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SWITZERLAND
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Anthroposophic Society, Dornach, Switzerland. Responsibility for the contents of the articles in the
“Anthroposophic News Sheet” attaches only to the writers
At present we live in the midst of events that arouse every feeling of the
human soul in the deepest and most significant way. We live in the
midst of events that cause death to pass over the earth very, very
frequently, in a comparatively short time, death that has always been
looked upon by our spiritual science as a riddle which must be solved.
The times in which we live send pain and suffering to many human
souls, but let us hope that these times also bear within them forces for
the unfolding of man's future development. Many things are born out
of pain and suffering, and in these fateful days spiritual-scientific
thoughts in particular are well suited to awaken in us forces of
confidence and of hope. Let me therefore unfold a few thoughts before
your souls. Although not directly, they are nevertheless, indirectly
connected with feelings that come to the surface in these stormy and
sorrowful times.
What we can see and feel in the manifold events of the present time,
is the fact that many people abandon the physical plane, at a
comparatively early age of their earthly life. What characterizes the
events of the present, is that they call away many young lives from the
physical plane.
This concrete example is really connected with a child, with the little
boy of one of our members. After an evening lecture at Dornach, we
were told that the son of our friend Faiss was missing — a little boy of
seven. It was soon evident that a terrible accident must have happened,
for a large furniture van had arrived in the late afternoon, moving
towards the Goetheanum Building. Curiously enough, this furniture
van had appeared in a part where perhaps no furniture van had been
seen for a long time, or perhaps never at all, and where perhaps no
furniture van would ever be seen again. At a certain spot, this large van
had overturned; this had happened towards evening. Nothing else had
been noticed, but the little boy was missing. When our friends, with the
help of other people, began to lift the van between eleven and twelve at
night (the owners intended to lift it the following day for it had fallen
most awkwardly and was moreover a very heavy van), sparing no effort
in doing so, and when they at last succeeded in lifting it, with the help
of other people, it appeared that the little boy, Theodor Faiss, had
passed by just when the van had collapsed, so that it fell on top of him.
This child (he was only seven years old) was an exceptionally lovable
child, with exceptionally beautiful qualities.
In the case of things that are connected, with the spiritual world, it
is far more difficult to perceive the true relationship of cause and effect.
We should therefore say to ourselves: When we have before us [a] case
resembling that of the boy who found his death under circumstances
that were so extraordinary (other things too occurred that made it
appear extraordinary), we should not think — if we consider the whole
case from a higher standpoint — that for instance, the following course
of events took place: That the furniture van arrived and overturned,
and that the child simply happened to be crushed by it, so that the van
was the real cause of the child's death. In a similar case, we think
correctly and contemplate it from a spiritual-scientific standpoint, if we
say instead that the boy's Karma had reached its end and that the van
really arrived at that particular spot because the child had to encounter
its death. The van therefore merely provided the external conditions
that enabled the child to meet its death, as prescribed in its Karma.
Trivially speaking, we might say: The child's Higher Self, that wished to
pass through the portal of death, gave orders that this situation should
arise, it ordered that these events should occur. Of course, those who
think in accordance with the mentality of our time, will find that this is
quite an insane idea. Spiritual science must however show that many
things which are looked upon as insane by the materialistically minded
people of the present time, really correspond to the truth.
I have often explained to you that when the etheric body frees itself
from the physical body it grows large. Consequently we should not
wonder at the large size of this etheric body. It contains mediating
forces, and in these we may find certain impressions from the spiritual
world, which are needed to create the forms and the artistic structure
of our Building. Those who work upon the Building know how much
they owe to this etheric aura. And I shall never hesitate to confess that
ever since little Theodor's death, the work upon the Building became
possible, because the boy's etheric body spreading over the Building
supplied the mediating forces that were needed to draw down
inspirations from the spiritual world. It would be far easier to hide this
fact, or to take on airs as if these mediating forces were not needed. But
this is not the essential point; the essential point is to recognise the
true facts.
If we consider the facts which I have described to you just now, we
can grasp how matters really stand with an etheric body that had to cut
itself off from the existence of a human being at a moment when death
closed this existence at an early age. It is important to note that the
etheric body does not remain, as it were, a mere misty shape, in which
the physical body lies embedded. Even the true aspect of the physical
body cannot be recognised if we merely describe a mass of muscles,
bones, etc. It can only be recognised if we see in it, as it were, a kind of
temple, an abode of the Godhead — if we see it standing before us like a
microcosm. We recognise what pertains to the physical body only if we
realise that its forms are really taken from the whole universe and that
in regard to his physical body the human being is a wonderful
structure. Those who know the feelings voiced in the first dialogue of
my second Mystery Play, “The Souls' Probation”, can have an idea of
how the individual human being is placed into his physical existence;
all the hierarchies are at work on his physical body, a whole world of
divine Beings has the task of placing a human being into his physical
existence. If we bear in mind to some extent the observations of
clairvoyant knowledge, we fully learn to know the significance of the
physical body.
The human beings think through their brain, and in the same way
the earth thinks through these sleeping human bodies. The earth
always perceives by day; it perceives through the fact that the sun
shines upon it out of the cosmic spaces. That is the earth's perception.
And during the night, the earth works out in thoughts all its
perceptions. “The earth thinks”, says the clairvoyant seer; the earth
thinks because it makes use of the sleeping human beings. Every
sleeping human being becomes, as it were, a brain-molecule of the
earth. Our physical body is organised in such a way that it can be used
by the earth for it's thinking activity, when we do not use it ourselves.
As a physical being man belongs to the earth, and just as truly does
he belong to the heavens as an etheric being. We can only use our
physical body as an organ of thinking, because it is organised for that
purpose, because the earth sets it free, as it were, for this purpose,
when we are awake. And we can only use our etheric body in such a
way that it provides us with life-forces, because the heavens place it at
our disposal; when we are awake, and because the heavenly forces of
imagination are transformed into life-forces within us, when we are
awake.
The spiritual scientist may now say: What the mere earthly forces of
humanity are able to attain, seems so weak, so very weak, in
comparison to the tasks of spiritual science! But in the near future, the
unused etheric bodies of those who had to carry life and soul through
the portal of death, on the battlefields where the events of our time are
taking place, will be there — and these etheric bodies with their unused
forces will be inspiring forces, they will be helping forces in the near
future. We only need to look up, but not in an intellectual or theoretic
way, we only need to look up to the heavenly etheric bodies of those
who in the present fateful times passed through the portal of death in
their youth; we only need to direct our souls, as it were, in the mood of
prayer towards these etheric bodies ... all those who are filled with
enthusiasm for spiritual science only need to direct their souls towards
these forces, and they will obtain help from these etheric bodies. Help
will come! Those who are genuinely filled with a spiritual-scientific
mentality and having a deep life in common with these etheric bodies
will find that among the many fruits that will fall into the lap of our
earnest time there will also be the one that the souls of men who are
filled with enthusiasm for spiritual science will receive the instreaming
forces of the youthful etheric bodies that were sacrificed in these
terrible times; these forces will flow into them. The souls of those who
will live in physical bodies in the near future, and who genuinely feel
this, will be filled by the forces of the etheric bodies that were thus
sacrificed; their forces will stream into them. And these will be
heavenly forces, that is to say, forces pertaining to the spiritual world!
Entirely different forces will in future hold sway in the world, so that
the world may receive what it should receive: a spiritual-scientific
mentality. If we but find the possibility of recognising what is taking
place now, if we recognise it in accordance with the explanations given
to you just now, this fateful present will acquire a deep, deep
significance, also for those who pursue spiritual science.
I already explained to you how wonderful are the imaginative forms
contained in man's etheric body! Yet they would present a different
aspect, if they had not passed through a human etheric body. We may
also apply to this field the saying: “Out of nothing, comes nothing.”
Although this is not an absolute truth, it is nevertheless valid for this
particular field. The etheric body that man receives through the fact
that the human soul enters physical existence through birth, contains a
whole collection of forces pertaining to the spiritual world. These forces
are gradually used up during physical life. They do not come from
nothing, they exist in the spiritual world. They may, of course, also be
found in the spiritual world, but it is difficult to discover them directly
in the spiritual world; for this we would have to unfold far greater
powers. They can be used and they can help us more easily when they
have passed through a human being who died young, and in that case
they appear together with what they contain through the fact that they
passed through that human being. All the forces that lived in the
youthful etheric body of little Theodor Faiss would be in the spiritual
world even if he had not existed, but without him, it would be a
Herculean task to draw them down. Ever since they have become
accessible to us through that boy, it is far easier to be inspired by them,
so that there is a difference.
