Theosophy
GA 9
Chapter III: The Three Worlds: 5. The Physical World and Its Connection with the Soul and Spiritland
[ 1 ] The formations in the soul world and in spiritland cannot be the objects of external sense perception. The objects of this sense perception are to be added as a third world to the two already described. Man lives during his bodily existence simultaneously in the three worlds. He perceives the things of the sensory world and acts upon them. The formations of the soul world act upon him through their forces of sympathy and antipathy, and his own soul excites waves in the soul world by its likes and dislikes, desires and wishes. The spiritual being of things, on the other hand, mirrors itself in his thought world and he himself, as thinking spirit-being, is a citizen of spiritland and a companion of all that lives in that region of the world. This makes it evident that the sensory world is only a part of what surrounds us. This part stands out from our general surrounding with a certain independence because it can be perceived by senses that disregard the soul and spiritual parts. These, however, belong just as much to this surrounding world as does the material part. Just as a piece of floating ice is substance of the surrounding water although it stands out prominently owing to particular qualities, so are the things perceptible to the senses substance of the surrounding soul and spirit worlds. They stand out from these worlds owing to particular qualities that make them perceptible to the senses. They are, speaking somewhat metaphorically, condensed spirit and soul formations, and the condensation makes it possible for the senses to acquire knowledge of them. In fact, just as ice is only a form in which water exists, so are the objects of the senses only a form in which soul and spirit beings exist. If this has been grasped, it can also be understood that as water can pass over into ice, so the spirit world can pass over into the soul world, and the soul world into that of the senses.
[ 2 ] Looked at from this point of view it can be seen why we can form thoughts about the things of the senses. Thus, there is a question that everyone who thinks must ask himself, “In what relation does the thought that we have about a stone stand to the stone itself?” This question rises in full clearness in the minds of those persons who look with especial penetration into external nature. They feel the consonance of the human thought world with the structure and order of nature. The great astronomer, Kepler, for example, speaks in a beautiful way about this harmony. He says, “True it is that the divine call that bids man study astronomy stands written in the world, not indeed in words and syllables, but factually by virtue of the adaptability of the human senses and concepts to the concatenations of the heavenly bodies and conditions.” Only because the things of the sensible world are nothing but condensed spirit beings is the man who lifts himself by means of his thoughts to these spirit beings able by thinking to understand the things. Sense objects originate in the spirit world. They are only another form of the spirit beings, and when a man forms thoughts about things, his inner nature is merely directed away from the sensible form and out towards the spiritual archetypes of these things.
To understand an object by means of thought is a process that may be likened to the liquefaction of a solid body by fire in order that the chemist may examine it in its liquid form.
[ 3 ] The spiritual archetypes of the sense world are to be found in the various regions of the spiritland. In the fifth, sixth and seventh regions these archetypes are still found as living germ-points. In the four lower regions they shape themselves into spiritual structures. The human spirit perceives a shadowy reflection of these spiritual formations when by thinking it tries to gain understanding of the things of the senses. How these formations have condensed until they form the sense world is a problem for the seeker who strives towards a spiritual understanding of the world around him.
For human sense perception this surrounding world is divided primarily into four distinctly separate stages—the mineral, plant, animal and human. The mineral kingdom is perceived by the senses and comprehended by thought. Thus, when we form a thought about a mineral body, we have to do with two things—the sense object and the thought. Accordingly, we must imagine that this sense object is a condensed thought being. Now, one mineral being acts on another in an external way. It impinges on it and moves it. It warms it, lights it up, dissolves it, and so forth. This external kind of action can be expressed in thoughts. We form thoughts about the way mineral things act on each other externally in accordance with law. By this means our separate thoughts expand into a thought picture of the whole mineral world, and this thought picture is a reflection of the archetype of the whole mineral world of the senses. It is to be found as a complete whole in the spirit world.
In the plant kingdom the phenomena of growth and propagation are added to the phenomenon of external action of one thing or another. The plant grows and brings forth from itself beings like itself. Life is here added to what confronts us in the mineral kingdom. The simple recollection of this fact leads to a view that is enlightening in this connection. The plant has the power to create its living shape and to reproduce it in a being of its own kind. In between the shapeless character of mineral matter as we meet it in gases, liquids, etc. and the living shape of the plant world, stand the forms of the crystals. In the crystals we have to seek the transition from the shapeless mineral world to the plant kingdom that has the capacity for forming living shapes. In this externally sensory formative process in both kingdoms, mineral and plant, we must see the sensory condensation of the purely spiritual process that takes place when the spiritual germs of the three higher regions of the spiritland form themselves into the spirit shapes of the lower regions. The transition from the formless spiritual germ to the formed structure corresponds in the spiritual world to the process of crystallization. This transition is the spiritual archetype of the process of crystallization. If this transition condenses so that the senses can perceive it in its outcome, it then exhibits itself in the world of senses as the process of mineral crystallization.
