon whom spiritual blessings flowed in quite a different manner. When we look forward from those by-gone times we find upon the selfsame soil where dwelt these ancient Indian tribes, the peoples among whom at a later period arose the poets of the Vedas. To the North, where spread the great Brahman Doctrine, is situated that region which was permeated throughout by the powerful and compelling teachings of Zarathustra. But that which he gave to the world was in many respects fundamentally different from the teachings of the great Ieaders among the Indians, whose words have lived on in the moving poetry of the Vedas, in their profound philosophy, and has reached yet an echo in that final glorious blaze of light — The Revelation of the Buddha. We can understand the difference between that which was born of the flow of thought from Zarathustra and the teachings of the ancient Indians, when we bear in mind that we may approach the region of the superperceptual world from two sides. Already in other lectures we have spoken of the path which man must traverse in order that he may enter into the spirit realms. There are two possible methods by which he may raise the energy of his soul, and the capacities latent in his inner being, so much above their normal level that he can pass out of this perceptual into the superperceptual world. The one method is that by which man enters or retires, more and more deeply into his soul, and thus merges himself in his very essence. The other leads behind the veil which is spread around us by our material state. Man can enter the superperceptual region by both these methods. When we experience within our very being a deepening of all values of our spiritual feelings, conceptions and ideas — in short, of our soul impulses; when in fact we creep more and more into ourselves, so that our spiritual powers become ever stronger and stronger; then can we, as it were, in some mystic way merge ourselves within and pass through all that we hold of the physical world to our actual spirit essence — the soul Ego — which Ego continues from incarnation to incarnation, and is not perishable but everlasting. When we have overcome our lusts and passions and all those experiences of the soul which are ours because we are of the body in a physical world, then can our true being pierce the surrounding veil and for ever enter the world of spirit. On the other hand, if we develop those powers which will enable us not merely to be sensible of the outer world with its colours, tone sensations, heat and cold; and if we so strengthen our spiritual forces that we shall be aware of that which lies beyond the colours, the sound, the heat and the cold, and all those other earthly sense-perceptions which hang as a mist about us — then will the enhanced powers of our soul take us behind the enshrouding cloud and into that boundless superperceptual region which is without confine and stretches ever into the infinite. There is one way leading to the Spirit-World which we may term the ‘Mystical Method’, and another which is properly called ‘The Method of "Spiritual Science"‘. All great spiritual personalities have followed these paths, in order to attain to those truths and revelations which it was their mission to impress upon humanity in the form of cultural progress. In primeval times man’s development was of such nature, that great revelations could only come to the people of any particular race, through one of these methods alone. But from that period on, in which the Greeks lived, that is, at the dawn of the Christian era, these two separate thought currents commingled, and became more and more one single cultural stream. When we now speak of entering the higher spheres, we understand, that he who would penetrate into the superperceptual region, develops both qualities of power in his soul. The forces necessary to the ‘Mystical Method’ are evolved within the inner being, and those essential to the course of ‘Spiritual Science’, are strengthened while man is yet conscious of the outer world. There is to-day no longer any definite separation of these two paths, as since about the time of that epoch marked by the life of the Grecian race, these two currents have run their course together — in the one, revelation comes about through a mystic merging of man’s consciousness within his very being — in the other, the veil is torn asunder by the enhanced power of his spiritual forces, and man’s awareness stretches outward into the great cosmos. In olden times before the Grecian or Christian era, these two possible methods were in operation separately among different peoples, and we find them working in close proximity, but in divers ways, in the Indian culture which found expression among the Vedas, on the one hand, and that of Zarathustra, further North, on the other. All that we look upon with such wonder in the ancient Indian culture, and which later found expression through Buddha, was achieved by inner contemplation, and turning away from the outer world — through causing the eyes to become less sensitive to physical colours, the ears to physical sounds, and bringing about a deadening of the sense organs in general to the perceptual veil — so that the inner soul forces might be strengthened: — Thus did man press on to Brahma, there to feel himself unified with that which ever works and weaves as the Inner Spirit of the Universe, — In this way originated the teachings of the Holy Rishis, which live on in the poetry of the Vedas, in the Vedantic philosophy, and in Buddhism. The Doctrine of Zarathustra was, however, entirely based upon the other method above-mentioned. He taught his disciples the secret of strengthening their powers of apprehension and cognition, in order that they might pass beyond the mists surrounding the outer perceptual world. He did not say to his followers, as did the Indian teachers: ‘Turn away from the colours, and from the sounds, and from all outer sense-impressions, and seek the path to the spiritual realms only through the merging of yourselves within your very souls’, — but he spoke thus: — ‘Strengthen your powers of perception, in order that you may look around upon all things, the plants, the animals, that which lives in the air and in the water, upon the mountains, and in the depths of the valleys, and cast your eyes upon the world.’ We know that the disciples of the Indian mystics regarded this earth upon which we live as merely maya (illusion), and turned from it in order to attain to Brahma. On the other hand, Zarathustra counselled his followers not to draw away from the material world, but to pass outward and beyond it, so that they might say: — ‘Whenever we experience perceptual manifestations in the outer physical world, we realize that therein lie concealed and beyond our sense perceptions the workings and achievements of the spirit.’ It is remarkable that the two paths should have been thus united in early Grecian times, and just because in that period true spiritual knowledge was more profound than in our day (which we are inclined to regard as so amazingly enlightened!) all things found expression in imagery, and the images gave rise to Mythology. Thus do we find these two thought currents commingled and fostered in the Grecian culture — The Mystical tending inward, and the Zarathustran outward into the great cosmos. That such was the case becomes evident from the fact, that one of these paths was named after Dionysos, that mysterious god who was reached when man merged himself ever deeper and deeper within his inner being, there to find a questionable sub-human element, as yet unknown, and from which he first developed into man. It was this unclean and half-animal residue to which was given the name of Dionysos. On the other hand, all that comes to us when we regard our physical sense perceptions from a purely spiritual standpoint, was termed Apollo. Thus we find in ancient Greece, in the Apollo current of thought, the teaching of Zarathustra; and in the Dionysos current, the doctrine of mystical contemplation, side by side in contrast. In Greece they united and operated conjointly — the Zarathustran and the Mystical Methods, those methods which had been at their highest level, working separately, in the days of the ancient Indians. Here we might say, that already in olden times these two thought currents were destined to commingle in the coming Grecian cults of Apollo and Dionysos, and thenceforward they would continue as one; so that in our present cultural period, when we raise ourselves to a certain spiritual understanding, we find them still unified and enduring. It is very remarkable, and one of the many riddles which present themselves to the thinking mind, that Nietzsche in his first work, The Birth of Tragedy from the Spirit of Music , gave evidence of a vague suspicion that in the Grecian creeds of Dionysos and Apollo, the Mystical current meets the stream of scientific spiritual thought. A further matter of interest lies in the fact, that Zarathustra actually taught his disciples to recognize in detail, the hidden workings of the Spirit in all material things, and from this starting-point the whole of his gifts to culture emanated. He emphasized that it was not sufficient for man merely to say: — ‘There before us spreads a material world, behind which ever works and weaves the Divine Spirit.’ Such a statement might appear at first sight full of significance, it leads, however, only to a general pantheistic outlook, and means nothing more, than that some vague nebulous spirit underlies all material phenomena. Zarathustra, like all other great personalities of the past who were exalted and had direct contact with the Spirit-World, did not present these matters to his followers and the people in any such indefinite and abstract manner; he pointed out, that in the same way as individual physical happenings vary in import, so is it with the latent spiritual factor, it being sometimes of greater and sometimes of less moment. He further stated that the sun, regarded purely from the physical point of view as a member of the stellar system, is the source of all earthly phenomena, life, and activity, while concealed within is the centre of spiritual existence in so far as we are immediately concerned. These things Zarathustra impressed earnestly and clearly upon his disciples, and, using simple words, we can picture him as addressing them somewhat as follows: — ‘When you regard man, you must realize that he does not only consist of a material body — such is but an outer expression of the spirit which is within. Even as the physical covering is a manifestation in condensed and crystallized form of the true spiritual man, so is the sun which appears to us as a light-giving mass when considered as such, merely the external manifestation of an inner spiritual sun.’ In the same way as we term the human spirit element as distinguished from the physical, The Aura, to use an ancient expression, so do we call the all-embracing hidden spiritual part of the sun, The Great Aura (Aura Mazda); in contradistinction to man’s spiritual component, which is sometimes called the Little Aura. Now, Zarathustra named all that lies hidden within and beyond man’s mere apprehension of the physical sun — ‘Aura Mazda’ or ‘Ahura Mazdao’ — and considered this element as important to our spiritual experiences and conditions, as is the physical sun to the wellbeing of plants and animals, and all that lives upon the face of the earth. There behind the physical sun lies the Spiritual Master — The Creator — ‘Ahura Mazdao’ or ‘Aura Mazda’, and from ‘Ahura Mazdao’ came the name, ‘Ormuzd’, or, ‘The Spirit of Light’. While the Indians mystically searched their inner being, in order to attain to Brahma — The Eternal — who shines outward as a point of light from within man’s essence, Zarathustra urged his disciples to turn their eyes upon the great periphery of existence, and pointed out that there within the body of the sun, dwells the great Solar Spirit — Ahura Mazdao — ‘The Spirit of Light’. He taught them that, just in the same way as when man strives to raise his spirit to perfection, so must he ever battle against his lower passions and desires, against the delusive images suggested by possible deception and falsehood, and all those antagonistic influences within, which continually oppose his spiritual impulses. Thus must ‘Ahura Mazdao’ face the opposition of ‘The Spirit of Darkness’ — ‘Angra Mainyus’ or ‘Ahriman’. We can now realize how the great Zarathustran conception could be evolved from experiences born of sensations and sense contents. Through these, Zarathustra could advance his disciples to a point where he could make clear to them that: — Within man there is a ‘Perfecting Principle’, which tells him that whatever may be his present condition this principle will work persistently within, and through it he may raise himself ever higher and higher; but at the same time there also operate impulses and inclinations, deceit and falsehood, all tending towards imperfection. This Perfecting Principle must therefore be developed and expanded, in order that the world may be destined to attain to wiser and more advanced states of perfection; it is the ‘Principle of Ahura Mazdao’, and is assailed throughout the whole world by Ahriman — ‘The Spirit of Darkness’ — who through imperfection and evil brings shadows into the light. By following the method above outlined, Zarathustra’s disciples were enabled to realize and to feel, that in truth each individual man is an image of the outer universe. We must not seek the true significance of such teaching in theories, concepts and ideas; but in active vivid consciousness and in the sensations impressed when through it man realizes that he is so related to the universe that he can say: — ‘As I stand here, I am a small world, and as such I am a replica of the Great Cosmos.’ Just as we have within us a principle of perfection, and another which is antagonistic, so throughout the universe is Ormuzd opposed by Ahriman. In these teachings the whole cosmos is represented as typical of a widespread human being; the forces of greatest virtue are termed Ahura Mazdao, while against these operate the powers of Angra Mainyus. When a man realizes that he is in direct contact with the workings of the universe and the attendant physical phenomena, but can only apprehend the perceptual, then as he begins to gain spiritual experience, a feeling of awe may come over him (especially if he is materialistic in thought) when he learns through Spectrum Analysis, that the same matter which exists upon the earth is found in the most distant stars. It is the same with Zarathustranism, when man feels that his spiritual part is merged in that of the whole cosmos, and that he has indeed emanated from its great spirit. Herein lies the true significance of such a doctrine, which was not merely abstract in character, but on the contrary wholly concrete. In this present age it is most difficult to make people understand (even when they have a certain sense for the spiritual that lies behind the perceptual) that it is necessary to a true and spiritually scientific view of the cosmos, that there be more than one central unity of spirit-power. But even as we distinguish between the separate forces in Nature, such as Heat, Light, and Chemical forces, so in the world of spirit must we recognize not merely one centralized power (whose existence is not denied) but we must differentiate between it and certain subservient uplifting forces, whose spheres of action are more circumscribed than are those of the all-embracing spirit. Thus it was that Zarathustra made a distinction between the omnipotent Ormuzd, and those spirit beings by whom he was served. Before we turn to a consideration of these subservient spirit entities, we must draw attention to the fact that the Zarathustran theory was not a mere Dualism — a simple doctrine of two worlds — the worlds of Ormuzd and of Ahriman; but that it maintained that underlying this double flux of cosmic influence, is a definite unity — a single power — which gave birth to both The Realm of Light (Ormuzd) and to The Realm of Darkness (Ahriman). It is not easy to gain a right understanding of Zarathustra’s conception concerning this ‘Unity’ underlying Ormuzd and Ahriman. With reference to this point the Greek authors state that the ancient Persians worshipped, and regarded as a ‘Living Unity’, that which lay beyond the light, and which Zarathustra termed ‘Zervane Akarene’. How can we gain a comprehension of what Zarathustra in his teachings meant by ‘Zervane Akarene’ or ‘Zaruana Akarana’? Let us consider for a moment the course of evolution; this we must regard as of such nature, that all beings tend towards greater and greater perfection. So that if we look into the future, we see more and more of the radiance from the Light-Realms of Ormuzd; but if we turn our eyes upon the past, we realize how the powers of Ahriman, which oppose Ormuzd, are circumstanced; and we then know that with the passing of time, these must be conquered and for ever ended. We will now picture to ourselves that the path into the future and that into the past each lead to the same point; a conception which present-day man finds most difficult to grasp. Let us take as an example a circle; if we pass along the circumference from the lowest point in one direction, we come to the opposite point above, if, however, we go along the other side, we come to the same point. When we consider a larger circle, then the circumference is flatter, and we must traverse a greater distance in each case. We will now suppose a circle to expand ever more and more, then ultimately the path on either side becomes a straight line, and is infinite. But just before the circle becomes infinite we would reach the same point whether we went by the one path or the other. Why, then, should not the same happen when the circumference is so flattened that the periphery becomes a straight line? In this case the point at infinity on the one must be identical with that on the other, and therefore we must be able to travel to it, from the lowest point in one sense (say, positive), and return as if coming from the opposite (negative) direction. This means that when our conception is infinite, we have a straight line extending without limit on either side, but which is in reality the circumference of an infinite circle. The abstraction given above lies at the basis of Zarathustra’s conception of what he termed Zaruana Akarana. Here, with regard to time, we look in one direction into the future, in the other into the past, and when we consider an infinite period time closes in upon itself as in a circle. This self-contained and infinite time circle is symbolically represented as a serpent eternally biting its own tail, and into it is woven upon the one side, The Power of Light, shedding upon us continually a greater and greater radiance; and upon the other, The Power of Darkness, becoming ever more and more profound. When we are midway, then is the light (Ormuzd) intermingled with the shadows (Ahriman); all is interwoven in the self-embracing infinite Flux of Time, ‘Zaruana Akarana’. There is something more about this ancient cosmic conception; its basic ideas were treated seriously, there were no mere vague statements such as: — ‘Without and remote from all that is material in this perceptual world, beyond those things which affect our eyes, our ears, and sense organs in general — abides The Spirit’. But it was definitely asserted, that in everything which could be seen and apprehended, therein could be discerned something of the nature of spirit signs, or a manifestation of the Spirit-World. If we take a sheet of paper upon which are inscribed alphabetical characters, these may be combined into words; but we must first have learnt how to read. Without this ability no one could read about Zarathustra; for they would merely perceive certain characters which could only be followed with the eyes. Actual reading can only take place after it is clearly understood how to connect such characters with that which is within the soul. Now, Zarathustra discerned a written sign underlying all that was in the perceptual world, particularly in the manner in which the stars are grouped in the universe. Just as we recognize written characters upon paper, so did Zarathustra descry in the starry firmament something similar to letters, conveying a message from the Spirit-World. Hence, arose an art of penetrating into the World of Spirit, and of deciphering the signs indicated by the arrangement of the stars, and of finding a method of reading and construing from their movements and order, in what manner and way those spiritual beings that are without, inscribe the facts concerning their activities in space. Zarathustra and his disciples had a paramount interest in these matters. To them it was a most important sign that Ahura Mazdao, in order to accomplish his creations and to reveal his message to the world, should (in the language of Modern Astronomy) ‘describe a circular path’. This fact was regarded as a sign traced in the heavens indicating in what manner Ahura Mazdao worked, and the relation which his activities bore to the universe as a whole. It is important that Zarathustra was able to point out that the constellations of the Zodiac, taken together as forming a closed curve in space, should symbolize a continuous and also retroactive time flux; and we can realize that there is indeed a most profound significance underlying the statement, that one branch of this time-curve stretches outward into the future, while the other leads backward into the remote past. Zaruana Akarana is that bright band of stars, later known as the Zodiac, that self-contained time-line ever traversed by Ormuzd, The Spirit of Light. In other words, the passage of the sun across the constellations of the Zodiac is an expression of the activity of Ormuzd; while the Zodiac itself is the symbol of Zaruana Akarana. In reality, Zaruana Akarana and The Zodiac are identical terms, just in the same way as are Ormuzd and Ahura Mazdao. There are two special circumstances to be considered in this connection. First, when the passage of the sun through the Zodiac takes place while it is light, as in the summer. At such time the solar radiance falls full upon the earth, bringing with it the power emanating from those spiritual forces ever flowing outward from the Light-Realms of Ormuzd. That part of the Zodiac traversed by Ahura Mazdao in the daytime, or during the summer, denotes the manner in which He works and weaves unhindered by Ahriman. On the other hand, those Zodiacal constellations which lie far beneath the horizon — dark regions through which we might picture the passage of Angra Mainyus — are symbolical of the Kingdom of The Shadows. We have stated that Zarathustra regarded Ormuzd as associated with the bright sections of the Zodiac (Zaruana Akarana), while he looked upon Ahriman as connected with the gloom. In what way do the activities of Ormuzd and Ahriman find expression in our material world? In order to understand this point we must realize that the effect of the solar rays is different in the morning from that at noon; varying as the sun ascends from Aries to Taurus, and again during its descent toward the horizon. The influence exerted is not the same in winter as in summer, and differs with every passing sign of the Zodiac. Zarathustra regarded the changing aspects of the sun in connection with the Zodiacal constellations as symbolical of the activities of Ormuzd proceeding from different directions, and from which came those spiritual beings that are both His servants and His sons, and who are ready at all times to execute His commands. These are the ‘Amschaspands’ or ‘Ameschas Pentas’, subservient entities, to each of whom is allotted some special duty. While Ormuzd controls all active functions in the Light-Realms, the Amschaspands undertake that specific work which finds expression in the transmission of the sun’s light when in Aries, Taurus, Cancer, etc. But the true vital activity of Ormuzd is manifested in the full radiance of the sun, shining throughout all bright signs of the Zodiac, from Aries to Libra or Scorpio. Following the Zarathustran line of thought, we might say: — ‘It is as though the evil powers of Ahriman came through the earth from those dark regions where abide his servants — his own Amschaspands — who are opposed to the good genii standing by the side of Ormuzd.’ Zarathustra actually distinguished between twelve different subservient spirit entities; six or seven on the side of Ormuzd, and five or six on that of Ahriman. These are regarded as typical of good or evil genii (Amaschas Pentas — lower spirits), according as to whether their influence comes with the sun’s rays from the bright Signs of the Zodiac, or emanates from those which are in gloom. Goethe had the subservient spirits of Ormuzd in mind when he wrote the following words at the beginning of Faust in the ‘Prologue of Heaven’ : ‘But ye, God’s sons in love and duty, Enjoy the rich, the ever-living Beauty! Creative Power, that works eternal schemes, Clasp you in bonds of love, relaxing never, And what in wavering apparition gleams Fix in its place with thoughts that stand for ever!’ 2 Doch ihr, die echten Göttersöhne, Erfreut euch der lebendig reichen Schöne! Das Werdende, das ewig wirkt und lebt, Umfass euch mit der Liebe holden Schranken, Und was in schwankender Erscheinung schwebt, Befestiget mit dauernden Gedanken. (Trans: BAYARD TAYLOR) From the above, and from what has been learned through research in many directions, we can now feel certain that historical investigators will in the end be unwillingly forced to acknowledge that the claims of Grecian scholarship regarding the great antiquity of the Zarathustran era, as indicated by ancient tradition, are justly founded and must be accepted as authentic. Spiritual Science, in its statements and theories, fully concurs with the old Greek writers who already in olden days had fixed the period of the founder of Persian religion so far back in time. We have, therefore, good reason for maintaining that Zarathustra, living as he did thousands of years before the birth of Christianity, was doubtless confronted with a very different class of human consciousness from that which exists in our present age. It has often been pointed out, and we will again refer to this matter, that in ancient times the development of human consciousness was such that the old ‘dream state’, or ‘clairvoyant condition’ (we will avoid misusing this term, as is so often done in these days), was in every way perfectly normal to man, so that his conceptions and ideas were such that he did not contemplate the world from that narrow perceptual point of view that is so prevalent to-day. We can best picture the impressions made by the world upon the consciousness of the ancients, if we turn our thoughts to that last enduring remnant of the old clairvoyant state, namely, dream consciousness. We all know those fluctuating dream pictures that come to us at times, the most of which carry no meaning, and are so often merely suggestive of the outer world, although there may now and then intrude some higher level of conscious thought; dream visions, which in these days we find so difficult to interpret and to understand. We might say that our sleep consciousness runs its course pictorially in ever-changing scenes, and which are at the same time symbolical. For instance, many of us have had the experience that events connected with some impressive happening — say, a conflagration — have been after a time once more figuratively manifested to us in a dream. Let us now consider for a moment this other horizon of our sleeping state, where clings in truth that last remnant of a conscious condition belonging to a by-gone age in the grey and distant past. The consciousness of the ancients was such that in reality they lived in a life of imagery. The visions which came to them were not merely indefinite unrelated creations, for they had reference to an actual outer world. In olden days primitive man was capable of intermediate conscious states, between those which prevail when we sleep and when we are awake; then it was that he lived in the presence of the Spirit-World, and the Spirit-World entered into his being. To-day this door is closed, but in those ancient times such was not the case. It was while in this intermediate condition that man became aware of visions which resembled to some extent dream pictures, but were definite in their manifestation of a spirit life and of spiritual achievement existing beyond the perceptual world. Although in the Zarathustran era, such visions had already become somewhat confused and vague, there was nevertheless still close contact with the world of spirit, therefore these ancients could say from direct observation and experience: ‘In the same way as I realize this outer physical world and this perceptual life, even so do I know that there exists another conscious condition belonging to a different region — a spiritual realm — related to that which is material, and where I do of a verity experience and observe the workings of the Divine Spirit.’ It is a fundamental principle underlying the evolution of the human race, that in no case can any one quality be developed except at the expense of some other attribute; hence it came about that from epoch to epoch, the faculty through which in olden times mankind obtained a clear inner vision of the spiritual realms became ever less and less pronounced. Our present day exact methods of thought, our power of expression, our logic, all that we regard as the most important driving forces of modern culture did not exist in the remote past. Such faculties have been acquired during later periods at the expense of the old clairvoyant consciousness, and it is now for mankind to regain and cultivate this long-lost power. Then in the future of human evolution a time will come when in addition to man’s purely physical consciousness, his intellectuality and his logic, he will again approach the condition of the ancient seer. We must differentiate between the upward and downward tendency of human consciousness. Evolution has a deeper meaning when we realize that in the beginning man was entirely of a spiritual realm, where he lived in the soul, and that when he descended into the physical world it was ordained that he should gradually relinquish his clairvoyant power in order that he might acquire qualities born of the existing purely physical conditions; such as intellectuality and logic. When this stage in his development has run its course he will again return to the world of spirit. Regarding the circumstances connected with these curious clairvoyant states and experiences of the ancients we have no historical record. Zarathustra lived in that same remote age, and was one of those great leading personalities who gave immense stimulus to the advancement of culture and civilization. Such guiding personalities must ever draw from the creative source that which we may term Illumination, whereby they are initiated into the higher mysteries of the world, irrespective of the standard of normal human consciousness existing in their time. Other such outstanding personalities of whom mention will be made during these lectures are: Hermes, Buddha and Moses. Zarathustra lived at least 8000 years before the present era, and those glorious gifts to civilization which emanated from his illumined spirit have been reflected in the great cultural progress of humanity. His influence has long ago been clearly recognized, and can be detected even to this day, by all who take note of the mysterious currents underlying the whole of human evolution. We now realize that Zarathustra belonged essentially to those Great Ones in whose souls lived a measure of the spiritual elements of truth, wisdom and perception, far surpassing the customary standard of human consciousness of their period. His mission was to proclaim to his fellow men, in that part of the world later known as the Persian Empire, those grand truths which emanated from the superperceptual regions — a world utterly beyond the apprehension of man’s normal consciousness in that dim and distant age. If we would understand the true significance of Zarathustra’s teachings, we must remember that it was his task to present to a certain section of humanity, in an intelligible manner, a particular world aspect; while on the other hand, various movements which had been in progress among the peoples of other regions, had given a different trend to the whole sphere of man’s culture. The personality of Zarathustra is of special interest because he lived in a territory, contiguous upon its South side to a country which was inhabited by Indian tribes, upon whom spiritual blessings flowed in quite a different manner. When we look forward from those by-gone times we find upon the selfsame soil where dwelt these ancient Indian tribes, the peoples among whom at a later period arose the poets of the Vedas. To the North, where spread the great Brahman Doctrine, is situated that region which was permeated throughout by the powerful and compelling teachings of Zarathustra. But that which he gave to the world was in many respects fundamentally different from the teachings of the great Ieaders among the Indians, whose words have lived on in the moving poetry of the Vedas, in their profound philosophy, and has reached yet an echo in that final glorious blaze of light — The Revelation of the Buddha. We can understand the difference between that which was born of the flow of thought from Zarathustra and the teachings of the ancient Indians, when we bear in mind that we may approach the region of the superperceptual world from two sides. Already in other lectures we have spoken of the path which man must traverse in order that he may enter into the spirit realms. There are two possible methods by which he may raise the energy of his soul, and the capacities latent in his inner being, so much above their normal level that he can pass out of this perceptual into the superperceptual world. The one method is that by which man enters or retires, more and more deeply into his soul, and thus merges himself in his very essence. The other leads behind the veil which is spread around us by our material state. Man can enter the superperceptual region by both these methods. When we experience within our very being a deepening of all values of our spiritual feelings, conceptions and ideas — in short, of our soul impulses; when in fact we creep more and more into ourselves, so that our spiritual powers become ever stronger and stronger; then can we, as it were, in some mystic way merge ourselves within and pass through all that we hold of the physical world to our actual spirit essence — the soul Ego — which Ego continues from incarnation to incarnation, and is not perishable but everlasting. When we have overcome our lusts and passions and all those experiences of the soul which are ours because we are of the body in a physical world, then can our true being pierce the surrounding veil and for ever enter the world of spirit. On the other hand, if we develop those powers which will enable us not merely to be sensible of the outer world with its colours, tone sensations, heat and cold; and if we so strengthen our spiritual forces that we shall be aware of that which lies beyond the colours, the sound, the heat and the cold, and all those other earthly sense-perceptions which hang as a mist about us — then will the enhanced powers of our soul take us behind the enshrouding cloud and into that boundless superperceptual region which is without confine and stretches ever into the infinite. There is one way leading to the Spirit-World which we may term the ‘Mystical Method’, and another which is properly called ‘The Method of "Spiritual Science"‘. All great spiritual personalities have followed these paths, in order to attain to those truths and revelations which it was their mission to impress upon humanity in the form of cultural progress. In primeval times man’s development was of such nature, that great revelations could only come to the people of any particular race, through one of these methods alone. But from that period on, in which the Greeks lived, that is, at the dawn of the Christian era, these two separate thought currents commingled, and became more and more one single cultural stream. When we now speak of entering the higher spheres, we understand, that he who would penetrate into the superperceptual region, develops both qualities of power in his soul. The forces necessary to the ‘Mystical Method’ are evolved within the inner being, and those essential to the course of ‘Spiritual Science’, are strengthened while man is yet conscious of the outer world. There is to-day no longer any definite separation of these two paths, as since about the time of that epoch marked by the life of the Grecian race, these two currents have run their course together — in the one, revelation comes about through a mystic merging of man’s consciousness within his very being — in the other, the veil is torn asunder by the enhanced power of his spiritual forces, and man’s awareness stretches outward into the great cosmos. In olden times before the Grecian or Christian era, these two possible methods were in operation separately among different peoples, and we find them working in close proximity, but in divers ways, in the Indian culture which found expression among the Vedas, on the one hand, and that of Zarathustra, further North, on the other. All that we look upon with such wonder in the ancient Indian culture, and which later found expression through Buddha, was achieved by inner contemplation, and turning away from the outer world — through causing the eyes to become less sensitive to physical colours, the ears to physical sounds, and bringing about a deadening of the sense organs in general to the perceptual veil — so that the inner soul forces might be strengthened: — Thus did man press on to Brahma, there to feel himself unified with that which ever works and weaves as the Inner Spirit of the Universe, — In this way originated the teachings of the Holy Rishis, which live on in the poetry of the Vedas, in the Vedantic philosophy, and in Buddhism. The Doctrine of Zarathustra was, however, entirely based upon the other method above-mentioned. He taught his disciples the secret of strengthening their powers of apprehension and cognition, in order that they might pass beyond the mists surrounding the outer perceptual world. He did not say to his followers, as did the Indian teachers: ‘Turn away from the colours, and from the sounds, and from all outer sense-impressions, and seek the path to the spiritual realms only through the merging of yourselves within your very souls’, — but he spoke thus: — ‘Strengthen your powers of perception, in order that you may look around upon all things, the plants, the animals, that which lives in the air and in the water, upon the mountains, and in the depths of the valleys, and cast your eyes upon the world.’ We know that the disciples of the Indian mystics regarded this earth upon which we live as merely maya (illusion), and turned from it in order to attain to Brahma. On the other hand, Zarathustra counselled his followers not to draw away from the material world, but to pass outward and beyond it, so that they might say: — ‘Whenever we experience perceptual manifestations in the outer physical world, we realize that therein lie concealed and beyond our sense perceptions the workings and achievements of the spirit.’ It is remarkable that the two paths should have been thus united in early Grecian times, and just because in that period true spiritual knowledge was more profound than in our day (which we are inclined to regard as so amazingly enlightened!) all things found expression in imagery, and the images gave rise to Mythology. Thus do we find these two thought currents commingled and fostered in the Grecian culture — The Mystical tending inward, and the Zarathustran outward into the great cosmos. That such was the case becomes evident from the fact, that one of these paths was named after Dionysos, that mysterious god who was reached when man merged himself ever deeper and deeper within his inner being, there to find a questionable sub-human element, as yet unknown, and from which he first developed into man. It was this unclean and half-animal residue to which was given the name of Dionysos. On the other hand, all that comes to us when we regard our physical sense perceptions from a purely spiritual standpoint, was termed Apollo. Thus we find in ancient Greece, in the Apollo current of thought, the teaching of Zarathustra; and in the Dionysos current, the doctrine of mystical contemplation, side by side in contrast. In Greece they united and operated conjointly — the Zarathustran and the Mystical Methods, those methods which had been at their highest level, working separately, in the days of the ancient Indians. Here we might say, that already in olden times these two thought currents were destined to commingle in the coming Grecian cults of Apollo and Dionysos, and thenceforward they would continue as one; so that in our present cultural period, when we raise ourselves to a certain spiritual understanding, we find them still unified and enduring. It is very remarkable, and one of the many riddles which present themselves to the thinking mind, that Nietzsche in his first work, The Birth of Tragedy from the Spirit of Music , gave evidence of a vague suspicion that in the Grecian creeds of Dionysos and Apollo, the Mystical current meets the stream of scientific spiritual thought. A further matter of interest lies in the fact, that Zarathustra actually taught his disciples to recognize in detail, the hidden workings of the Spirit in all material things, and from this starting-point the whole of his gifts to culture emanated. He emphasized that it was not sufficient for man merely to say: — ‘There before us spreads a material world, behind which ever works and weaves the Divine Spirit.’ Such a statement might appear at first sight full of significance, it leads, however, only to a general pantheistic outlook, and means nothing more, than that some vague nebulous spirit underlies all material phenomena. Zarathustra, like all other great personalities of the past who were exalted and had direct contact with the Spirit-World, did not present these matters to his followers and the people in any such indefinite and abstract manner; he pointed out, that in the same way as individual physical happenings vary in import, so is it with the latent spiritual factor, it being sometimes of greater and sometimes of less moment. He further stated that the sun, regarded purely from the physical point of view as a member of the stellar system, is the source of all earthly phenomena, life, and activity, while concealed within is the centre of spiritual existence in so far as we are immediately concerned. These things Zarathustra impressed earnestly and clearly upon his disciples, and, using simple words, we can picture him as addressing them somewhat as follows: — ‘When you regard man, you must realize that he does not only consist of a material body — such is but an outer expression of the spirit which is within. Even as the physical covering is a manifestation in condensed and crystallized form of the true spiritual man, so is the sun which appears to us as a light-giving mass when considered as such, merely the external manifestation of an inner spiritual sun.’ In the same way as we term the human spirit element as distinguished from the physical, The Aura, to use an ancient expression, so do we call the all-embracing hidden spiritual part of the sun, The Great Aura (Aura Mazda); in contradistinction to man’s spiritual component, which is sometimes called the Little Aura. Now, Zarathustra named all that lies hidden within and beyond man’s mere apprehension of the physical sun — ‘Aura Mazda’ or ‘Ahura Mazdao’ — and considered this element as important to our spiritual experiences and conditions, as is the physical sun to the wellbeing of plants and animals, and all that lives upon the face of the earth. There behind the physical sun lies the Spiritual Master — The Creator — ‘Ahura Mazdao’ or ‘Aura Mazda’, and from ‘Ahura Mazdao’ came the name, ‘Ormuzd’, or, ‘The Spirit of Light’. While the Indians mystically searched their inner being, in order to attain to Brahma — The Eternal — who shines outward as a point of light from within man’s essence, Zarathustra urged his disciples to turn their eyes upon the great periphery of existence, and pointed out that there within the body of the sun, dwells the great Solar Spirit — Ahura Mazdao — ‘The Spirit of Light’. He taught them that, just in the same way as when man strives to raise his spirit to perfection, so must he ever battle against his lower passions and desires, against the delusive images suggested by possible deception and falsehood, and all those antagonistic influences within, which continually oppose his spiritual impulses. Thus must ‘Ahura Mazdao’ face the opposition of ‘The Spirit of Darkness’ — ‘Angra Mainyus’ or ‘Ahriman’. We can now realize how the great Zarathustran conception could be evolved from experiences born of sensations and sense contents. Through these, Zarathustra could advance his disciples to a point where he could make clear to them that: — Within man there is a ‘Perfecting Principle’, which tells him that whatever may be his present condition this principle will work persistently within, and through it he may raise himself ever higher and higher; but at the same time there also operate impulses and inclinations, deceit and falsehood, all tending towards imperfection. This Perfecting Principle must therefore be developed and expanded, in order that the world may be destined to attain to wiser and more advanced states of perfection; it is the ‘Principle of Ahura Mazdao’, and is assailed throughout the whole world by Ahriman — ‘The Spirit of Darkness’ — who through imperfection and evil brings shadows into the light. By following the method above outlined, Zarathustra’s disciples were enabled to realize and to feel, that in truth each individual man is an image of the outer universe. We must not seek the true significance of such teaching in theories, concepts and ideas; but in active vivid consciousness and in the sensations impressed when through it man realizes that he is so related to the universe that he can say: — ‘As I stand here, I am a small world, and as such I am a replica of the Great Cosmos.’ Just as we have within us a principle of perfection, and another which is antagonistic, so throughout the universe is Ormuzd opposed by Ahriman. In these teachings the whole cosmos is represented as typical of a widespread human being; the forces of greatest virtue are termed Ahura Mazdao, while against these operate the powers of Angra Mainyus. When a man realizes that he is in direct contact with the workings of the universe and the attendant physical phenomena, but can only apprehend the perceptual, then as he begins to gain spiritual experience, a feeling of awe may come over him (especially if he is materialistic in thought) when he learns through Spectrum Analysis, that the same matter which exists upon the earth is found in the most distant stars. It is the same with Zarathustranism, when man feels that his spiritual part is merged in that of the whole cosmos, and that he has indeed emanated from its great spirit. Herein lies the true significance of such a doctrine, which was not merely abstract in character, but on the contrary wholly concrete. In this present age it is most difficult to make people understand (even when they have a certain sense for the spiritual that lies behind the perceptual) that it is necessary to a true and spiritually scientific view of the cosmos, that there be more than one central unity of spirit-power. But even as we distinguish between the separate forces in Nature, such as Heat, Light, and Chemical forces, so in the world of spirit must we recognize not merely one centralized power (whose existence is not denied) but we must differentiate between it and certain subservient uplifting forces, whose spheres of action are more circumscribed than are those of the all-embracing spirit. Thus it was that Zarathustra made a distinction between the omnipotent Ormuzd, and those spirit beings by whom he was served. Before we turn to a consideration of these subservient spirit entities, we must draw attention to the fact that the Zarathustran theory was not a mere Dualism — a simple doctrine of two worlds — the worlds of Ormuzd and of Ahriman; but that it maintained that underlying this double flux of cosmic influence, is a definite unity — a single power — which gave birth to both The Realm of Light (Ormuzd) and to The Realm of Darkness (Ahriman). It is not easy to gain a right understanding of Zarathustra’s conception concerning this ‘Unity’ underlying Ormuzd and Ahriman. With reference to this point the Greek authors state that the ancient Persians worshipped, and regarded as a ‘Living Unity’, that which lay beyond the light, and which Zarathustra termed ‘Zervane Akarene’. How can we gain a comprehension of what Zarathustra in his teachings meant by ‘Zervane Akarene’ or ‘Zaruana Akarana’? Let us consider for a moment the course of evolution; this we must regard as of such nature, that all beings tend towards greater and greater perfection. So that if we look into the future, we see more and more of the radiance from the Light-Realms of Ormuzd; but if we turn our eyes upon the past, we realize how the powers of Ahriman, which oppose Ormuzd, are circumstanced; and we then know that with the passing of time, these must be conquered and for ever ended. We will now picture to ourselves that the path into the future and that into the past each lead to the same point; a conception which present-day man finds most difficult to grasp. Let us take as an example a circle; if we pass along the circumference from the lowest point in one direction, we come to the opposite point above, if, however, we go along the other side, we come to the same point. When we consider a larger circle, then the circumference is flatter, and we must traverse a greater distance in each case. We will now suppose a circle to expand ever more and more, then ultimately the path on either side becomes a straight line, and is infinite. But just before the circle becomes infinite we would reach the same point whether we went by the one path or the other. Why, then, should not the same happen when the circumference is so flattened that the periphery becomes a straight line? In this case the point at infinity on the one must be identical with that on the other, and therefore we must be able to travel to it, from the lowest point in one sense (say, positive), and return as if coming from the opposite (negative) direction. This means that when our conception is infinite, we have a straight line extending without limit on either side, but which is in reality the circumference of an infinite circle. The abstraction given above lies at the basis of Zarathustra’s conception of what he termed Zaruana Akarana. Here, with regard to time, we look in one direction into the future, in the other into the past, and when we consider an infinite period time closes in upon itself as in a circle. This self-contained and infinite time circle is symbolically represented as a serpent eternally biting its own tail, and into it is woven upon the one side, The Power of Light, shedding upon us continually a greater and greater radiance; and upon the other, The Power of Darkness, becoming ever more and more profound. When we are midway, then is the light (Ormuzd) intermingled with the shadows (Ahriman); all is interwoven in the self-embracing infinite Flux of Time, ‘Zaruana Akarana’. There is something more about this ancient cosmic conception; its basic ideas were treated seriously, there were no mere vague statements such as: — ‘Without and remote from all that is material in this perceptual world, beyond those things which affect our eyes, our ears, and sense organs in general — abides The Spirit’. But it was definitely asserted, that in everything which could be seen and apprehended, therein could be discerned something of the nature of spirit signs, or a manifestation of the Spirit-World. If we take a sheet of paper upon which are inscribed alphabetical characters, these may be combined into words; but we must first have learnt how to read. Without this ability no one could read about Zarathustra; for they would merely perceive certain characters which could only be followed with the eyes. Actual reading can only take place after it is clearly understood how to connect such characters with that which is within the soul. Now, Zarathustra discerned a written sign underlying all that was in the perceptual world, particularly in the manner in which the stars are grouped in the universe. Just as we recognize written characters upon paper, so did Zarathustra descry in the starry firmament something similar to letters, conveying a message from the Spirit-World. Hence, arose an art of penetrating into the World of Spirit, and of deciphering the signs indicated by the arrangement of the stars, and of finding a method of reading and construing from their movements and order, in what manner and way those spiritual beings that are without, inscribe the facts concerning their activities in space. Zarathustra and his disciples had a paramount interest in these matters. To them it was a most important sign that Ahura Mazdao, in order to accomplish his creations and to reveal his message to the world, should (in the language of Modern Astronomy) ‘describe a circular path’. This fact was regarded as a sign traced in the heavens indicating in what manner Ahura Mazdao worked, and the relation which his activities bore to the universe as a whole. It is important that Zarathustra was able to point out that the constellations of the Zodiac, taken together as forming a closed curve in space, should symbolize a continuous and also retroactive time flux; and we can realize that there is indeed a most profound significance underlying the statement, that one branch of this time-curve stretches outward into the future, while the other leads backward into the remote past. Zaruana Akarana is that bright band of stars, later known as the Zodiac, that self-contained time-line ever traversed by Ormuzd, The Spirit of Light. In other words, the passage of the sun across the constellations of the Zodiac is an expression of the activity of Ormuzd; while the Zodiac itself is the symbol of Zaruana Akarana. In reality, Zaruana Akarana and The Zodiac are identical terms, just in the same way as are Ormuzd and Ahura Mazdao. There are two special circumstances to be considered in this connection. First, when the passage of the sun through the Zodiac takes place while it is light, as in the summer. At such time the solar radiance falls full upon the earth, bringing with it the power emanating from those spiritual forces ever flowing outward from the Light-Realms of Ormuzd. That part of the Zodiac traversed by Ahura Mazdao in the daytime, or during the summer, denotes the manner in which He works and weaves unhindered by Ahriman. On the other hand, those Zodiacal constellations which lie far beneath the horizon — dark regions through which we might picture the passage of Angra Mainyus — are symbolical of the Kingdom of The Shadows. We have stated that Zarathustra regarded Ormuzd as associated with the bright sections of the Zodiac (Zaruana Akarana), while he looked upon Ahriman as connected with the gloom. In what way do the activities of Ormuzd and Ahriman find expression in our material world? In order to understand this point we must realize that the effect of the solar rays is different in the morning from that at noon; varying as the sun ascends from Aries to Taurus, and again during its descent toward the horizon. The influence exerted is not the same in winter as in summer, and differs with every passing sign of the Zodiac. Zarathustra regarded the changing aspects of the sun in connection with the Zodiacal constellations as symbolical of the activities of Ormuzd proceeding from different directions, and from which came those spiritual beings that are both His servants and His sons, and who are ready at all times to execute His commands. These are the ‘Amschaspands’ or ‘Ameschas Pentas’, subservient entities, to each of whom is allotted some special duty. While Ormuzd controls all active functions in the Light-Realms, the Amschaspands undertake that specific work which finds expression in the transmission of the sun’s light when in Aries, Taurus, Cancer, etc. But the true vital activity of Ormuzd is manifested in the full radiance of the sun, shining throughout all bright signs of the Zodiac, from Aries to Libra or Scorpio. Following the Zarathustran line of thought, we might say: — ‘It is as though the evil powers of Ahriman came through the earth from those dark regions where abide his servants — his own Amschaspands — who are opposed to the good genii standing by the side of Ormuzd.’ Zarathustra actually distinguished between twelve different subservient spirit entities; six or seven on the side of Ormuzd, and five or six on that of Ahriman. These are regarded as typical of good or evil genii (Amaschas Pentas — lower spirits), according as to whether their influence comes with the sun’s rays from the bright Signs of the Zodiac, or emanates from those which are in gloom. Goethe had the subservient spirits of Ormuzd in mind when he wrote the following words at the beginning of Faust in the ‘Prologue of Heaven’ : ‘But ye, God’s sons in love and duty, Enjoy the rich, the ever-living Beauty! Creative Power, that works eternal schemes, Clasp you in bonds of love, relaxing never, And what in wavering apparition gleams Fix in its place with thoughts that stand for ever!’ 2 Doch ihr, die echten Göttersöhne, Erfreut euch der lebendig reichen Schöne! Das Werdende, das ewig wirkt und lebt, Umfass euch mit der Liebe holden Schranken, Und was in schwankender Erscheinung schwebt, Befestiget mit dauernden Gedanken. From the above it is apparent that the conception which Goethe formed of ‘God’s sons’ as the servants of the Highest Divine Power, is similar to Zarathustra’s concept concerning the Amschaspands, of which, as already stated, he recognized twelve different kinds. Again, subservient to these Amschaspand entities, according to Zarathustranism, are yet lower orders of spiritual powers or forces, among which some twenty-eight separate types are usually distinguished. These are the so-called ‘Izarads’ or ‘Izeds’; the number of different classes into which they may be divided is, however, indeterminate, being variously estimated from twenty-four up to twenty-eight, and even as high as thirty-one. There is yet a third division of spiritual powers or forces, termed by Zarathustra ‘Ferruhars’ or ‘Frawaschars’. According to our conceptions, the Ferruhars have the least influence of any upon our tendencies and dispositions in the material world, and are regarded as that spiritual element which permeates the great macrocosm, and underlies all perceptual physical activity. They are the reality behind everything of which we are conscious and appears to us as merely external and material. While we picture the Amschaspands as controlling the twelve forces which are at work during all physical effects engendered by the action of light, and the Izeds, as governing those which influence the animal kingdom, so do we consider the Ferruhars, in addition to possessing the quality above-mentioned, as spiritual entities having under their guidance the ‘Group-Souls’ of animals. Thus did Zarathustra discern a specialized realm beyond this perceptual universe — a perfectly organized superperceptual world — and his concept was absolutely definite, and in no sense of the nature of an abstraction. Behind Ormuzd and Ahriman he pictured Zaruana Akarana, further the good and bad Amschaspands, below these the Izeds, and lastly the Ferruhars. Man, as he is fashioned, is a replica in miniature of the great universe, and therefore all forces operative in the cosmos must be present in some manner within his being. Just as the benevolent powers of Ormuzd are expressed during that inner struggle to attain to perfection, and the unclean forces of Ahriman are in evidence while there is gloom and temptation, so do we find also the trace of other spiritual powers — those of the lower genii. I will now make a definite statement, which when viewed from the standpoint of modern cosmic ideas, is liable to awaken bitter feeling, namely: — I assert that before long it will be discovered and recognized by external science, that a superperceptual element underlies all physical phenomena, and that latent spirit exists in everything that comes within the limits of our sense perceptions. Further, that science will be driven to admit, that in the physical structure of man there is much that is a counterpart of those forces which permeate and spread life throughout the whole universe, and which flow into the body, there to become condensed. Let us go back to the Zarathustran Doctrine, which in many ways is similar to that of Spiritual Science. According to its concepts, Ormuzd and Ahriman are regarded as influencing mankind from without. Ormuzd being the source of inward impulses toward perfection, while Ahriman is ever in opposition. The Amschaspands also exert spiritual activity, if we consider their forces as being, so to speak, condensed in man, then it should be possible to trace and recognize their action to the point of physical expression. In Zarathustra’s time, anatomy, as we understand it to-day, did not exist. Zarathustra and his disciples, by means of their spiritual insight, actually saw the cosmic streams to which reference has been made; they appeared to them in the form of twelve cosmic outpourings, flooding in upon man, there to maintain activity. Thus it came about that the human head was regarded by Zarathustra’s followers as a symbol of the inflowing of the seven good, and five evil, Amschaspands. Within man we have a continuance of the Amschaspand flux; how, then, is this flux to be recognized at this much later period? The anatomist has discovered that there are twelve principal pairs of brain nerves, which pass from the brain into the body. These are the physical counterparts, as it were, of the twelve condensed Amschaspand out-flowings, namely, twelve pairs of nerves of extreme potency in bringing about either the highest perfection, or the greatest evil. Here, then, we find reappearing in our present age, but transformed into material terms, that concept which had come to Zarathustra from the Spirit-World, and which he preached to his disciples. There is, however, in all this a point of controversy. It is so easy for anyone in our day to maintain that the statements of Spiritual Science become wholly fantastical when it is alleged that Zarathustra, speaking of twelve Amschaspands, had in mind something connected with the twelve pairs of nerves which are in the human head! But the time will come when the world will gain yet another item of knowledge, for it will be discovered in what manner, and form the spirit, which permeates and lives throughout the universe, continues active in man. The old Zarathustranism has arisen once again in our modern physiology. For in the same way as the twenty-eight to thirty-one Izeds are the servants of the Amschaspands, so are the twenty-eight spinal nerves subordinate to those of the brain. Again, the Izeds, who are present in the outer universe as a spirit flux, enter the human body, and their sphere of action is in those nerves which stimulate the lower soul-life of man; in these nerves they crystallize, as it were, and assume a condensed form. And where the Ized-flux, as such, entirely ceases, and the term ‘nerve’ can no longer be applied, is the actual centre where our personality receives its crowning touch. Further, those of our thoughts which rise slightly above mere cognition and simple brain action, are typical of the Frawaschars or Ferruhars. Our present period is connected in a remarkable manner with the Doctrine of Zarathustra. Through his teachings and by means of his spiritual archetypes, Zarathustra was enabled to enlighten his people regarding those regions which spread beyond the perceptual world, while his imagery was ever as a flowing contact with that which lies hidden behind the veil. With reference to this great doctrine it is most significant that after it had acted as an inspiration to humanity for a long period, always tending to promote greater and greater effort in various directions of cultural progress — only to lose its influence from time to time — there should arise once more, in our day, a marked tendency toward a mystical current of thought. It was the same with the Greeks after the two methods of approach to the Spirit-World had commingled, for they also, at times, showed a preference for either the mystical or the Spiritual Scientific thought current. It is owing to the modern predominating interest in mysticism that many people find themselves drawn towards the Indian Spiritual Science, or Method of Contemplation. Hence it is, that the most essential and deeply significant aspects of Zarathustranism — in fact, its very essence — hardly appear in the spiritual life of our time, although there is abundant evidence of the nature of Zarathustra’s concepts and his methods of thought. But all that lies at the very base, and is absolutely vital to his doctrine, is in a sense lost to our age. When once we realize that in Zarathustranism is contained the spiritual prototype of so many things which we have rediscovered in the domain of physical research (numerous examples of which might be quoted), and of others that will be rediscovered later, then will a fundamental chord in our culture give place to one which will be founded upon the old Zarathustran teachings. It is remarkable that the profound attention which Zarathustranism paid to macrocosmic phenomena caused the world to recede, as it were, or appear of less moment; while in nearly all other beliefs with which a flood of mystical culture is associated, the outer world plays an important part, this is also the case in our materialism. That great fundamental concept concerning two opposing basic qualities, and which recurs again and again throughout the religious doctrines of the world, we regard in the following manner; we consider it as symbolized by the antithesis of the sexes — the male and the female — so that in the old religious systems which were founded upon mysticism, the Gods and Goddesses were in reality, antithetical symbols of two opposing currents which flow throughout the universe. It is amazing that the teachings of Zarathustra should rise above these conceptions, and picture the origin of spiritual activity in so different a manner, portraying the good, as the resplendent, and the evil as the shadows. Hence, the chaste beauty of Zarathustranism and its nobility, which transcends all those petty ideas which play so ugly a part in our time, when any endeavour is made to deepen man’s conception of spiritual life. Where the Greek writers state that the Supreme Deity in order to create Ormuzd, must also create Ahriman, so that He should obtain an antithesis; then, since Ahriman opposed Ormuzd, we have an example of how one primordial force is conceived as set against another. This same idea finds expression in the Hebrew, where evil comes upon the world through the woman — Eve — but we find nothing in Zarathustranism concerning ills that the world suffered through the antithesis of the sexes. All those hateful ideas which are disseminated throughout our daily literature, pervading our very thoughts and feelings, distorting the true significance of the phenomena of disease and health, while failing to comprehend the intrinsic facts of life, will disappear, when that wholly different concept, the antithesis exhibited by Ormuzd and Ahriman — a conception so lofty and so powerful when compared with present-day paltry notions — is once more voiced in the words of Zarathustra, and enters to permeate and influence our modern culture. In this world, all things pursue their appointed course, and nothing can hinder the ultimate triumph of Zarathustran conceptions, which will, little by little, insinuate themselves into the life of the people. When we look upon Zarathustra in this way, we realize that he was indeed a Spirit, who in bygone times brought potent impulses to bear upon human culture. That such was the case becomes evident, if we but follow the course of subsequent events which took place in Asia Minor, and later among the people of Assyria and Babylonia, on down to the Egyptian period, and further even to the time of the spreading of Christianity. Everywhere we find in different lines of thought something which may be traced back, and shown to have its origin in that Great Light, which Zarathustra set blazing for humanity. We can now understand how it was that a certain Greek writer (who wished to emphasize the fact that some among the Leaders had always given their people instruction in matters that they would only require at a later period in their culture) should have stated, that while Pythagoras had obtained all the knowledge that he could from the Egyptians concerning the methods of Geometry, from the Phænicians concerning Arithmetic, and from the Chaldeans concerning Astronomy — he was forced to turn to the successors of Zarathustra, in order to learn the secret teachings regarding the relation of humanity to the Spirit-World, and to obtain a true understanding of the proper conduct of life. The writer who made these statements regarding Pythagoras further asserts that the Zarathustran method for the conduct of life leads us beyond antitheses, and that all antitheses can be considered as culminating in the one great contrast of Good and Evil, which opposing condition can be finally absorbed, only by the purging away of all evil, falsehood and deceit. For instance, the worst enemy of Ormuzd is regarded as that one which bears the name of Calumny, and Calumny is one of the outstanding characteristics of Ahriman. The same writer states that Pythagoras failed to find the purest and most ideal ethical practice, namely, the one directed toward the moral purification of man, among either the Egyptians, the Phænicians, or the Chaldeans; and that he had again to turn to Zarathustra’s successors, in order to acquire that lofty conception of the universe which leads mankind to the earnest belief that through self-purification alone may evil be overcome. Thus did the great nobility and oneness of Zarathustra’s teachings become recognized among the ancients. We would here mention that the statements made in this lecture are supported in every case by independent historical research; and we should carefully weigh all assertions coming from the representatives of other sciences, and judge for ourselves, whether or no they are in accord with our fundamental concepts. For instance, take the case of Plutarch, when he said that in the sense of Zarathustranism, the essence of Light as it affects the earth, is regarded as of supreme loveliness, and that its spiritual counterpart is Truth. Here is a definite statement made by an ancient historian, which is in complete agreement with all that has been said. We shall also find as we proceed that many historical events become clear and understandable when we take into consideration the various factors to which we have drawn attention. Let us now go back to the ancient Vedantic conception; this was based upon the mystical merging of man within his very being; but before he can attain to the inner Light of Brahma, he must meet with, and pass through, those passions and desires which are induced by wild semi-human impulses that are within him, and which are opposed to that mystical withdrawal within the spirit-soul, and into the eternal inner being. The Indian came to the conclusion that this could only be accomplished, if pending his mystic merging in Brahma, he could successfully eliminate all that we experience in the perceptual world which stimulates sensuous desires, and allures through colours and through sounds. Just so long as these play a part during our meditations, so long do we keep within us, an enemy opposed to our mystical attainment to perfection. The Indian teacher said: — ‘Put away from yourselves all that can enter the soul through the powers that are external; merge yourselves solely within your very being — descend to the Devas — and when you have vanquished the lower Devas, then will you find yourselves within the kingdom of the Deva of Brahma; but shun the realm of the Asuras, whence come those malignant ones who would thrust themselves upon you from the outer world of Maya; from all such you must turn away, whatsoever may befall.’ Zarathustra, on the other hand, spoke to his disciples after this fashion: — ‘Those who follow the leaders among the people of the South can make no advance along the path which they have chosen, because of the different order of their search after those things which are of the Spirit; in such manner can no nation make headway. The call is not alone to mystic contemplation and to dreaming, but to live in a world which provides freely of all that is needful — man’s mission lies with the art of agriculture, and the promotion of civilization. You must not regard all things as merely Maya, but you must penetrate that veil of colours, and of sounds, which is spread around you; and avoid everything that may be of the nature of the Devas, and which because of your inner egoism, would hold you in its grasp. The region wherein abide the lower Asuras must be traversed, through this you must force your way, even up to the highest; but since your being has been especially organized and adapted to this intent, you must ever shun the dark realms of the Devas.’ In India, the teaching of the Rishis was otherwise, for they said to their followers: — ‘Your beings are not suitably organized to seek that which lies within the Kingdom of the Asuras — therefore avoid this region and descend to that of the Devas.’ Such was the difference between the Indian and Persian culture. The Indian peoples were taught that they must shun the Asuras and regard them as evil spirits; this was because through the method of their culture they were only aware of the lower Asuras; the Persians, on the other hand, who found only low types of Devas in the Devas regions were adjured by their leaders thus: — ‘Enter the Kingdom of the Asuras, for you are so constituted that you may attain even unto the highest of them.’ There lay within the impulse that Zarathustra gave to mankind a great fervour, which found expression when he said: — ‘I have a gift to bestow upon humanity which shall endure and live throughout the ages, and will smooth the upward path, overcoming all false doctrines, which are but obstacles diverting man from his struggle toward the attainment of perfection.’ Thus did Zarathustra feel himself to be the servant of Ahura Mazdao, and as such he experienced personally the opposition of Ahriman, over whose principles his teachings should enable mankind to achieve a sweeping victory. This conviction he expressed in impressive and beautiful words, to which reference is found in ancient documents. These, however, were necessarily inscribed at a later date; but what Spiritual Science tells us concerning Zarathustra and his pronouncements comes from other sources. Throughout all his telling adjurations there rings forth the inner impulse of his mission, and we feel the power of that great passion which overcame him, when, as the opponent of Ahriman and the Principle of Darkness, he said: — ‘I will speak! draw nigh and listen unto me, ye that come with longing from afar, and ye from near at hand — mark my words! — No more shall he, the Evil One, this false teacher, conquer the Spirit of Good. Too long hath his vile breath bemingled human voice and human speech. But now I will denounce him in the words which The Highest — The First One — has put into my mouth, the words which Ahura Mazdao has spoken. To him who will not harken unto my words, and who will not heed that which I say unto you — to him will come evil — and that, ere ever the world hath ended its cycles.’ Thus spoke Zarathustra, and we can but feel that he had something to impart to humanity, which would leave its impress throughout all later cultural periods. Those among us who have understanding and will but pay attention to that which persists in our time, even if only dimly apparent, who will note with spiritual discernment the tenor of our culture, can even yet, after thousands of years, recognize the echo of the Zarathustran teachings. Hence it is that we number Zarathustra among Great Leaders such as Hermes, Buddha, Moses, and others, about whom we shall have much to say in subsequent lectures. The spiritual gifts possessed by these Great Ones, and the position which they occupied among men, are indicated, and fitly expressed in the following words: — ‘God sends us Spirits that shine as stars, From the spheres of eternal love. May we behold that glorious light, They reflect from the realms above.’ 3 Es leuchten gleich Sternen Am Himmel des ewigen Seins Die gottgesandten Geister. Gelingen möge es alien Menschenseelen, Im Reiche des Erdenseins Zu schauen ihrer Flammen Licht!