These forces could be used in different ways. Let us take for granted
that human life develops in the light of freedom. Let us then assume
that Ahriman succeeds in darkening human thought and reason to
such an extent as to induce him to reject spiritual science. The etheric
bodies would then still be there, but no souls would be there, filled with
enthusiasm for spiritual science and able to place these forces at the
service of the earth's progress. Lucifer and Ahriman would in that case
be able to exercise their influence and they would make use of these
etheric forces, either by leading them into the world built up by Lucifer,
or into that built up by Ahriman.
O cosmic spirit, let us be completely filled with the spirit that grows
out of spiritual science; so that we may not fail to wrest from Ahriman
and Lucifer that which can be of help to the earth, for its salvation and
its progress!
Above, you may see a second shape. This Being has a head
resembling (I can only say, resembling) a human head. It is really
formed in such a way that it has a strongly developed skull and
particularly a strongly developed forehead. Whereas in man these parts
are relatively rigid, everything in that Being is extremely mobile. That
is to say, everything is an expression of the soul. Just as we can move
our hands and fingers, but not the upper parts of our head, so this
Being can move everything up there. And the sculptural work expresses
that everything up there is mobile. In this Being, the lower part of the
physiognomy recedes in a marked way. One might say that the mighty
skull dominates the face, that recedes. (I can only discuss a few details,
for every line of this sculpture is significant). It is characteristic that the
ear of this Being is connected with that part which has, in the case of
man, deteriorated and become his larynx. The lobe of the larynx grows
upwards and forms the lower part of the ear, whereas the upper part of
the ear is formed by the forehead. On the other side, we can see two
protuberances that remind us of birds' wings, and in between there is a
form that, as a whole resembles a transformed human countenance.
The wings, larynx and ear are one form. We may therefore say that this
Being lives with its wings in the harmony of the spheres; it swings
through the spaces, through the waves of the harmony of the spheres,
and this becomes localised in the ear. (In man, all this has
deteriorated). Through the fact that the Representative of Mankind
raises His left hand, the wings of that Being break against the rock. You
may now guess that this falling shape with the broken wings is meant
to be Lucifer.
Below in the cave, we can see another shape. Its wings do not
resemble birds' wings, but those of a bat. Its body is like that of a
dragon, or of a worm, and its head again reminds us of a human head.
Whereas in Lucifer's forehead everything is powerfully developed, the
forehead of this second Being recedes and is quite undeveloped.
Instead, the lower parts, towards the jaw, are strongly developed. This
Being is enwrapped in gold; it is the gold contained in the earth. The
gold of the earth takes on the shape of strong fetters that chain this
shape to the cave. It writhes under the influence of Christ's hand
pointing downward, the hand of the Representative of Mankind. The
shape in the cave is Ahriman; it is Ahriman fettered by the gold of the
earth.
The above explanations can really give you, as it were, an idea of the
whole. Yet this idea merely indicates the essential point. The essential
point that we must bear in mind is that we should never imitate the
mistake of the old theosophists, who always work with symbols; the
essential point which we must bear in mind is that everything in
spiritual science that tends towards human feeling should be
transformed into something artistic. We should therefore not say: that
these sculptures express “this or that”, but they should reveal to us,
through what they are artistically and through what we can see in
them, the relation of man, or of Christ, to Lucifer and Ahriman. For
that reason, it is impossible to express this with the artistic means of
the past. Every movement of the fingers and of the hands, the way in
which the hands are shaped, are significant, for they must express
something significant. At first we may think that Christ raises His left
hand and sends out forces with the intention of breaking Lucifer's
wings and of causing him to fall. We might also think that the right
hand of Christ pointing downwards sends out forces that fetter
Ahriman. Yet it would be quite wrong to think so.
Michelangelo was not as yet able to portray the real Christ. Christ is
such a significant Being and it is so difficult to understand Him, that
this understanding can only be reached in the course of time. Only in
[the] future shall we be able to grasp the Christ Who induces the other
beings to condemn or to redeem themselves, simply through the fact
that He is there. The Christ on Michelangelo's painting still has
Luciferic and Ahrimanic traits, for he sends the sinners to hell in wrath
and leads the righteous to heaven, so that his passions are active. But
in our sculpture, Christ is mute impersonal, and the Beings that
approach Him must judge themselves.
You may therefore see that man's position in the world that contains
the Luciferic and the Ahrimanic forces will be significantly expressed in
our Building. You will see in it the artistic expression of Beings that can
only be found in the spiritual world. Naturalism in art and everything
towards which art has striven in recent times as a result of materialism
which took hold of man, must be overcome by the art which we
cultivate here. Even in the sphere of art, something entirely new must
enter the world through spiritual science, something that is able to
overcome even the greatest artistic achievement — the Christ,
portrayed in Michelangelo's Last Judgment.
Luciferic and Ahrimanic forces surge through the world, but owing
to the fact that man is conscious of Christ, owing to his Christ-
consciousness, he is like a sailor who must steer his boat through the
storms called up by Lucifer and Ahriman. He can steer his boat
through that ocean, whose living substance consists of Lucifer and of
Ahriman; he can do this in spite of everything, because he sits in his
Christ-boat.
O how earnestly one would like to entreat the guardian spirits and
the guardian divinities, of the earth and of humanity to give man
strength, so that the things needed for the welfare of mankind may take
place!
Before I close this lecture, let me once more address to your souls a
few pragmatic words that express what the present time, so fraught
with destiny, is able to give us:
(ORIGINAL TEXT:)
Man really knows very little of the world which transcends the
earth, if during his earthly existence he does not abandon his habitual
attitude, if he remains within this whole way of looking at the world,
which makes him grow together with his earthly life. When we
penetrate into the spiritual world (we are then outside the physical
body) and look back upon our body, upon our whole physical life, or in
general upon our whole being, it is evident that we grow richer and
richer; our content grows, our whole being expands and becomes a
world. Man himself actually grows to the size of a whole world, when
we thus look back upon him.
Man passes through this experience and this has often been
expressed by more poetical natures, by people with a deeper capacity of
feeling. The moment of waking up in the morning has often been
compared with the awakening of Nature outside; the daily course of
human life, with the sun's ascent to the zenith, and sunset with the
need to sleep which appears in the form of fatigue.
These similes are born out of the feeling that man stands within the
life of Nature. Nevertheless they are not worth much, for they do not
touch the essential. I have therefore told you many times that a
comparison really in keeping with the facts must differ from the one in
which Nature's course of events is compared with the processes of
sleeping and waking. The course of human life during the space of 24
hours should instead be compared with the course of events upon the
earth during a whole year. The simile will agree if we take the whole
year and compare its events with the processes of waking up and falling
asleep which take place within us in the course of 24 hours. It is quite
wrong to compare man's waking life from the moment of waking up to
the moment of falling asleep with the summer season, for man's
waking condition corresponds to winter, when Nature outside is awake,
and summer should be compared with man's sleeping condition. If
comparisons are drawn in, we should therefore say:Man falls asleep;
i.e., he passes over into the summer season of his personal existence;
whereas his waking condition would more or less correspond to
autumn, winter, and early spring.
When we look back upon the sleeping human being, we see that
when he falls asleep and goes out with his Ego and astral body, there
arises a kind of vegetable activity in the organism abandoned by the
astral body and Ego. There is activity in man's inner being and we feel
that the first moments of sleep are like the beginning of a vegetative
process; to the clairvoyant, sleep appears as if the body were pervaded
by the growing life of plants. Imaginative knowledge enables us to
perceive this. This vegetation, however, does not grow in the same way
as that upon the earth. It is possible to describe this, to meditate over
such things, for then we progress further and further.
Upon the earth, the plants grow out of the soil. But it is otherwise
when we observe the “vegetable growth” in man. There the plants grow
in such a way that their roots are outside and grow into man; their
flowers should therefore be sought in man. Sleeping man is indeed a
beautiful sight — I mean, to the clairvoyant. He is like the earth with its
budding, greening life, but with a whole vegetation growing into it.
What disturbs the view is that at the same time we have the impression
that the astral body is gnawing at the roots. This appears in the course
of sleep. The animals consume, eat up what summer produces upon the
surface of the earth, and we perceive that our astral body behaves like
the animal world, except that it gnaws at the roots. If this were not so,
we could not unfold the nucleus, the kernel, which we take with us
through the portal of death. What the astral body thus appropriates, is
what we really take with us through the portal of death, as harvest of
our life.