There is, however, also in the plant being a fashioned spirit germ. Here the living, fashioning capacity is still retained in the shaped being. In the crystal the spirit germ has lost its constructive power during the process of fashioning. It has exhausted its life in the shape produced. The plant has shape and in addition it has the capacity to produce a shape. The characteristic belonging to the spirit germs in the higher regions of the spiritland has been preserved in the plant life. The plant has, therefore, form like the crystal, and to that is added the shaping or formative force. Besides the form that the primal beings have assumed in the plant shape, there is another form working on that shape that bears the impress of the spirit beings of the higher regions. Only what manifests itself in the completed shape of the plant, however, is sensibly perceptible. The formative beings who give life to this shape are present but imperceptible in the plant kingdom. The physical eye sees the lily small today and some time later sees it grown larger. The formative force that evolves the latter out of the former is not seen by this eye. This formative force being is the part of the plant world that acts imperceptibly to the senses. The spirit germs have descended a stage in order to work in the kingdom of shapes. In spiritual science elementary kingdoms are spoken of. If we designate the primal forms, which has as yet no shape, as the first elementary kingdom, then the force beings who work invisible to the senses as the craftsmen of plant growth may be designated as belonging to the second elementary kingdom.
In the animal world sensation and impulse are added to the capacities for growth and propagation. These are manifestations of the soul world. A being endowed with these belongs to the soul world, receives impressions from it and reacts on it. Now, every sensation and every impulse that arises in the animal is brought forth from the foundations of the animal soul. The shape is more enduring than the feeling or impulse. One may say that the life of sensation bears the same relation to the more enduring living shape that the self-changing plant shape bears to the rigid crystal. The plant exhausts itself to a certain extent in the shape-forming force; during its life it continues to add new shapes to itself. First it sends forth roots, then its leafy structure, later flowers, and finally its fruit and seeds. The animal is enclosed within a shape complete within itself and develops within this the changeful life of feeling and impulse. This life has its existence in the soul world. The plant grows and propagates itself; the animal feels and develops its impulses. They constitute for the animal the formless that is always developing into new forms. They have their archetypal processes ultimately in the highest regions of spiritland, but they carry out their activities in the soul world. There are thus in the animal world in addition to the force beings who, invisible to the senses, direct growth and propagation, others who have descended a stage deeper into the soul world. In the animal kingdom formless beings who clothe themselves in soul sheaths are present as the master builders bringing about sensations and impulses. They are the real architects of the animal forms. In spiritual science this region to which they belong may be called the third elementary kingdom.
Man, in addition to having the capacities named in plant and animal, is furnished also with the power of elaborating his sensations into ideas and thoughts and of controlling his impulses by thinking. The thought, which appears in the plant as shape and in the animal as soul force, makes its appearance in man in its own form as thought itself. The animal is soul; man is spirit. The spirit being, which in the animal is engaged in soul development, has now descended a stage deeper still. In the animal it is soul forming. In man it has entered into the world of sensory matter itself. The spirit is present within the human sensory body, and because it appears in a sensory garment, it can appear only as the shadowy reflection of the spirit being that thought represents. The spirit manifests in man conditioned by the physical brain organism, but at the same time it has become the inner being of man. Thought is the form that the formless spirit being assumes in man, just as it takes on shape in the plant and soul in the animal. Consequently, man, insofar as he is a thinking being, is subject to no elementary kingdom fashioning him from without. His elementary kingdom works in his physical body. Only to the extent that man is shape and sentient being is he worked upon by elementary beings of the same kind as those working upon plants and animals. The thought organism of man is elaborated entirely from within his physical body. In the spirit organism of man, in his nervous system that has developed into the perfect brain, we have sensibly visible before us what works on plants and animals as non-sensory force being. That is, the animal shows self-feeling, but man self-consciousness. In the animal, spirit feels itself as soul. It does not yet grasp itself as spirit. In man, the spirit recognizes itself as spirit although, owing to physical limitations, merely as a shadowy reflection of the spirit, as thought.
The threefold world, accordingly, falls into the following categories:
- Realm of archetypal formless beings—first elementary kingdom
- Realm of shape-creating beings—secondary elementary kingdom
- Realm of soul beings—third elementary kingdom
- Realm of created shapes (crystal forms)—mineral kingdom
- Realm whose forms are sensibly perceptible and in which the shape-creating beings are active—plant kingdom
- Realm whose forms are sensibly perceptible and in which the shape-creating and soul beings are active—animal kingdom
- Realm whose forms are sensibly perceptible and in which the shape-creating and soul beings are active, and in which the spirit fashions itself in the form of thought within the sense world—human kingdom.