Turning Points Spiritual History

Zarathustra

https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA060/English/GC1987/19110119p02.html

Berlin

19 Jan 1911

GA060-9

The title of this lecture series is, Spiritual Science's Answer to the Large Questions of the Present Time , published in German as, Antworten der Geisteswissenschaft auf den Grossen Fragen des Daseins . It is a far cry from the great Zarathustra or Zoroaster, who formed the subject of our last lecture in this series, to the three great personalities who provide the subject matter of our lecture to-day, and the gulf of time which, in our imagination, we are called upon to span is wide indeed. It is a gulf which stretches from a time thousands of years ago, long before our Christian Era. A time which we can only understand by attributing to the human beings existing then a mental outlook utterly foreign to our own. From this distant standpoint of time, we pass to the 16th and 17th centuries of our own era, to the time when that spirit was first kindled which, ever since, has been the source and inspiration of all vital and progressive culture from then to the present day. As we shall see, this spirit, which burnt so fiercely in the 16th and 17th centuries in individuals such as Galileo and Giordano Bruno, found a fresh medium in a personality so near our own times as that of Goethe. Galileo and Giordano Bruno are the two names we must mention when we review the beginnings of that epoch in our human evolution at which Natural Science had reached the same turning-point as Spiritual Science has reached to-day. The same great impulse which was then given to the thought of Natural Science will be, in a certain sense, given to this of Spiritual Science in the immediate future. Hence the importance of a comprehensive survey of the lines of thought and feeling of the men of that day, viz.: during the end of the 16th and the beginning of the 17th centuries — the time of Galileo and of Giordano Bruno — so that we may be able to understand their teaching in the full sense of the word. Casting a retrospective glance over the centuries immediately preceding theirs, viz: — from the 11th to the 15th centuries, we must try and realize what at first sight appears to be the peculiar conception of the Science current in those days, and how wide was the field which the term then embraced. We must realise that during these centuries, Scientific Knowledge was viewed from an entirely different standpoint from that from which it is viewed to-day. The popular conception of Scientific Knowledge was then very different from the ideas which prevailed in later times and from those which prevail to-day. For we are now speaking of the days before the printing-press, of those days when, for the majority of the people, their sole means of participating in Spiritual and intellectual life was through the Church or the school, etc. — That is to say they could only learn from oral instruction. Hence the necessity, if we would understand those times, of obtaining a correct picture of the scientific methods pursued by the educated men of that day. In the times preceding those of Galileo and Giordano Bruno, there was an impulse towards Science, but it was an impulse which is very difficult for the modern mind to understand. We can only understand it by placing ourselves, in imagination, in an entirely different mental atmosphere from that by which we are surrounded to-day. In those days, whatever auditorium you might have entered where Science was being taught, you would always have noted one thing. Let us take, for example, a lecture on Natural Science. No matter what branch of Natural Science it might be, whether Medicine or another, the lecturer would base all his deductions solely upon the authority of ancient writings, especially upon those of Aristotle. To-day, the lecturer on Science bases his thesis upon the results of modern investigation, carried out in such or such an institute, where scientific methods of research are followed. But the lecturer of the days preceding those of Galileo and Giordano Bruno based his thesis upon the ancient writings, especially upon those of Aristotle, which were the foundation of all Science in those days. The figure of Aristotle stands out pre-eminent as an intellectual giant in the history of human progress; and the service he rendered to his time is unspeakably important. But, for the moment, the interesting point for us is the fact that the books of Aristotle were seldom read in the sense in which they were originally given, but the traditional rendering gave the tone, and was everywhere considered determinant. No matter whether it were a question of the definition of a principle or of an axiom, or the question of any truth whatever, it was always referred to Aristotle. “Such was Aristotle's opinion on this point,” “you will find it expressed thus by Aristotle”. Now the modern investigator or the lecturer on Science, or even the popular lecturer, always emphasizes the fact that this or that has been observed in some place or another. But the scientific teacher in the centuries preceding Galileo and Giordano Bruno laid stress upon the fact that a few centuries ago, the great authority, Aristotle, made such or such an assertion upon such or such a question. Just as to-day we refer, in Spiritual matters, to the authority of the revelations of religious documents and tradition and not to personal investigation, so, in those days, teachers of Science did not refer to nature the observation of nature, but referred back to written authority. They referred back to the writings of Aristotle. It is extraordinarily interesting to study a University discourse and to note how doctors and their colleagues relied upon the theories of Aristotle. Now Aristotle was an intellectual giant; and though we must admit that even such an intellectual individuality should not be taken literally after the lapse of so many centuries, still, on the other hand, we must acknowledge that the works of Aristotle are so prodigious and so magnificent that even if they learnt nothing new, if men had studied Aristotle diligently, that is to say the original Aristotle, they would have accomplished a great deal. For the deeply illuminating teachings and theories of Aristotle could not have failed to have been of the greatest benefit to them. This, however, was not the case. The lecturers of those days and the teachers who preached Aristotle in season and out of season, as a rule, understood nothing at all about him. The doctrines taught in the time preceding that of Galileo and Giordano Bruno and claiming to be those of Aristotle were an almost incredibly mistaken version of his teaching. To-day, I will confine myself to showing you from the standpoint of Spiritual Science the place Galileo and Giordano Bruno took in the intellectual life of their time. I would call to mind in this connection an incident which is perfectly true and which I have often related before. One of the most devoted adherents of Aristotle was at the same time a friend of Galileo's. Galileo, like Giordano Bruno, was an opponent of the followers of Aristotle, and with good reason, but not of Aristotle himself. Galileo maintained that men ought to go to the great book of Nature, which speaks so clearly to man, and learn from there the meaning of the Spirit in Nature. They should not rely entirely upon the books of Aristotle for their final authority. Now at that time, the School of Aristotle taught a marvelous doctrine concerning the seat of the nerves. Their theory was that the whole nervous system originated in the heart, that from the heart, the nerves spread to the brain and from thence spread over the entire body. “This”, said they, “is the teaching of Aristotle, therefore it must be true.” Galileo, who based his information upon the investigation of the human body, carried out by means of his physical eyes, and did not rely upon the teaching of ancient writings and ancient tradition, affirmed that the nerves had their seat in the brain and that the chief nerves originated in the brain. Galileo told this to one of his friends and wished him to see for himself and be convinced. “Yes, indeed, I will see it,” said the friend who took the opposite view, and he attended a demonstration on the human body. Then, indeed, this scholar, who was a devout follower of Aristotle, was greatly astonished and said to Galileo: — “It does indeed seem as if the nerves originated in the brain; yet Aristotle maintained that they originate in the heart. If there appears to be any contradiction here, I would believe in Aristotle rather than in Nature.” Such was the mental attitude which Galileo had to combat. Aristotle, or rather the distorted view of Aristotle, was dragged into all questions connected with Science. To quote another instance: — A scholar of the Church wrote a treatise on immortality. Let us consider for a moment the method they employed in those days. They took their subject matter from the Church Doctrine, adding to that what they believed to be the teaching of Aristotle on the subject. Thus they used the words of Aristotle to support their own views, twisting his teaching so that they could claim its support, no matter from which side of the question, whether for or against, they wished to argue. To return to our scholar of Divinity. He had collected various passages from Aristotle in order to demonstrate the opinion of Aristotle upon the question of the immortality of the soul. Now this also is a perfectly true incident. The clergy had to submit their books to their superiors before publication. In this case, the superior objected to the book. “It is dangerous,” he said, “It would be better not to attempt it, for these extracts from Aristotle (in support of immortality) might also be used to support the opposite view.” The author of the book wrote back “If it is only a question of demonstrating more clearly the most acceptable meaning of Aristotle on this subject, then I will support it by another quotation, for one could quite well go on making quotations.” In short, from every point of view, Aristotle was used and abused. From these two incidents, we can see how greatly Aristotle was misunderstood at the time of Galileo and Giordano Bruno. We will take the example of the origin of the nerves in the heart. The meaning of this statement is hidden. We can only understand it when we realize that Aristotle lived at the end of the period of ancient Greek culture and, therefore, at the end of the period of the old clairvoyant consciousness. Because Aristotle looked back into the past, he transmitted a Science that arose out of a clairvoyant consciousness which was able to see behind the material world into the Spiritual. It was this clairvoyant consciousness which had produced the old Science. The essence of this primeval Science was transmitted by the Greek culture as ancient Science, and this it was which Aristotle possessed. He was one of the last who recorded it. But Aristotle was not himself capable of developing that clairvoyant consciousness, for he only possessed an intellectual consciousness. Note this well. Not without reason was Aristotle the first historian of Logic . This is because the intellectual argumentative thought was to become dominant. Thus, Aristotle assimilated the ancient teaching and reduced it into a logical system in his writings. Hence there is much in his writings which we cannot understand until we have learnt what it is he really meant. Thus, when he speaks of nerves, we must not ascribe to the word the meaning given to it to-day, nor the meaning it had even in the time of Galileo and Giordano Bruno, which was already related to our own. When Aristotle speaks of the nervous system, he means the Etheric Body of man. By which we mean the super-sensible part of human nature, which is closely connected with the human physical body. This Etheric body can now no longer be seen by man, the power of doing so having been lost during man's progressive evolution. Aristotle could no longer see it, but he knew about it, the knowledge having come to him from those times when the clairvoyant consciousness saw, not only the physical body, but also the Etheric Aura, the Etheric Body, which is really the builder and strength-giver of the physical body. Aristotle drew his teaching from those times in which man perceived the Etheric Body as we now-a-days perceive colours. Thus, if you look at the Etheric Body instead of at the physical body, the former is truly the origin of certain currents. For Aristotle, this origin was not in the brain, but in the heart. The description given by Aristotle of these currents had usually been designated by the title of nerves. By those currents he did not mean nerves in our sense of the word, but he meant super-sensible currents, super-sensible forces. These proceed from the heart, flow to the brain and, from thence, are distributed to the various activities of the human body. These are matters which we cannot understand until we have learnt by means of Spiritual Science about the super-sensible parts and principles of human nature. Man had lost the power of seeing clairvoyantly even so long ago as the centuries preceding Galileo and Giordano Bruno. Hence people had no idea that Aristotle was speaking of the Etheric Current. They thought he meant the physical nerves, so they asserted that “Aristotle states that the physical nerves proceed from the heart.” Such was the contention of the devout followers of Aristotle. Those, however, who had studied in the book of Nature could not allow this. Hence the great battle between Galileo and Giordano Bruno and the School of Aristotle. The followers of Aristotle completely misunderstood him; no-one understood the real Aristotle; Galileo and Giordano Bruno naturally did not understand him either, for they did not take the trouble to penetrate to the real meaning of the works of Aristotle. Thus Galileo and Giordano Bruno were the two great Intellectuals of their time, who turned away from the pedantry of the Scholastics and of book-learning to the great book of Nature itself, which is available to each and all Professor Laurenz Muellner, for whom, as philosopher, I have the greatest admiration, refers to this in a lecture which he gave in 1894 as Rector of the Vienna University. In this lecture, he drew attention to the fact that the great Galileo, with his wonderful knowledge and grasp of all the great laws of mechanics, had discovered the laws which govern the distribution of space. Now it is just these laws which govern the operation and, distribution of space which strike the eye and stir the emotions so very forcibly when we see them exemplified in St. Peter's at Rome. This mighty building influences us all. And each one experiences something tangible, which we can all understand. Let me illustrate this by the following example: — Speidel, the Viennese journalist, and the sculptor Natter were driving in the neighborhood of Rome. As they approached the city, Speidel suddenly heard a most extraordinary exclamation from Natter, who was a very genial spirit. Natter sprang suddenly to his feet. His friend could not think what was the matter with him, for he only heard the words “I am frightened”. As Natter would say no more then, it was only later that his friend heard that the exclamation had been called forth by the sight of the dome of St. Peter's in the distance. Something akin to terrified wonder at the effect of the marvelous distribution of space, created by the genius of Michelangelo, overwhelms all who see this wonderful building. Laurenz Muellner draws attention to the fact that it is owing to Galileo, that great thinker, that it has become possible for mankind to conceive mathematically and mechanically such an effect of space-distribution as meets the eye in the wonderful building of the dome of St. Peter's, at Rome. At the same time, we must not forget that Galileo, who discovered the laws of Mechanics, was born when Michelangelo, the builder of St. Peter's, was almost on his deathbed. This means that it was from the Spiritual forces of Michelangelo that that skill in the distribution of the laws of space arose, which was not available to the intellect of man until later. From this, we must infer that what we may term intellectual knowledge, knowledge governed by reason, may come much later than the actual composition of matter in space. If such matters are carefully and thoughtfully considered, it will be seen that human consciousness has undergone a change; that, earlier, men possessed a certain clairvoyance and that the manner of thinking with the intellect does not go back very far. This habit or manner of thinking with the intellect, owing to certain historical necessities, arose during the fifteenth, sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Minds like those of Galileo and Giordano Bruno are the first harbingers of what was to come. Hence their fierce opposition to the school of Aristotle and especially to those who first completely misinterpreted Aristotle — who may be taken as the expression of the ancient wisdom — and then used their misinterpretation of him as an argument against Natural Science. We have now indicated Galileo's position in the world. He was, in the highest sense of the word, the man who first inaugurated the system of severe thought necessary for Natural Science, that system of the relation of Natural Science to Mathematics, which has continued on his lines from his day to our own. What is it that distinguishes Galileo from all other men up to his time? It is the doctrine which he was the first to realize and which he preached with such noble courage, thus proving himself a child of his age. The feelings which possessed Galileo can be to some extent rendered in the following words, which will help us to understand his whole soul and attitude of mind. “Here we stand as men upon the earth. Nature spreads herself out before us, with everything requisite for our senses and for our reason, which is connected with the instrument of the brain through nature”. Galileo says this many times, in various passages in his works, as may be verified, ”through Nature speaks the Divine Spiritual. We men approach Nature, view it with our eyes and study it with our other senses. What we perceive with our eyes, what we receive through our senses, is implanted in Nature by Divine Spiritual Beings. At first, the thoughts of the Divine Spiritual Beings exist yonder; then, as if springing forth from the thoughts of these Beings, come the visible things of Nature as the revelation of. Divine thought. Then come our powers of perception and, above all, our reason, which is inseparable from the brain. There we stand, ready to spell out, as from the letters of a book, and to arrive at the author's meaning, that which Divine thoughts have expressed in Nature.” Galileo took his stand firmly on the ground upon which all the great minds in the course of earthly evolution have taken their stand. He believed that the manifestations of Nature, the things of Nature, are as the letters of an alphabet, which express the mind of the Divine Spiritual beings. Thus the human mind exists that it may read what the Divine Spiritual Beings have written there, written in the form of minerals, in the course of natural phenomena, in the course of the movements of the stars. Human nature exists that it may read the thoughts of the Divine Mind. To Galileo, however, the Divine Mind is only distinguished from the human mind by the fact that everything that can be thought is thought by Divine Mind at once, in a single moment, unfettered by space or time. Let us apply this to any single field; to the field of Mathematics. We see at once how extra ordinary this conception is. If a student desires to learn all that has as yet been learnt by mankind about Mathematics, he will have or to toil at Mathematics for years. Then, as you know, man's conception of Mathematics depends greatly on time . Now, Galileo argued thus: — What humanity succeeds in grasping in the course of many years is conceived by the Divine thought in one second. Divine thought is unfettered by space or time. Above all, the human mind must not suppose that with its reason limited, as it is, by space and time, it can immediately understand the Divine Mind. Man must strive. He must observe each step. He must study each separate phenomenon carefully. He must not think that he can afford to ignore the phenomena, that he can leave out of account what God has planned as the foundation of the phenomena. Galileo affirmed that it was wrong not to wish to know the, true meaning of the wonderful manifestations which Nature unfolds, by means of human reason, that it was wrong not to strive to ascertain the truth by minute investigation. He affirmed that to endeavour to arrive at the truth by speculation, instead of studying carefully the details of the various phenomena, was an entirely false method of thought. But the motive which prompted Galileo was quite other than those which give rise to similar language to-day. Galileo would not limit the human mind to observation because he denied the operation of the Divine Mind in Nature; on the contrary, just because the Divine Mind manifests itself in Nature and reveals itself as so great, so powerful and so wonderful; because (to the Divine Intelligence) all creative thought springs into being in a moment, while the human mind requires an eternity in which lovingly to decipher the letters of the Alphabet and can only arrive gradually at the detailed thoughts which they represent. It is humility at the thought of how far human reason is below the Divine Reason which prompts Galileo to warn his contemporaries. “you can no longer see behind the things of sense. Not because this was never possible to man, but because the time for doing so has gone by.” Observation, experience and individual thought; these composed the standard which Galileo placed before his contemporaries. This he was able to do because, in a certain sense, his mind was cast in a mathematical mould and because his method of thinking was so rigidly mathematical. In illustration of this we will take the matter of the telescope. Galileo heard that a discovery had been made in Holland, by means of which it was possible to perceive the most distant stars in the firmament. We must bear in mind that there were no newspapers in those days. He only heard from travelers that some thing had been discovered in Holland of the nature of a telescope. Galileo could not rest till he had found out for himself what this was and himself invented a telescope by means of which he made the great discoveries which confirmed the theories which had recently been promulgated in the Copernican-cosmo-conception. In order to understand these things aright, we must remember these two facts: — that nothing was then understood of the old super-sensible science, and that Galileo was a pathfinder for the new science. Secondly, that a short time before, Copernicus had given a new aspect to the conception of the world through external thought concerning the movements of the planets round the Sun. We must put ourselves in the position of the men of that time and try to enter into the mentality of those who believed, as men had done for thousands of years before them: — “Here we stand on the firm earth, immovable in space.” To men with views such as these, the idea was now presented for the first time, that the earth was spinning round the Sun with incalculable rapidity. Such a conception literally out the ground from under their feet. We cannot be surprised at the excitement such an idea created in all, whether partisans or opponents. To minds like that of Galileo, the way by which Copernicus had arrived at his conclusions was particularly convincing. Let us examine in the light of the present time the means by which Copernicus arrived at his conclusions. What made Copernicus arrive at the conception that the planets move round the Sun? Up to his time, a theory of the universe had prevailed, which was itself not understood because it was intended to be taken in a Spiritual sense. As then understood, it was indeed an impossible conception. Men had to suppose that the planets described the most complicated movements — circles — and then circles within circles. It was precisely this terrible complication of ideas which had to be got rid of. This it was which was so obnoxious to certain types of mind. In reality, Copernicus made no new astronomical discoveries. Be said to himself “Let us proceed along the simplest lines of thought in order to arrive at an explanation of the movements of the planets.” He expressed his system of the universe in the simplest of terms. And with what a wonderful result! The Sun was placed in the centre while the planets revolved around it in circles or in ellipses, as Kepler proved later. The whole conception of the universe was reduced to a wonderful simplicity. It was this simplicity which so greatly influenced the mind of Galileo. For he always emphatically affirmed that “the human mind is capable of recognizing truth in its simplicity.” Beauty is to be found in the simple, not in the complex. And truth is beauty. It was because of its Beauty and because of the simplicity of its Beauty that the Copernican theory of the system of the Universe was accepted by so many minds at that time. Galileo in particular accepted it because he found in the teaching of Copernicus that Beauty in simplicity for which he was seeking. Now he could see the Moons of Jupiter, which hardly anyone would believe in. The eyes of Galileo were the first to see the Moons of Jupiter which encircle him as the planets do the Sun. It was a solar system in miniature. Jupiter with his Moons was as the Sun with his planets. This discovery confirmed the theories of a solar system constructed in accordance with a conception. It seemed so to Galileo, who applied the theory of Copernicus in miniature to a visible world. Hence Galileo was indeed a Pioneer of the New Science. Thus it came about that he divided the presence of mountains in the Moons, that there were spots in the Sun and that the Nebulae extending across the stars were disintegrated worlds of stars. In short, all which may be expressed as the revelation of the Divine Wisdom expressed in the world of sense. All this made a tremendous effect upon Galileo. With his mathematical mind, the question of time, which was completely lost sight of in the material conception of the visible world, naturally influenced him greatly. Galileo first created the impulse in the human mind to admit that we cannot see behind the material veil with our normal consciousness: “The super-sensible is not to be understood by the human senses. It cannot be comprehended by human reason. Divine Reason grasps it outside time and space, while man's reason is limited to time and space. Let us confine ourselves to that which, in time and space, our human reason can understand.” Now, seeing that Galileo achieved such greatness in so many things, he is also, from the point of view of philosophy, one of the most important pioneers of the modern Spiritual development of humanity. Can we then wonder that we also see in him a mind who wished to make clear to himself and to others the relation of man to the world of sense and to his own soul-life. It is a popular fallacy that Kant was the first to draw attention to the fact that the world around us is nothing but illusion and that it is not possible to arrive at “the thing in itself,” at things as they really are. Expressed rather differently, Galileo had already demonstrated this idea; only, behind the visible, he always saw the all-pervading thoughts of the Divine Spiritual, and it was only from humility and not from principle that he said that only after long aeons of time would mankind be fit to draw nearer to it. But Galileo said: — “When we see a colour, it makes a certain impression on us. For example, red. Is the red colour in the things?” Galileo used a very remarkable illustration, which showed at once that the primary conception was incorrect. That, however, is immaterial to our purpose. The point we wish to emphasize is the conception itself as an idea of that time. Galileo said: — “If you take a feather and tickle a man on the soles of his feet or the palms of his hands, the man will experience a sensation of tickling. Now is the tickling in the feather? No. It is entirely subjective. What is in the feather is quite different. As the tickling is subjective, so too is the red colour subjective, which is visible in the world.” Thus he compared colours and even sounds with the tickling caused by the application of a feather to the soles of the feet. Once we realize this, we can already trace in Galileo the beginnings of what came down to us as the philosophy of our modern times. For modern philosophy doubts the possibility of Man's ever being able to penetrate behind the veil of the world sense in any way whatsoever. Thus we see in Galileo, who was born in 1664, the quiet, determined pioneer, while Giordano Bruno, who was somewhat older, being born in 1648, reflected in his mentality all the great truths which were fermenting in the minds of men such as Copernicus, Galileo himself and others at that period. The mind of Giordano Bruno mirrors for us all the great ideas of that time in a mighty, comprehensive system of philosophy. What was Giordano Bruno's own personal attitude to the world, quite apart from the mental attitude of the men of his day? Giordano Bruno (who only knew the corrupted version of Aristotle) argued thus: — “Aristotle maintains that a sphere exists which extends to the Moon, thence to the different spheres of the stars; then comes the sphere of the Divine Spiritual. Thus, according to Aristotle, the Living God must be sought for outside the spheres of the stars.” Giordano was viewing the Universe according to the conception of Aristotle. He saw first the earth, then the spheres of the Moon and of the Stars. Then, finally, beyond these again, beyond this world and beyond that inhabited by man, in the great periphery of this world, the Divine Spirit, which literally directs the revolutions and movements of the world of the planets. Giordano Bruno could not reconcile this conception with the actual human experience of his day. That which could now be perceived by means of the human senses, that which he himself perceived when he looked at plants, animals and man, that which he saw when he looked at mountains, seas, clouds and stars, all this appeared to him as a marvelous image of what lives in the Divine Spirit itself. In the moving stars, in the clouds sailing through the air, he saw not only a script written by the Divine Being, but something which might pertain to the Divine Being as a finger or a limb does to ourselves. The fundamental conception of Giordano Bruno was not that of a God who directs the visible world from outside, from the periphery, but a God who is incorporate in every single manifestation of the visible, whose bodily form is the visible world. If we seek to understand how it was that he arrived at such a conclusion, we find that it was the result of the joy of the intoxication of delight in the spirit of the new age which had just begun. This new age had been preceded by a time during which man had been content to grope about amongst the old ideas of Aristotle. A time in which the leading Scholars, if they walked through woods and fields, had no eyes for Nature and all her beauties, but had their minds wholly set on Parchments and Writings which had originated with Aristotle. Now, however, the time had come when the voice of Nature began to make itself heard by men. Great discoveries revealed themselves one after another. Mighty minds like that of Galileo pressed on from point to point, recognizing the Divine in Nature herself at every step. The theory of the God in Nature, in contradistinction to the mediaeval conception of Nature, from which God was eliminated, was accepted everywhere with an universal delirium of joy. To this spirit, every fibre of Giordano Bruno's being responded. “There is Spirit in all things,” he says, “This is proved by physical research. Wherever we see a visible creation, there we shall meet the Divine.” There is only one difference between the physical and the Divine. Because we are men and confined within narrow boundaries, the visible appears to us to be limited by time and space. To Giordano Bruno, the Spirit of God exists behind the sense-world. Not in the way in which (as he thought) it had existed for Aristotle or the men of the Middle Ages. He believed the Divine Spirit to be self-existing; and Nature only the body by means of which its Spirit manifested itself in all its beauty. Nevertheless, man cannot perceive the whole of the Divine Spirit in Nature, he can only see a part. In all things, in all time and in space, the Divine Spirit is to be found. This was the creed of Giordano Bruno. Hence he says “Where is the Divine? In every stone, in every leaf, the Divine is everywhere. In all creation, specially in beings possessing a certain independent existence”. These beings, which recognise their own independence, he terms Monads. By a Monad, he means something which floats and flourishes in the ocean of divinity. All Monads are mirrors of the Universe. Thus Giordano conceived of the universal Spirit as divided into many Monads, and in each Monad that was an individual Spirit, there was something which was a reflection of the Universe. Such a Monad is the human soul, and they are many. Indeed, the human body itself is composed of many Monads, not of one. If we understand the truth about the physical body according to the ideas of Giordano Bruno, we shall not see the fleshly human body, but a system of Monads; these Monads cannot be clearly seen, just as we cannot distinguish the separate midges in a swarm; the chief Monad is the human soul. When the human soul comes into existence at birth, so said Giordano Bruno, the other Monads which belong to the soul collect together and, by this, the existence of the Chief-Monad, of the Soul Monad, is made possible. When death approaches, the Chief-Monad discharges and disperses the other Monads. According to Giordano Bruno, birth is the assembling of many Monads round a Chief-Monad, while death is the separation of the inferior Monads from the Chief-Monad, so that the Chief-Monad may be able to take on another form. For each Monad is obliged to take on, not only the form by which we know it here, but every form which it is possible to take on in the Universe. Giordano Bruno conceives of a procession through every form. Thus he approaches as close as possible — in his enthusiasm — to the idea of the re-incarnation of the human soul. And with reference to the conception of our collective reality, he says: — Man, with his normal consciousness, stands confronted by this reality. What he first receives are the impressions of the senses. These are his first means of knowledge. Of these, there are four, says Giordano Bruno. The first means by which man acquires knowledge is by the impressions of the senses. The second are the images we construct in our imagination when the things which have impressed the senses are no longer before us, when we only remember what we have experienced. Here we already penetrate further into the soul. This second channel of knowledge he terms “the power of imagination.” The word must not be taken to mean what it does to-day, but it must be understood in the sense in which it was used by Giordano Bruno. After a man has received what the impressions of sense have to give him, he enters (forming the picture within himself) into the impressions. The impression is made from without on the within. It then follows that man, while he penetrates the things with his reason and then proceeds further, draws nearer to the truth, instead of going further away from it. Hence Giordano Bruno recognises reason, the intellect, as the third means of acquiring knowledge, and in this he has in mind the moment when we leave the objects visible to our senses and ascend to the realm of thought. Then something higher and truer than any impression created by the senses flows towards us. According to Giordano Bruno, the fourth stage is Reason. Reason to him is a living and weaving in the regions of Pure Spirit. Thus the system of Giordano Bruno comprises four stages of knowledge. He does not, however, classify them in the same way as they are classified, for example, in my books, “The Way of Initiation” and “Initiation and its Results”, under the headings of Present Knowledge, Imaginative Knowledge, Inspirational Knowledge and Intuitive Knowledge. His classifications are more in the abstract. We must, therefore, think of him in the following way: Giordano Bruno lived first at that point of time when the knowledge of visible phenomena was, advancing, therefore he used expressions which resemble those used now to express knowledge of the ordinary visible world, rather than those which relate to the higher worlds. But when Giordano Bruno looks up to the Spiritual World, we can have no doubt of his meaning from the tremendous emphasis with which he says “The Divine Spirit which exists in everything, which has its bodily form in all things, possesses that of which we have the representation, as the idea is the conception of the thing”. “In what way is the world in God? How is the Spirit in God?” he asks, and replies: “The Spirit is in God as Idea, as the Thought that precedes the Word.” In everything is the Spirit in Nature, as form, he replies, by which he means, that the idea which exists in the Divine Spirit is in the crystal, which has a form; it is in the plant, which has a form; in the animal, which has a form; it is in the human body, which has a form. Of all visible things which have form, a counterpart exists in the human soul as the concept of them. Giordano Bruno carries this still further. The things of Nature are shadows of the Divine Ideas. “Note well”, he says, “Our concepts are not the shadows of things, they are the shadows of the Divine Thoughts.” Thus, if we have the things of Nature around us and thus have the shadow of the Divine Idea, our concepts will be again fructified thereby. While we are forming our concepts, the Divine Spirit is weaving His Ideas into the original, so that we come in direct contact with the stream which connects us with the Divine Idea. When we study the theories of that Physical Science which is to-day called Monism, (unlike that of Giordano Bruno), what strikes us most is the fact that, if we would be consistent in speaking of these theories, we must say “they do not mention the Divine Thought”. But Giordano Bruno did not say that, he was a Spiritualist in the strictest sense of the word. What he has to gibe us out of the true inspiration of the Renaissance relates to the Monads. The assembling of the Monads at birth and their dissolution at death refers to the Divine Thoughts, which, in his conception of the world, flow into the world of ideas; and in his own words “The human thought is a reflection of the Divine.” If this is once thoroughly understood, we shall understand something of the spirituality of Giordano Bruno. But for this, one thing is necessary: we must distinguish between the real and the unreal Giordano Bruno, between the Giordano Bruno who was so greatly misunderstood and the real man himself. Giordano Bruno was the master-mind, who, by his unbounded enthusiasm, spread broadcast among his contemporaries the more intellectual achievements of Galileo in the realms of Scientific Thought. This is why every utterance of Giordano Bruno carried such weight. All the joy and enthusIasm of the Spirit of the age, all its delight in the discovery of the working and weaving of Nature in the physical world, was concentrated in the personality of Giordano Bruno. This flood of rejoicing was itself crystallized into a system of philosophy, for the Divine Spirit which dwells in all visible things most certainly illuminated the soul of Giordano Bruno, and he was conscious of it. Hence we can understand those utterances of Giordano Bruno, which we do well to remember; they sound as if Nature herself had a direct message for men in those days. We can only quote a few words here. Consider how wonderful the following thought is, to which Giordano gives expression in contradistinction to the teaching of Aristotle on the same subject. “The Spirit of Divine intelligence is not beyond the visible world, it is not exterior to it, it is everywhere, wherever we may look. The Divine Intelligence does not dwell in any place exterior to the visible world. It does not dwell in that vague realm, of which we may say ‘something moves in circles wide’, it does mot dwell in a revolving, encircling realm, with which we can communicate only from a great distance. The Divine Spirit is the united principle of that vital force, which is in everything and in Nature herself.” Such was the language which rang out at that time, such the convictions which sprang from the innermost depths of the soul of Giordano Bruno. The question now remains how best to reproduce this language to-day, so that it will speak directly to our hearts and minds. Hermann Brunnhofer, who called attention to this and had to submit to being called a too enthusiastic admirer of Giordano Bruno, put his words into fine verse: Non est Deus vel intelligentia exterior Cirounrotans et circumducens; Dignuis enim illi debet esse Internum prinzipuim Motus, Quod est Natura propria, species propria, anima propria, Quam habeat tot quot in illius Gremio et corpore vivent Noe generali Spiritu, corpore. Anima, Natura animantia Plantea, Lapides quae univena ut Disimus proportionaliter cumastro Euden composita ordine, etaedem Contemperata complexion um, symmetus, Secundum genus, quantumlebet secundum Specierum numeros singula deslingunlui. Giordano Bruno says philosophically: It is worthy of God to be the inner moving principle of things. See also: Herman Brunnhofer, The Influence of Giordano Bruno upon Goethe — Goethe's Journals — Vol. VII, 1886. Goethe translates this line for line in the poem beginning: “What Kind of God were He who from the World Remained aloof and the great Universe Around His finger twirled?” etc. This is a poetical translation of the mind of Giordano Bruno through the instrumentality of the mind of Goethe. It was not merely that Goethe wrote these verses with Giordano Bruno's works lying beside him. Some other influence must have been at work than that which would have made Goethe merely recast the words of Giordano Bruno in a poetical form. We see in this how the spirit of Giordano Bruno becomes fully alive in Goethe. Nevertheless it is not only a couple of centuries which have to be bridged when we pass from the days of Galileo and Giordano Bruno to Goethe. We must realise that what in the case of Giordano Bruno had its origin in the first great enthusiastic mood from which arose the philosophic cult of Nature, became in Goethe a mood leading him with complete devotion from one thing to another and finally causing him to bring back into Nature the God whose existence man now learned to feel in Nature herself. In Goethe the mood of Giordano Bruno had become his own. It was born in him, as it were. It was already present in him when, at the age of seven, he took the music desk belonging to his father and arranged on it mineral ores from his father's collection, so as to have some products of Nature herself — for the same purpose he took plants from his father's herbarium. He then placed a little stick of incense on the top of the heap and waited, burning glass in hand, for the Sun to rise, so that he might enkindle the incense from its rays and thus consummate a sacrifice culled from the forces of Nature to the God who lives in the plants and minerals and to whom he had erected an altar. Thus did Giordano Bruno live in Goethe at the end of the eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth centuries, but in such a way that what lived as the innermost attitude of his soul, Goethe carried into every detail of Nature. It was this mental attitude which made it impossible to Goethe to understand how the Scientific investigators of that day could attach such importance to the outward signs which differentiate men from animals. The physical Scientists of the eighteenth century maintained that man did not possess the same number of small bones in the upper part of the jaw bone as the animals — viz. the inter-maxillary bones — which contain the sheath of the upper teeth. Animals possess these and this is where men differ from animals. Goethe could not understand this highly materialistic idea. This indeed could not be the God who was the inner vital principle of Nature. The God of whom Giordano Bruno spoke as “circumroians et circumducens.” He must be a God who worked outside Nature, a God who, first of all, made the animals, then made man and then, in order to differentiate man from beast, arranged that animals should have the inter-maxillary bones, while these should be wanting in man. Goethe was the great investigator of Nature, who endeavoured to show that that which existed in Nature as form was capable of rising higher, and that it is not in anything external, such as the inter-maxillary bones, that the difference between the human and the animal world is to be found, but that something exists in man which, though it may be clothed with tones and muscles like those of the animals, constitutes the higher mind of humanity. This is only another proof of the magnitude of Goethe's genius. He not only discovered traces of the inter-maxillary bone and proved that it had only disappeared in man because it was a subordinate bone, but he also shows that the vertebrae may be distended if the activity of the mind contained in the brain finds this to be necessary. A long time ago, when I was studying the Scientific writings of Goethe, in order to understand his assertion that the bones of the skull are transposed vertebrae, the latter having been extended into the cavities of the skull, I came to the inevitable conclusion that Goethe must have conceived the idea that the brain itself was transposed spinal marrow and that this change had been wrought by the mind. That not only the covering tissue, but that the brain itself had been moved up from the vertebrae and spinal marrow to a higher level. It was a wonderful moment im my life when I discovered that, in the last decade of the eighteenth century, Goethe had written in pencil on a slip of paper “The brain is in reality only a piece of transposed spinal marrow.” Professor Bardeleben relates this in his article in the Weimar Year-Book on “Goethe as Scientific Investigator.” Thus we see the mood which first appeared in Giordano Bruno applied by Goethe to the different parts of living beings. We see how Goethe applied the ideas of Giordano Bruno — to whom, as we have seen, he approaches so closely, even in his choice of words — in a practical way to everything in natural scientific thought. This is why Goethe laid such stress upon finding in the whole plant world the metamorphosis of the primal archetypal plant (Urpflanze). Added to the great achievements of Goethe as artist were his noteworthy achievements as a scientific investigator of Nature. In a certain sense, the spirit which had come down from the clairvoyant stages of perception to a material form of vision was incorporated in Goethe, as a personality who saw the Divine in all his observations of Nature, even in the individual plants. The expression “Urpflanze”, Primal Archetypal plant. What did Goethe mean by that? He meant to indicate the Spiritual essence in the various species of Plants. With regard to this, the conversation between Schiller and Goethe at Jena, after a meeting of the Botanical Society, which they had both attended, is important. When they had left the assembly, Schiller said: — “What they said about plants was very unsatisfying.” Goethe replied: — “It might have been expressed differently. We ought to be able to see, not only those parts of the plant which we hold in our hands, but also their Spiritual relationship.” Then he took a piece of paper and drew the structure of a plant in a few strokes. He showed to Schiller that the type is not only present in the Lily, the Dandelion or the Ranunculus, but in all plants. Then Schiller, who could not understand the structure of the primal plant) said: — “That is no reality, it is nothing but an idea.” Goethe was very puzzled and said: — “It would gratify me very much to think that I could have ideas without knowing it and even see them with my physical eyes.” For Goethe could perceive the Spiritual element which permeates all plants. He saw it so clearly that he could even draw it. The same applies to the primal archetypal animal in all animals. Thus Goethe pursued the God who does not work from without the material world, but who lives and operates within all visible things. Thus he followed the Divine Spirit which moves invisibly in everything, working in a concrete way from plant to plant, through leaf, blossom and fruit. It works in the same way from one animal to another, and also from one bone to another, from one animal form to another. It is interesting to note that Goethe was not understood by the men of his own time, not even by Schiller. But little by little the spirit of Goethe will take root even in the thought of the Natural Scientists. It will be acknowledged that Goethe's ideas were a stage higher than those of Giordano Bruno. Giordano Bruno spoke of a God, a pantheistic God, who is to be found everywhere, in plants and in animals. But Goethe, although he too sought the great spirit who does not operate from without, said further: — We must not only seek for Him in general; we must study the detailed phenomena and look for the Spirit in the separate things. For it lives in one way in plants, in another in mineral; one way in this bone and another way in that. The Spirit is in perpetual action; it forms the various parts of matter, matter follows the moving spirit. This can be expressed as one universal spirit, as was done by Giordano Bruno. It can also be sought with deep devotion in every single detail, as Goethe did. In this way, man draws nearer and nearer to the Spirit at work in the outspread carpet of Nature, by degrees will that Spirit reveal itself. If we study the successive stages of progress represented by Galileo, Giordano Bruno and Goethe, and search for the root principle which directed such great minds, we shall learn by degrees to adhere to the root principle which directed them, and not to be led away by the will-of-the-wisp of superficial criticism. For even the greatest minds do not escape criticism. Let us take Galileo with his great conception of the Divine, which embraced the whole of Creation in the span of one moment, and was unfettered by space or time. When we consider this, the question is bound to arise: — “What do the men of to-day know about the real significance of Galileo?” As a rule, they know little more about him than the one incident which is assuredly not true, that he said, as is supposed, “It moves, nevertheless.” A fine saying, truly, but, as can be seen from the investigations of the Italian scholar, Angells de Gubernatis, it cannot be true. And how often do we not hear that the last words of Goethe were: — “More light”, which is exactly what he never did say. Hence we see that these great minds must be studied in the light which Spiritual Science is able to throw upon them, We cannot, as we are so fond of doing, judge of the past with our own, individual, unaided, modern mind. These three master-minds form a wonderful, harmonious triad, which marks the beginning of our modern age; in Galileo and in Giordano Bruno we see the dawn, in Goethe we see the Sun itself, which show how the Spirit of the modern age already taught him to see that the smallest atom of matter cannot exist without Spirit behind it, which brings one atom in touch with another. I would call to your remembrance an incident which Goethe relates himself. Many years after the death of Schiller, it was decided to transfer his remains from their grave to the Princes Mausoleum. There was some difficulty in deciding which were really the bones of Schiller. Goethe was attracted by a skull, which he saw must have belonged to a man of the type of the genius of Schiller; on closer inspection, he decided that this must be Schiller's skull, as he recognised it from the strongly marked peculiarity in the shape of the skull. This skull was accordingly placed in the Princes Mausoleum. Here he recognised the principle, which was also recognised by Galileo, that the spirit (or genius) must be sought for humbly and mathematically. The ancient church lamp still hangs in the cathedral at Pisa, swinging backwards and forwards before countless souls. But Galileo had only sat before it once, when he measured the beating of his pulse by the regular swinging of the lamp and thus discovered the laws of balance, which are of such vast importance to-day. This was a Divine Inspiration. There are many such cases. At the grave of Schiller, Goethe was inspired with the thought which lived in the philosophic inspiration of Giordano Bruno. “Spirit is inseparable from matter. It is everywhere. Not, however, tossing it wildly about and driving it round, but, as Spirit which exists in the minutest atom.” This conception of the Spiritual, which existed in Giordano Bruno, was re-born in Goethe's soul, as he held the skull of Schiller in his hand, and, as water congealed into ice, so was the Spirit of Schiller made manifest to him in the skull of Schiller. Goethe's entire spiritual standpoint lies before us when we study the poem which he wrote after having looked on Schiller's skull. Especially those lines, which are so often misinterpreted, and which we can only understand when we realise that in the situation which we have described above, Goethe saw the individuality of Schiller in plastic form before him, as if frozen. Then he cries, as he must do, forced thereto by the similarity of the Spirit which united Giordano Bruno and Goethe: Was kann der Mensch imleben mehr gewinnen, Als dass sich Gott-Natur ihm offenbare, Wie sie das Feste ladesst zu Geist verrinnen, Wie sie das Geisterzeugte fest bewahre. What can a man wrest more from life Than that Nature, all-divine, reveal to him How that she causeth the firm and formed to melt into Spirit, And how what is born of the Spirit she holdeth fast in form.