I wished to speak of the true aspect of things when one enters the
image world of spiritual reality; for what we appear to our own sight, in
our ordinary physical consciousness, is merely a reflexion, only an
inner kernel — but I must immediately add that this expression is not
quite appropriate, for it is difficult to coin words for such significant
facts; what we appear to be in our own sight always remains connected
with us when we are outside the body with our soul being. It is
therefore not correct to say that this is a kernel, for a fruit has its peel
outside and its best substance inside — in man, on the other hand (in
the spiritual, things are frequently reversed) his best part is outside and
his peel inside; what exists inside is only his peel, whereas the spiritual
is something which may spatially be described as peel.
When we follow the path leading into the spiritual world we learn
that man is not a simple, but a very complicated being. We gathered
that man and everything that lives in him participates in all the worlds
which are accessible to him. With his physical body he belongs to the
physical world; with his soul he belongs to the soul world; with his
spirit he belongs to the spiritual world. We reach into these three
worlds.
When studying human life from the inner aspect, we should look
upon it as a structured life; but when we leave the body, the human
being immediately appears structured, subdivided into four parts. We
have, to begin with, the force which lies at the foundation of memory.
Through memory, things experienced in the past rise up in our
consciousness. Memory brings a connected sequence into life, so that
our existence from birth to death becomes a whole, a unity. — A second
element is what we call thinking, our representing power — I cannot go
into further details, this is not the essential point just now, but our
thinking activity is something that lives in the present. And if we
proceed further, we come to feeling, and still further to the will. When
we look into ourselves, our own inner being takes on the aspect of
memory, thinking, feeling and will.
We have often explained that man did not begin his development
upon the earth, for the evolution of the earth was preceded by the old
Moon evolution, the old Sun evolution, and the old Saturn evolution.
Man did not first come into being upon the earth, but in order to
become man he had to pass through the evolutions of Saturn, Sun and
Moon.
You see, what we unfold in our will, the will as it exists today, arose
upon the earth; its development is not complete and it is altogether a
product of the evolution of the earth. During the Moon evolution man
was not an independent volitional being; the Angels willed for him. The
will rayed in, as it were, when the evolution of the earth began. During
the Moon evolution, man was already endowed with feeling; he was
endowed with thinking during the Sun evolution, and with memory
during the Saturn evolution. If you now connect these things with other
facts described in my “Akasha Chronicle” and in “Occult
Science” you will discover an important connection. The first
foundation of man's physical body arose during the Saturn stage of
evolution; the first basis of man's etheric body arose during the Sun
stage of evolution; during the Moon stage of development arose the
first foundation of the astral body, and the Ego began to unfold during
the earthly stage of development.
You see, of this event we may say that the will had nothing to do
with it, for Franceschi could not influence the events with his own will;
he could not protect himself, yet something entered his Karma so that
he could live on. In his case, the spiritual being that moulded his
Karma had already had the rescuing idea. The dream was foresight of
the spirit controlling Karma, who saw what would have occurred on the
following day, and because that young man's soul had, almost through
natural meditation, passed through a certain deepening, something
arose which may be compared with certain things in external life. In
regard to external life man can prophesy only in a very limited
measure. But in a certain sense we are all prophets. For example, we all
know that tomorrow at a certain moment the light will dawn, or a man
crossing a field will be able to foretell what it will look like tomorrow ...
yet he will not be able to foresee whether rain will fall upon it
tomorrow. The same applies to inner life. Man lives in accordance with
his will, and Karma is contained in his will. Through feeling, we may
learn to know the things which lie closest to us, and in the same way a
light may be kindled in the souls of certain people who have passed
through an inner deepening, so that they can see events in which the
will must remain silent. In the study of spiritual science it is important
to bear in mind such things, because they show us that in man's inner
being lives something which he is unable to survey through his
ordinary consciousness and which points to the future. Karma then
penetrates through the silenced will.
What has happened? When you awoke and dived down into your
physical body, you felt what the physical body can make you feel; but
this cannot inspire you with the thought of getting up. The etheric body
acts independently, when you draw its attention to something which is
outside. This example will show you how you may confront your
physical body with the etheric body, and how the etheric body literally
takes hold of you and pushes you out of bed.
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GA 174a
Lecture by R u d o l f S t e i n e r
Spiritual science as such, needs to say least of all (of course, this is
at first only apparently the case) about the physical body, for the
physical body is the only thing which the ordinary science, dealing with
the physical world, is willing to contemplate with the aid of its
methods. But although the physical body may at first seem to be what
natural science considers, it to be, its true significance and its position
within the universe can only be recognised if the higher members of the
human organisation are also borne in mind.
You will undoubtedly recollect that man’s physical body, in the form
in which it envelops him here upon the. earth, could only arise during
the Earth-epoch, but it received its first foundation during the ancient
Saturn-epoch. During the Sun, Moon and Earth epochs, it then
underwent a constant transformation. It was gradually transformed
under the influence of the processes which were taking place: it was
transformed through the fact that the etheric body was incorporated
with it. When the physical body passed on from the Saturn epoch to a
new epoch, it had to change, for it became permeated with the etheric
body. And it also had to change when it became permeated with the
astral body upon the Moon. Not only has the astral body been added to
the physical body, but the physical body has been transformed through
the fact that the etheric body penetrated into it, as it were, during the
Sun-epoch and the astral body during the. Moon-epoch, whereas the
Ego is gradually developing in every direction here, upon the Earth; of
course, it develops first of all within the astral body, then within the
etheric body, but then also within the physical body.
We may thus say: Our earthly body, which has a physical form, has
been formed in such a way as to become a bearer of the Ego. Together
with the Ego, the Spirits of Form gave the human physical body the
form which it now has and which is in keeping with the fact that it is
the bearer of an Ego. The beings that belong to the other kingdoms of
Nature, have received their forms later. If you read the more intimate
descriptions of the Moon-epoch, [See “THE AKASHA CHRONICLES” by
Rudolf Steiner.] you will find that they describe all the other beings in
such a manner that it is not possible to say that also these beings had
their forms at that time. They are described with a certain mobility.
Bear in mind, for instance, the description contained in my “Occult
Science”.
Also the other kingdoms of Nature have received their stable forms
through the Spirits of Form, during the Earth-epoch. Let us now
contemplate the animal kingdom. Also the animal kingdom has its
definite forms. It has acquired these forms only during the Earth.
epoch. But think of the great difference between the forms of the
animal kingdom and of the kingdom of man! If we cast our gaze over
the surface of the earth, we may indeed find certain differences among
men, but these differences belong to another field of study. We also
come across certain differences in the external human form. All the
interesting peoples which the West Europeans now lead into the field
against Central Europe of course present a different aspect from the
European populations! Differences can of course be perceived when we
cast our gaze over the surface of the earth and study the form of various
individual human beings. The colour of the skin must, for instance, be
considered in connection with the bodily form. But if you compare the
differentiations which exist in regard to the human being with the great
differentiations which exist in regard to the various animal species, you
will have to admit: The various species of animals differ far more from
one another than the human beings. In comparison to the various
animal species we can speak of an individual human species; in the
human kingdom, however, we cannot find such a great difference as
may be found, for instance, between a lion and a nightingale. If there
would be such a great difference in the kingdom of man as that between
a lion and a nightingale, we would not hear even such peculiar
observations that it is not possible to notice the differences which exist
among human beings. The fact to be borne in mind is that the animals
show infinitely greater differences than the human being, within his
own general human species.
Although the things which I have just now explained to you are
undoubtedly right, they are only right within certain limits, if we
consider them from the aspect of spiritual science. The following fact
should be looked upon as a truth: In your thoughts and, in your
observation, add the etheric body to man’s physical body and imagine
that a certain experiment is to be made; in reality, of course, this
experiment cannot be made. Imagine the following experiment and
that you see it being enacted; imagine that the whole physical body of
man can be separated from him, detached from him scientifically, piece
by piece and that before we begin to detach the physical body from the
human being we are in the position to invoke the Spirits of the higher
hierarchies — to send an invocation to the Spirits of the Angeloi,
Archangeloi, Archai. We would have to utter this invocation in such a
way that its request would be granted, namely, that the Spirits of the
Angeloi, Archangeloi, and Archai might withdraw from the human
being and cease; to influence his etheric body. We would, therefore —
we cannot say, excoriate — but we would have to take away from the
human being everything pertaining to his physical body and then we
would have to ask the Angeloi, Archangeloi and Archai to withdraw
their influences, so that man’s etheric body may be left entirely to its
own resources, and may no longer be influenced by anything else. For
the etheric body is subjected to certain influences; it is inserted in the
physical body and the physical body has its own solid form, to which
the etheric body must adapt itself. If you take a very soft piece of rubber
and put it into a glass, it will adapt itself to the form of the glass and
will no longer maintain its own form. But if you take it out of the glass,
it will bound back into its own form. In a similar way, the etheric body
must adapt itself to the physical body, without a form of its own.