[ 4 ] From this can be seen how the basic constituents of man living in the body are connected with the spiritual world. The physical body, the ether body, the sentient soul body and the intellectual soul are to be regarded as archetypes of the spiritland condensed in the sensory world. The physical body comes into existence through condensation of the human archetype to the point of sensory appearance. For this reason one can call this physical body also a being of the first elementary kingdom condensed to sensory perceptibility. The ether body comes into existence through the fact that the shape thus engendered maintains its mobility through a being that extends its activity into the kingdom of the senses but is not itself visible to the senses. If one wishes to characterize this being fully, it must be described as having its origin in the highest regions of spiritland and thence shaping itself in the second region into an archetype of life. As such an archetype of life it works in the sensory world. In a similar way, the being that builds up the sentient soul body has its origin in the highest regions of the spiritland, forms itself in the third spirit region into the archetype of the soul world, and as such works in the sensory world. The intellectual soul, however, comes into existence when in the fourth region of the spiritland the archetype of the thinking man gives itself a thought form in which it acts directly as thinking man in the world of the senses. Thus man stands within the world of the senses. Thus the spirit works on his physical body, ether body and sentient soul body. Thus the spirit comes into manifestation in the intellectual soul. Archetypes in the form of beings who in a certain sense are external to man work upon the three lower members of his being. In his intellectual soul he himself becomes a conscious worker upon himself. The beings who work on his physical body are the same as those who form mineral nature. Beings of the kind that live in the plant kingdom work on his ether body, and those beings such as live in the animal kingdom work on his sentient soul body. Both are imperceptible to the senses but extend their activity into these kingdoms.
[ 5 ] Thus do the different worlds combine in action. The universe man lives in is the expression of this combined activity.
[ 6 ] When we have grasped the sensory world in this way, the understanding opens up for beings of a kind different from those having their existence in the above mentioned four kingdoms of nature. One example of such beings is what may be called the Folk or National Spirit. This being does not manifest itself directly in a sensibly perceptible way, but lives its life entirely in the sensations, feelings, tendencies and impulses observable in the common characteristics of a whole nation. This is a being who does not incarnate in the sense world, but just as man forms his body out of substances sensibly visible, so does this Folk Spirit form its body out of the substance of the soul world. This soul body of the National Spirit is like a cloud in which the members of a nation live. Its influences become evident in the souls of the men concerned, but it does not originate in these souls themselves. The National Spirit remains merely a shadowy conception of the mind without being or life, an empty abstraction, to the man who does not picture it in this way.
Something similar may be said in reference to what one calls the Spirit of the Age (Zeitgeist). Indeed, the spiritual outlook is extended in this way over a variety of other beings, both lower and higher, that live in the human environment unseen by the bodily senses. Those who have powers of spiritual sight perceive such beings and can describe them. To the lower species of such beings belongs all that is described by observers of the spiritual world as salamanders, sylphs, undines and gnomes. It should not be necessary to say that such descriptions are not to be considered reproductions of the reality that underlies them. If they were, then the world in question would be not a spiritual, but a grossly sensory one. They are attempts at making clear a spiritual reality that can only be represented in this way, this is, by similes. It is quite comprehensible that anyone who admits the validity of physical vision only, regards such beings as the offspring of confused fantasy and superstition. They can, of course, never become visible to the sensory eye because they have no sensory bodies. The superstition does not consist in regarding such beings as real, but in believing that they appear in a way perceptible to the physical senses. Beings of such forms co-operate in the construction of the world, and we come into contact with them as soon as we enter the higher regions closed to the bodily senses. Those people are not superstitious who see in such descriptions pictures of spiritual realities, but rather those who believe in the sensory existence of the pictures, as well as those who deny the spirit, because they think they must deny the sensory picture.
Mention must also be made of those beings who do not descend to the soul world, but whose vestment is composed of the formations of spiritland alone. Man perceives them and becomes their companion when he opens his spiritual eye and ear to them. Through such an opening much becomes intelligible to him that previously he could only stare at uncomprehendingly. It becomes bright around him, and he sees the primal causes of what takes place as effects in the world of the senses. He comprehends what he either denied entirely when he had no spiritual eye, or in reference to which he had to content himself with saying, “There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of in thy philosophy.” People with fine, spiritual feelings become uneasy when they begin to have a glimmering, when they become vaguely aware of a world different from the sensory one surrounding them, one in which they have to grope about as the blind grope among visible objects. Nothing but the clear vision of these higher regions of existence and a thorough understanding and penetration of what takes place in them can really fortify a man and lead him to his proper goal. Through insight into what lies hidden from the senses, man expands his nature in such a way that he feels his life prior to this expansion as “a mere dreaming about the world.”