Galileo, Giordano Bruno, and Goethe

https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA060/English/Singles/19110126p01.html

Berlin

26 Jan 1911

GA060-10

Translator Unknown It could weigh like a nightmare on the world-conception based on spiritual science if in all earnestness and truthfulness it were obliged to come into opposition to the well-founded results of the investigations carried out by natural science — investigations which in the course of the last centuries, and especially during the nineteenth century, have accomplished such great things and brought such blessings on mankind, not only in the field of knowledge but in the whole field of human progress. But it would be particularly depressing if spiritual science were compelled to take a stand in opposition to a branch of natural science which is comparatively one of the youngest, but which by virtue of its nature and its special tasks is able not only to arouse human interest in the deepest sense of the word, but also to open perspectives into the very coming-into-being of our planet, as well as into the origin and evolving forms of the creatures inhabiting it. This young branch of natural science is Geology, the science which, especially since the second third of the nineteenth century — but also already prior to that — has made such tremendous strides and achieved results of real importance, even though the great questions about which we shall have to speak still remain open. Our main purpose today will be to envisage the relationship in which spiritual science must stand to geology — and to answer the question, how much from the point of view of spiritual science — that knowledge which has always formed the base of our considerations here — has geology to say about the question concerning the origin, the gradual emergence and evolution, of the earth and its living organisms? To answer this question we must first think briefly of the way in which the methods employed in the specific study of geology really work. It is, of course, well known that geology draws the content of its knowledge from the solid ground of our earth itself, and that out of what it finds there — within the earth's strata — it forms its conclusions concerning the way in which our planet may have come into existence and the changes it has undergone in the course of time. We know, if, for instance during railway-construction or work in stone quarries or mining-operations, any breaking-up of the ground gives us the opportunity of studying deeper layers of the earth in regard to their rock formations or other contents, that these layers present a different appearance from that of the ground on which we tread — which is the outermost surface. But within this surface-layer, too, we discover very manifold variations when we investigate the ground as to the nature of its rock-formations and mineral character. And it is perhaps also known that some of the most interesting studies are concerned with layers of the earth's surface whose character is clearly such that we can say: the material which covers the ground must originally have been dissolved in water or have been subject to the force of water in some other way, must once have been washed up as it were by the waters in times long past. We still see today how rivers carry accumulations of shifting rocky material far away and deposit them in other parts. We see the ground covered by such alluvial deposits and we must conceive that in the same way, in far distant times, successive layers of deposits were formed. Over one layer which originated in that way we have to imagine another covering it which, on examination, proves to be different in character from the one below. Thus in its successive layers, the earth shows us how the character of their rock-material differs. It stands to reason that the upper strata must be the latest, superimposed by the most recent occurrences on the earth. As we have occasion to penetrate more and more deeply and to study the lower parts of the earth's crust, we come to strata which are the deposits from earlier and ever earlier times, successively overlaid by the later ones. Likewise it is common knowledge that within these strata of the earth all kinds of forms have been embedded, originating, according to present-day concepts, from organic beings of the animal kingdom, from plants which, carried away by the waters and the alluvial layers, have met with their death, as it were, and by this natural process have become thus entombed, and then, more or less changed or unchanged, are to be found there in the rock-material as the remains of prehistoric organic beings. Nor is it difficult to come to the conclusion that a certain relationship must be presumed between such a layer of rock-material and the fossil remains of animals and plants within it. But we must not imagine that the younger strata have overlaid the older ones so conveniently over the whole face of the earth; on the contrary, there is clear evidence that sometimes older strata — recognisable by their character — extend to the surface, that in the course of the earth's development manifold disturbances have occurred through sets of layers having become intermingled, overlaid, upturned, and so on. So that it is by no means an easy task for the geologist to determine how one layer has been deposited over the subjacent layer. These are matters which can only be mentioned briefly here. In any ease we need not concern ourselves with the irregularities just referred to; we may assume that the geologists have access to the earth's strata with their fossiliferous constituents, and that from this they draw their conclusions as to the appearance of the earth at the time when the present top layer had not yet been deposited or successive lower beds did not yet exist, and that in this way it is possible to form some idea of the appearance which our earth must have presented in times gone by. Moreover, it is an interesting and generally known fact that the upper layers — and therefore the youngest of our terrestrial material — contain fossils of more highly developed forms of animal- and plant-life, and that in the deeper layers we come to fossil remains of less developed forms of life, which today we are accustomed to count among the lower species and genera of the animal- and plant-kingdoms. We then come, as it were, to the lowest layers of the earth's crust, overlaid again and again by others; we come to the so-called “Cambrian” layer of our earth's development and find there only fossil remains of animals which did not yet possess a spinal column. We find other animals with a spinal column in the upper layers, which geology is therefore justified in regarding as the younger layers in earth-evolution: Thus geology seems to be fully in conformity with what natural science knows today from other inferences, namely, that in the process of the earth's evolution the living creatures have developed by slow degrees from quite primitive to more perfect forms. When we now examine the Cambrian bed, namely, the lowest layer, and imagine that all the other layers had not yet come into existence, we shall have to assume that in the most ancient times there existed only the lowest animal forms, which as yet had no skeleton and were the first predecessors of the still undeveloped animals which were entombed in the deposits covering the lowest stratum of the rock-material. Then we must imagine that these beings have had descendants, that the latter may have underdone changes under the then prevailing, different conditions. In the next layer, which is again younger, we discover those animals in which there are already some indications of skeleton-like structures. And as we approach the younger layers we see evidence of more highly-developed animal species, until we come to the tertiary layers, where we already find the mammals, and then, in layers still younger than the tertiary layers, man. As you know, there is a line of thought today which simply assumes that the lower animals of the Cambrian period have had descendants, some of which remained unchanged, while others developed towards vertebrate forms and so on; so that the appearance of more highly developed animals in the later, younger layers has to be explained by the assumption that the most primitive and simple forms of animal- and plant-life gradually evolved to higher forms. That would give a clearly outlined picture of the gradual development of life and also of the other occurrences on our earth — roughly as it might have presented itself to the eye of an observer who could have looked on during the billions and billions of years which geology has calculated for these happenings. Some idea of the methods applied and of the manner in which research is conducted may be gained from the following. — If, for instance, one observes how certain layers are still being formed today as alluvial deposits washed up by river-action or the like in the course of so and so many years, and if by measuring the thickness of such a layer a certain measurement is obtained by which it can be reckoned how many years it has taken for that layer to be deposited – then one can calculate how long the accumulation must have taken of all the layers we have had under review — provided that conditions were the same as they are today. As a result, the most divergent figures are obtained from the calculations made by the geologists. There is no need to enlarge upon contradictions which arise from this; for anyone who understands the contradictions will know that they have no essential significance, although they are really sometimes rather pronounced and amount to many billions of years according to the results obtained by different investigators. When we contemplate all this we have, after all, only a picture of the course which, according to the ideas of geology (conceived and expressed precisely in the tone applied in the present description), the events in the evolution of our earth have taken during the later billennia. Moreover, geology compels us to presume that all these happenings have been preceded by others. For all these layers which contain remains of animal life rest, as it were, on others, and such others, having pushed through the overlaid layers, then protrude over the surface, form mountains, and thus become visible. The tenets of geology, therefore, lead to the conclusion that all fossil-carrying layers of our earth are resting on some other layer — a conception which takes us back, so to speak, to an age of our earth which preceded all “life.” For the composition of this oldest and lowest stratum of the earth's crust shows us that, when it came into being, there could not — at least according to ideas prevailing at the present time — have been on the earth any “life” as it is today. For geology finds itself compelled to assume that the lowest stratum owes its origin to a fire-process within which any possibility of life is unthinkable. Geology, therefore, would take us back in the process of our earth-evolution to olden times when as it were out of a fire-process the oldest rock-formations and minerals originated, while only later the basic foundation of the lowest layer was overlaid by the younger, fossiliferous layers through other events, events which occurred when, through radiating its warmth into cosmic space, the earth had cooled down sufficiently to make life possible. One has to envisage all this as being accompanied by processes of a physical and chemical nature, which cannot be described in detail. If in this way we look back into those oldest times of our earth when a certain degree of cooling down had already taken place (for geology conceives the earth before the time of the first rock-formation as still in a state of heat), we find our globe, evolving towards the surface, possessed of a basic layer, and we observe how over this basic layer have spread those layers which with their fossilised remains provide living witnesses of the fact that life has existed on the earth for a very long time. When we consider those oldest layers upon which the life-carrying layers are resting, and study their rock-material which consists mainly of what is called granite, 1 It must be pointed out that this lecture was given in the year 1911. Granite was formerly classified by geology as belonging to the archetypal rock-formations, as is also indicated in the descriptions given here by Rudolf Steiner. Today, the rocks included in the Archaean System are only old gneiss-formations and other crystalline schist-formations. It is held today that Granite is of eruptive origin and that there are various epochs of granite-formation. [The above statements refer in general to the actual archetypal rock-material, also when granite is spoken of. we envisage our globe in a form which, according to modern geology, still presents itself in a kind of lifeless condition. That is where the upper layers are open, and granite protrudes and forms mountains, so to speak, as a witness of the oldest times of our earth. When Goethe, who besides being a great poet was also a great student of Nature and of natural philosophy, found this oldest rock-formation of the earth — granite — it was borne in upon him that this granular rock-material is something on which, as on the bone-skeleton of the earth, everything else rests. Intuitively, Goethe experienced this as the echo of a primeval quiescence of our planet — and it was with reverence that he regarded this rock-formation. A man of his calibre was bound to contemplate the occurrences within earth-evolution not merely with his intellect but also with his heart, searching for what these remains can reveal of the earth-being. Profoundly moving and leading more deeply into the secrets than all abstract thinking are the words spoken by Goethe when face to face with this “oldest son of the earth” as he calls the granite: “... With such sentiments I approach you, you most ancient, most noble monument of the time. Sitting on a high, bare summit with a free view over a wide landscape, I can say to myself: There you are resting directly on ground which reaches down to the very lowest depths of the earth. No newer layer, no accumulations of alluvial deposits have interposed themselves between you and the firm basement of the primeval world; you do not walk, as you do in those fruitful, beautiful valleys, over a perpetual grave; these summits have produced nothing living, have devoured nothing living; they are prior to all life, above all life. – At this moment, as the inner attracting and moving forces of the earth are directly affecting me, as it were, while the influences of the heavens are weaving more closely about me, I become attuned to higher contemplations of nature; and as the human spirit vitalises everything, so too does a secret stir within me, a secret of a sublimity which I cannot resist. Such loveliness, I tell myself as I am looking down from this bare summit and hardly able to see some modestly growing moss far away on the river bank, such loveliness, I say, overcomes the man who wants to open his soul only to the oldest, the first and deepest sense of truth.” Goethe: Abhandlung über Granit. That is the mood which came over Goethe when he contemplated this rock-formation, which by its whole nature showed that it could not contain anything living, and consequently could not, like the overlying layers, have engulfed anything living. Sketchy though it is, what I have been able to illustrate so far shows nevertheless — as if outlined in a rough charcoal drawing — the picture given us by geology today of the course of the evolution of the earth and its living creatures. It was not, however, always so conceived; this way of thinking has developed only very gradually. In the days of Goethe, for instance, when he occupied himself with geology, a certain dispute was raging about the origin of our earth — the dispute between the Plutonists and the Neptunists, as it was called. One of the principal supporters of the latter was the geologist Werner, who was also acquainted with Goethe. He held that, generally speaking, nothing that we are able to observe of the accumulated layers within the earth's crust can be traced back to any kind of action by fire, but that everything we can learn from investigations points to the earth having in effect consolidated out of nothing but a watery element, out of a watery form of the planet, that even the oldest strata are alluvial deposits from water and that, consequently, granite too owes its origin not to the action of seething fire, but to watery deposits — and only in the course of time, through later occurrences, underwent changes which make its watery origin less apparent today. Everything, so to speak, has originated from water — that was the basic conception of the Neptunists and especially of Werner. Contrary to this, the contention of the Plutonists was based on the assumption that the earth, together with the whole planetary system, had emerged out of a gaseous cosmic nebula in a state of high temperature, had detached itself through cooling down, that this process of cooling continued through radiating heat into cosmic apace, and that then the time came when heat-conditions made the formation of granite and perhaps of similar kinds of rock-material possible; but that through the radiation of heat only the surface-crust of the earth was cooled down, while the interior remained in a state of fiery fluid, and that volcanic eruptions and earthquakes are living witnesses that the interior of the earth beneath the crust remains in a fiery-fluid state. The adherents of the Neptunistic school, on the other hand, saw the cause of all volcanic phenomena in processes which, through pressure from within or through chemical conditions in the interior of the. Earth — by no means thought of as fiery — made it possible for mighty catastrophes to take place in the interior and erupt outwards. So that only at this juncture events occur which in their upward trend have the effect of pushing up whole mountain-massifs out of the interior of the earth. — In short, here we see a very interesting dispute being carried on as recently as the first half of the nineteenth century about the conception which, on the one hand, can be briefly put in the words used by Goethe in his “Faust:” “Everything has its origin in water,” as against the other contention that fundamentally all terrestrial formations are the result of fire-processes and that it must be imagined that on the surface of the outer crust — corresponding in its relationship to the interior to that between the egg-shell and the yolk of the egg — events have taken place through which quite a thin layer has remained in a cooled condition, forming, as it were, a covering sheet all round the mighty earth-volcano, which this planet under our feet was conceived to be. Now we must ask ourselves: What has this external investigation to tell us? And what, with the means elucidated, in the lectures given so far, has spiritual science to reveal about the origin of the earth? (Concerning the present and earlier evolutionary stages of the earth, more detailed information can be found in my book “Occult Science.”) How far, then, does geology lead us? We will now put into plain words what geology can tell us. It is this: — Look at the layer-formations to be found in the earth's upper crust. The order of their superpositions shows that alluvial deposits have formed — in any case, in most recent times — as a result of which animal beings have been entombed, whose descendants are still on the earth, but also those which have now become extinct and of whose existence as inhabitants of the earth we know only from the excavation of their remains. Then we are led to the lowest layer of the earth's crust; it still belongs to that part which is to the whole planet what the egg-shell is to the yolk of the egg, and shows signs that it might well owe its origin to fire-action. But those with deeper insight — Goethe, for example — are more cautious in their pronouncements — also when they are intent on thinking entirely in terms of geology. And it is interesting to hear what Goethe says about this lower layer: “... In the innermost bowels of the earth it (this layer) rests, firm and unshaken; its back rises on high, where its summit was never reached by the all-surrounding waters. So much, and so little more, do we know of this rock-material. Composed in a mysterious way of known constituents, it does not entitle us to trace its origin to fire anymore than to water.” Thus Goethe already points out that in the last resort neither fire-action nor water can be thought responsible for the mysterious formation of this oldest son of our earth — granite. If against the investigations of geology, which anyhow have reached a point from which they cannot lead us any further, we quite simply set down what spiritual science has to say, what clairvoyant investigation has revealed, it presents itself somewhat in the following way. When with the eyes of Spirit — which can be sharpened by the methods repeatedly indicated in these lectures — we look at the prehistoric times of our planet, we observe what would have presented itself to our physical eyes approximately during the periods covered by geological research. We also see how in this research into the past, geological investigation had to resort to speculative phantasy. And looking backward from those beings which from our human point of view we call perfect today, we come to ever less and less perfect forms of life on the earth with a mixture, at times, of grotesque forms as, for instance, the various Saurian types such as Ichthyosaurus, Plesiosaurus, Dinosaurus, Archaeopteryx. We then find creatures without any vertebrate skeleton, and so, with clairvoyant vision, we do indeed come to a tellurian epoch in which we cannot find such beings as are now living on our earth. We must admit, therefore; that drawing from its own sources, spiritual-scientific research also reveals this gradual advance in degrees of perfection. When we now go back in time and clairvoyant research comes to the period connected by geology with granite, which according to the modern theory coagulated out of the tellurian mass already cooled but still subject to the effects of fire-action, we must ask: What has geology, what has spiritual science, to regard as prerequisites for conditions prevailing in an earlier time? If in the field of geology we remain on really safe ground (and no student of natural science ought to doubt what I am now saying), geology has only suppositions in regard to what precedes the granite-age; likewise geology can have no more than suppositions about conditions in the interior of the earth. For the bores that have been driven into the earth by drilling-operations reach depths which must be regarded only as tiny pin-pricks. There are suppositions, hypotheses, and nothing else — at best some dim divination about conditions which preceded the weaving and surging processes in granite-formation and so forth. Now spiritual science — with the specific outlook often characterised here — follows earth-evolution backward into prehistoric times and finds in the domain which eyes can observe ever less and less perfect beings as the forerunners of all forms of life on the earth at the present time. But, tracing evolution backward in this way, spiritual science finds that there is a stupendous difference in the earth's appearance as compared with what it is at present. When we go back to pre-historic times, the earth does not present itself in the very least as we know it today, as the mineral base on which we walk surrounded by air with its fog and cloud-formations and so on. A great number of substances which are now in the interior of the earth were still in the surroundings of the earth in earlier times and settled only by degrees. This must also be admitted by geology. But we find, the further we go back, that our earth appears more and more as an utterly different planetary body, becomes something totally different; as we go further back, what is now the surrounding air does in effect take on the character of a living entity; in the environment of our earth we do not find only such mineralised air and cloud-formations as we have them now, but in the most ancient times we find within all that belongs to our earth something like live members of a great living being. And as we go back in this way we can see ourselves as if we were quite tiny beings today, standing within a human organism: if, standing within it on a firm, bony base, we looked out into outer space, we should there observe the blood-system, the nervous-system and so on, like an outer world. Thus one who stood on the earth in the remote past and looked out into space would not have seen a weaving, mineralised air but intense, pulsating life . And the further we go back the more this would be the case. So that we could go back to the epoch to which we assign granite-formation and reflect: There the earth is essentially a mighty, living body, containing multifarious and varied life within it, not yet inhabited by such living beings as move today on its surface or live in the water, and so on, but having their life within it — like parasites of the entire living earth-organism, swimming as it were in its blood, as today masses of rain float through the air. And then we come to a period of which we must say: It is true that on the earth's surface the heat is so great that life cannot develop; but in the environment life is developing which wants to, but cannot descend. Why is it that it cannot descend? Down in the depths, through the fire-process, under conditions of intense heat — it is there that what the living organism of our earth segregates out of its system as our living organism segregates the hard parts, the bones from the soft parts, is first absorbed. And now we look at the granite-formation and say: Originally the material which the granite contains — quartz, feldspar and mica – is in a state of dissolution within the great living being “Earth.” The 1atter needs for its development the capability to discard these substances: it segregates them and lets them fall to earth. What is below absorbs these segregations, builds up a basic massif, a bone-structure in the living being “Earth.” And when we go still further back we must investigate the causes as to why the whole living earth segregates from its organism the substances which today, as chemical-substances, form our earth and which at the same time are not those which appertain to the animal, plant, or human organism. These chemical substances were at that time segregated in a similar way through the effect of fire or water action, and were then transformed into the bone-structure of the earth. When we now reflect how it is that there are these substances which were eliminated from the living earth-being and form a solid foundation from which life has departed, and when we search for the causes which could have brought this about — then we come to something which, if spoken of as part of the development of our earth, is still apt to cause wide-spread annoyance today — not indeed among the thinkers in natural science (for they ought to acknowledge it) but especially among those who on the strength of a few preconceived ideas want to build up a world-conception. But a true picture must be given of the facts established by the investigations of spiritual science. They show that these processes — the segregation of the rock-materials — have been preceded, within the living being of the earth, by a process which in terms of anything occurring today can only be described as similar to our own internal-functioning, little known to external science, but already described to some extent in these lectures – as similar to that activity which functions all day in our own body when through work, through mental effort, we exert our muscles or the instrument of our brain — in short, our whole body. What is in operation here is the process we call “fatigue.” It is, in essence, a kind of destructive process of the organism. Therefore we can say: As we live our waking life today from morning till night, through thinking, feeling and willing, processes of destruction are working within us which we then feel us “fatigue.” A world-conception based on natural science would not readily admit that such processes of spirit-and-soul, working into matter as they do, underlie external effects in nature. But they functioned; they were at work in that mighty organism which the earth once was. And when the earth approached the time when granite and similar material segregated, it was laid hold of by all such destructive processes — which were the means whereby forces of spirit-and-soul worked upon matter. Into that organism into which formerly were worked not only the substances appertaining today to the plant, animal and human organisms, but also the substances which today constitute our earth-massif – into this organism flowed the effects of all these destructive processes that were due to the working of forces of spirit-and-soul. These destructive processes were introduced into the life of the great being “Earth” by forces which then brought about the ejection.- through a process of segregation, as it were — of those chemical substances which today are incorporated in the make-up of our earth, and which are not to be found in organic bodies. Thus spiritual science leads us back to the earth as an organism — not to a primeval state in which the earth was, so to speak, dead matter; on the contrary, the earth was originally a mighty organism. From the point of view of spiritual science one must practically reverse the way of asking a question that is put quite wrongly today. No science which assumes that the earth was once a dead globe in which only chemical and physical processes were active will be able to explain how life could arise out of this dead globe. This is a highly controversial question; but as a rule it is put quite wrongly. For generally people ask: How could “life” have developed out of the lifeless? — But that is not how it is: the living is not preceded by the lifeless, but them reverse is the case; the lifeless is preceded by the living . The lifeless mineral is a product of segregation, as our bones are segregations of our organism. Similarly, all rock-material is a product of segregation in the earth-organism, and processes of spirit-and-soul forces — processes of destruction in the first place — are the means of producing such segregations in the organism of the earth. And were we to go further back we should see how this path would lead us much further still. We are led by what operates in the mineral domain to the earth as an organism, and indeed we already see, as we go still further back, that we are being led not only to an organism, but to a formation of our planet that is permeated with the working of forces of spirit-and-soul. No longer do we trace life back to the lifeless, but we trace the lifeless back to processes of segregation from the living, and we regard the living as a state emanating from the sphere of the spirit and of the soul . And the further we go back, the nearer we come to that sphere in which lies the real origin of the present minerals, the plant-forms and so on: we approach the Spiritual and we let spiritual science tell us that it was not merely out of a lifeless, fiery nebula that there came into existence all that we perceive in the manifold forms of earthly phenomena, but that all this has taken shape out of the Spiritual, that originally our earth was pure Spirit, and that the course of evolution was such that on the one side emerged those forms which tend more towards the mineral element, and that on the other side the possibility arose for certain new forms to develop, capable of responding to spiritual functions of a new order. For if we now proceed in the opposite direction and say: In the old rock-material we have something which segregated out of the original organism of the earth, and if we then go on to our present age, this segregation is going on all the time. Granite is merely the oldest segregation ; but the processes which bring about the segregation will be ever less and less living processes; for more and more they will tend to be mere chemical, mere mechanical processes; so that at last, in our time, we still have only those effects due to water-action, which can be observed when, for instance, a river carries rock-material from one place to another. But what we perceive there as the result of mechanical-chemical processes is only the final product; this has turned into the minerals in accordance with the laws of nature; it is a state resulting from what was originally at work in the realm of the life-forces. And so we see how actually in the course of the development of our earth something takes place in connection with the formation of the ground beneath us, which we find in a similar way in the individual human or animal organism. There we see, how a man lives to a certain age, how he then passes through the gate of death, leaving his body as a corpse, and we see the continuation of those processes which are purely mineral processes; during the body's lifetime, however, these chemical and physical processes were an integral part of those working through the forces of spirit-and-soul. Similarly we come back to a time of earth-existence when the processes which today are of a chemical and mechanical nature were caught up and perpetuated by organic — yes, by spiritual and soul-processes. But what is taking place on the ground formation of our earth is, so to speak, only the one stream, left from earlier — to begin with more living, organic processes — and then spiritual processes. This foundation had to come into existence, had to form itself, so that on its firm ground, life of a different order could function – that life which gradually became our life, in order that as time went on such cerebral instruments could develop in living beings which enabled them to become “inwardly” aware of the spirit, inwardly able to form thoughts and produce feelings which, as it were, repeat the outer processes in reflective and emotional awareness. Therefore the whole mass of our earth's substance had to be “sifted,” the present purely mineral substances had to be discarded — and those retained which today can form the organisms which are permeated by a part only of the substance of the old massif. These are the parts which only now can form themselves, for example, into what man is today. The spirit which lives in the human head, in the human heart, that is to say in a being whose organisation is as it were, more refined than that of the planetary being of the earth as a whole, this spirit could only originate in a being from which were eliminated those substances which today do not belong to organic 1ife. This “sifting” of the whole mass of our earth's substance had taken place, and the one part was given over as a foundation to the purely mineral life in order that on it can develop a new life, which we see entering its lowest form at the moment which in later times geology has marked as that of the emergence of the most primitive beings in Cambrian form. When, with the outlook of spiritual science, we thus observe life as it is today, we shall have to say: This life was originally in the outer atmosphere encircling the earth; then it descended as it were, but could not set foot on the surface of the earth until after it had sent down in advance all that it needed of mass-substance — as a basis on which to function. The process of decomposition, caused by processes in the domain of the spirit-and-soul forces, introduces two currents which have since been in operation: an ascending current, which unfolded a life of a finer, higher order – this needed only a part of the mass-substances — and another current which continued the process of decomposition and provides a foundation for the finer organisms, which then culminate in the human being. The development of these finer organisms is in the ascendancy. Why? Because (and again this would not be admitted today) through having segregated the coarsest material as in a mighty process of elimination, which then became the surface of the earth, they were in a position to isolate themselves more or less from the earth and its inner processes — and are now open to cosmic influences streaming towards the earth from outside. They are now exposed to the more spiritual effects of the cosmos and it is to this that they owe the ascent from primitive forms of life to that of man. Looking thus at the development of the earth, we regard the firm ground on which we walk – irrespective of the various processes — in such a way that we say to ourselves: On it we stand; it contains — in the granite and in the superimposed deposits — that which the kingdoms of the living beings could not use except as material ejected to form the ground on which to walk. And what exists as its continuation is a process of destruction and decomposition. That should logically lead to the following reflection – When the modern geologist gives us his explanation of the earth's crust with its valleys and mountains built up in successive layers, this would appear to be something like a decaying corpse, in which an old process of destruction and decomposition continues to work. From the standpoint of spiritual science, we move about on a ground in process of destruction which had to come about in order to give us the firm, solid ground we need when we consider the blossoming forces which point to the future and move in the opposite direction to those we encounter in the body of the earth; for these future-building forces are something which, independent of the solid ground of the earth penetrates into human souls, into human spirits, perhaps also into those beings which are outside the human element, and are only beginning their ascent on the foundation of the solid earth. In the latter itself we should, however, have something in a state of decomposition. From the point of view of spiritual science our earth would appear as a progressively disintegrating dead body, and the geological laws would at the same time be those governing the decomposition of the earth-corpse. And man on earth would be a being who lifts himself out of the dead earth body, just as the human soul, passing through the gate of death, rises from the corpse and abandons it to those forces which bring about its decomposition and destruction. This may seem to be a gloomy picture. But it can only be so if one despairs of the spirit, regards the spirit as merely bound to matter, and believes that together with man's desertion of the living body of the earth, his end has come. But if we look at things as presented by a sound observation of nature, we shall say: In some way it must obviously come about that not only the individual human being but the whole of humanity gradually throws off the earth-body in order to be able to rise step by step to other realms of development. And so, from the standpoint of spiritual science, the mid-period of earth-evolution had already been passed ever since the time when “the oldest son of the earth” was segregated, and the beings which are beginnings in preparation for the future will unfold further on the foundation thus laid down. What does modern geology say to this conception of spiritual science? When dealing with words, theories, hypotheses, world-conceptions so light-heartedly and readily advanced by currents of thought on factional lines and the like, it is easy enough to demonstrate that spiritual science in itself is a contradiction of the way of thinking prevailing in natural science. But if spiritual science, which works as conscientiously and, methodically as any other science, is considered in relation to natural science, it is obviously necessary to pay attention to what natural science really has to say and, particularly in reference to what has been brought forward today, to raise the question: What has geology to say concerning the origin of the earth? — Nowadays, things of a very secondary nature are often presented to the general public in popular scientific publications and in the form of popular views of the world; and then it is said: “Science” has established this end that. If this is compared with what those half-crazy spiritual investigators say, it will strike a good many people as something which cannot be taken at all seriously. — For that is what will be said by many people who perhaps do not know much more about spiritual science than what has come to them indirectly through remote sources. But clearly there is need to turn to what real science and real spiritual science have to say. For spiritual science must not be regarded as being on a par with popular world-conceptions which are only seemingly derived from “science;” spiritua1 science must be examined with the sternness which should be applied to every true science and which its genuine investigators will always demand. And now we come to somethin6 which I cannot describe to you better than by drawing your attention to a work by one of the most eminent geologists of our time, and which a well-known contemporary geologist has called “the geological epic of the nineteenth century,” namely “The Face of the Earth” by Eduard Suess. It can truly be said that this work, on which Suess has been engaged not merely for years but for decades, gives a comprehensive survey — compiled with the greatest care imaginable — of the investigations which geology, this youngest branch of natural science, has carried out in the course of a few decades. And what does this book show us? Suess is a man who said: Let us for once set aside all the prejudices of the Neptunists, of the Plutonists, and all the theories amassed by the geologists of the nineteenth century; do not let us speculate, but let us observe the physiognomy, the picture presented by the earth's surface. Starting from a mental attitude based, it is true; on sense-perception but pure and unclouded by any theory or hypotheses. Eduard Suess arrived at results which differed from those that had been current for many decades. He came to the conclusion that the mountains which tower over us as seemingly mighty massifs, can after all only be likened to wrinkles on the peel of an apple, and can be explained in no other way than by assuming that certain forces of a purely physical-chemical nature are at work in the body of the earth-planet, as the result of which the unevenness, the valleys and mountains, the various layers and so on, have been formed; so that generally speaking, the distribution of water and land, the formation of continents and so forth, can be explained as the result of folds being formed, of certain forces piling up earth-massifs and thus forcing some particular masses of rock up into towering mountains. Other forces again have brought about the collapse of what has been piled on high; and in that way oceans are formed. In short, to such collapses, up-pilings, foldings and the like, he ascribes, for instance, the formation of the Alps. In an ingenious way we are thus shown that the face of the earth has emerged as the result of such aggregations, subsidences, foldings and so on. The formation of oceans and continents is explained asbeing brought about through certain subsidences causing the waters to be drained off in one direction, so that what had formerly been covered by sea becomes dry land. We are therefore concerned here with an earth-surface subject to processes due to a shaking up of earth-masses through mechanical forces, and to subsidences. And in trying to obtain a general picture of what is happening on the ground on which we walk, Suess arrives at an odd conclusion: that fundamentally the whole process that is taking place on the earth's surface is one of destruction, and that the ground where today we plough the fields and which yields to us the fruits of the earth, only came into existence through the occurrence elsewhere of foldings, subsidences — in short, through processes of destruction. I need quote only a short passage from this most important work of present-day geology and you wil1 see where Eduard Suess's purely sense-perceptive method of research has led this most conscientious natural scientist: “... The collapse of the globe is what we are witnessing. True, it had already begun a very long time ago, and so the brevity of the span of human life lets us be of good cheer. Not only are there traces of it in the high mountain ranges. Great blocks of earth have sunk hundreds, yes, in certain cases, many thousands of feet, and not the slightest sign of graded subsidences on the surface, but only the differences in the kinds of rock or deep mining betray the existence of a fracture. Time has levelled everything. In Bohemia, in the Palatinate, in Belgium, in Pennsylvania, in numerous places, the plough draws its furrows above the mightiest fractures.” (Eduard Suess, Das Antlitz der Erde, Vol. 1, page 778.) Here we have the results of conscientious scientific research concerning the ground on which we walk. And now think of what spiritual science has to say about the inauguration of this process through a process of destruction proceeding from forces of spirit-and-soul, a process which on the one side has its continuation in the physical-mechanical process of destruction taking place on the earth's surface, and which careful research impels geology to admit. So it is in all fields. When you take the results of real research and go by facts, you will always find: here stands spiritual science with all it has to say out of clairvoyant research, and there, provided only that it is free from monastic, materialistic or other prejudices, natural science stands firmly on the pure and sound basis of facts; and everywhere, as you will see, spiritual science links up with natural science in such a way that the latter on the pure basis of facts provides ample proof of what spiritual science as such has to offer. Never are there any grounds for contradictions between spiritual science and true natural science. Contradictions arise only between a sound spiritual science which deals with realities, and the theories of phantasts and of those who, while they claim to be standing on the firm ground of science, at once lose their foothold when their theories do not concur with what the facts proclaim, and adhere to what they themselves would like to say about the facts. Spiritual science lets the spiritual facts speak for themselves and tell what they have to reveal of the cosmic mysteries; natural science speaks of what it has established by its own methods: the two are in full concord. If you ignore those popular works which declare this or that to be a “scientific fact” and go to the sources, then you will find, especially in the field of geology, that the geologists everywhere get to a certain point — and then put a question-mark. Arriving at those question-marks, one can take them as a starting-point for spiritual research. Then spiritual science tells us: if it is true what clairvoyance reveals, the external factual material must appear in this or that form. — In the case of geology it was this: if what spiritual science has to describe is right, then, with the present process of decomposition continuing, our globe must now be in a state of collapse. Geology, adhering to facts, has shown that according to the laws it is so! The findings of true natural science everywhere are in line with the results of spiritual scientific investigation. When we consider the whole spirit and meaning of this exposition, we shall in no wise be taken aback by the thought that we are walking on ground which is a dead body in process of disintegration. For we realise that on this ground something has developed which again contains seeds for the future. The lectures to follow will show more and more clearly that just as man looks to his spirit, so the spiritual, which once created for its own purpose the ground on which we set our feet, is advancing towards future epochs when it will be revealed on ever and ever higher planes. And when such a man as the geologist Suess — because in his intercourse with nature he enters into all that is beautifu1, even in the destructive processes — expresses his admiration for the wonders of the Face of the Earth, he clothes it in his monumental work in these memorable words: “In the face of these open questions we rejoice in the sunshine, in the starry firmament and in all the manifold features on the face of our earth, which has been created by these very processes — recognising at the same time the extent to which life is governed by the character and destiny of the planet.” If even a geologist, rising above all pessimism, experiences such a moment in his soul, how much more does the spiritual investigator who knows the truth of the words of Goethe: “Nature has invented death in order to have abundant life,” and who also knows through perceptive cognition that it is true to say, “Nature has invented death in order to have ever higher and ever more spiritual life;” how much more must the spiritual investigator, knowing this, say: Although we have to regard that which has produced out of itself a higher life as a corpse in process of destruction, nevertheless in all that moves on this ground we see, lighting up seeds of what can quicken hope and assurance in our hearts and tells us: We walk on the ground which a primeval world has given us, and which, through a process of disintegration, or destruction, has let the ground under our feet become what it is. We walk on this ground, divining – as in the spirit we rise to heavenly heights — that in the course of future development we shall have to leave this ground at the right time, in order that we may be received into the fold of the spiritual world with which, if we have the right understanding, our inmost being feels so firmly united.

What Has Geology to Say About the Origin of the World?

https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA060/English/Singles/19110209p01.html