Consequently, if we draw away the physical body, we eliminate the
forces to which the etheric body had to adapt itself; however, it would
not immediately take on its own form, owing to the fact that the
Angeloi, Archangeloi and Archai still work upon it, but we have asked
them to withdraw, so that the etheric body can now obey its own forces
to the fullest extent. In that case, the etheric body would take on its
own elasticity. And this would be visible; we would see the etheric body
jumping out. And what would occur? — You would have before you the
whole animal kingdom! The etheric body would split up into portions,
and these would show in their fundamental types the forms of the
whole animal kingdom. In other words: etherically, the human being
carries about within him the whole animal kingdom, which is simply
held together by the form of his physical body and by the activity of the
Beings of the above-named hierarchies. It is unquestionably true that
the human being bears within him, as a disposition, the whole animal
kingdom. From this standpoint, the animal kingdom differs from man
only through the fact that every animal-species has assumed a form of
its own, which it has developed independently into a physical shape.
Consequently, the animal kingdom is the expanded etheric body of
man,
A strange fact should be borne in mind. At the turn of the 18th and
of the 19th century, something special arose within the world-
conception of Europe, and we may observe this, for instance, more in
detail in the case of Oken. From the standpoint of his time, the scientist
Oken could not as yet speak of etheric bodies; indeed, he was far from
doing so. But in his books we may find the following peculiar
statement: “The animal kingdom is the human being, expanded.” This
means that in his fantasy he had caught, a glimpse of the truth. It rose
up on his spiritual horizon at a time when the great ideas of the Central
European world-conception had developed. Indeed, this truth even
rose up on Schelling’s horizon, and this same statement can also be
found in Schelling’s books. Those who were unable to penetrate into
such a lofty idea, which could not, of course, be developed fully, those
who were unable to penetrate into such a great idea, went through a
terrible time. We should think of Oken in such a way, that the things
which he could not as yet grasp clearly, nevertheless lived within his
soul as a marvellous conception, so that he could feel the single parts of
the human being really consist of animal forms. He even had the
courage to express this, but this courage very much annoyed the
learned Philistines. Just think that Oken conceived the following idea:
What is the tongue? — Well, he said that the tongue is a cuttlefish. Of
course, the things which I have just explained to you lay at the
foundation of this statement ... but just imagine what the learned
Philistines thought about it! If we wish to grasp the development of
man’s spiritual life we must become broad-minded and we must realise
that things which may apparently sound like nonsense may bear within
them a great truth. Oken subdivided the human being as follows: The
tongue is a cuttlefish, other organs are something else. After all, it was
merely the exact repetition of a truth which existed in a very ancient
conception of man and which brought into evidence the fundamental
types, subdividing the human being in accordance with the four
fundamental animal types: Lion, eagle, angel and calf.
Thus we may say: Things are not as easy as they appear to be, for in
reality, the human being bears within his etheric body the whole animal
kingdom. As a philosopher might express himself, he bears it within
him as a disposition.
Now you should bear in mind the following fact: If the things which
I have just now described to you would not take place, if in addition to
the fact that the physical body holds together the whole animal
kingdom, the Angeloi, Archangeloi and Archai would not exercise their
influence, then the process explained above would necessarily take
place, when the human being lays aside the physical body and passes
through the portal of death; namely, the etheric body would, in that
case, jump out elastically into the world when the astral body and the
Ego have abandoned it, and a whole etheric animal kingdom would rise
out of the etheric body. But in reality, this does not take place; this
animal kingdom does not rise out of the human being, for the etheric
body detaches itself in an entirely different form; it detaches itself and
becomes incorporated with the universal ether and interweaves with it.
[Compare: “Inner Being of Man and Life Between Death and a New Birth”.]
What lies before us in that case? The fact that the Beings of the
hierarchies of the Angeloi, Archangeloi and Archai work upon our
etheric body and do not allow it to reach the point of splitting up into
the animal kingdom. What does really take place? — You see, I would
like to describe these things by drawing in a comparison. Here upon the
earth we human beings work. We build machines, for instance,
machines made of wood or of iron. Wood and iron are our fundamental
materials. We use them to construct machines. The way in which these
materials are put together is our own work, but wood and even iron are
raw materials which we take from the earth. We take them from a
kingdom which lies below our human kingdom.
If you now imagine that the Angeloi, Archangeloi and Archai live
above us, you will also realise that these Beings do not exist in the
universe simply in order to have a perpetual holiday. They have their
work, tasks which they must fulfil. What do they really do? They, too,
must use a material for their work, just as we use wood and iron which
we take from the earth, and they, too, will work upon this material. Our
etheric bodies are the material used by the Angeloi, Archangeloi and
Archai. For the Angeloi, Archangeloi and Archai, our etheric bodies
have the same value that the wood and iron which we take from the
earth have for us, when we use them to build machines. The Angeloi,
Archangeloi and Archai work upon our etheric bodies, and when we
walk about upon the earth and harbour, as it were, the thought (if we
have such thought at all!) that we carry about within us our etheric
body, believing that we carry it about as something that belongs to us in
the same way in which the lungs that we carry about within us belong
to us — then the whole essence of the Angeloi, Archangeloi and Archai
is active around us and works out forms for the spiritual world, forms
that are needed there, just as machines are needed here upon the earth.
They work out what is needed in the spiritual world. What aids these
spiritual beings in their work?
You see, throughout our life we think; we think, from the moment
that we attain the capacity of thinking up to the moment of death. Our
thinking consists therein that it weaves and lives in our etheric body.
Yet, while we live within our physical body, we believe that only the
things we mould in the shape of thoughts belong to us. But what we
thus possess in the shape of thoughts, what we thus form and mould
within our thoughts is, as it were, only the inner aspect of our whole
thought-life. From outside, the Angeloi, Archangeloi and Archai work
upon our thoughts, particularly in regard to our etheric body. As
human beings, it is not at all unnecessary that we should think. Our
thoughts are necessary not only for the physical earth, but also for the
cosmos. For what we transform within our etheric body through our
thinking, is employed during our earthly life as a material which is used
in accordance with higher standpoints. While we pass through the
world as thinking human beings, the Angeloi, Archangeloi and Archai
work upon our thoughts, so that after our death something may arise
that can be incorporated with the whole ether of the universe. When
our astral body and our Ego lay aside our etheric body, they sew into
the cosmos the wool of our etheric body, that has arisen essentially
through our manner of thinking.
As human beings, we do not only live for ourselves; we also live for
the whole universe. We know that Jupiter, Venus and Vulcan will
follow our Earth. But all this must be prepared; it must be interwoven
with the universe as forces. This entails work. It forms part of this
work, for instance, that the Angeloi, Archangeloi and Archai carry it on
in accordance with our thoughts. (Stupid thoughts are not the same
kind of material as clever thoughts). Coarsely speaking, the Angeloi,
Archangeloi and Archai work upon these etheric machines in
accordance with the material that we supply to them, and these
“machines” then exist, in order that the evolution of the universe may
continue. When our etheric body is handed over to the cosmos after our
death, this kind of work is therefore handed over at the same time to
the Beings of the three, above-mentioned hierarchies.
Here we face a significant mystery, a mystery that obtuse men (the sort of men whom we can
really designate as obtuse) think to cope with so easily by saying: “Well, the human being
simply arises! In the course of the generations, it so happened that human bodies develop
spontaneously within the bodies of mothers. This is quite spontaneous.” Indeed, the
arguments adopted by such people can be grasped ... but let me show you, with the aid of a
comparison, how clever they really are!