5. Die physische Welt und ihre Verbindung mit Seelen- und Geisterland
[ 1 ] Die Gebilde der Seelenwelt und des Geisterlandes können nicht der Gegenstand äußerer sinnlicher Wahrnehmung sein. Die Gegenstände dieser sinnlichen Wahrnehmung sind den beschriebenen beiden Welten als eine dritte anzureihen. Auch während seines leiblichen Daseins lebt der Mensch gleichzeitig in den drei Welten. Er nimmt die Dinge der sinnlichen Welt wahr und wirkt auf sie. Die Gebilde der Seelenwelt wirken durch ihre Kräfte der Sympathie und Antipathie auf ihn ein; und seine eigene Seele erregt durch ihre Neigungen und Abneigungen, durch ihre Wünsche und Begierden Wellen in der Seelenwelt. Die geistige Wesenheit der Dinge aber spiegelt sich in seiner Gedankenwelt; und er selbst ist als denkendes Geistwesen Bürger des Geisterlandes und Genosse alles dessen, was in diesem Gebiete der Welt lebt. – Daraus wird ersichtlich, daß die sinnliche Welt nur ein Teil dessen ist, was den Menschen umgibt. Aus der allgemeinen Umwelt des Menschen hebt sich dieser Teil mit einer gewissen Selbständigkeit ab, weil ihn die Sinne wahrnehmen können, die das Seelische und Geistige unberücksichtigt lassen, das ebenso dieser Welt angehört. Wie ein Stück Eis, das auf dem Wasser schwimmt, Stoff ist des umgebenden Wassers, aber sich durch gewisse Eigenschaften von diesem abhebt, so sind die Sinnendinge Stoff der sie umgebenden Seelen- und Geisterwelt; und sie heben sich von diesen durch gewisse Eigenschaften ab, die sie sinnlich wahrnehmbar machen. Sie sind — halb bildlich gesprochen verdichtete Geist- und Seelengebilde; und die Verdichtung bewirkt, daß die Sinne sich von ihnen Kenntnis verschaffen können. Ja, wie das Eis nur eine Form ist, in der das Wasser existiert, so sind die Sinnendinge nur eine Form, in der die Seelen- und Geistwesen existieren. Hat man das begriffen, so faßt man auch, daß, wie das Wasser in Eis, so die Geist- in die Seelenwelt und diese in die Sinnenwelt übergehen können.
[ 2 ] Von diesem Gesichtspunkte aus ergibt sich auch, warum der Mensch sich Gedanken über die sinnlichen Dinge machen kann. Denn es gibt eine Frage, welche sich doch jeder Denkende stellen müßte, nämlich die: in welchem Verhältnisse steht der Gedanke, den sich der Mensch über einen Stein macht, zu diesem Steine selbst? Denjenigen Menschen, die besonders tiefe Blicke in die äußere Natur tun, tritt diese Frage in voller Klarheit vor das geistige Auge. Sie empfinden die Zusammenstimmung der menschlichen Gedankenwelt mit dem Bau und der Einrichtung der Natur. In schöner Art spricht sich zum Beispiel der große Astronom Kepler über diese Harmonie aus: «Wahr ist's, daß der göttliche Ruf, welcher die Menschen Astronomie lernen heißt, in der Welt selbst geschrieben steht, nicht zwar in Worten und Silben, aber der Sache nach, vermöge der Angemessenheit der menschlichen Begriffe und Sinne zu der Verkettung der himmlischen Körper und Zustände.» — Nur weil die Dinge der Sinnenwelt nichts anderes sind als die verdichteten Geistwesenheiten, kann der Mensch, der sich durch seine Gedanken zu diesen Geistwesenheiten erhebt, in seinem Denken die Dinge verstehen. Es stammen die Sinnendinge aus der Geisterwelt, sie sind nur eine andere Form der Geisteswesenheiten; und wenn sich der Mensch Gedanken über die Dinge macht, so ist sein Inneres nur von der sinnlichen Form ab- und zu den geistigen Urbildern dieser Dinge hingerichtet. Ein Ding durch Gedanken verstehen ist ein Vorgang, der verglichen werden kann mit dem, durch welchen ein fester Körper zuerst im Feuer flüssig gemacht wird, damit ihn der Chemiker dann in seiner flüssigen Form untersuchen kann.