Berlin

9 Feb 1911

GA060-11

It is of great importance to Spiritual Science to follow the gradual development of man’s spirit, from epoch to epoch, as it slowly evolves, and pressing ever upward, emerges from the dark shadows of the past. Hence it is that the study of ancient Egyptian culture and spiritual life is of especial moment. This is found to be particularly the case when we endeavour to picture and live in the atmosphere and conditions associated with the latter. The echoes which reach us from the dim grey vistas of by-gone times seem as full of mystery as is the countenance of the Sphinx itself, which stands so grimly forth as a monument to ancient Egyptian civilization. This mystery becomes intensified as modern external scientific research finds that it is constrained to delve ever deeper and deeper into the remote past, in order to throw light upon later Egyptian culture; regarding which most important documents are extant. Such investigations have found traces of certain things, clearly related to the active cultural life of Egypt, which date back to a period at least 7,000 years before the beginning of the Christian era. Here, then, is one reason why this particular civilization is of such paramount interest, but there is another, namely, present-day man, although living in times of broader and more general enlightenment has nevertheless a feeling, whether acceptable or not, that this ancient culture is in some singular and mysterious manner, connected with his very aims and ideals. It is indeed significant that a man of such outstanding intellect as Kepler , should, at the very dawn of modern scientific development, have been moved to express the feelings which came over him, while engaged in astronomical research, in words somewhat as follows: — ‘During my attempt to discover the manner of the passing of the planets around the sun, I have sought to peer into the deep secrets of the cosmos; the while it has oft-times seemed as if my fancy had led me into the mysterious sanctuaries of the old Egyptians — to touch their most holy vessels, and draw them forth that I might bestow them upon a new world. At such moments the thought has come to me, that only in the future will the true purport and intent of my message be disclosed.’ Here we find one of the greatest scientists of modern times overcome by a sense of such close relation to the ancient Egyptian culture, that he could find no better way of expressing the fundamental concepts underlying his work, than by representing them as a regeneration, naturally differing as to word and form, of the occult doctrines taught to the disciples and followers in the by-gone Egyptian Sanctuaries. It is therefore a matter of the greatest interest to us that we should realize the actual sentiments of these olden Egyptian peoples, in regard to the whole meaning and nature of their civilization. There is an ancient legend that has been handed down through Greek tradition which is most suggestive, not only of what the Egyptians themselves felt regarding their culture, but also the way in which their civilization was looked upon by the ancients as a whole. We are told that an Egyptian sage once said to Solon: — ‘You Greeks are still children, you have never grown up, and all your knowledge has been acquired through your own human observation and senses; you have neither traditions nor doctrines grey with age.’ We first learn what is implied by the expression, ‘doctrines grey with age‘, when the methods of Spiritual Science are employed in an endeavour to throw light upon the nature and significance of Egyptian thought and feeling. But, as has been before stated, when we approach this matter we must bear in mind that during successive periods of man’s development he gradually acquired different forms of consciousness, and that that order of conscious apprehension which is ours to-day, with its scientific method of thought, and through which we realize the outer world in virtue of our senses working in conjunction with reason and intellect, did not always exist. Deep down, underlying all human cognition, there is what we term ‘Evolution’, and evolution affects not only the outer world of form, but also the disposition of man’s soul. It follows, that we can only really understand the events which took place at the ancient centres of culture, when we accept that knowledge which Spiritual Science can alone obtain, from the sources of information at its disposal. We thus learn that in olden times instead of our present intellectual consciousness, there existed a clairvoyant state that differed from our customary normal conscious condition, of which we are cognizant from the moment we awake until we again fall asleep. On the other hand, the ancient clairvoyant state cannot be likened to the insensibility produced by slumber. Hence, the primeval consciousness of prehistoric man should be regarded as an intermediate condition now only faintly apparent, and retained, as one might say, atavistically in the form of an attenuated heritage in the picture world of our dreams. Now, dreams are for the most part chaotic in character, and therefore meaningless in their relation to ordinary life. But the old clairvoyant consciousness, which also found expression in imagery although often of a somewhat subdued and visionary nature, was nevertheless a truly clairvoyant gift, and its symbolical manifestations had reference, not to our physical world, but to that realm which lies beyond all material things, in other words — the world of spirit. We can say that in reality all clairvoyant consciousness, including the dream-state of primitive man, as well as that acquired to-day through those methods to which we have previously referred, finds expression pictorially and not in concepts and ideas, as is the case with externalized physical consciousness. It is for the possessor of such faculty to interpret the symbols presented in terms of those spiritual realities, which underlie all physical perceptual phenomena. We have reached a point where we can look back on the evolution of the ancient races, and of a surety say: — Those wondrous visions of by-gone times of which tradition tells us, were not born of childish fantasy and false conception of the works of Nature (this, as I have pointed out, is the wide-spread opinion in the materialistic circles of to-day), but were in truth veritable pictures of the Spirit-World, flashed before the souls of men in that now long distant past. He who seriously studies the old mythologies and legends, not from the point of view of modern materialistic thought, but with an understanding of the creation and spiritual activities of mankind, will find in these strange stories a certain coherence which harmonizes wonderfully with those cosmic principles that dominate all physical, chemical and biological laws; while there rings throughout the ancient mythological and religious systems a tone of spiritual reality, from which they acquire a true significance. We must clearly realize that the peoples of the various nations, each according to disposition, temperament and racial or folk-character, formed different conceptions of that vision world in which they conceived higher powers to be actively operating behind the accustomed forces of Nature. Further, that during the gradual course of evolution, mankind passed through many transitionary stages between that of the consciousness of the ancients, and our present-day objective conscious state. As time went on, the power necessary to the old clairvoyance dimmed and the visions faded; one might say — the doors leading to the higher realms were slowly closed, so that the pictures manifested to those whose souls could still peer into the Spirit-World, held ever less and less of spiritual force, until towards the end, only the lowest stages of supersensible activity could be apprehended. Finally, this primeval clairvoyant power died out, in so far as humanity in general was concerned, and man’s vision became limited to that which is of the material world, and to the apprehension of physical concepts and things; from that time on, the study of the interrelation of these factors led, step by step, to the birth of modern science. Thus it came about, that when the old clairvoyant state was past, our present intellectual consciousness gradually developed in diverse ways among the different nations. The mission of the Egyptian peoples was of a very special nature. All that we know regarding ancient times, even that knowledge attained through modern Egyptian research, if rightly understood, tends but to verify the statements of Spiritual Science regarding the allotted task and true purpose of the Egyptian race. It was ordained that these olden peoples should still be imbued with a sufficiency of that primal power which would enable them to look back into the misty past; when their leaders in virtue of outstanding individualities and highly developed clairvoyant faculties, could gaze far into the mysteries of the Spirit-World. [Spiritual Science asserts that it was in accordance with ‘The Great Eternal Plan‘ that the Egyptians should gain wisdom and understanding from this source, to be a guide and a benefit in the development of mankind.] And we have learnt that it was to this end that this great nation was still permitted to retain a certain measure of that fast-fading clairvoyant power so closely associated with a specific disposition of soul. Although these qualities were, at that time, weak and ever waning in intensity, nevertheless they continued active until a comparatively late period in Egyptian history. We can therefore make this statement: — The Egyptians, down to less than 1000 years before the Christian era, had actual experience of a mode of vision differing from that with which we are familiar in every-day life, when we merely open our eyes and make use of our intellect; and they knew that through this gift man was enabled to behold the spiritual realms. The later Egyptians, however, were unable to penetrate beyond the nethermost regions as portrayed in their pictorial visions, but they had power to recall those by-gone times in the Golden Age of Egyptian culture, when their priesthood could gaze both far and deeply into the world of spirit. All knowledge obtained through visions was most carefully guarded and secretly preserved for thousands of years with the greatest piety, thankfulness and religious feeling, especially by the older Egyptians. At a later period, those among the people who still retained somewhat of clairvoyant power, expressed themselves after this fashion: — ‘We can yet discern a lower spiritual realm — we know therefore that it is possible for mankind to look upon a Spirit-World; to question this truth would be as sensible as to doubt that we can really see external objects with our eyes.’ Although these later Egyptians were only able to apprehend weak echoes, as it were, of the inferior spiritual levels, nevertheless they felt and divined that in olden times man could indeed penetrate far into the mystic depths of that realm which lies beyond all physical sense perceptions. There is a doctrine grey with age, still preserved in wonderful inscriptions in Temples and upon columns. (It was this doctrine to which the sage referred when he spoke to Solon.) These inscriptions tell us of the broad deep penetration of clairvoyant power in the remote past. That being to whom the Egyptians attributed all the profundity of their primordial clairvoyant enlightenment they called THE GREAT WISE ONE — THE OLD HERMES. When, at a later period, some other outstanding leader came to revive the ancient wisdom, he also called himself Hermes, according to an old custom prevalent among exalted Egyptian sages, and because his followers believed that in him the primeval wisdom of the old Hermes lived once again. They named the first Hermes, — ‘Hermes Trismegistos‘ — the Thrice-Great Hermes; but as a matter of fact it was only the Greeks who used the name of Hermes, for among the Egyptians he was known as ‘Thoth‘. In order to understand this being, it is necessary to realize what the Egyptians, under the influence of traditions concerning Thoth, regarded as true and characteristic cosmic mystics. Such Egyptian beliefs as have come to us, one might say from outside sources, seem very strange indeed. Various Gods, of whom the most important are Osiris and Isis, are represented as not wholly human; oft-times having a human body and an animal head, or again formed of the most varied combinations of manlike and animal shapes. Remarkable religious legends have come down to us regarding this world of the Gods. Again, the veneration and worship of cats and other animals by this ancient race was most singular, and went to such lengths that certain animals were considered as holy, and held in the greatest reverence, and in them the Egyptians saw something akin to higher beings. It has been said that this veneration for animals was such that when a cat, for instance, which had lived for a long time in one house, died, there was much weeping and lamentation. If an Egyptian observed a dead animal lying by the wayside, he did not dare to go near it, for fear that someone might accuse him of having slain it, in which case he would be liable to severe punishment. Even during the time that Egypt was actually under Roman rule, so it has been said, any Roman who killed a cat went in danger of his life, because such an act produced an uproar among the Egyptians. This veneration of animals appears to us as a most enigmatic part of Egyptian thought and feeling. Again, how extraordinary do the Pyramids, with their quadrilateral bases and triangular sides, seem to modern man; and how mysterious are the sphinxes and all that modern research drags forth from the depths of this ancient civilization and brings to the surface, to add to our knowledge an ever-increasing clarity. The question now arises: — What place did all these strange ideas occupy in the image world of the souls of those olden peoples? What had they to say regarding those things which the Thrice-Great Hermes had taught them, and how did they come by these curious concepts? We must henceforth accustom ourselves to seek in all legends a deeper meaning, especially in those which are the more important. It is to be assumed that the purpose of some of these legends, is to convey to us in picture form, information regarding certain laws which govern spiritual life, and are set above external laws. As an example we have the fable of the god and goddess, Osiris and Isis. It was Hermes himself who called the Egyptian legends ‘The Wise Counsellors of Osiris‘. In all these fables, Osiris is a being who in the grey dawn of primeval times lived in the region where man now dwells. In the legend Osiris, who is represented as a benefactor of humanity, and under whose wise influence Hermes, or Thoth, gave to the Egyptians their ancient culture, even to the conduct of material life, was said to have an enemy whom the Greeks called Typhon. This enemy, Typhon, waylaid Osiris and slew him, then cut up his body, hid it in a coffin, and threw it into the sea. The goddess Isis, wife and sister of Osiris, sought long her husband who had been thus torn from her by Typhon, or Seth, and when she had at last found him, she gathered together the pieces into which he had been divided, and buried them here and there in various parts of the land, and in these places temples were erected. Later, Isis gave birth to Horos. Now, Horos was also a higher being, and his birth was brought about through spirit influence which descended upon Isis from Osiris, who had meanwhile passed into another world. The mission of Horos was to vanquish Typhon, and in a certain sense re-establish control of the life-current emanating from Osiris, which would continue to flow and influence mankind. A legend such as this must not be regarded simply as an allegory, nor as a mere symbolism; in order to understand it rightly, we must enter into the whole world of Egyptian feeling and perception. It is far more important to do this than to form abstract concepts and ideas; for by thus opening the mind, we can alone give life to the sentiments and thoughts associated with the ideal forms of Osiris and Isis. Further, it is useless to attempt to explain these two outstanding figures by saying that Osiris represents the Sun, and Isis the Moon, and so forth — thus giving them an astronomical interpretation, as is the custom of the sciences of to-day outside of Spiritual Science — for such a theory leads to the belief that a legend of this nature is a mere symbolical portrayal of certain events connected with the heavens, and this is not true. We must go far back to the primeval feelings of the Egyptians, and from these as a starting-point try to realize the whole peculiar nature of their uplifted vision of the supersensible, and conception of those invisible forces beyond man’s apprehension which underlie the perceptual world. It is the spiritual interrelation of these factors that finds expression in the ideal forms of Osiris and Isis. The old Egyptians associated these two figures with ideas similar to the following: There is a latent higher spiritual essence in all mankind which did not emanate from that material environment in which it now functions; at the beginning of earth-life it entered into physical bodily existence in condensed form, there slowly to unfold and grow throughout the ages. Man’s human state was preceded by another and more spiritual condition, and it is from this primordial condition from which the human being gradually developed. The Egyptian said: — ‘When I look into my soul, I realize that there is within me a longing for spiritual things; a longing for that true spirituality from which I have descended, and I know that certain of the supersensible forces which operate in the region from which I come still live within me, and that the best of these are intimately related to the ultimate source of all superperceptual activity. Thus do I feel within me an Osiris power, which placed me here — a spirit embodied in external human form. In times past, before I came to this state, I lived wholly in a spiritual realm, where my life was confused, dim and instinctive in character. It was ordained that I be clothed with a material body, so that I should experience and behold a physical world, in order that I might develop therein. I know of a verity that in the beginning I have lived a life which compared to this physical perceptual existence, was indeed of the spirit.’ According to ancient Egyptian concepts the primordial forces underlying human evolution were regarded as dual, the one element being termed Osiris, while the other was known as Isis; hence we have an Osiris-Isis duality. When we give ourselves over to inner contemplation and are moved by the feelings and perceptions of the old Egyptians concerning this dualism, we at once find that we are involved in a process of active and suggestive thought, leading to certain conclusions. In order to follow this mental process we have only to consider the manner in which the mind operates when we think of some object, such for instance as a triangle. In this case, active thought must precede the actual conception of the figure. After the soul has been thus engaged in primary contemplation, we then turn our minds passively to the result of our thought concepts, and finally see the fruit of our mental activity pictured in the soul. The act of thinking has the same relation to final thought, as the act of conceiving to the final concept, or activity to the result of activity or its ultimate product. If we contemplate our mental process when we picture the Egyptian past, and are mindful of the mood of these ancient peoples, we realize that they looked upon the relation between Osiris and Isis in a somewhat similar manner to our conception of the order and outcome of thought activity. For instance, we might consider that activity should be regarded as a Male, or Father-Principle, and that therefore the Osiris-Principle must be looked upon as an active Male-Principle, a combative principle, which imbues the soul with thoughts and feelings of potency and vigour. [We can form an idea of the old Egyptian concept concerning Osiris and Isis from the following considerations]: — In the physical body of man are certain components such as those that are active in the blood and those which are the basis of bone formation. The whole human system owes its being to the interaction of forces and matter, which combine to create and to enter the material form; these elements can be physically recognized, they were, however, at one time dispersed, and spread throughout the universe. A similar idea prevailed among the ancient Egyptians concerning their conception of Osiris-Force, which was conceived as actively pervading the entire cosmos, as Osiris. Even as the elements which form the physical body enter into it, there to combine and become operative, so did those olden peoples picture the Osiris-Force, as descending upon man to flow into his being and inspire within him the power of constructive thought and cognition — the veritable Osiris-Force. On the other hand, the expression Isis-Force was applied to that universal living cosmic influence which flows directly into the thoughts, concepts and ideas of mankind — it was this influence that was termed the Isis-Force. It is in the above manner that we must picture the uplifted vision in the souls of the old Egyptians, and it was thus that they regarded Osiris and Isis. In that creation which surrounds us during our material existence, the ancient consciousness could find no words wherewith to express concepts such as these; for everything which is about us appeals alone to the senses, and has only meaning and value in a perceptual world, proffering no outer sign suggestive of a superphysical region. In order, therefore, to obtain something in the nature of a written language, which could express all such thoughts as moved the soul strongly, as for instance, when man exclaimed: — ‘The Osiris-Isis-Force works within me,’ the ancients reached out to that script which is written in the firmament by the heavenly bodies, and said: — That supersensible power which man feels as Osiris, can be apprehended and expressed in perceptual terms if regarded as that active force emanating from the sun and spread abroad in the great cosmos. The Isis-Force may be pictured as the sun’s rays reflected from the moon which waits upon the sun, so that she may pass on the power of his radiance in the form of Isis-Influence. But until she receives his light the moon is dark — dark as a soul untouched by active uplifting thought. When the old Egyptian said: — ‘The sun and the moon that are without reveal to me how I can best express, figuratively, my ideas concerning all that I feel within my soul,’ he knew that there was some hidden bond, in no way fortuitous, between these two heavenly bodies which appear so full of mystery in the vast universe — the light-giving sun and the dark moon every ready to reflect his splendour. And he realized that the light dispersed in space, and that reflected, must bear some unknown but definite relation to those supersensible powers of which he was conscious. When we look at a clock we cannot see what it is that moves the hands so mysteriously, apparently with the aid of little demons, for all that can be seen is a piece of mechanism; but we know that underlying the whole mechanical structure, is the thought of the original designer, which thought had its origin in the soul of a man; so that in reality the mechanism owes its construction to something spiritual. Now, just as the movements of the hands of a clock are mutually related, and fundamentally dependent upon certain mechanical laws which exist in the universe, and finally upon those that are operative in the soul of a man (as when he speaks of experiencing the influence of the Osiris-Isis-Force), so are the movements of the Sun and Moon interrelated, and these bodies appear to us as indicators on the face of a mighty cosmic clock. The Egyptian did not merely say: — ‘The Sun and Moon are to me a perceptual symbol of the relation between Osiris and Isis,’ but he felt and expressed himself thus: —‘That force which gives me life and is within, underlies the mysterious bond existing between the Sun and Moon, and it likewise endowed them with power to send forth light.’ In the same way as Osiris and Isis were regarded with reference to the Sun and Moon, so were other heavenly bodies looked upon as related to different gods. The ancient Egyptians considered that the positions of the various orbs in space were not merely symbolical of their own supersensible experiences, but likewise of those which tradition told them had been the experiences of seers belonging to the remote past. Further, they saw in the cosmic clock an expression of the activity of those forces, the workings of which they felt in the ultimate depths of the human soul. Thus it came about that this mighty clock, this grand creation of moving orbs, so wondrously interrelated with others that are fixed, was to the Egyptians a revelation of those mysterious spiritual powers which bring about the ever-changing positions of the heavenly bodies, and thus create an universal script, which man must learn to know and to recognize as a means whereby superperceptual power is given perceptual expression. Such were the feelings and perceptions which had been handed down to the old Egyptians from their ancient seers, regarding a higher spiritual world of the existence of which they were wholly convinced, for they still retained a last remnant of primeval clairvoyant power. These olden peoples said: — ‘We human beings had our true origin in an exalted spiritual realm, but we are now descended into a perceptual world, in which manifest material things and physical happenings, nevertheless, we are indeed come from the world of Osiris and of Isis. All that is best and which strives within us, and is fitted to attain to yet higher states of perfection, has of a verity flowed in upon us from Osiris and from Isis, and lives unseen within as active force. Physical man was born of those conditions which are of the external perceptual world, and his material form is but as a garment clothing the Osiris-Isis spirit within.’ Predominant in the souls of the old Egyptians was a profound sentiment concerning primeval wisdom, which filled their whole soul-life. The soul may indeed incline towards abstract notions, particularly the mathematical concepts of natural science, without in any way touching the moral and ethical factors of its life, nor affecting its fate or state of bliss. For instance, there may be discussion and debate relative to electrical and other forces, without the soul being moved to enter upon grave questions concerning man’s ultimate destiny. On the other hand, we cannot ponder upon feelings and sentiments such as we have described regarding the Spirit-World and the inner relation of the soul’s character to Osiris and Isis, without arousing thoughts involving man’s happiness, his future, and his moral impulses. When the mind is thus occupied, man’s meditations are prone to take this form: — ‘There dwells in me a better self, but because of what I am within my physical body, this “better self” is repressed and draws back, it is therefore not at first apparent. An Osiris and an Isis nature are fundamental to me; these, however, belong to a primordial world — to a by-gone golden age — to the holy past; now they are overcome by those forces that have fashioned the human form. But the Osiris-Isis power has entered and persists within that mortal covering which is ever subject to destruction through the external forces of Nature.’ The ‘Legend of Osiris and Isis‘ may be expressed in terms of feeling and sentiment in the following manner: — Osiris, the higher power in man, which is spread throughout cosmic space, is overcome by those forces which bring about utter degeneration in all human nature. Typhon confined the Osiris-Force within the body, as in a coffin formed to receive man’s spiritual counterpart; there the Osiris-Element lies concealed — invisible and unheeded by the outer world. (The name Typhon has linguistic connection with the words — ‘Auflösen‘, to dissolve; and ‘Verwesen‘, to decompose.) The Isis-Nature, hidden within the confines of the soul, was always mysterious to the Egyptians. They considered that at some future period its influence would bring mankind back to that state which he enjoyed in the beginning; and that this return would ultimately be brought about through the penetrative force of intellectual power; for they fully recognized that in humanity there is a latent disposition which ever strives to re-endow Osiris with life. The Isis-Force lies deep within the soul, and its profound purpose is to lead mankind, step by step, away from his present material state, and bring him back once more to Osiris. It is this Isis-Force which — so long as man does not cling to his physical quality — makes it possible for him (even though he remain outwardly a physical man in a material world) to detach himself from his perceptual nature, and henceforth and for ever more to look upward from within his being to that more exalted Ego, which in the opinion of the most advanced thinkers, lies so mysteriously veiled at the very root of man’s powers of thought and action. This being, not the outer physical one, but the true inner man who has ever the stimulus to strive towards higher spiritual enlightenment, is as it were, the earth-born son of that Osiris who did not go forth into the material world, but remained as if concealed in the realms of the spirit. In their souls, the Egyptians regarded this invisible personality that struggles toward the attainment of a higher self, as Horos — the posthumous son of Osiris. It was thus that these old Egyptians visualized, with a certain feeling of sadness, the Osiris-origin of man; but at the same time they looked inward and said: — ‘The soul has still retained something of the Isis-Force which gave birth to Horos, the possessor of that never-ceasing impulse to strive upward towards spiritual heights, and it is there , in that sublimity, that man shall once again find Osiris.’ It is possible for present-day humanity to bring about this mystic meeting in two ways. The Egyptian said: — ‘I have come from Osiris, and to Osiris I shall return, and because of my spiritual origin, Horos lies deep within my being and Horos leads me on, back to Osiris — to his Father — who may alone be found in the world of spirit; for he can in no way enter into man’s physical nature; there he is overcome by the powers of Typhon, those external forces which underlie all destruction and decay.’ There are but two paths by which Osiris may be attained, the one is by way of the Portal of Death; the other passes not through the Gateway of Physical Dissolution, for Osiris may be reached through Initiation and the consecration of life to Sacred Service. Under the title of Christianity as a Mystical Fact , I have gone more fully into this belief. The Egyptian conception was as follows: — When man has passed through the Portal of Death, and after certain necessary preparatory stages have been completed, he comes to Osiris, and being freed from his earthly envelope, there awakes in him a consciousness of actual relationship with that supreme deity; and he realizes that henceforth he will be greeted as Osiris, for this form of salutation is always bestowed upon those who have experienced death and entered into the World of Spirit. The other pathway which likewise leads back to Osiris, that is to say, into the Spiritual Realms is, as we have already stated, by way of Initiation and Holy Devotion. Such was regarded by the Egyptians as a method through which knowledge might be gained of all that is supersensible and lies concealed in man’s nature, in other words of Isis, or the Isis-Power. We cannot penetrate into the depths of the soul, and thus reach the Isis-Force within, in virtue of mere earthly wisdom born of the experiences of daily life, but nevertheless, we have a means at hand whereby we may break through to this inner power and descend to the true Ego; there to find that this same Ego is ever enshrouded by all that is material in man’s physical disposition. If, indeed, we can but pierce this dark veil, then do we find ourselves at last in the Ego’s veritable spiritual home. Hence it was that the old Egyptians said: — ‘Thou shalt descend into thine own inner being — but first cometh thy physical quality, with all that it may express of that self that is thine, and through this human disposition must thou force a way. When thou regardest the stones, and the justness of their fashion — when thou considerest the plants, the inner life thereof and wonder of their form and when thou lookest upon the animals about thee — there of a verity, in these three Kingdoms of Nature, beholdest thou the outer world as begotten of spiritual and supersensible powers. But when thou standest before man, look not alone upon the outer form, but seek that which is within, where abideth the soul’s strength — even as the Isis-Forces.’ Therefore, in connection with the rites of initiation, there was included certain instruction as to what things should be observed during such time as the soul might remain incarnated. The experiences of all who have in truth descended into their innermost being, have been fundamentally the same as those which come about at the time of passing, differing only in the manner of their occurrence. [One might say that if this method of approaching the spirit realms be followed, then] — Man must pass through the Portal of Death while he yet lives. He must learn to know that change from the physical to the superphysical outlook, from the material to the spiritual world — in other words, he must acquire knowledge of that metamorphosis which takes place at the time of actual death. And in order that he may obtain such enlightenment, he that would become initiated must take that way which leads him into the very depths of his being, for thus alone may true understanding and experience be attained. When this method is employed, the first real inner experience is connected with the blood, as formed by Nature, and the blood is the physical agent of the Ego, just as the nervous system forms the material medium in connection with [the three ultimate modes of consciousness], Feeling, Willing and Thinking. We have already referred to this matter in a previous lecture. According to the ancient Egyptians, he who desires to descend into his being in order to realize profound association with the primary material media, must first pass down into his physical-etheric sheath and enter the etheric confines of his soul; he must learn to become independent of that force in his blood upon which he normally relies; he can then give himself up to the workings and the wonder of the blood’s action. It is essential that man must first thoroughly understand his higher nature in regard to its physical aspect. To do this he must learn to view his material being as a detached and wholly separate object. Now, man can only recognize and be fully conscious of an object, as a specific thing, when external to it; hence he must learn to bring about this relation in respect to himself, if he would indeed comprehend the actuality of his being. It was for this reason that Initiation was directed towards the development of such powers as enabled the Soul-Forces to undergo certain experiences independently of the physical media, or agents. So that finally the aspirant could look down upon such media objectively, in the same way as man’s spiritual element looks down upon the material body after death. The primary duty of one who would know the Isis-Mysteries was to acquire knowledge concerning his own blood; after which he underwent an experience that can be best described as — ‘Drawing nigh unto the Threshold of Death.’ This was the first step in the Isis-Initiation; and he who would take it must have power to regard his blood and his being externally, and pass into that sheath which is the medium of the Isis-Nature. Further, the neophyte was led before two doors — within some Holy Sanctuary — the one was closed, the other open; and as he stood in that place there came before him visions depicting the most intimate experiences of his very life, and he heard a voice saying: — ‘It is thus that thou art, so dost thou appear when thou beholdest thy true self pictured in the soul.’ How remarkable are these teachings the echoes of which are still heard after thousands of years have passed, and how wonderfully they harmonize with man’s present-day beliefs, even though they have since received materialistic interpretation. According to the ancient Egyptian seer — when man takes the initial step and comes upon the world of his inner form he is there confronted by two doors — ‘Through two doors shalt thou enter thy blood and thy innermost being.’ The anatomist would say: — ‘Through two inlets situated in the valves on either side of the heart.’ [There are two pairs of valves in the heart, one pair on one side and one on the other; in each case when one of these valves is open, in order to let the blood-stream flow into a part of the system, that which is adjacent is closed (Ed.)]. Hence, he who desires to penetrate beneath his outer form must pass through the open door; for the gateway which is closed merely confines the blood to its proper course. We thus find that the results of anatomical investigation are certainly analogous to those born of clairvoyant vision in olden times; and although not so clear and accurate as are the conclusions of the modern anatomist, nevertheless they portray what the clairvoyant consciousness actually apprehended, when it regarded man’s inner form from an external stand-point. The next step in the Isis-Initiation was what one might term the proving or profound study of Fire, Air and Water. During this period the Initiate gained complete knowledge of the Sheath-Quality of his Isis-Being, of the properties of Fire and how, in a certain form, it flows in the blood, using it as medium, and becomes fluid. He further received instruction concerning the manner in which Oxygen is infiltrated into the system from the air. All this wisdom descended upon him — the understanding of Fire, Air, Water, the warmth of his breath, and the true nature of the fluidity of his blood. Thus it came about that the aspirant, in virtue of the knowledge he acquired of his Sheath-Quality through his newly-born comprehension of the elements of Fire, Air and Water, became so purified that when his vision at last penetrated beneath the enfolding envelope, he entered into his veritable Isis-Nature. We might say that at this point, the Initiate felt for the first time that he was in contact with his actual being, and that he was able to realize that he was indeed a spiritual entity, no longer limited by his external relation to humanity, and that he truly beheld the wonder of the spiritual realms. It is a definite law that we can only look upon the sun in the daytime, for at night it lies concealed by matter; but the powers in the spiritual world are never thus veiled to those who have acquired the true gift of sight, for they are best discerned when the physical eyes are closed to all material things. Symbolically, in the sense of the Isis-Initiation, we would say: — ‘He who is purified and initiated into the Isis-Mysteries, may discern that spiritual life and power to which the sun owes its origin, even though there be darkness as at midnight, for, metaphorically speaking, he may at all times behold the great orb of day and come face to face with the spirit beings of the superperceptual world.’ Such was the description of the method, or as one might say, the path leading to the Isis-Forces within, and we are told that it could be traversed by all who, during earthly life, would but earnestly seek the deepest forces of the soul. There were, however, yet higher mysteries, The Mysteries of Osiris, in which it was made clear that through the medium of the Isis-Forces, and in virtue of those supersensible primordial spiritual powers to which man owes his origin, he could exalt himself and thus attain to Osiris. In other words, he was initiated into those methods by which the human soul might be so uplifted, that it could at last enter upon the presence of that supreme deity. When the Egyptians wished to portray the nature and character of the relation between Isis and Osiris, they had recourse to that special script which is written in the firmament by the passage of the Sun and Moon; while in the case of other spiritual powers, reference was made to the movements and interrelations existing between the various stars. Most prominent among the astronomical groups in such portrayals was the Zodiac, with its condition of comparative immobility, and the planets which move across its constellations. It was in the revelations of the Heavens, as manifested in spiritual symbols, that the old Egyptian found the true method of expressing those deep feelings which touched his soul. He knew that no earthly means were competent to indicate clearly the vital purpose of that urgent call to seek the Isis-Forces, that mankind might, through their aid, draw nearer to Osiris. He felt that in order to describe this purpose fittingly, he must reach out and make use of those bright groups of stars that ever shine in the firmament. Hence we must regard Hermes, The Great Wise One, who according to Egyptian tradition, lived upon the Earth in the dawn of antiquity — and was endowed with the most profound clairvoyant insight concerning man’s relation to the Universe — as having possessed in high degree the power of apprehending and explaining the true nature of the connection between the constellations and the forces of the Spirit-World; and of interpreting the signs portraying events and happenings, as expressed in the language of the stars, in terms of their mysterious interrelations. Now, if in those olden days it was desired to enlighten the people with regard to the nature of the bond existing between Osiris and Isis, this matter was put forward in the form of an exoteric legend; but in the case of the Initiates the subject was treated more explicitly by means of symbolical reference to the light which emanates from the Sun and is reflected by the Moon, and the remarkable conditions governing its changes during the varying phases of the latter. In these phenomena the Egyptians found a practical and genuine analogy, expressive of the sacred link between the Isis-Force within the human soul and that supreme spiritual figure — Osiris. From the movements of the heavenly bodies and the nature of their interrelations, there originated what we must regard as the very earliest form of written characters. Little as this fact is as yet recognized, we would nevertheless draw attention to the following statement: — If we consider the consonants of the alphabet, we note that they imitate the signs of the Zodiac, in their comparative repose; while the vowels and consonants are connected in a way which may be likened to that relation which the planets and the forces which move them bear to the constellations of the Zodiac as a whole. Hence it would appear that in the beginning, written characters were brought down to earth from the vault of heaven. The sentiments which moved the ancient Egyptians when their thoughts turned to Hermes were such as we have described, and they realized that his great illumination came from those spiritual powers which called to him out of the heavens, prompting him with counsel concerning that activity which persisted in the souls of mankind. Ay! and more than that — he was instructed even in the deeds of everyday life, and in those directions in which such sciences were needed as Geometry and Surveying, both of which Pythagoras learnt from the Egyptians, who ascribed all this knowledge to the primordial wisdom of Hermes. One might say that ‘The Old Wise One’ saw in the interrelation of all things spread abroad upon the earth a counterpart of that which exists in the firmament, and finds expression in the mystic writings of the stars. It was Hermes — ’The Thrice-Blessed‘ — who first gave this Stellar Script to the world, and through its aid, and in the dawn of Egyptian life, he instilled into the minds of the people the elements of the science of mathematics, while he adjured them to look up to the heavens, there to seek guidance even regarding mundane matters. The very life of the Egyptian nation in that olden time was dependent upon the overflowing of the Nile, and the deposits which it swept down from the mountainous country to the South. We can therefore readily understand how absolutely essential it was that there should be a certain pre-knowledge of the date of the coming of flood periods, so that they might anticipate the accompanying changes in natural conditions thus brought about in the course of any particular year. In those early days the Egyptians still reckoned time according to that Stellar Script which was written in the canopy of heaven. When Sirius, the Dog Star, was visible in the Sign of Cancer, they knew that the Sun would shortly enter that part of the Zodiac from whence its rays would shine down upon the earth and conjure forth, as if by magic, that life brought thereto by the deposits of the overflowing Nile. Hence, they looked upon Sirius as ‘The Watcher‘, who gave them warning of what they might expect; and the movements of Sirius formed part of their celestial clock. They gazed upward with thankful hearts, for the timely warnings of their ‘Watcher‘ enabled them to cultivate and to tend their land in such manner that it might best bring forth all things necessary to external life. When questions of import arose such as the above, these old Egyptian peoples sought enlightenment and guidance from those writings which they saw spread across the firmament; the while they looked back into that dim grey past, when first they learnt that the passage of the stars was in truth an expression as of movements among the parts of some mighty cosmic clock. In Thoth, or Hermes, they recognized that Great Spirit who, according to their ancient traditions, set down the very earliest chronicles concerning cosmic wisdom. From that inspiration which came to him through the wondrous Stellar Script, Hermes conceived the forms underlying the physical alphabet, and through their aid taught mankind the principles of Agriculture, Geometry and Surveying; indeed, he instructed them in all things needful for the conduct of physical life. Now, physical life is nought but the embodiment of that spiritual life so deeply interwoven throughout the cosmos — and it was from the cosmos that the spirit of wisdom descended upon Hermes. It was evident to the Egyptians of that period to which we refer, that the influence of The Great Wise One was still active throughout their civilization, and they felt that this mystic bond was both profound and intimate in character. The method adopted by the old Egyptians for the purpose of time calculations, and which continued in use for many centuries, was most convenient in operation and lent itself readily to all simple computations of this nature. They regarded the year as made up of exactly 365 days, which they divided into 12 months each of 30 days, thus leaving 5 days over, which were separately included. But modern Astronomy tells us that if this method be employed, then one quarter day every year is not taken into account [the actual difference is 6 hours, 9 min., 9 sec.]. Therefore, the Egyptian year came to an end one quarter day too soon. This difference gradually spread backward through the months until a coincidence was reached at the beginning of a certain year; and such coincidence took place every four times 365 years. Hence, after the lapse of each 1,460 years, the terrestrial time estimate would be for a moment in agreement with astronomical conditions, because at that particular moment the sum of the annual differences would be equivalent to one whole year. Let us now suppose that at a certain time in 1322 B.C. an Egyptian looked up into the heavens, there, at that moment any visible constellation would occupy a definite position in the firmament [which position could be used as a basis of computation]. If we calculate backwards over a period of three times 1,460 years from 1322 B.C., we come to the year 5702 B.C., and it was some time prior to this date to which the Egyptians ascribed the dawn of that primordial Holy Wisdom which came to them in the beginning. They said: — ‘In bygone times man’s power of clairvoyance was truly at its highest, but with the passing of each great Sun-Period‘ [of 1,46o years, which brought about the balance of terrestrial reckoning] ‘the divine gift of “clear seeing” gradually faded, until in this fourth stage in which we now live it is weak and ever-failing. Our civilization reaches far into the remoteness of antiquity, where the voice of tradition is all but stilled. In thought we hark back beyond three long Cosmic Periods, to that glorious and distant past when our greatest teacher, his disciples, and his successors, imparted to us the elements of the ancient wisdom which now finds expression — albeit in strangely altered form — in the character of our script, our Mathematics, Geometry, Surveying, our general conduct of life, and also in our study of the heavens. We regard the cosmic adjustment of our human computation, with its convenient factors of twelve times 30 days with five supplementary thereto, as a sign that we are ever subject to correction by the divine powers of the Spirit-World, because through error of thought and reason we have turned away from Osiris and from Isis. We cannot with exactitude measure the year’s length, but when our eyes are raised on high we can gaze into that hidden world from whence those spirit powers that ever guide the courses of the stars, remedy our faults and bring harmony where man has failed to find the truth.’ From the above it is clear that the old Egyptians realized the feebleness of man’s powers of intellect and understanding, so that, even in the case of their Chronology, they sought the aid of those higher spiritual forces and beings beyond the veil. Beings who correct, watch over, and protect mankind during the activities and experiences of earth life, bringing to bear upon these problems the mystic laws of the Great Cosmos. Hermes, or Thoth, was held in greatest veneration as One inspired by the ever vigilant heavenly powers, and in the souls of these ancient peoples this outstanding personality was looked upon, not merely as a great teacher, but as a being who was indeed exalted, and whom they regarded with the most profound feelings of reverence and thankfulness, so that they cried out: — ‘All that I have cometh from Thee. Thou went on High in the dim grey dawn of antiquity and Thou hast sent down, by those who were the carriers of Thy traditions, all that flows throughout external civilization, and which is of greatest human service.’ Hence, with reference to the actual Creator of all supersensible forces, and those who watch over them, as well as Osiris and Hermes, or Thoth, the Egyptians felt in their souls not merely that they were imbued with knowledge begotten of wisdom, but they experienced a sentiment in deepest moral sense, of greatest veneration and gratitude. The graphic descriptions of the past tell us that the wisdom of the ancient Egyptians was permeated throughout with a certain religious quality and mood, particularly noticeable in olden times, but by degrees these characteristics became less and less marked. In those days the people felt all knowledge to be closely associated with holiness, all wisdom with piety and all science with religion. As this attitude waned it gradually decreased in purity of form and expression. A similar change has taken place throughout the evolution of mankind among all those various civilizations whose mission has been to alter the trend of spiritual thought, and lead it in some wholly new direction. When each nation had reached the pinnacle of achievement, and its task was ended, there followed a period of decadence. The greater part of our knowledge concerning ancient Egyptian culture is connected with an epoch of this nature, and the significance of all that lies beyond is merely a matter of conjecture and supposition. For instance, what is the true meaning of that extraordinary, and to us grotesque, worship of animals in that by-gone age, and of the curious feeling of awe we experience when our thoughts dwell upon the pyramids? The Egyptians themselves tell us that there was an era during which not only mankind, but also beings from the higher spiritual realms descended upon the earth. This was in the beginning before the knowledge and wisdom that was then vouchsafed had truly developed and become active. If we would indeed know man’s innermost nature, we must not alone regard the outer form, but penetrate to the true self within. All external qualities with which we come in contact are but stages of manifestation which have remained ‘in situ‘, as one might say, and are seen as if representing in powerful, albeit diminutive imagery, ancient principles which are dominant in the three kingdoms of nature. Consider the world of minerals and of rocks — here we find those same relations of form which man has used in the architecture of the pyramids; while the inner forces of plant-life are expressed in the beauty of the Lotus-Flower; and lastly, distributed along that path which culminates in man himself, we find in the brute creation existences which have not attained to the higher level of humanity; they are, as it were, a crystallization of divine forces that have been embodied and scattered abroad in separate and distinct animal shapes. We can well imagine that the feelings of the old Egyptians gave rise to thoughts of the above nature, when they recognized in animal life a manifestation of the unaltered primordial forces of the gods. For they looked back into the grey past when all earthly things were begotten of divine supersensible powers, and developed under their guidance. From this concept they conjectured that among the creations in Nature’s three kingdoms certain of these higher primal forces, which had lived on unchanged over a long period, had ultimately undergone some intimate modification which had raised them to that higher standard exhibited in the human form. When considering these ancient peoples we must ever have regard for their feelings, perceptions and the necessities of their life. It is from these factors that we can best realize how close was the moral bond between their wisdom and the soul, so that the latter might not swerve from the path of rectitude and morality. The Egyptians believed, that because of the manner in which the Spirit-World was created and fashioned by the divine supersensible powers, there must be some definite moral relation which extends to the creatures of the animal kingdom. The grotesque and singular modes in which this concept ultimately found expression came about, only, after the final decline of the nation had commenced. From the study of the later periods of Egyptian culture, it is clear that human frailty and imperfection were unknown in primordial times, for we learn from this source that in the early dawn of Egyptian life civilization was of a high standard, and it was then that man knew and experienced the most intimate divine spiritual revelations. We must not fall into that error, so common in our days, of assuming that all forms of human culture had their inception under the most simple and primitive conditions. In reality it was only after the impulse imparted by those first glorious blessings had waned, and a period of decline set in, that man’s life became crude and uncultured. Hence, we should not look upon the barbaric tribes merely as peoples in whom intellection is expressed in its most elementary form, but, on the contrary, we must consider the aboriginal races as representative of civilizations which have fallen away from some exalted primordial state. This assertion is not at all to the liking of that branch of science which would have us believe that all culture had its inception under the most elementary conditions, such as those which are still found among the savages of our time. Nevertheless, Spiritual Science affirms, in virtue of knowledge obtained through the medium of its special methods, that the primitive states of mankind are in truth manifestations of long perished civilizations, and that all human life had its inception under cultural conditions directly inspired by divine beings — mentors from the Spirit-World — who descended upon the earth in the dim dawn of antiquity, and over whose deeds is cast a veil impenetrable to external history. Man has long believed that if we trace life’s course backward through the ages we should in the end arrive at childish conditions, similar to those found among barbaric peoples. It was certainly not expected that in so doing we would find ourselves confronted with noble and exalted concepts and theories. Now, Spiritual Science definitely asserts that if we peer into the past, then, at the beginning of human life we shall not find rudimentary cultural states, but lofty and glorious civilizations, which at some later period fell away from their first high spiritual standard. At this point we might well ask: — ‘Does this asservation, as advanced by Spiritual Science, bring it into conflict with the results of modern scientific research — the logical methods of which delve deeply and without prejudice, into all matters that come within the scope of its investigations?‘ Let us see how external science itself replies to this question. With this object I will give a literal quotation from a recent work by Alfred Jeremias [Licentiate Doctor and Lecturer at the University of Leipzig], entitled The Old Testament in the Light of the Ancient East . 1 From the text we learn that external science while engaged in the gradual unfoldment of ancient history, has reached back into the remote past, and there found traces of a highly spiritual primeval civilization, whose culture was imbued with the most momentous and intellectual conceptions. It is further emphasized that those cultural states, which we are so accustomed to term barbaric, should in reality be regarded as typical of primordial civilizations that have fallen away from some higher level. The actual quotation to which I have referred is as follows: — 2 ‘The earliest records, as well as the whole ancient civilized life about the Euphrates valley, indicate the existence of a scientific and at the same time religious theoretical conception, which was not merely confined to the occult doctrines of the temple; but in accordance with its precepts, state organizations were regulated and conducted, justice declared and property administered and protected. The more ancient the period to which we can look back, the more absolute does the control exercised by this concept appear. It was only after the downfall of the primal Euphratean civilization that the influence of other powers began to make itself felt.’ From the above excerpt it is clear, that external science has truly made a beginning toward the opening up of new paths that tend to bring harmony and agreement into those matters [so often regarded as controversial] which it is the province of Spiritual Science to bring forward and impress upon our present civilization. In a previous lecture we have drawn attention to a similar progress in connection with the science of Geology. If in the future we continue to advance in like fashion, we shall gradually be compelled to recede ever further and further from that dull and lifeless conception which would have us regard all primordial civilization as primitive and childish in its nature. Then, indeed, shall we be led back to those great personalities of the remote past, who seem to us the more transcendent, because it was their divinely inspired mission to endow a yet clairvoyant people with those priceless blessings which are evident throughout all cultural activity in which we now play our part. Such noble spirits in human form as Zarathustra and Hermes at once claim and rivet our attention. They appear to us so exalted and so glorious, because it was THEY who in the dim dawn of human life gave to mankind those first most potent and uplifting impulses. The old Egyptian sage had this sublime concept in mind when he spoke to Solon concerning ‘doctrines grey with age‘. (Vide p. 86.) Thus do we honour and revere Hermes, even as we venerate the great Zarathustra. To us he shines forth as one of those grand outstanding individualities — veritable leaders of mankind — the very thought of whom engenders a feeling of enhanced power within, and begets the indubitable conviction through which we know that the Spirit is not merely abroad in the world, but weaves beneath all earthly deeds, and is ever active throughout the evolution of humanity. Then are our lives strengthened, a fuller confidence is in our every action, hopes are assured and destiny stands out the more clearly before us. It is at such times that we exclaim: — ‘Those yet to be born will of a surety lift up their hearts to the glorious spirit mentors who were in the beginning, and will seek the verity of their being in the gifts which are of the inner forces of the soul. They shall acknowledge and discern in the ever recurrent impulses which come as an upward urge to mankind the workings of a divine power, and the eternal manifestations of those Great Ones from the Spirit-World.’ ADDENDUM The above lecture was delivered in Berlin on the 16th of February, 1911. In the interim, external science has probed further into the secrets of that highly advanced primal civilized life about the valley of the Euphrates, to which reference has been made on page 123 . The following brief outline will indicate some of the results of Archæological research carried out in Mesopotamia at the site of the olden city known as ‘Ur of the Chaldees‘. At this place, most important discoveries have been made in connection with ancient Euphratean civilization, as the outcome of a Joint Expedition arranged by the British Museum and the Museum of the University of Pennsylvania in 1922, under the direction of C. Leonard Woolley, M.A., Litt. D. In a lecture given before ‘The Royal Society of Arts’ on the 8th of November, 1933, and which duly appeared in their Journal , Dr. Woolley said: ‘Certainly the discoveries that we made at Ur in the last ten years have tended to set scientists by the ears rather than satisfying them with the new information obtained ... few surprises in recent years have been so great as that occasioned by the excavation of the great cemetery lying beneath the ruins of Ur.’ In the tombs of Kings, in vaulted chambers of rubble masonry, dating as far back as 3500 B.C. were found treasures of gold, silver, mosaic, etc., wrought by the Sumerian workers and of a degree of technical excellence unsurpassed by the craftsmen of to-day. In one case, when referring to an especially fine specimen of polychrome art which had been discovered, and is now known as ‘The Ram Caught in a Thicket‘, Dr. Woolley drew attention to the fact, that this particular polychrome sculpture, while characteristic of the work of the ancients in 3400 B.. in the Near East, was actually suggestive of that of some rather late Italian Renaissance artist. As the investigations proceeded it became abundantly clear, that the ancient people who had so skilfully fashioned the strange and wonderful treasures brought to light, ‘were not tyros, they must have had behind them long traditions, long apprenticeship‘. With the view of obtaining an insight into the history of this by-gone and highly developed civilization, excavations were commenced at a point which was actually the ground level of 3200 B.C., where through a depth of over sixty feet relics of the dim past were unearthed in clearly marked strata. Traces of eight superimposed cities were revealed, and deep down beneath the remains of an ancient pottery factory, so Dr. Woolley tells us, the excavators suddenly came upon a mass, eleven feet thick, of water-laid sand and clay, perfectly uniform and clean, which was undoubtedly the silt thrown up by “The Flood”. — ‘We can,’ said Dr. Woolley, ‘actually connect it with the flood which we call Noah’s Flood‘. The verge of this deluge was found to be up ‘against the flank of the mound on which stood the earliest and most primitive city of Ur ‘. Below this deposit were ‘the remains of antediluvian houses ... the lowest human buildings rested upon black organic soil ... and that in turn went down below sea-level‘. The excavations proved that the ancient Sumerian architects were familiar with concrete at the beginning of the fourth millennium B.C., and possibly earlier. They were acquainted with every basic form of modern architecture, and Dr. Woolley further states that there is no doubt that, ‘the arch, the vault, the apse, and the dome, used in Europe for the first time in the Roman period’, specimens of which were found among the ruins, ‘are a direct inheritance from the Sumerian peoples of the fourth millennium B.C. at least, and they may well go hack to a date still more remote ’. (The italics are ours.) Further, it has been shown that continuity in Sumerian civilization undoubtedly extended from the fifth millennium B.C., up to the sixth century B.C. This fact has come to light as a result of discoveries made by digging beneath the foundations of the massive staged tower, known as the Ziggurat of Ur, the main religious building of the city; and by tracing the dates and character of cylinder seals of different periods, carried by these by-gone peoples for the purpose of signing written documents. Toward the close of his most interesting lecture, Dr. Woolley stated that imports into Egypt before the First Dynasty, seemed to indicate that the Sumerians imparted to the then barbarous people of that country an impulse, which enabled them to develop their remarkable civilization. He further said: ‘Civilized as the Babylonians were, they made no new discoveries at all; they hardly advanced beyond what their predecessors had known and they preserved civilization rather than invented it. We know, too, that the Sumerians sent out the ancestors of the Hebrews with all the traditions of law, civilization, religion and art, which they had themselves enjoyed in their home country and which the Hebrews never entirely forgot, but by which they were profoundly influenced.’ Thus has this Joint Archæological Expedition, under the able leadership of Dr. Woolley, thrown the light of modern external science upon one of those glorious spiritual civilizations of the dim grey past, so often referred to by Rudolf Steiner, which endured just so long as its people opened their hearts to the guidance of the Spirit, but fell away and perished when they left the true path, and gave themselves up to material things. [Ed.] Notes for this lecture: 1. Manual of Biblical Archaeology , 2 Vols. Translated from the second German Edition, by C. L. Beaumont. Edited by the Rev. Canon C. H. W. Johns, Litt.D. Published by Williams and Morgate, 1911. 2. Der Einfluss Babyloniens auf das Verständnis des Alten Testamentes , von Alfred Jeremias. ‘Die ältesten Urkunden sowie das gesamte euphratensische Kulturleben setzen eine wissenschaftliche und zugleich religiöse Theorie voraus, die nicht etwa nur in den Geheimlehren der Tempel ihr Dasein fristet, sondern nach der die staatlichen Organisationen geregelt sind, nach der Recht gesprochen, das Eigentum verwaltet und geschützt wird. Je höher das Altertum ist, in das wir blacken können, um so Ausschliesslicher herrscht die Theorie; erst mit dem Verfall der alten euphratensischen Kultur kommen andere Mächte zur Geltung.’