For instance, you may take for granted that here in Munich there are certain Beings able to
perceive many things, but unable to perceive man, and thus unable to see his activities. It is
quite possible, to imagine this! But those Beings who cannot see man, nor his activities, may,
for instance, be able to see — a clock. They would, therefore, know that there are clocks and
also how they are made. They would not, however, see the man who makes the clock; they
would only see how a clock arises from its single parts. They would perhaps see the different
kinds of pincers taking hold of the clock’s parts, but they would see them gripping, as it were,
out of the air. What a conception would these Beings have of a clock? They would not say: “In
Munich there are clock-makers”, but they would say: “Clock-makers do not exist; the clocks
arise spontaneously, of their own accord, for we can see how they form themselves.” This is
the manner of thinking adopted by people who take for granted that things that gradually
develop in a physical way must arise quite spontaneously! However, everything that arises is
the result of actions fulfilled by spiritual Beings belonging to the higher Hierarchies. Indeed,
the human being does not arise spontaneously, merely through the interchanging influence of
father and mother and through what develops within the mother’s body, but the whole
cosmos participates in his development.
Particularly the external world, as far as its highest regions, cooperates in the formation of the
human head. It participates less in what is attached to the head, and participates in a
particular way in the development of the human head. In a not too distant future, even
ordinary science will learn to think differently in embryology concerning all the organs and also
concerning the human head. It will discover that the other organs depend very strongly upon
hereditary qualities, whereas the formation of the head depends upon them only very slightly.
The form of the head is simply pushed together after the formation of the other organs. The
whole cosmos participates in the forming of the head and the influences of the cosmos
penetrate into the mother’s body. Those who do not see these forces ... well, also a farmer
does not see the forces that are active in a magnet, but this does not prove the non-existence
of these forces. What exists in the human head, has been worked out, as it were, in connection
with all that the human being has received from the Spirits of Form, the Spirits of Movement
and the Thrones, with what he bears along within his Ego, carrying it over into the time
between death and a new birth, as a mighty spherical form. What is thus elaborated is
gigantic; it is a sphere and within this sphere everything is worked out. [See Rudolf Steiner's
“MACROCOSM AND MICROCOSM”. ]
Imagine a gigantic sphere, upon whose surface is engraved, as upon a globe, everything that
must be worked into it in accordance with what the human being handed over, to begin with,
to the universal cosmos through his etheric body, through the extract of his etheric body; this
forms, as it were, something that is copied on to the surface of the sphere. We then work into
it what should be engraved upon it in accordance with what we have brought along with us
through the work done upon our astral body. And then comes the time — it begins with that
moment designated by me as the world’s midnight hour — when the sphere gradually grows
smaller and finally this sphere, upon which, the higher Spirits work, becomes quite small, it
grows smaller and smaller, until it unites with the human germ conceived within the mother’s
body. This, above all, gives rise to the form of the head. The gradual development of the form
of the head is the result of centuries of work on the part of the higher Hierarchies.
Just imagine how man’s feelings in regard to his relationship with the world could be
deepened if he would be aware of his position within the whole cosmic connections! The
human being who carries his head upon his shoulders should learn to think in all humility,
without any pride and arrogance, that human wisdom and all that may be found in it, contains
very little indeed of what is required for the forming of the head bestowed upon the human
being! Man bears within him everything that is contained in the cosmos. If we consider things
from this standpoint, spiritual science acquires an immense value through, the fact that it
becomes the point of departure for certain feelings, that may, indeed, endanger souls filled
with pride and arrogance.
In my second Mystery Play I have alluded to this fact, in the scene where Capesius, conversing
with Benedictus, feels the approach of truths telling him that the deeds of gods are needed in
order to give rise to man. Truths of this kind may increase the vanity of many, who may at first
be disposed to vanity. They may attribute enormous importance to themselves. Yet it would
be far more reasonable to foster the feeling showing us how little of all that wisdom which
gave rise to the human being really exists within our own consciousness! Of course, we may
snare the opinion of those who say: “Of what use is it to know all these things? We can quite
well do without this knowledge. Indeed, we can live quite comfortably without knowing, all
these, things” ... Yet a great error is contained in the belief that we can quite well do without
this knowledge! For, in reality, we cannot live without it. Indeed, at the present time we easily
yield to the erroneous belief that we can lead quite a decent life without having a knowledge
of the spiritual world; that is to say, that we can breakfast, etc., and do many things in
between ... Undoubtedly, it is very easy to believe this at the present time; nevertheless, such
a belief is not based upon truth. We should gradually be brought to the point of feeling that
such beliefs are not based upon truth. For this reason, I mention a subject such as that of
Planck. I mention Planck, that strange man, who lived for many years an extremely lonely life
at Ulm and was not even offered a chair at the university of Tübingen, because nobody really
understood his true value and significance; the significance of a man concerning whom obtuse
persons would certainly say: “Towards the end of his life, he grew so nervous that he said all
manner of things that sounded like megalomania.” Well, obtuse men may argue like that. But
even someone who had not to endure the sufferings that Planck had to endure, would have
grown nervous through the way in which his fellow men treated him, and he would also have
uttered the words which may be found in Planck’s introduction to his “Philosophy of Nature
and of Mankind”, the words of an ancient Roman: “Ungrateful country of mine! You shall not
even have my bones!” I am quoting these words purposely; they were uttered in 1889, the
year of Planck’s death, and they really convey exactly what we tried to explain just now.
The reality could be perceived by a man with idealistic conceptions, because the forces that
develop within us when we are able to think in this manner, are, at the same time, the most
practical thing in the world. The most practical thing is not at all as imagined by those who
believe that they really are in touch with the most practical things in life; this can only be
explained through the brutality with which they face life’s practical aspects. When I advance
such examples, I only advance them in order to show you that all those human forces which
are also needed in practical life, can give rise to clear thoughts filled with insight, only if the
soul is fertilized by spiritual scientific truths.
Is it possible to-day that people actually believe that human life on earth is possible, without
the slightest idea of spiritual scientific truths? Why do people believe such things? — Because
they are so terribly short-sighted! If they were not so short-sighted, it would be possible to
prove, even in an entirely external way, how mistaken are those who say: “Well, people simply
believe that they need not concern themselves with a spiritual world. They are born without
doing anything towards this, and they grow ...” Of course, some kind of education must be
offered to man. Modern pedagogy is so extremely clever, that it sets up clever principles,
reaching the gigantic heights of Forster’s pedagogy! And then we gradually become mature
men, who concern themselves with the problem of what we should do, in order to give others
something to eat and to drink.
Yet it was not always so within the human race. It is not so long ago that the present
conditions arose, inducing men to believe that they can live upon the earth without possessing
any spiritual knowledge. External proofs may be advanced, in support of this.
Let me advance one of these proofs. Probably, if we had time to spare (but here in Munich,
people do not have much time), we might even come across a similar proof here in Munich. At
the Museum of Art, in Hamburg we recently discovered a proof that may be advanced
externally. It results from the following fact:
Let us bear in mind that great symbol at the beginning of the Old Testament: Adam and Eve’s
Temptation, what is known to us as the Luciferic temptation. Let us think of this. When a
modern painter paints this (his standpoint is quite an indifferent matter; it is all the same
whether he is a realistic or an idealistic painter, an expressionist, impressionist, or futurist), he
thinks that the reality can be conveyed best of all if he paints Adam and Eve in a more or less
ugly way; between them, he will paint the Tree of Paradise and upon it the Serpent, with a real
serpent’s head, as large as the Tree. Can this be termed realistic, in the true meaning of the
word? I do not think so. Leaving aside the present assumption, it is impossible to believe that
the archetypal mother Eve could have been so stupid as to be tempted by a real serpent.
Imagine, a real serpent creeping through the green grass should have caught mother Eve! Even
the present serpent can only be looked upon as a symbol of something else. Let us recall the
thoughts that should really be connected with the Luciferic temptation. The serpent is Lucifer.
It can only symbolize Lucifer. The fact that this being remained behind upon the Moon-stage of
development, is connected with the Luciferic principle. It is therefore impossible to see Lucifer
through physical eyes, for these have only developed upon the earth. Lucifer can only be
perceived through the inner eye, and so he cannot resemble an earthly serpent that can be
seen through our ordinary earthly eyes. Lucifer should be imagined as spiritual science is able
to represent him. Imagine now that man carries upon him his head, as the most perfectly
formed member of his body. Attached to it (it suffices if you study a skeleton) is the remaining
organism; the spine is attached to the head. Everything that has, later on, developed
physically, was formed in advance. If we go back into evolution, if we were to perceive Lucifer
through our inner power of vision, we would see him in the form which he had upon the
Moon, when he was preparing the earthly human head, a human head that was not so dense
and solid as the present one, for it was inwardly mobile, manifold in its forms, and attached to
it was a human spine, a spinal cord, that may be imagined in the form of a serpent’s body.