[ 3 ] In den verschiedenen Regionen des Geisterlandes zeigen sich(s.o.) die geistigen Urbilder der sinnlichen Welt. In der fünften, sechsten und siebenten Region finden sich diese Urbilder noch als lebendige Keimpunkte, in den vier unteren Regionen gestalten sie sich zu geistigen Gebilden. Diese geistigen Gebilde nimmt in einem schattenhaften Abglanz der Menschengeist wahr, wenn er durch sein Denken sich das Verständnis der sinnlichen Dinge verschaffen will. Wie diese Gebilde sich zur sinnlichen Welt verdichtet haben, das ist für denjenigen eine Frage, der ein geistiges Verständnis seiner Umwelt anstrebt. — Zunächst gliedert sich für die menschliche Sinnesanschauung diese Umwelt in die vier deutlich voneinander geschiedenen Stufen: die mineralische, die pflanzliche, die tierische und die menschliche. Das Mineralreich wird durch die Sinne wahrgenommen und durch das Denken begriffen. Macht man sich über einen mineralischen Körper einen Gedanken, so hat man es somit mit einem Zweifachen zu tun: mit dem Sinnendinge und mit dem Gedanken. Demgemäß hat man sich vorzustellen, daß dieses Sinnending ein verdichtetes Gedankenwesen ist. Nun wirkt ein mineralisches Wesen auf ein anderes in äußerlicher Weise. Es stößt an dasselbe und bewegt es; es erwärmt es, beleuchtet es, löst es aüf und so weiter. Diese äußerliche Wirkungsart ist durch Gedanken auszudrücken. Der Mensch macht sich Gedanken darüber, wie die mineralischen Dinge äußerlich gesetzmäßig aufeinander wirken. Dadurch erweitern sich seine einzelnen Gedanken zu einem Gedankenbilde der gesamten mineralischen Welt. Und dieses Gedankenbild ist ein Abglanz des Urbildes der ganzen mineralischen Sinnenwelt. Es ist als ein Ganzes in der geistigen Welt zu finden. — Im Pflanzenreiche treten zu der äußeren Wirkung eines Dinges auf das andere noch die Erscheinungen des Wachstums und der Fortpflanzung hinzu. Die Pflanze vegrößert sich und bringt aus sich Wesen ihresgleichen hervor. Zu dem, was dem Menschen im Mineralreiche entgegentritt, kommt hier noch das Leben. Die einfache Besinnung auf diese Tatsache gibt einen Ausblick, der hier lichtbringend ist. Die Pflanze hat in sich die Kraft, sich selbst ihre lebendige Gestalt zu geben und diese Gestalt an einem Wesen ihresgleichen hervorzubringen. Und zwischen der gestaltlosen Art der mineralischen Stoffe, wie sie uns in den Gasen, in den Flüssigkeiten und so weiter gegenübertreten, und der lebendigen Gestalt der Pflanzenwelt stehen die Formen der Kristalle mitten drinnen. In den Kristallen haben wir den Übergang von der gestaltlosen Mineralwelt zu der lebendigen Gestaltungsfähigkeit des Pflanzenreiches zu suchen. — In diesem äußerlich sinnlichen Vorgang der Gestaltung — in den beiden Reichen, dem mineralischen und dem pflanzlichen — hat man die sinnliche Verdichtung des rein geistigen Vorganges zu sehen, der sich abspielt, wenn die geistigen Keime der drei oberen Regionen des Geisterlandes sich zu den Geistgestalten der unteren Regionen bilden. Dem Prozeß der Kristallisation entspricht in der geistigen Welt als sein Urbild der Übergang von dem formlosen Geistkeim zu dem gestalteten Gebilde. Verdichtet sich dieser Übergang so, daß ihn die Sinne in seinem Ergebnis wahrnehmen können, so stellt er sich in der Sinnenwelt als mineralischer Kristallisationsprozeß dar. — Nun ist aber auch in dem Pflanzenleben ein gestalteter Geistkeim vorhanden. Aber hier ist dem gestalteten Wesen noch die lebendige Gestaltungsfähigkeit erhalten geblieben. In dem Kristall hat der Geistkeim bei seiner Gestaltung die Bildungsfähigkeit verloren. Er hat sich in der zustande gebrachten Gestalt ausgelebt. Die Pflanze hat Gestalt und dazu auch noch Gestaltungsfähigkeit. Die Eigenschaft der Geistkeime in den oberen Regionen des Geisterlandes ist dem Pflanzenleben bewahrt geblieben. Die Pflanze ist also Gestalt wie der Kristall, und dazu noch Gestaltungskraft. Außer der Form, welche die Urwesen in der Pflanzengestalt angenommen haben, arbeitet an dieser noch eine andere Form, die das Gepräge der Geistwesen aus den oberen Regionen trägt. Sinnlich wahrnehmbar ist an der Pflanze aber nur, was sich in der fertigen Gestalt auslebt; die bildenden Wesenheiten, welche dieser Gestalt die Lebendigkeit geben, sind im Pflanzenreiche auf sinnlich-unwahrnehmbare Art vorhanden. Das sinnliche Auge sieht die kleine Lilie von heute und die größer gewordene nach einiger Zeit. Die Bildungskraft, welche die letztere aus der ersten herausarbeitet, sieht dieses Auge nicht. Diese bildende Kraftwesenheit ist der sinnlich-unsichtbar webende Teil in der Pflanzenwelt. Die Geistkeime sind um eine Stufe herabgestiegen, um im Gestaltenreich zu wirken. In der Geisteswissenschaft kann von Elementarreichen gesprochen werden. Bezeichnet man die Urformen, die noch keine Gestalt haben, als erstes Elementarreich, so sind die sinnlich unsichtbaren Kraftwesenheiten, die als die Werkmeister