Turning Points Spiritual History

Hermes and the Mysteries of Ancient Egypt

https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA060/English/GC1987/19110216p02.html

Berlin

16 Feb 1911

GA060-12

In these days there is much discussion concerning The Buddha and the Buddhist Creed; and this fact is the more interesting to all who follow the course of human evolution, because a knowledge of the true character of the Buddhist religion, or perhaps more correctly, the longing felt by many for its comprehension has only recently entered into the spiritual life of the Western nations. Let us consider for a moment that most prominent personality, Goethe , who exerted such a powerful influence on Occidental culture, at the turn of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, which influence continued so potently right on into our own period. When we examine his life, his works, and his intellectuality, we find no trace of the Buddhist doctrine; but a little later we note in the concepts of that genius, Schopenhauer (who was in a certain sense a disciple of Goethe), a clear and definite touch of Buddhistic thought; and since that period in which Schopenhauer lived, the interest taken in Eastern spiritual conceptions has steadily increased. Hence it is that there is now a widespread and inherent desire, to analyse and discuss all those matters connected with the name of the Great Buddha, which have found their way into the course of human evolution. It is a remarkable fact that most people still persist in associating Buddhism, primarily, with the idea of recurrent earth lives, to which concept we have often referred in these lectures. Such an assumption is, however, found to be unwarranted when we have regard to the essential character of the Buddhist belief. We might say, that with the majority of those people who interest themselves in this subject, the notion of repeated earth lives, or as we term it, Reincarnation, forms a well-established and essential part of their preconceived ideas regarding Buddhism. But on the other hand it must be said, even though it sounds grotesque, that to those who probe more deeply into these matters, the association of Buddhism with the idea of reincarnation, appears almost equivalent to saying, — that the most complete knowledge of ancient works of art is to be sought among those peoples who have destroyed them at the commencement of universal development and progress in the Middle Ages. This certainly sounds grotesque, but it is nevertheless true, as we at once realize when we consider that the aim of Buddhism is directed towards the disparagement of our apparently inevitably recurring earth lives, and the reduction of their number as far as may be within our power. Hence, we must regard as the essential moving principle underlying the whole trend of Buddhist spiritual thought that principle which operates in the direction of freedom, that is, redemption from repeated rebirth, or liberation from reincarnation which it accepts as an established and unquestionable fact; in this concept is expressed the true and vital essence of Buddhism. Even from a superficial glance at the history of Western spiritual life, we learn that the idea of repeated earthly existence is quite independent of an understanding of Buddhism, and vice versa; for during the course of our Occidental spiritual development we find ourselves confronted with a conception of reincarnation, presented in a manner both lofty and sublime, by a personality who most certainly had remained untouched by Buddhist views and trend of thought. This personality was Lessing , who in his treatise on The Education of Mankind , which is regarded as the most matured and mellow of his works, closes with the confession that he himself was a believer in the Doctrine of Reincarnation. With regard to this belief, he gives expression to those deeply significant words, — ‘Is not all eternity mine?‘ Lessing was of opinion that the repetition of our earthly lives was proof that benefit would accrue from mundane endeavour, and that existence in this world is not in vain. For while we toil we look forward to ever widening and fuller recurring corporal states, in which we may bring to maturity the fruits of our by-gone earthly lives. The conception which Lessing really formed was of the prospect and anticipation of a rich and bountiful harvest, to be garnered in the fullness of time coupled with the knowledge that throughout human existence there is ever an inner voice, which in actual expectation of recurrent earth lives, calls to us, saying, — ‘Thou shalt persist in thy labours.’ From what has been said, it is now apparent that it is in the very essence of Buddhism that man must ever strive to obtain such knowledge and wisdom as may serve to free him from those future reincarnations, the prevision of which lies in the spirit. Only when during one of our earth lives we have at last freed ourselves from the need of experiencing those which would otherwise follow, can we enter peacefully upon that condition which we may term Eternity. I have persistently endeavoured to make it clear that the idea of reincarnation, both with regard to Spiritual Science and Theosophy , was not derived from any one of the ancient traditions, not even from Buddhism; it has in fact thrust itself upon us during our time, as a result of independent observation and reflection concerning life in connection with spiritual investigation. Hence, to associate Buddhism so directly with the idea of reincarnation indicates a superficial attitude. If we would indeed look into the true character and nature of Buddhism, then we must turn our spiritual eyes in quite another direction. I must now once again draw your attention to that law in human evolution which we met with when we were considering the personality of the great Zarathustra. In accordance with this law, as was then stated, during the gradual passing of time the whole condition and character of man’s soul changed, while it went through varying transitional states. Those events regarding which we obtain information from external historical documents, represent as far as man is concerned, only a comparatively late phase in the evolution of humanity. If, however, we look back with the aid of Spiritual Science to prehistoric times, we gain much further knowledge; we then find that a certain condition of soul was common to primitive man, whereby the normal state of human consciousness was quite other than that of our day. That pre-eminently intellectual order of consciousness, which leads to the manner in which, during the course of our normal human life, we now regard all things around us combining them by means of our mental powers acting through the brain, so that they shall be connected with and become a part of our wisdom, and our science — was first developed from another form of conscious state. I have emphasized this point before, but I must lay particular stress upon it once again. We have in the chaotic disorder of our dream-life, a last remnant — a species of atavistic heritage – of an old clairvoyance, which was at one time to a certain extent, an ordinary condition of the human soul, and in which mankind assumed a state between that of sleeping and that of being awake; he could then look upon those things hidden behind the perceptual world. In these days in which our consciousness mainly alternates between the sleeping and the waking conditions, it is only in the latter that we seek to apprehend a state of intellectuality in the soul; but in olden times, clairvoyant visions were not so meaningless as are the dream forms of our period, for they could be quite definitely ascribed to specific superperceptual creations and events. Mankind had in connection with these ancient fluctuating visions a species of conscious state out of which our present intellectuality gradually evolved. Hence, we look back to a certain form of primeval clairvoyance which was followed by the long drawn out evolution of our consciousness as recognized to-day. Because of this by-gone dream-like clairvoyance, prehistoric man could gaze far into the superperceptual worlds, and through this connection with the supersensible, he gained not knowledge alone but a feeling of profound inner satisfaction and bliss from the full realization of the soul’s union with the Spirit-World. Just as present-day man is now convinced through his sense perceptions and intellectuality that his blood is composed of substances which exist without in the physical universe, so was prehistoric man confident that his soul and spiritual nature emanated from that same hidden Spirit-World which he could discern in virtue of his clairvoyant consciousness. It has already been pointed out that there are phenomena connected with the history of mankind, and which are also apparent in certain external facts and happenings, that can only be fully understood when we pre-suppose some such primordial condition of man’s earthly existence. It has further been stated that modern science is coming more and more to the conclusion that it is erroneous to assume, as has been done by the materialistic Anthropology of the nineteenth century, that in primeval times the prevailing state common to man was similar to that found among the most primitive peoples of to-day. It is, in fact, becoming more and more clear that the prehistoric races had extremely exalted theoretical conceptions regarding the Spirit-World, and that these concepts were given to them in the form of visions. All those curious ideas which come to us through myths and legends can only be rightly understood, when they are first connected with and referred back to that ancient wisdom which came to man in a way wholly different from that by which our present intellectual science has been attained. In these modern times there is not much sympathy expressed with the view that the position in which we find the primitive peoples of our day is not typical of the universal primordial condition of mankind, but is in reality an example of decadence from a primarily highly clairvoyant spiritual state common to all peoples. But facts will yet force a general acceptance of some such hypothesis as that put forward by Spiritual Science as a result of its investigations. Here, as in many other cases, it can be shown that fundamentally there is complete accord between spiritual and external science. Further, a time will come when the conclusions which Spiritual Science has formed regarding the probable future of man’s evolution, viewed from the scientific stand-point, will be entirely confirmed. We must look back, not merely to a form of primeval wisdom, but to a specific order of primordial feeling and apprehension, which we characterize as a clairvoyant bond, erstwhile existent between man and the divine regions of spirit. We can easily understand that during the transition from the old or clairvoyant state of the human soul to our modern direct, unprejudiced and intellectual method of regarding the external perceptual world, there should arise two different currents of thought. As time went on the first of these made itself manifest more especially among those peoples who had clung to memories of the past, and to their fading psychic power, in such manner that they would say: — ‘In by-gone days mankind was truly in contact with the spirit realms in virtue of the clairvoyant faculty, but since then he has descended into the material world of sense perception.’ This feeling spread throughout the whole soul’s outlook, until those ancient peoples would cry out: — ‘We are indeed now come into a world of manifestations where all is illusion — all is Maya.’ Only at such time as man might commune with the spirit spheres could he truly comprehend, and be united with his very being. Thus it was that there came to those nations who still preserved a dim remembrance of the ancient primal clairvoyant state, a certain feeling of sadness at the thought of what they had lost, and an indifference to all material things which man might apprehend and understand through the medium of his intellect, and with which he is ever in direct and conscious contact. On the other hand, the second of the two thought currents to which I have referred, may be expressed in the following manner: — ‘We will observe and be active in this new world which has been given to us.’ Thought of this nature is especially noticeable throughout the Zarathustran doctrine. Those who experienced this call to action did not look back with sorrow and longing to the loss of the old clairvoyant power, but felt, ever more and more, that they must keep in close and constant touch with those forces by the aid of which they might penetrate into the secrets and nature of all material things, knowing full well that knowledge and guidance, born of the spirit, would flow in upon them if they would but give themselves up to earnest and profound meditation and piety. Such people felt impelled to link themselves closely with the world — there was no dreaming of the past, but an urge to gaze resolutely into the future and to battle with what might come. They expressed themselves after this fashion: — ‘Interwoven throughout this world, which is now our portion, is the same divine essence that was spread about us and permeated our very beings in by-gone ages; and this spiritual component we must now seek amid our material surroundings. It is our task to unite ourselves with all that is good and of the spirit, and by so doing, to further the progress and evolution of creation.’ These words indicate the essential nature of that current of thought which was occupied with external physical perception, and went forth from those Asiatic countries where the Zarathustran doctrine prevailed, and which lay Northward of the region where mankind looked back in meditation, pondering over that great spiritual gift which had passed away, and was indeed lost. Thus it came about that upon the soil of India there arose a spiritual life which is entirely comprehensible, when we regard it in the light of all this retrospection concerning a former union with the Spirit-World. If we consider the results in India of the teachings of the Sankhya and Yoga philosophies and the Yoga training, we find that these may be embodied in the following statement: — The Indian has ever striven to re-establish his connection with those Spirit-Worlds from whence he came, and it has been his constant endeavour to eliminate from his earthly life all that was spread around him in the external creation, and by thus freeing himself from material things, to regain his union with that spiritual region from whence humanity has emanated. The principle underlying Yoga philosophy is reunion with the divine realms, and abstraction from all that appertains to the perceptual world. Only when we assume this fundamental mood of Indian spiritual life can we realize the significance of that mighty impulse brought about by the advent of the Buddha, which blazed up before our spiritual sight, as an after-glow across the evening sky of Indian soul-life, but a few centuries before the Christ-impulse began to dominate Western thought. It is only in the light of the Buddha-mood, when regarded as already characterized, that the outstanding figure of the Buddha can be truly comprehended. In view of that basic assumption to which we have above referred, we can readily conceive that in India there could exist an order of thought and conviction, such as caused mankind to regard the world as having fallen from a spiritual state into one of sense-illusion, or that ‘Great Deception‘, which is indeed Maya. It is also understandable that the Indian, because of his observations concerning this external world with which humanity is so closely connected, pictured to himself that this decline came about suddenly and unexpectedly from time to time, during the passing of the ages. So that Indian philosophy does not regard man’s fall as uniform and continuous, but as having taken place periodically from epoch to epoch. From this point of view we can now understand those contemplative moods, underlying a form of culture which we must regard as being in the departing radiance of its existence; for so must we characterize the Buddhist conception, if we would consider it as having a place in a philosophy such as we have outlined. Indian thought ever harked back to that dim past when man was truly united with the Spirit-World. For there came a time when the Indian fell away from his exalted spiritual standard; this decline persisted until a certain level was reached, when he rose again, only to sink once more. He continued to alternate in this fashion throughout the ages, every descent taking him still further along the downward path, while each upward step was, as it were, a mitigation granted by some higher power, in order that man might not be compelled to work and live, all too suddenly, in that condition which he had already entered upon during his fall. According to ancient Indian philosophy, as each period of decline was ended there arose a certain outstanding figure whose personality was known as a ‘Buddha‘; the last of these was incarnated as the son of King Suddhodana, and called Gautama Buddha. Since those olden times, when humanity was still directly united with the Spirit-World, there have arisen a number of such Buddhas, five having appeared subsequent to the last fall. The advent of the Buddhas was a sign that mankind shall not sink into illusion — into Maya — but that again and again there shall come into men’s lives something of the ancient primal wisdom, to succour and to aid humanity. This primordial knowledge, however, because of man’s constant downward trend, fades from time to time; but in order that it shall be renewed there arises periodically a new Buddha, and as we have stated, the last of these was Gautama Buddha. Before such great teachers could advance, through repeated earth lives, to the dignity of Buddhahood, if we may so express it, they must have already been exalted and attained the lofty standing of a Bodhisattva. 1 According to the Indian philosophical outlook, Gautama Buddha, up to his twenty-ninth year, was not regarded as a Buddha, but as a Bodhisattva. It was therefore as a Bodhisattva that he was born into the royal house of Suddhodana; and because his life was ever devoted to toil and to striving, he was at last blessed with that inner illumination, symbolically portrayed in the words, ‘Sitting under the Bodhi tree‘; and that glorious enlightenment which flowed in upon him found expression in the ‘Sermon at Benares’. Thus did Gautama Buddha rise to the full dignity of Buddahood in his twenty-ninth year, and from that time on, he was empowered to revive once again a last remnant of by-gone primeval wisdom; which, however, in the light of Indian conceptions, would be destined to fall into decadence during the centuries to come. But according to these same concepts, when man has sunk so low, that the wisdom and the knowledge which this last Buddha brought, shall have waned, then will yet another Bodhisattva rise to Buddhahood, the Buddha of the Future — the Maitreya Buddha; whose coming the Indian surely awaits, for it is foretold in his philosophy. Let us now consider what took place at that time when the last Bodhisattva rose to Buddhahood; when, as we might say, his soul became filled with primordial wisdom. By so doing we can best realize and understand the true significance of that great change, wrought by struggle and toil through repeated earth lives. There is a legend which tells us that until his twenty-ninth year he had seen nothing of the world outside the Royal Palace of Suddhodana; and that he was protected from that misery and suffering which are factors of existence ever antagonistic to human prosperity in life’s progress. It was under these conditions that the Bodhisattva grew up; but at the same time he was possessed of the Bodhisattva-consciousness, that consciousness so imbued with inner wisdom garnered from previous incarnations. Hence, as he developed, during life’s unfolding, he looked only upon those things which would bring forth true and goodly fruits. Since this legend is so well known, it is only necessary to refer to the main points. It states that when the Buddha at length came outside the Royal Palace he had an experience such as could not have occurred before — namely, he beheld a corpse — and he realized on seeing this body that life is dissolved by death; and that the death element breaks in upon life’s procreative and fruitful progress. He next came upon an ailing and feeble man; and knew that disease enters upon life. Again, he saw an aged person, tottering and weary; and he understood that old age creeps in upon the freshness of youth. From the stand-point of Buddhism, Indian Philosophy presupposes that: — He who having been a Bodhisattva, and is exalted to Buddhahood, regards all experiences, such as the above, with the Bodhisattva-consciousness. This supposition must be clearly understood. Gautama realized that in the great wisdom which underlies development in all being, there is an element destructive to existence; and the legend states that when this truth first dawned upon him, his great soul was so affected that he cried out: — ‘Life is full of misery.’ Let us now place ourselves in the position of those who look upon experiences of this nature, solely from the Buddhistic point of view, for instance, in the position of this Bodhisattva-Gautama. Gautama was possessed of a higher wisdom which lived within him, but was as yet not fully developed. He had, up to this period, seen only the fortunate and wealthy side of life, and now for the first time beheld the elements of decay and dissolution. If we consider the way in which he must have regarded these happenings, as viewed from the stand-point of assumptions forced upon him in virtue of his being, we can readily understand how it was that this great spiritual Buddha came to express himself in words somewhat as follows: — ‘When we attain to knowledge and to wisdom, it comes about that in virtue of such wisdom we are led onwards toward development and progress; and because of this enlightenment, there enters into the soul the thought of an ever continuous and beneficial growth and advancement; but when we look upon the world about us we see there the elements of destruction as expressed in sickness, old age, and death. Verily, it cannot be wisdom that would thus mingle these destructive factors with life, but something quite apart and distinctive in character.’ At first the great Gautama did not fully grasp all that his Bodhisattva-consciousness implied, and we can well realize how it was that he became imbued with those thoughts which caused him to exclaim: — ‘Man may indeed be possessed of much wisdom, and through his knowledge there may come to him the idea of plenteous benefits; but in life we behold about us not alone the factors of sickness and death, but many another baneful element which brings corruption and decay into our very existence.’ The Bodhisattva thus saw around him a condition which he could not as yet fully comprehend. He had passed through life after life, always applying the experiences gained through his previous incarnations to his soul’s benefit; the while his wisdom became ever greater and greater, till at last he could look down upon all earthly existence from a more exalted vantage-point. But when he came forth from the King’s Palace, and saw before him for the first time the realities of life, its true nature and significance did not at once penetrate his understanding. That knowledge which we gain from the repeated experiences of our earth lives, and which we store within us as wisdom, can never solve the ultimate secrets of our being, for the true origin of these mysteries must lie without — remote from that life which is ours as we pass from reincarnation to reincarnation. Such thoughts matured in the great soul of Gautama and led him directly to that sublime enlightenment known as ‘The Illumination under the Bodhi Tree ‘. 2 There, while seated beneath this tree, it became clear to the Buddha that this world in which we have our being is Maya, — illusion; that here life follows upon life, and that we have come upon this earth from a spiritual realm. While we are yet here we may indeed be exalted, and even rise to noble heights in the divine sense, and we may pass through many reincarnations, becoming ever more and more possessed of wisdom; but because of that which is material and comes to us through contact with this earthly life, we can never solve the great ever-present mystery of existence which finds expression in old age, disease and death. It was at this time of enlightenment that the thought came to Gautama that the teachings born of suffering held for him a greater significance than all the wisdom of a Bodhisattva. The Buddha expressed the fundamental concept underlying his great illumination as follows: — ‘That which spreads itself abroad throughout this world of Maya is not veritable wisdom, indeed, so little of this quality is manifested in life that we can never hope to gain from external experiences a true understanding of affliction, nor acquire that knowledge which will show us the way by which we may be freed from suffering; for interwoven throughout all outer existence is a factor of quite another character, which differs from all wisdom and all knowledge.’ It is therefore obvious that what the Buddha sought was an element through the agency of which the destructive forces of old age, sickness and death become commingled with earthly life, and in which wisdom has no part. He held that freedom from these baneful factors can never come through mundane knowledge and learning for the path which leads to deliverance does not lie in that direction, and can only be found when man withdraws himself entirely from the external world, where life follows upon life and reincarnation upon reincarnation. Thus it was the Buddha realized from the moment of his illumination that in the teachings and experience born of affliction, lay that basic element necessary to humanity for its future progress; and he conceived a factor (wherein was no wisdom) which he termed The Thirst for Existence to be the true source of all that misery and sorrow which so troubles the world. Upon the one side wisdom, upon the other a thirst for existence, where wisdom has no part. It was this thought which caused Gautama to exclaim: — ‘Only liberation from recurrent earth life can lead humanity to the realization of perfect freedom; for earthly wisdom, even that of the highest learning, cannot save us from grief and anguish.’ He therefore gave himself up to meditation, and sought some means whereby mankind might be led away from all this restlessness in the world of his reincarnations, and guided into that transcendent state which Gautama Buddha has designated Nirvana . What, then, is the nature of this state — this World of Nirvana — which man shall enter when he has so advanced in his earthly life that ‘The Thirst for Existence‘ has passed, and he no more desires to be reborn? We must understand this concept rightly, for then shall we avoid those grotesque and fantastic ideas, so frequently spread abroad. Nirvana is a condition that can only be characterized in the Buddhist sense. According to this conception, it is a world of redemption and of bliss that can never be expressed in terms of things which may be apprehended in the material state in which we have our being. There is nothing in this physical world, nor in the wide expanse of the cosmos, which can awaken in mankind a realization of the sublime truth underlying such redemption. Hence, we should forbear from all pronouncements and assertions regarding that glorious region where humanity must seek salvation; and all earth-born predications and profitless statements — such as man is ever prone to make – must be stilled, for in them is nought pertaining to the spheres of eternal bliss. There is, indeed, no possibility of picturing that realm, where all may enter who have overcome the need for reincarnation, since it is not of those things of which we may have awareness on this earth life. When, therefore, we would speak of this condition we must use a negative, an indefinite, term and such a term is Nirvana. He who has conquered all mundane desires shall yet know the nature and the aspect of that other world which we can but indicate with the one vague and neutral word Nirvana. It is a region which, according to the Buddhist, no language can portray. It is not a ‘Nihility‘, it is indeed so far removed from such a concept that we can find no words wherewith to describe this state of being, so complete, so perfect, and all abounding in ecstasy and bliss. We are now in a position to grasp and apprehend the very essence of Buddhism, its sentiments and its convictions. From the time of the Sermon at Benares, when first the Buddha gave expression to the ‘Doctrine of Suffering‘, Buddhism became permeated with thought and understanding concerning the inner nature of life’s misery and distress, and of that yearning, that Thirst for Existence which leads but to sorrow and affliction. There is, according to this doctrine, only one way in which humanity may truly progress, and that is through gaining freedom and redemption from further reincarnations. Mankind must find that path of knowledge which extends outward and beyond all earthly wisdom — that path which is the way and the means whereby slowly, step by step, man may become so fitted and conditioned that he can at last enter upon that ideal state — Nirvana. In other words, he must learn to utilize the experiences of his rebirths, in such manner that finally recurrent earth life is no longer essential to his development, and he is freed therefrom for evermore. If we now turn from this brief summary of the conceptions which underlie Buddhism, to the root and essence of this religion, it at once strikes us as peculiar when viewed in the light of our ideas concerning humanity regarded as a whole — for Buddhism in point of fact isolates the individual. Questions are raised relative to man’s destiny, the purport and aim of his existence, his place and relation to the world — all from the stand-point of detached and separate personality. How, indeed, could any other trend of thought underlie a philosophy built upon a fundamental disposition of mind such as we have outlined? A philosophy evolved from a basic mood, which conceives man as being descended from spiritual heights and now finding himself in a world of illusion; from which material existence the wisdom of a Buddha may, from time to time, free him; but this very wisdom (as was seen in the case of the last Buddha) causes him to seek redemption from his earthly life. How could the goal of human existence, born as it was of convictions such as these, be characterized other than by representing man as isolated in his relation to the whole of his environment? According to this philosophy, the fundamental aspect of being is such as to represent decline, while development and evolution in earthly life implies degeneration. The manner in which the Buddha sought enlightenment is both remarkable and significant, but unless we consider also the peculiar characteristics and circumstances connected with ‘The Illumination‘, neither the Buddha himself, nor Buddhism, can be properly understood. When Gautama craved enlightenment, he went forth into solitude; to a place where he could find entire and absolute isolation. For all that he had acquired from life to life, must be overcome in the utter detachment of his being, so that there could break in upon his soul that clear light whereby he might comprehend and solve the mystery of the world’s wretchedness. There in that place, as one in complete aloofness, dependent upon himself alone, the Buddha awaited the moment of illumination — that moment when there should come to him an understanding which would enable him to realize that the true cause of all human suffering lay in the intense longing manifested by individual man to be born again into this material world. And further, that this yearning for reincarnation, this thirst for existence, is the fundamental source of all that misery and distress which is everywhere about us, and of those pernicious factors which bring ruin and destruction into our very being. We cannot rightly comprehend the unusual and singular nature of the Buddha-Illumination and of the Buddhistic Doctrine unless we compare them with the knowledge and experience we have gained through Christianity. Six hundred years after the advent of the Great Buddha, there arose in Christendom a wholly different conception, in which we also find man’s position relative to the world and all that is about him expressed in definite terms. Now, regarding Buddhism, and speaking in an abstract and general manner, we can say: — The philosophic outlook concerning the cosmos, as set forth in Buddhistic teachings, is not treated historically, and this unhistoric method is thoroughly typical of all Eastern countries. These countries have seen one Buddha epoch follow upon another, only to gradually die out and eventually come to an end. Such descriptions as are concerned merely with man’s descent from higher to lower states, do not of themselves constitute what we term history, for the factors of true history would include the upward endeavour of humanity to reach some appointed goal, and the nature and possibilities of man’s association and union with the world as a whole, both in the past and in the future. We would then have veritable history. But the Buddhist stands isolated and alone, concerned only with the basic principles of his being, ever seeking to gain through the conduct of his personal life those powers which may lead him to freedom from ‘the thirst for existence‘, so that having attained to this freedom he may at last win redemption from rebirth. In Christendom, six hundred years after the Buddha period, the attitude of individual man toward the evolution of humanity in general was of quite another kind. Putting aside all prejudice, which is so common a failing throughout the world, we can characterize one particular Christian trend of thought as follows: — From that part of the Christian concept which is founded upon the stories in the Old Testament it is realized that the ancients were related to the spiritual realms in a manner wholly different from that which was subsequently the case; as is seen in the grand and lofty imagery depicted in Genesis. Now, a curious fact comes to light, namely, in Christendom we find man’s relation to the world to be of a character entirely unlike that which obtains in Buddhism. The following may be considered as the Christian’s point of view: — ‘Within my being is understanding begotten of that condition of soul which is now mine; and because of the way and the manner in which I observe and comprehend this outer perceptual world, there is born in me wisdom, intelligence and an aptitude for the practical conduct of life. But I can look back into the distant past when the human soul was differently conditioned, and there came about a circumstance, namely, “The Fall of Man”, which cannot be regarded simply from the Buddhistic stand-point.’ This event, which we so often find portrayed in a figurative form based upon misconception, the Buddhist believes to be a [natural result of man’s] descent from Divine spiritual heights into a world of Maya, or illusion. This great ‘Fall’ must, however, be looked upon in a quite different way, for truly characterized it is The Fall of Man [as caused wholly through his own transgression, and was not due as the Buddhist thinks, merely to his coming down from a higher spiritual state and entering a world of deception]. Although man may have his own opinion concerning this matter, nevertheless, there is one thing we must admit, and that will suffice for the present, namely, that in connection with the thought of ‘The Fall’ there is an inner sentiment which causes man to exclaim: — ‘As I am now there work within me certain impulses and forces that have of a surety not developed in my being alone, for similar factors were active in a not so very distant past, when they played a part in happenings of such a nature that the human race, to which I belong, not only lapsed from its former higher spiritual standard, but is so far fallen that mankind has come into another relation with the world to the one which would have been, if the original conditions had but endured.’ When man fell away from his previous high spiritual state, he sank to a definitely lower level, and this change was brought about by what may be termed his own conscious sin. We are therefore not merely concerned with the fact of descent, as is the case when ‘The Fall’ is viewed from the Buddhist stand-point, for we must take into consideration varying mood during this period of decadence. If man’s first nature had but continued unchanged this decline would not have that character which it has now assumed, where the soul-state is such that he is ever prone to fall into temptation. He who penetrates beneath the surface of Christianity and studies deeply, learns that while history ran its course man’s soul-quality altered. In other words, because of certain events which happened in ancient times, man’s soul (the working of which may be likened to a subconscious mind with his being) took to itself a quality quite other to that which was primarily intended. Now, the Buddhist’s position relative to the material world may be expressed as follows; he would say: — ‘I have been taken out of a Divine spiritual realm and placed upon this earth; when I look around me I find nought but illusion — all is Maya.’ But the Christian, on the other hand, would exclaim: — ‘When I came down into this material life, had I but conformed to the order and intent of that Divine plan in which I had my part, I could even now look beyond this perceptual pretence, behind all this deception, this Maya; and I would at all times have power to realize and discern that which is genuine and true. But because, when I descended upon this earth my deeds were not in harmony with those things which had been ordained, I have, through my own act, caused this world to become an illusion.’ To the question: — ‘Why is this world one of Maya?’ the Buddhist answers: — ‘It is the world itself that is Maya.’ But the Christian says: — ‘It is I who am at fault, I alone; my limited capacity for discernment and my whole soul-state have placed me in such a position that I can no more apprehend that which was in the beginning; and my actions and conduct have ceased to be of such a nature that results follow smoothly, ever attended with beneficial and fruitful progress. I myself have enwrapped this material life in a veil of Maya.’ The Buddhist’s stand-point is: that the world is a great illusion, and must be overcome. The Christian exclaims: — ‘I have been placed upon this earth and must here find the purpose and object of my being.’ When he once understands that through Spiritual Science knowledge may be acquired concerning recurrent earth lives, he then realizes that he may use this wisdom for the achievement of the true aim of his existence. He then becomes convinced that the reason why we now look upon a world of sorrow and deception, is because we have wandered from our allotted path. He considers that this change to Maya is the direct result of man’s deeds, and the manner in which he regards the world. The Christian, therefore, is of opinion that in order to attain to eternal bliss, we must not seek to withdraw ourselves from this earth-state but master that condition which we alone have brought about, and through which the aspect of all material things has been transformed into one of illusion, such that we no longer apprehend them in their truth and reality; we must turn back and overcome this deception, then may we follow the course of our first duly appointed destiny — for latent within each one of us abides a higher personality. If this more noble hidden-self were not hindered and could but look around upon the world, it would apprehend it in all its verity; man would then no longer continue an existence hampered by sickness and by death but lead an everlasting life in all the freshness of youth. Such, then, is the true inner self that we have veiled. Veiled, because in the past we have been associated with a certain event in the world’s development, the effects of which have continued on, while the primary impulses still work within us, thus proving that we do not exist isolated and alone. We must not believe that we have been led to our present condition through a ‘thirst for existence’ common to individual man; but rather must we realize that each one of us is a definite unit in the sum total of humanity, and as such must take his share and suffer from the results of any original transgression committed by mankind. It is in this way that the Christian feels that he is historically united with the whole human race, and while he looks into the future, he exclaims: — ’Through travail and toil I must regain touch with that greater self which because of Man’s Fall, now lies enshrouded within my being. It is not Nirvana that I must seek, but my more noble Ego. Alone, must I find the way back to my true nature, then will the outer world be no longer an illusion, a vision of unreality, but a world wherein I shall overcome, of my own power and effort, all sorrow, sickness, and death. While the Buddhist would seek freedom from earthly conditions and from rebirth, through his struggle with ‘The Thirst for Existence’, — the Christian seeks liberation from his lower personality, and looks forward to the awakening of his higher self, that more exalted Ego, which he alone has veiled; so that through his awakening he may at last apprehend this perceptual world in the light of Divine truth. When we compare those significant words of St. Paul: — ‘Yet not I but Christ liveth in me’ (Galatians ii, 20) with the wisdom revealed by the Buddha, the contrast is as that between light and darkness. In St. Paul’s words, we find expressed that positive knowledge, that definite consciousness, which is ever active deep within us, and in virtue of which we take our place as human personalities in the world. According to the Buddhist, mankind has lapsed from spiritual heights, because this material world has pressed him down and implanted in him a ‘thirst for existence’; and this desire he must overcome — he must away! The Christian, on the other hand, says: — ‘No! the world is not to blame because of my present state, the fault lies with me alone.’ We Christians dwell upon this earth equipped with our accustomed consciousness; but beneath all awareness and understanding there is a something ever active in each individual personality which in by-gone times found expression in the form of a clairvoyant visioned consciousness, now no more extant, for even while we possessed this faculty, we transgressed. If we would indeed reach the ultimate goal of our existence, then must we first atone for this human error. No man who is advanced in years may say: — ‘In my early life I have sinned; it is unjust that I should now be called upon to make atonement for youthful faults, committed at a time when I had not yet attained to that fuller knowledge which is now mine.’ It would be equally wrong for him to assert that it is unfair that he be expected to use his present conscious power to such end that he may compensate for misdeeds enacted while in possession of a different conscious faculty, which faculty no longer exists, for it has been replaced by an intellectual cognition. The only way in which man may truly atone, when indeed the will is there, is for him to raise himself upward from his present conscious-state and existing Ego, to a higher plane of personality — a more exalted ‘I’. Those words of St. Paul, — ‘Yet not I, but Christ liveth in me,’ could then be characterized as follows, — ‘Yet not I, but a higher consciousness liveth in me.’ The Christian conception can be expressed in these words: — ‘I have fallen from a higher spiritual state, and have entered upon a different condition from that which was previously ordained; but I must rise again; and this I must do, not through that quality of Ego which is mine, but in virtue of a power that can enter into my very being, uplifting me far above that “I”, which I now possess. Such a change can alone come to pass when the Christ-influence is once more active within, leading me onward until the world has lost all power of illusion, and I can apprehend it in its true reality. Ever upward until those baneful forces which have brought sickness and death upon the earth may be vanquished, — conquered by that higher spiritual power which Christ has quickened within my being.’ The innermost essence of Buddhism is best understood by comparing the Buddhist creed with that of Christianity. When we do this, we at once realize why it was that Lessing should have made use of the phrase, — ‘Is not all Eternity mine?’ — in his book entitled The Education of Mankind . These words imply that if we employ the experiences gained during our repeated reincarnations, in such manner as to suffer the Christ-force to abide ever more and more within us, we shall at last reach the eternal spheres which realms we cannot as yet hope to attain, because we have of our own act, enveloped the inner being as with a veil. The idea of reincarnation will present a wholly different aspect when illumined by the glory of Christianity; but it is not merely the actual belief in rebirth which matters for the present, for with the advance of Christian culture, humanity will gradually be driven to the acceptance of this concept as a truth brought forward by Spiritual Science. But it is important that we should realize that, whereas the deepest sentiments and convictions of the Buddhist’s faith cause him to blame the World for everything that is Maya — the Christian, on the other hand, looks upon himself, and mankind in general, as responsible for all earthly deception and illusion. The while he stores within his innermost being those qualities which are prerequisite and necessary to him, in order that he may rise to that state which we term Redemption. In the Christian sense, however, this does not only imply deliverance, but actual resurrection; for when man has attained to this state, his Ego is already raised to the level of that more exalted ‘I’ from which he has fallen. The Buddhist, when he looks around upon the world, finds himself concerned with an original sin, but feels that he has been placed upon this earth merely for a time, he therefore desires his freedom. The Christian likewise realizes his connection with an original sin, but seeks amendment and to atone for this first transgression. Such is an historical line of thought, for while the Christian feels that his present existence is associated with an incident which took place in olden times among the ancients, he also connects his life with an event that will surely come to pass when he is so advanced that his whole being will shine forth, filled with that radiance which we designate as the essence of the Christ-Being. Hence it is that during the world’s development we find nothing in Christianity corresponding to successive Buddha-epochs coming one after another, as one might say, unhistorically, each Buddha proclaiming a like doctrine. Christianity brings forward but one single glorious event during the whole of man’s earthly progress. In the same way as the Buddhist pictures the Buddha, seated isolated and alone under the Bodhi tree, at the moment when he was exalted and the great illumination came to him; so does the Christian visualize Jesus of Nazareth at that time when there descended upon Him the all-inspiring Spirit of the cosmos. The baptism of Christ by John, as described in the Bible, is as vivid and clear a picture as is the Buddhist’s conception of the Illumination of the Buddha. Thus we have, in the first case, the Buddha seated under the Bodhi tree, concerned only with his own soul; in the second, Jesus of Nazareth, standing in the Jordan, while there descended upon Him that cosmic essence, that Spirit, symbolically represented as a dove, which entered into His innermost being. To those who profess Buddhism, there is something about the Buddha and his works which is as a voice ever saying, — ‘Thou shalt still this thirst for earthly existence, tear it out by the roots, and follow the Buddha — on to those realms which no earthly words can describe.’ The Christian has a similar feeling, with regard to the life and example of Christ, for there seems to come forth an influence, which makes it possible for him to atone for that primeval deed, committed by ancient humanity. He knows that when in his soul, the Divine cosmic influence (born of that great spiritual world which lies behind this perceptual earth) becomes as great a living force as in the Christ himself, then will he carry into his future reincarnations the increasing realization of the truth of St. Paul’s words: — ‘Yet not I, but Christ liveth in me’; and he will be raised more and more, ever upwards, to that Divine state from which he is now fallen. When such a faith is ours, we cannot help but be deeply moved, when we hear the story of how the Buddha, as he addressed his intimate disciples, spoke to them as follows: — ‘When I look back upon my former lives, as I might look into an open book, where I can read page after page, and review each life in turn that is passed, I find in every one of these earthly existences that I have built for myself a material body, in which my spirit has dwelt as in a temple; but I now know that this same body in which I have become Buddha will of a verity be the last.’ Speaking of that Nirvana, into which he would so soon enter, the Buddha said: — ‘I already feel that the beams (“Balken”) are cracking and the supports giving way; that this physical body which has been raised up for the last time will soon be wholly and finally destroyed.’ Let us compare the above with the words of Christ, as recorded in the Gospel of St. John (ii. 19), when Jesus, intimating that He lived in a body which was external and apart, said: — ‘Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.’ Here we have an exactly opposite point of view, which might be interpreted thus: — ‘I will perform a deed which shall quicken and make fruitful, all that in this world is of God, and has come down to man from primeval times, and entered into his being.’ These words imply that the Christian, during his recurrent earth lives must exercise his every faculty, in order to give truth to the affirmation: — ‘Yet not I, but Christ Iiveth in me.’ We must, however, clearly understand that Christ’s reference to the rebuilding of the temple has an eternal significance and means that the Christ-power ever enters into, and is absorbed by, all who truly realize that they themselves must play a constructive part in the collective evolution of humanity. It is entirely wrong to speak of that event which gave rise to what we term the Christ-impulse, as though we anticipated its recurrence in some form during the further development of mankind. The Buddhist, when he ponders in accordance with the true concepts of his creed, pictures the advent of several Buddhas, appearing one after another throughout recurring Buddha-epochs, all of which during the course of their earth lives had a similar character and significance. The Christian looks back to a single past event which is described as — The Fall of Man through Sin — while he points to its converse in the Mystery of Golgotha. He who believes that the Christ-event will at some later period be repeated, merely shows that he has not grasped the true essence of the historical evolution of mankind. History tells us that this idea has been frequently put forward in the past and it is likely that it will again reappear in the future. The course of true history must always be dependent upon some single basic event. Just as the arm of a balance must have one point of equilibrium and the beam from which the scales hang one point of support only; so in the case of a true record of the evolution of mankind there must be some single circumstance to which its historical development (taken either backwards or forwards) ever points. It is as absurd to speak of a repetition of the Christ-event as it would be to assert that the beam of a balance could be supported and swing upon two points. That Eastern wisdom should hold to the belief that a number of similar spiritual personalities succeed each other at intervals, as it does in the case of the Buddhas, is characteristic of the difference existing between the Oriental cosmic conception and that which has sprung up among the Occidental countries, as the result of so much painstaking observation and thought concerning the course of evolution. The Western concept first began to take definite form at the time of the manifestation of the Christ-impulse, which we must regard as a unique circumstance. If we oppose the oneness and singular character of the Christ-event, we argue against the possibility of the true historical evolution of mankind; and to argue against historical evolution betrays a misunderstanding of genuine history. We can, in its deepest sense, term that consciousness possessed by individual man of indissoluble association with humanity as a whole, the Christian consciousness. Through it we become aware of a definite purpose, underlying the course of all human evolution, and realize that here indeed can be no mere repetition. Such consciousness is an attribute of Christianity, from which it cannot be separated. The real progress which mankind has made during its period of development is shown in the advance from the ancient Eastern cosmic conception to the philosophic concept of modern times — from the unhistoric to the historic — from a belief that the wheels of human chance roll on through a succession of similar events to a conviction that underlying the whole of man’s evolution is a definite purpose, a design of profound significance. We realize that it is Christianity which has first revealed the true meaning of the doctrine of reincarnation. We can now state that the reason why man must experience recurrent earth lives is that he may be again and again instilled with the true import of material existence; with this object he is confronted with a different aspect of being during each of his incarnations. There is throughout humanity an upward tendency that is not merely confined to the isolated individual, but extends to the entire human race with which we feel ourselves so intimately connected. The Christ-impulse, the centre of all, causes us to realize that man can become conscious of the glory of this divine relation; then no more will he only acknowledge the creed of a Buddha, who cries out to him: — ‘Free thyself!’ — but will become aware of his union with The Christ, Whose deed has reclaimed him from the consequences of that decadence, symbolically represented as: — ‘The Fall of Man through Sin.’ We cannot describe Buddhism better than by showing that it is the after-glow of a cosmic conception, the sun of which has nearly set; but with the advent of Gautama it shone forth with one last brilliant, powerful ray. We revere the Buddha none the less, we honour him as a Great Spirit — as one whose voice called into the past and brought back into this earthly life, once again that mood which brings with it so clear a consciousness of man’s connection with ancient primordial wisdom. On the other hand, we know that the Christ-impulse points resolutely towards the future, ever penetrating more and more deeply into the very soul of man; so that humanity may realize that it is not release and freedom that it should seek, but Resurrection that glorious transfiguration of our earthly being. It is in such a metamorphosis that we find the inner meaning of our material life. It is futile to search among dogmas, concepts and ideas for the active principle of existence; for the vital element of life lies in our impulses, emotions and feelings, and it is through these moods that we may apprehend the true significance of man’s evolution and development. There may be some who feel themselves more drawn toward Buddhism than toward Christianity; and we must admit that even in our time there is something about Buddhism which inspires a certain sympathy in many minds, and which is to a certain extent in the nature of a Buddha-mood or disposition. Such a feeling, however, did not exist with Goethe, who sought to free himself from the pangs which he endured owing to the narrow-mindedness he found everywhere about him, at the time of his first sojourn in Weimar. His endeavour in this respect was wholly due to his love of life and conviction that interwoven throughout all external being is the same spiritual essence which is the true origin of the Divine element in man. Goethe strove to achieve this Iiberation from distress through observation of the outer world, going from plant to plant, from mineral to mineral, and from one work of art to another — ever seeking that underlying spirit from which the human soul emanates; the while he sought to unify himself with that Divine essence which manifests throughout all external things. Goethe, when in converse with Schopenhauer regarding the influence of his thoughts and ideas upon his pupil, once said: — ‘When your carefully considered and worthy conceptions come into contact with a wholly different trend of thought, they will be found at variance with one another.’ Schopenhauer had established a maxim which, expressed in his oft-repeated words, was as follows: — ‘Life is ever precarious, and it is through deep meditation that I seek to alleviate its burdens.’ What he really sought was that illumination which would reveal and make clear the true origin [and intent] of existence. It was therefore only natural that Buddhist concepts should enter his mind and mingle with his ideas, thus causing him to ponder upon this olden creed. During the progress of the nineteenth century the different branches of human culture have yielded such great and far-reaching results, that the mind of man seems incapable of adjusting itself in harmony with the flood of new ideas which continually pour in upon it, as a consequence of effort expended in scientific research; and it feels ever more and more helpless before the enormous mass of facts which is the unceasing product of such investigations. We have found this vast world of accepted truths to be wonderfully in accord with the concepts of Spiritual Science, but it is worthy of note that during the last century, although man’s reasoning powers increased greatly nevertheless they soon failed to keep pace with the immense inflow of scientific data. Thus it was that just toward the close of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century, man realized that he could not hope to understand and to master all this new knowledge by means of the human intellect alone; for everything about us is connected with, and extends into the cosmos and the world of spirit — and this outer realm is still beyond the limits of man’s normal faculties of comprehension. He must, therefore, seek another way, some as yet untrodden path. Hence it is that mankind has sought a cosmic philosophy, not wholly at variance with all those facts coming from the outer world which make inward appeal to the soul. Spiritual Science is based upon the most profound conceptions and experiences of divine wisdom, and is ever ready to deal with all fresh truths and data brought forward by external science, to assimilate them, and throw new light upon their significance, showing at the same time that in all which has actuality in external life, is embodied the divine essence — the spirit. There are some people, however, who find the concepts of Spiritual Science inconvenient and unsuitable. They turn away from the world of reality, which demands so much thought and effort for its unfoldment, and, according to their own knowledge and personal ideas, seek a higher plane merely through the development of their individual souls. Thus we have what may be termed an ‘Unconscious Buddhism’, which has long existed and been active in the philosophies of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. When an ‘Unconscious Buddhist’ comes into contact with true Buddhism then, because of indolence and inertia, he feels himself more ‘at home’ with this Eastern creed than with European Spiritual Science, which comes to grips with widespread facts, because it knows that throughout the entire range of reality the Divine spirit is ever manifest. There is no doubt that the present sympathy and interest evinced with regard to Buddhism is due, in part, to feebleness of will and want of faith, faith, born of undeveloped spiritual knowledge. The whole essence of the Christian cosmic conception, which seems to have been in Goethe’s mind, demands that man shall not give way to his own weak spiritual understanding and talk of ‘the limitations of human knowledge’, but feel that there is within him a something which will carry him above all illusion and bring him to truth and reality, thus freeing him for evermore from terrestrial existence. A cosmic conception of this nature may call for much patient resignation, but such is of quite a different order to that which shrinks before the contemplation of the limits of human understanding. Resignation, in the Kantian sense, implies that mankind is altogether incapable of penetrating the deep secrets of the cosmos, and its chief feature lies in the special acknowledgment of the feebleness of man’s comprehension; but that of Goethe is of a different character, and is expressed in these words: — ‘Thou hast not as yet come so far, that thou canst apprehend the Universe in all its glorious reality, but thou art capable of developing thyself.’ Resignation of this kind leads on to that stage of growth and progress when man will truly be in a position to call forth his Christ-nature from within his being; he yields, because he realizes that the highest point of his mundane development has not yet been attained. Such an attitude is noble and fully in accord with human understanding. It implies that we pass from life to life, with the consciousness of being, looking ever forward into the future in the knowledge that with regard to recurrent earthly existence all eternity is ours. When we consider man’s evolution, we find ourselves confronted with two modern currents of thought, each leading to a different cosmic conception. One of which, due to Schopenhauer, pictures the world with all its misery and suffering, as of such nature that we can only realize and appreciate man’s true position when we gaze upon the works of the great artists. In these masterpieces we oft-times find portrayed the form and figure of a being, who through asceticism, has attained to something approaching to liberation from earthly existence, and already hovers, as it were, above this lower terrestrial life. Fundamentally, Schopenhauer was of opinion that in the case of a human being thus freed, retrospection concerning material conditions no longer exists and that herein lies the pre-eminent characteristic of such liberation. Hence, he who has thus won his way to freedom, can truly say: — ‘I am still clothed in my bodily garment, but it has now lost all significance, and there is nought left about me which might in time to come recall my earthly life. I strive ever upward, in anticipation of that state with which I shall gain contact when I have at last wholly overcome the world, and all that appertains thereto.’ Of such nature was the sentiment of Schopenhauer, after he had become imbued with those ideas and convictions, which Buddhist teaching has spread abroad in the world. Goethe, on the other hand, led on by his truly Christian impulse, regarded the world after the manner of his character — Faust . When we cease to look about us in trivial mood, when we truly realize that all material works must perish, and death at last overtake the body, then with Goethe we can say: — ‘If we but take heed and ponder concerning our earthly activities there will come knowledge born of experience, teaching us that while all those things wrought and accomplished which are of this world must pass away, that which we have built up within ourselves through toil and striving during our contact with the ‘School of Earthly Life’, shall not perish, for such is indeed everlasting.’ So with Faust we think not of how our mundane works may endure, but look forward to the fruits which they shall bring forth in the course of the soul’s eternal life; thus are we carried far out and beyond the narrow confines of the Buddhist creed, into a world of thought which finds brief expression in those impressive words of Goethe:- ‘Eons cannot erase The traces of my days on earth.’ Notes for this lecture: 1. Bodhisattva (Sanskrit). A Bodisat, one whose essence is enlightenment, that is, one destined to become a Buddha. A Buddha Elect ( vide, A Concise Dictionary of Eastern Religion , by Winternitz). 2. Bodhi Tree — Fig-tree ( Ficus religiosa ); known also as the Bo Tree. [Ed.]

Turning Points Spiritual History

Buddha -or- Buddhism and Christianity

https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA060/English/GC1987/19110302p02.html

Berlin

2 Mar 1911

GA060-13