Lucifer would, therefore, have to be painted with a countenance as expressive as possible, and
attached to it, a serpent’s body, but one that resembles the archetypal human spine. This
would be a kind of picture of Lucifer.
At the Museum in Hamburg there is a picture by Master Bertram representing a Story, of the
Creation, and there the Paradise-symbol is represented in such a way that Lucifer is portrayed
as described, exactly in accordance with spiritual science. In the 13th and 14th century, Master
Bertram therefore painted Lucifer correctly, in a spiritual-scientific sense. This can be seen; it is
a historical fact. We have frequently spoken of the ancient atavistic clairvoyance. What Master
Bertram painted, shows that up to the 13th and 14th century it was possible to paint Lucifer
correctly, in accordance with an ancient spiritual science. It can therefore be proved, it can be
proved externally, that the human beings have become, so abandoned by the spirit as they are
now, only a few centuries ago. This can be proved, and you will be able to discover such
proofs.
In other words: What the obtuse people of to-day consider as the everlasting human nature ...
the fact that they look out into the world through their eyes and then combine the things they
see through their intellect, has become a human soul-quality only a few centuries ago. Before
that time, man was aware of his connection with the spiritual world. This has faded. But we
can learn to know that even in the 13th and 14th century people were still able to paint in such
a way that this was in keeping with the ancient spiritual science. It is important to bear in mind
such a fact. It shows us that the ancient spiritual science had to vanish for the sake of the
development of human freedom, for in the 5th post-atlantean epoch arose something that has
often been described: namely, the, consciousness-soul had to develop and consequently the
old spiritual science had to recede. But it must be brought back again.
In regard to what constitutes the spirit of invention, the creative spirit, humanity still lives to-
day upon the old inheritance in every sphere, upon the old inheritance that entered human
evolution with the ancient spiritual science. When someone has a new idea to-day and invents
something quite new, he does this because the ancient spiritual science still continues to be
active. But in less than a hundred, in less than fifty years time, every kind of invention, every
creative kind of thought shall have disappeared; it shall have disappeared even in the
mechanical sphere, unless spiritual science influences humanity in a fruitful way. Spiritual
science must begin to penetrate livingly into the development of the human race, for
otherwise, the human race must grow barren.
In the sphere of art, this, fact is more or less evident to-day. In art it is strongly evident that the
human beings are, as it were, abandoned by the spirit, seeing that they can only weave into
their works of art what they find as a model, outside, in Nature; thus the inner fertilization on
the part of the spirit is completely lacking.
These facts stand on one side. They show us how necessary it is for the human being to
become aware of the fact that he is connected, as a whole human being, with Beings belonging
to the higher kingdoms. We may think of people — some still exist to-day — who do not know
that air exists. For them, space is empty. At least this fact does not reach their consciousness.
After all, the physical body cannot be thought of without the environing air — for what would
we be with our physical body without any air! We imagine that the physical body is closed up,
because it is enveloped in its skin, — but here is the air outside the body: we breathe it in, and
now it is inside us; we breathe it out, and then it is outside. Does not the air belong to the
physical body in the same way as the muscles? Do you not have within you what is outside,
and outside what is within? In the same way in which we are connected with the air in regard
to our physical body, so we are connected, in regard to our soul-element, with the Beings that
weave through the world as Spirits of Form, Spirits of Movement and Thrones; through our
astral body we are united with the Beings who weave through the world as spiritual
Hierarchies; they are incessantly active in us, just as the air is active within our physical body. If
we know this, we have the right kind of consciousness of man’s being.
This is one aspect of the matter. But then there is still another aspect. Now I wish to awaken in
you a conception of these things, by contemplating them from several aspects, as it is
necessary to-day.
Read, for instance, (I might also indicate another example) Dostojevski’s “Karamasov
Brothers”. Four characters appear, among others, in this book: the four sons of the old
Karamasov, Ivan, Dmitri, Aljosha, Smerdiakov. It is very strange to see what an influence this
novel of Dostojevski had, particularly in Europe. I would have to say many things if I wished to
explain the whole way in which such things rise out of human life and pass through a soul such
as that of Dostojevski where they develop into a work such as his “Brothers Karamasov”. Let
me only say this: In spite of the greatest admiration which we may have for the penetrating
psychological art (this is the name given to it by many modern people, because they know so
little what psychology really is!), in spite of the penetrating insight of Dostojevski’s
psychological art, also in spite of his fine and penetrating observation of life, those who have
really reached the point of taking up spiritual-scientific conceptions not only in such a way as
to say, man consists of physical body, etheric body, astral body and Ego, but so that they are
filled with what may be experienced in connection with these members of human nature —
those who strive to build up feelings in the way in which we endeavour to do it, will have an
uncomfortable feeling when they read the frequently chaotic descriptions of the Karamasov
brothers. For this book contains many things that may indeed be designated as fine
observations of life, if we simply bear in mind an external, superficial observation of life ... for
instance the fact that the eldest brother is the son of another mother and has an entirely
different character than that of his two younger brothers; the fourth son is again the offspring
of another mother (the old Karamasov is namely a thorough scoundrel!), whereas the third son
has a most peculiar mother. One does not know if he is really the son of the old Karamasov ...
But I do not intend to tell you the story of the book. Indeed, if we also bear in mind the aspect,
who were the mothers, we may feel throughout: there is something behind all that! In fact,
this is so, for a Central-European writer would not describe things in that way; he would
describe things far more consciously and thus he would not bring into his description so many
sub-conscious factors; as is the case with Dostojevski, he constructs more, and since he only
brings into his book what he more or less knows, his book will not contain such a wealth of
things as that of Dostojevski, who takes the things he writes from LIFE.
Life contains more than that which rises up in the consciousness of the human soul. Towards
all these things we feel that in the case of Dostojevski we have before us an extremely chaotic
mind, rendered chaotic through his epilepsy; but, in spite of this, many things passed through
his entirely diseased soul, things which could pass through it, because human nature is, in our
time, inclined, as it were, to reveal certain Things. We may then come to the following result: If
we have acquired the right kind of feeling, the right kind of idea in regard to what is meant by
physical body, etheric body, astral body and Ego, we shall find in the four Karamasov brothers
four human beings who can only be understood in the right way if we say to ourselves: In one
of them, we have before us a human being in whom the physical body is specially active; in the
other one, a human being in whom the etheric body is particularly active; in the third one, a
human being in whom the astral body is more active; and in the fourth one, a human being in
whom the Ego is more active. It is indeed so: If you take the Karamasov brothers and study
them from an inner aspect, you will be able to say that, in accordance with. the present cycle
of human evolution, and in a case where everything is active in such a way that the poet is
influenced and stimulated to describe things more from out his sub-consciousness, the various
members of human nature are active so that in one brother one particular member has the
upper hand, and in another one, another member; the four brothers therefore appear like the
drawn-out image of humanity. In Dmitri we find that the Ego is preponderant; in Aljosha, the
astral body; in Ivan, the etheric body; and in Smerdiakov, the physical body. Though at first this
may seem strange, it is nevertheless so, from the standpoint of reality.
You see, here we have the strange case of a poet who produces chiefly from out his sub-
conscious depths and even has a chaotic soul life owing to his epilepsy, but who is
nevertheless pushed towards the reality and whose astral body, that is to say, his sub-
consciousness, becomes connected with what weaves and lives in the world.
We may well believe that the experience of standing beneath the gallows and. being
unexpectedly pardoned at the last minute (Dostojevski’s comrades have already been hung,
while Dostojevski himself is facing the moment of being hung), is not an indifferent experience;
indeed, such an experience awakens in a human soul altogether different feelings than those
of a soul that has never passed through a similar experience. This is a fact that should be borne
in mind. But all this shows us that at the present time, in particular, a soul of Dostojevski’s kind
could be influenced by the real facts in such a manner that his soul felt induced to describe
throughout his book, in a chaotic way, these four brothers, who possess the qualities just
described, whom we can only understand if we know this and if we are able to feel it. In that
case, we shall understand why the brother in whom the etheric body predominates and the
one in whom the astral body predominates, must be the sons of a mother afflicted with
hysterical fits. If we know this, the details in particular become wonderfully transparent. This
reveals the tendency of our time within the sphere of a nation inclined to offer (I have already
explained this to you), as it were, those blood qualities which must become united with the
Central European qualities. We can grasp what is taking place, also in the case of men in whom
these events are still inwoven unconsciously; but we can grasp this only if we understand
spiritual science.