des Pflanzenwachstums wirken, Angehörige des zweiten Elementarreiches. — In der tierischen Welt kommt zu den Fähigkeiten des Wachstums und der Fortpflanzung noch Empfindung und Trieb hinzu. Das sind Äußerungen der seelischen Welt. Ein Wesen, das mit ihnen begabt ist, gehört dieser Welt an, empfängt von ihr Eindrücke und übt auf sie Wirkungen. Nun ist jede Empfindung, jeder Trieb, die in einem tierischen Wesen entstehen, aus dem Untergrunde der Tierseele hervorgeholt. Die Gestalt ist bleibender als die Empfindung oder der Trieb. Man kann sagen, so wie sich die sich verändernde Pflanzengestalt zur starren Kristallform verhält, so das Empfindungsleben zur bleibenderen lebendigen Gestalt. Die Pflanze geht in der gestaltbildenden Kraft gewissermaßen auf; sie gliedert immer neue Gestalten während ihres Lebens an. Erst setzt sie die Wurzel, dann die Blattgebilde, dann die Blüten und so weiter an. Das Tier schließt mit einer in sich vollendeten Gestalt ab und entwickelt innerhalb derselben das wechselvolle Empfindungs- und Triebleben. Und dieses Leben hat sein Dasein in der seelischen Welt. So wie nun die Pflanze das ist, was wächst und sich fortpflanzt, so ist das Tier dasjenige, was empfindet und seine Triebe entwickelt. Diese sind für das Tier das Formlose, das sich in immer neuen Formen entwickelt. Sie haben letzten Endes ihre urbildlichen Vorgänge in den höchsten Regionen des Geisterlandes. Aber sie betätigen sich in der seelischen Welt. So kommen in der Tierwelt zu den Kraftwesenheiten, die als sinnlich-unsichtbare das Wachstum und die Fortpflanzung lenken, andere hinzu, die noch eine Stufe tiefer gestiegen sind in die seelische Welt. Im tierischen Reich sind als die Werkmeister, welche die Empfindungen und Triebe bewirken, formlose Wesenheiten vorhanden, die sich in seelische Hüllen kleiden. Sie sind die eigentlichen Baumeister der tierischen Formen. Man kann das Gebiet, dem sie angehören, in der Geisteswissenschaft als das dritte Elementarreich bezeichnen. — Der Mensch ist außer mit den bei Pflanzen und Tieren genannten Fähigkeiten noch mit derjenigen ausgestattet, die Empfindungen zu Vorstellungen und Gedanken zu verarbeiten und seine Triebe denkend zu regeln. Der Gedanke, der in der Pflanze als Gestalt, im Tiere als seelische Kraft erscheint, tritt bei ihm als Gedanke selbst, in seiner eigenen Form, auf. Das Tier ist Seele; der Mensch ist Geist. Die Geistwesenheit ist noch um eine Stufe tiefer herabgestiegen. Beim Tiere ist sie seelenbildend. Beim Menschen ist sie in die sinnliche Stoffwelt selbst eingezogen. Der Geist ist innerhalb des menschlichen Sinnenleibes anwesend. Und weil er im sinnlichen Kleide erscheint, kann er nur als jener schattenhafte Abglanz erscheinen, welchen der Gedanke vom Geistwesen darstellt. Durch die Bedingungen des physischen Gehirnorganismus erscheint im Menschen der Geist. — Aber der Geist ist dafür auch des Menschen innerliche Wesenheit geworden. Der Gedanke ist die Form, welche die formlose Geistwesenheit im Menschen annimmt, wie sie in der Pflanze Gestalt, im Tiere Seele annimmt. Dadurch hat der Mensch kein ihn aufbauendes Elementarreich außer sich, insofern er denkendes Wesen ist. Sein Elementarreich arbeitet in seinem sinnlichen Leibe. Nur insofern der Mensch Gestalt und Empfindungswesen ist, arbeiten an ihm die Elementarwesen derselben Art, die an den Pflanzen und Tieren arbeiten. Der Gedankenorganismus aber wird im Menschen ganz vom Inneren seines physischen Leibes herausgearbeitet. Im Geistorganismus des Menschen, in seinem zum vollkommenen Gehirn ausgebildeten Nervensystem, hat man sinnlich-sichtbar vor sich, was an den Pflanzen und Tieren als unsinnliche Kraftwesenheit arbeitet. Dies macht, daß das Tier Selbstgefühl, der Mensch aber Selbstbewußtsein zeigt. Im Tiere fühlt sich der Geist als Seele; er erfaßt sich noch nicht als Geist. Im Menschen erkennt der Geist sich als Geist, wenn auch — durch die physischen Bedingungen — als schattenhaften Abglanz des Geistes, als Gedanke. — In diesem Sinne gliedert sich die dreifache Welt in der folgenden Art:
- Das Reich der urbildlichen formlosen Wesen (erstes Elementarreich);
- das Reich der gestaltenschaffenden Wesen (zweites Elementarreich);
- das Reich der seelischen Wesen (drittes Elementarreich);
- das Reich der geschaffenen Gestalten (Kristallgestalten);
- das Reich, das in Gestalten sinnlich wahrnehmbar wird, an dem aber die gestaltenschaffenden Wesen wirken (Pflanzenreich);
- das Reich, das in Gestalten sinnlich wahrnehmbar wird, an dem aber außerdem noch die gestaltenschaffenden und die sich seelisch auslebenden Wesenheiten wirken (Tierreich); und
- das Reich, in dem die Gestalten sinnlich wahrnehmbar sind, an dem aber noch die gestaltenschaffenden und seelisch sich auslebenden Wesenheiten wirken und in dem sich der Geist selbst in Form des Gedankens innerhalb der Sinnenwelt gestaltet (Menschenreich).