Even though it may seem stupid, let me nevertheless say that the world is deep, and that it is
not such a simple matter to gain some knowledge in regard to it, nor to judge it; it is not so
simple a matter as imagined by those who lead the usual kind of life. The human beings pass
through life in a dream or in a state of intoxication. Yet great things are preparing and it is not
so easy to attract people’s, attention to these things.
Through your Karma you belong to those who are gradually penetrating into these things; you
have been listening to them for many years and have thus gradually become familiar with
them, acquiring an idea of all that lies concealed beneath the surface of life. But in regard to
outsiders: — we may sometimes allude to such things in their presence and the very people
may be sitting there, who belong to the clever set and believe, above all, that the person who
speaks in a spiritual-Scientific manner and mentions this or that thing to them, does not really
know anything beyond what he is saying. They have not the slightest idea that this knowledge
must be drawn out of an all-encompassing knowledge, one that can really be proved in every
detail and that becomes interesting just when it can be substantiated through details
That many things in human evolution must change, can be seen therein that I have put before
you two facts: I have shown you, on the one hand, what is connected with the human being,
but on the other hand, I have also shown you the way in which we should contemplate the
events that are now taking place. If someone who knows nothing of microscopy looks through
a microscope, he will see nothing whatever. In a similar way, nothing whatever can be
discerned when we contemplate human experience. Nothing whatever can be discerned in the
experiences of the East during the 19th century; nothing can be seen in a Dostojevski, who
wrote the book, “The Brothers Karamasov”, a book that indicates a sub-earthly element. In the
East, in the Russian East, people have become aware of this, for a certain attitude towards life
has been designated, as “Karamasovshchina”. It is difficult to explain this word; it is a far more
qualitative concept than, for instance, the word “Strizitum” (a word in Austrian dialect,
indicating a loose, half rascally, half good-fellow attitude towards life). “Karamasovshchina” is
a far more concrete thing. We may come across this in life itself and even in art, and in order
to perceive what is taking place, it is easy to realise that when we contemplate things, it is
necessary to have in our soul’s background a knowledge that can only come from spiritual
science.
Even the external processes rising up before us at the present time in particular, reveal this
necessity; if we only look upon life thoughtfully, they reveal the necessity to which I allude and
which I illuminated from two aspects. For instance, a very distressing phenomenon of the
present is the following one: — General opinions existed long before the war. Certain people
were considered to be prominent in this or in that sphere. There was no reason to object to
this because they really achieved extraordinary things in the meaning of modern civilisation.
Then war broke out. These prominent people expressed their views, they wrote letters. It is
almost incredible what nonsense these prominent men wrote! For instance, Krapotkin, who
enjoyed a great reputation in England. But read the letters written by him at the beginning of
the war! He was looked upon as a broad-minded free-thinker, yet how stupid were the letters
he wrote!
These are weighty facts. Indeed, I might say: Particularly now that humanity is facing such a
sudden and powerful situation, we can see how little their thoughts are capable of grasping
something that does not, for once, break in upon mankind in accordance with an ordinary,
easy programme. From their own standpoint, the ordinary Philistines are better off than
others, for they judge things in accordance with their views. But how do these views generally
arise? At the present time, people despise authority and have their own views! Yet their
opinions are merely based upon the fact that they have forgotten where they have read them!
These are the “individual opinions”, that are simply characterised through the fact that they
have been read or heard somewhere. All these things show that particularly the so deeply
incisive events of the present contain something that must become a distinctive mark of
humanity: namely, the fact that many, many things in spiritual life must change completely;
human beings must make up their mind not to pass through life in the same way as the
materialists, who merely dream of the world ... Of course, they think that the others are
dreaming, nevertheless it is THEY who really dream, for they have never really woken up
properly. Spiritual life must indeed change, and this fact must penetrate into the
consciousness of those who wish to become united in their heart with the true life-essence of
the spiritual-scientific world-conception.
Earnest words had to be said at this meeting, simply because to-day things present such an
aspect that every opportunity must be used which may, perhaps, not always be available. It is
difficult to travel about, at present.
It is therefore necessary to discuss these earnest things. They are also connected with
questions discussed on previous occasions, questions that may be considered in connection
with those of to-day. I explained that our etheric body is not something that may be
designated as the bearer of our thoughts; it does not simply evaporate: no, the etheric body
does not evaporate ... it becomes inwoven with the world-ether. When, however, as is the
case at present, hundreds and thousands of deaths prevent human beings from carrying their
etheric bodies through several decades, as would be the case normally, when these etheric
bodies are handed over to the spiritual world, then something arises which I have frequently
described: They remain here, with that part of the etheric body which may still have been
used, and this will be found ABOVE. But its INFLUENCE in the future will depend upon the
constitution of the souls BELOW. Strength for a spiritual progress will in future be found by
those souls below who say to themselves: Many men have passed through the sacrifice of
death and if we grow conscious of the forces contained in what they leave behind, then a
spiritual growth will be possible. Souls must be there who are open to the comprehension of
the spiritual world. In that case, the forces existing through the death-sacrifices can become
fruitful for the earth. Otherwise, they must fall a prey to Ahriman. It need not NECESSARILY
arise that these forces become fruitful for the earth ... for this will depend either upon the
greatest possible number of souls that are inclined to unite in their feelings with what has
arisen spiritually through the death-sacrifices; it will depend upon the possibility of utilising
this later on, or else it will depend upon whether this will fall a prey to Ahriman. Meditate this
thought, for then it will acquire significance and you will be able to feel the words with which I
once more wish to conclude my lecture:
(TRANSLATION)
If souls, in spirit-consciousness,
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You may think that if this question had been asked in other
epochs, an answer would probably have been forthcoming. But
neither in the epoch of atavistic clairvoyance nor in that of Greco-
Latin civilisation could this question have been answered, because
the pictures arising in man's soul from atavistic clairvoyance
obscured his observation of the deeds of the Angels in his astral
body. Nothing could be seen of this, precisely because he had in
him the pictures given by the atavistic clairvoyance. And in the
Greco-Latin period, thought was not as strong as it is today.
Thought has been strengthened as the direct consequence of
natural science. Hence it is in the epoch of the Spiritual Soul that
such questions can be the subject of conscious study. The
fruitfulness of Spiritual Science for life must be shown by the fact
that we do not just browse on theories but know how to say things
of incisive significance for life.
People may shy away from the notion that Angels want to call
forth in them ideals for the future, but it is so all the same. And
indeed in forming these pictures the Angels work on a definite
principle, namely, that in the future no human being is to find
peace in the enjoyment of happiness if others beside him are
unhappy. An impulse of Brotherhood in the absolute sense,
unification of the human race in Brotherhood rightly understood —
this is to be the governing principle of the social conditions in
physical existence.
Spiritual Science for the spirit, freedom of religious life for the
soul, brotherhood for the bodily life — this resounds like cosmic
music through the work wrought by the Angels in the astral bodies
of men.
We are living in the age of the Spiritual Soul, and in this age the
Angels work in the astral bodies of men as I have described. Man
must gradually come to understand this in his wideawake
consciousness. It is part of the process of human evolution itself.
How can such a statement be made? Where are we to look for this
work of the Angels?
After all this, you will understand me when I point out that this
epoch of the Spiritual Soul is heading towards the definite event,
and that — just because it is the Spiritual Soul that is involved — it
will depend upon men themselves how this event takes effect in the
evolution of humanity. It may come a century earlier or a century
later, but it is bound to form part of the evolutionary process. It can
be characterised by saying: Purely through the Spiritual Soul,
purely through their conscious thinking, men must reach the point
of actually perceiving what the Angels are doing to prepare the
future of humanity. The teachings of Spiritual Science in this
domain must become practical wisdom in the life of humanity —
practical, because men can be convinced that it belongs to their
own wisdom to recognise the aims of the Angels, as I have
described them.
Firstly, it will be shown how his own genuine interest will enable
man to understand the deeper side of human nature. A time will come
— and it must not pass unnoticed — when out of the spiritual world
men will receive through their Angel an impulse that will kindle a far
deeper interest in every individual human being than we are inclined to
have to-day. This enhanced interest in our fellow-men will not unfold
in the subjective, leisurely way that people would prefer, but by a
sudden impetus a certain secret will be inspired into man from the
spiritual side, namely, what the other man really is. By this I mean
something quite concrete — not any kind of theoretical consideration.