[ 4 ] Hieraus ergibt sich, wie die Grundbestandteile des im Leibe lebenden Menschen mit der geistigen Welt zusammenhängen. Den physischen Körper, den Ätherleib, den empfindenden Seelenleib und die Verstandesseele hat man als in der Sinnenwelt verdichtete Urbilder des Geisterlandes anzusehen. Der physische Körper kommt dadurch zustande, daß des Menschen Urbild bis zur sinnlichen Erscheinung verdichtet wird. Man kann deshalb auch diesen physischen Leib eine zur sinnlichen Anschaulichkeit verdichtete Wesenheit des ersten Elementarreiches nennen. Der Ätherleib entsteht dadurch, daß die auf diese Art entstandene Gestalt beweglich erhalten wird durch eine Wesenheit, die ihre Tätigkeit in das sinnliche Reich herein erstreckt, selbst aber nicht sinnlich anschaubar wird. Will man diese Wesenheit vollständig charakterisieren, so muß man sagen, sie hat zunächst ihren Ursprung in den höchsten Regionen des Geisterlandes und gestaltet sich dann in der zweiten Region zu einem Urbild des Lebens. Als solches Urbild des Lebens wirkt sie in der sinnlichen Welt. In ähnlicher Art hat die Wesenheit, welche den empfindenden Seelenleib aufbaut, ihren Ursprung in den höchsten Gebieten des Geisterlandes, gestaltet sich in der dritten Region desselben zum Urbilde der Seelenwelt und wirkt als solches in der sinnlichen Welt. Die Verstandesseele aber wird dadurch gebildet, daß des denkenden Menschen Urbild sich in der vierten Region des Geisterlandes zum Gedanken gestaltet und als solcher unmittelbar als denkende Menschenwesenheit in der Sinneswelt wirkt. — So steht der Mensch innerhalb der Sinneswelt; so arbeitet der Geist an seinem physischen Körper, an seinem Ätherleib und an seinem empfindenden Seelenleib. So kommt dieser Geist in der Verstandesseele zur Erscheinung. — An den drei unteren Gliedern des Menschen arbeiten also die Urbilder in Form von Wesenheiten mit, die ihm in einer gewissen Art äußerlich gegenüberstehen; in seiner Verstandesseele wird er selbst zum (bewußten) Arbeiter an sich. — Und die Wesenheiten, die an seinem physischen Körper arbeiten, sind dieselben, welche die mineralische Natur bilden. An seinem Ätherleib wirken Wesenheiten von der Art, die im Pflanzenreich, an seinem empfindenden Seelenleib solche, die im Tierreich auf sinnlich-unwahrnehmbare Art leben, die aber ihre Wirksamkeit in diese Reiche herein erstrecken.
[ 5 ] So wirken die verschiedenen Welten zusammen. Die Welt, in welcher der Mensch lebt, ist der Ausdruck dieses Zusammenwirkens.