Men will learn something whereby their interest in every individual can
be kindled. That is the one point — and that is what will particularly
affect the social life.
Secondly: From the spiritual world the Angel will reveal to man
that, in addition to everything else, the Christ Impulse
postulates complete freedom in matters of religions life, that the only
true Christianity is the Christianity which makes possible absolute
freedom in the religious life.
As I have said, this event ought to take place in such a way that the
Spiritual Soul in man participates in it. This is impending in the
evolution of humanity, for the Angel is working to this end through the
pictures woven in man's astral body.
But the Ahrimanic beings too are working to obscure this revelation.
They are not at pains to make man particularly spiritual, but rather
to kill out in him the consciousness of his own spirituality. They
endeavour to instill into him the conviction that he is nothing but a
completely developed animal. Ahriman is in truth the teacher par
excellence of materialistic Darwinism. He is also the great teacher of all
those technical and practical pursuits in Earth-evolution where there is
refusal to acknowledge the validity of anything except the external life
of the senses, where the only desire is for a widespread technology, so
that with somewhat greater refinement, men shall satisfy their hunger,
thirst and other needs in the same way as the animal. To kill, to darken
in man the consciousness that he is an image of the Godhead — this is
what the Ahrimanic beings are endeavouring by subtle scientific means
of every kind to achieve in our age of the Spiritual Soul.
From this you can realise that the work of the Angels is, and under
all circumstances must remain, serious. Just imagine what conditions
would be behind the scenes of existence if through their somnolence
men were able to turn the work of the Angels into a game!
And what if this should happen after all? What if humanity on earth
should persist in sleeping through the momentous spiritual revelation
of the future? If this were to happen in respect of the freedom of the
religious life, for example, if men were to sleep through the repetition
of the Mystery of Golgotha on the etheric plane, the reappearance of
the etheric Christ, or other matters as well, then the Angels would have
to try different means of achieving what the pictures they weave in the
astral body of man are intended to achieve. If men do not allow this to
be achieved in the astral body while they are awake, the Angels would,
in this case, endeavour to fulfill their aims through their sleeping
bodies. Therefore what the Angels could not achieve, because in their
waking life men slept through it, would be achieved with the help of the
physical and etheric bodies of men during actual sleep. It is there that
the Angels would seek forces required for the fulfillment of what could
not be achieved through men in their wideawake consciousness when
the souls were within the etheric and physical bodies in the waking
state. It would be achieved by means of the etheric and physical bodies
in the sleeping state, when human beings who ought to be awake to
what is going on were outside these bodies with their Ego and astral
body.
Here lies the great danger for the age of the Spiritual Soul. This is
what might still happen if, before the beginning of the third
millennium, men were to refuse to turn to the spiritual life. The third
millennium begins with the year 2000, so it is only a short time ahead
of us. It might still happen that the aim of the Angels in their work
would have to be achieved by means of the sleeping bodies of men —
instead of through men wideawake. The Angels might still be
compelled to withdraw their whole work from the astral body and to
submerge it in the etheric body in order to bring it to fulfillment. But
then, in his real being, man would have no part in it. It would have to
be performed in the etheric body while man himself was not there, just
because if he were there in the waking state, he would obstruct it.
I have now given you a general picture of these things. But what
would be the outcome if the Angels were obliged to perform this work
without man himself participating, to carry it out in his etheric and
physical bodies during sleep?
So the crucial point lies ahead when either the path to the right can
be taken — but that demands wakefulness — or the path to the left,
which permits of sleep. But in that case instincts come on the scene —
instincts of a fearful kind.
And what do you suppose the scientific experts will say when such
instincts come into evidence? They will say that it is a natural and
inevitable development in the evolution of humanity. Light cannot be
shed on such matters by natural science, for whether men become
angels or devils would be equally capable of explanation by scientific
reasoning. Science will say the same in both cases: the later is the
outcome of the earlier ... so grand and wise is the interpretation of
nature in terms of causality! Natural science will be totally blind to the
event of which I have told you, for if men become half devils through
their sexual instincts, science will as a matter of course regard this as a
natural necessity. Scientifically, then, the matter is simply not capable
of explanation, for whatever happens, everything can be explained by
science. The fact is that such things can be understood only by
spiritual, super-sensible cognition. That is the one aspect.
The second aspect is that from this work which involves changes
affecting the Angels themselves, still another result accrues for
humanity: instinctive knowledge of certain medicaments — but
knowledge of a baleful kind!
The third result will be this. Man will get to know of definite forces
which, simply by means of quite easy manipulations — by bringing into
accord certain vibrations — will enable him to unleash tremendous
mechanical forces in the world. Instinctively he will come to realise in
this way the possibility of exercising a certain spiritual guidance and
control of the mechanistic principle — and the whole of technical
science will sail into desolate waters. But human egoism will find these
desolate waters of tremendous use and benefit.
This, my friends, is a fragment of concrete knowledge of the
evolution of existence, a fragment of a conception of life which can be
truly assessed only by those who realise that an unspiritual view of life
can never grow clear about these things. If a form of medicine injurious
to humanity were ever to take root, if a terrible aberration of the sexual
instincts were to arise, if there were baleful doings in the sphere of the
purely mechanistic forces of the world, in the application of the forces
of nature by means of spiritual powers, an unspiritual conception of life
would see through none of these things, would not perceive how they
deviate from the true path ... The sleeper, as long as sleep lasts, does
not see the approach of a thief who is about to rob him; he is unaware
of it and at most he finds out later on, when he wakes, what has been
done to him. But it would be a bad awakening for humanity! Man
would pride himself upon the growth of his instinctive knowledge of
certain processes and substances and would experience such
satisfaction in obeying certain aberrations of the sexual impulses that
he would regard them as evidence of a particularly high development of
superhumanity, of freedom from convention, of broad-mindedness! In
a certain respect, ugliness would be beauty and beauty, ugliness.
Nothing of this would be perceived because it would all be regarded as
natural necessity. But it would denote an aberration from the path
which, in the nature of humanity itself, is prescribed for man's essential
being.
Anyone who looks at life, particularly in our own age, must himself
be asleep if he does not notice a number of things. How men have
preened themselves on their conduct of life, particularly during the last
few decades! Things have finally come to the point where the leading
positions everywhere are held by those who are most contemptuous of
the ideal, of the spiritual. People managed to go on declaiming about
their conduct of this life as long as mankind had not actually been
dragged into the abyss. Now a few — mostly out of instinct — are
actually beginning to croak that a new age must come, with all kinds of
new ideals. But it is all so much croaking. And if things have to come
about instinctively, without conscious penetration into Spiritual
Science on the part of men, they would lead to the decline of what
ought to be experienced in the waking state rather than to any
wholesome transition in evolution.
If, in some epoch, the men who ought to be vigilant fail in this
respect and do not discern what really ought to happen then nothing
real does happen. Instead, the ghost of the preceding epoch walks-as
the ghosts of the past are walking in many religious communities
today, and as the ghost of ancient Rome still haunts the sphere of
jurisprudence. In the age of the Spiritual Soul, Spiritual Science must
make men free in just this way, must lead them to perception of a
spiritual fact: What the Angel is doing in our astral body. To speak
abstractly about Angels and so on, can at most be the beginning;
progress requires that we speak concretely — which means that in
reference to our own epoch we find the answer to the question nearest
to us. This question concerns us most nearly, for the simple reason that
in our astral body the Angel is weaving pictures that are to determine
our future form, and this determination is to be brought about through
the Spiritual Soul.
We do not usually trouble about the things that have been prevented
but which, if they had happened, would have fundamentally changed
our life. Behind these things which in some way or other have been
kept out of our lives there is very, very much that educates us into
becoming vigilant human beings. What manner of things might have
happened to me today? If we ask ourselves this question every evening
and then think of particular occurrences which could have had this or
that result, observations will couple themselves with such questions
and introduce the element of vigilance into the exercise of self-
discipline. This is something that can be a beginning, and of itself leads
on and on, until finally we do not explore only into what it meant in our
life when, for example, we wanted to go out, say, at half-past ten one
morning and at the last moment somebody turned up and stopped us
... we are annoyed at being stopped, but we do not enquire what might
have happened if we had actually gone out as we had planned. What is
it that has been changed?