[ 6 ] Hat man die sinnliche Welt in dieser Art begriffen, so eröffnet sich auch das Verständnis für Wesen anderer Art, als diejenigen sind, die in den genannten vier Reichen der Natur ihr Dasein haben. Ein Beispiel für solche Wesenheiten ist das, was man Volksgeist (Nationalgeist) nennt. Dieser kommt nicht in sinnlicher Art unmittelbar zur Erscheinung. Er lebt sich aus in den Empfindungen, Gefühlen, Neigungen und so weiter, die man als die einem Volke gemeinsamen beobachtet. Er ist eine Wesenheit, die sich nicht sinnlich verkörpert; sondern wie der Mensch seinen Leib sinnlich anschaulich gestaltet, so gestaltet sie den ihrigen aus dem Stoffe der Seelenwelt. Dieser Seelenleib des Volksgeistes ist wie eine Wolke, in welcher die Glieder eines Volkes leben, deren Wirkungen in den Seelen~ der betreffenden Menschen zum Vorschein kommen, die aber nicht aus diesen Seelen selbst stammt. Wer sich den Volksgeist nicht in dieser Art vorstellt, für den bleibt er ein schemenhaftes Gedankenbild ohne Wesen und Leben, eine leere Abstraktion. — Und ein Ähnliches wäre zu sagen in bezug auf das, was man Zeitgeist nennt. Ja, es wird dadurch der geistige Blick geweitet über eine Mannigfaltigkeit von anderen, von niederen und höheren Wesenheiten, die in der Umwelt des Menschen leben, ohne daß er sie sinnlich wahrnehmen kann. Diejenigen, welche geistiges Anschauungsvermögen haben, nehmen aber solche Wesen wahr und können sie beschreiben. Zu den niedrigeren Arten solcher Wesen gehört alles, was die Wahmehmer der geistigen Welt als Salamander, Sylphen, Undinen, Gnomen beschreiben. Es sollte nicht gesagt zu werden brauchen, daß solche Beschreibungen nicht als Abbilder der ihnen zugrunde liegenden Wirklichkeit gelten können. Wären sie dieses, so wäre die durch sie gemeinte Welt keine geistige, sondern eine grobsinnliche. Sie sind Veranschaulichungen einer geistigen Wirklichkeit, die sich eben nur auf diese Art, durch Gleichnisse, darstellen läßt. Wenn derjenige, der nur das sinnliche Anschauen gelten lassen will, solche Wesenheiten als Ausgeburten einer wüsten Phantasie und des Aberglaubens ansieht, so ist das durchaus begreiflich. Für sinnliche Augen können sie natürlich nie sichtbar werden, weil sie keinen sinnlichen Leib haben. Der Aberglaube liegt nicht darin, daß man solche Wesen als wirklich ansieht, sondern daß man glaubt, sie erscheinen auf sinnliche Art. – Wesen solcher Form wirken an dem Weltenbau mit, und man trifft mit ihnen zusammen, sobald man die höheren, den leiblichen Sinnen verschlossenen Weitgebiete betritt. Abergläubisch sind nicht diejenigen, welche in solchen Beschreibungen die Bilder geistiger Wirklichkeiten sehen, sondern diejenigen, welche an das sinnliche Dasein der Bilder glauben, aber auch diejenigen, welche den Geist ablehnen, weil sie das sinnliche Bild ablehnen zu müssen vermeinen. – Auch solche Wesen sind zu verzeichnen, die nicht bis in die Seelenwelt herabsteigen, sondern deren Hülle nur aus Gebilden des Geisterlandes gewoben ist. Der Mensch nimmt sie wahr, wird ihr Genosse, wenn er das geistige Auge und das geistige Ohr sich für sie eröffnet. — Durch eine solche Eröffnung wird dem Menschen vieles verständlich, was er ohne dieselbe nur verständnislos anstarren kann. Es wird hell um ihn herum; er sieht die Ursachen zu dem, was sich in der Sinnenwelt als Wirkungen abspielt. Er erfaßt dasjenige, was er ohne geistiges Auge entweder ganz ableugnet oder demgegenüber er sich mit dem Ausspruch begnügen muß: «Es gibt mehr Dinge im Himmel und auf Erden, als eure Schulweisheit sich träumen läßt.» Feiner — geistig empfindende Menschen werden unruhig, wenn sie eine andere Welt als die sinnliche um sich herum ahnen, dumpf gewahr werden und innerhalb ihrer tappen müssen wie der Blinde zwischen sichtbaren Gegenständen. Nur die klare Erkenntnis von diesen höheren Gebieten des Daseins, das verständnisvolle Eindringen in dasjenige, was in ihnen vorgeht, kann den Menschen wirklich festigen und ihn seiner wahren Bestimmung zuführen. Durch die Einsicht in das, was den Sinnen verborgen ist, erweitert der Mensch sein Wesen in der Art, daß er sein Leben vor dieser Erweiterung wie ein «Träumen über die Welt» empfindet.
5 The physical world and its connection with the world of souls and spirits
[ 1 ] The entities of the soul world and the spirit world cannot be the object of external sensory perception. The objects of this sensory perception are to be added to the two worlds described as a third. Even during his bodily existence, man lives simultaneously in the three worlds. He perceives the things of the sensory world and has an effect on them. The entities of the soul world affect him through their powers of sympathy and antipathy; and his own soul, through its inclinations and aversions, through its wishes and desires, causes waves in the soul world. The spiritual essence of things, however, is reflected in his world of thought; and he himself, as a thinking spiritual being, is a citizen of the spirit-land and comrade of all that lives in this region of the world. - From this it becomes clear that the sensual world is only a part of that which surrounds man. This part stands out from the general environment of man with a certain independence, because the senses can perceive it without taking into account the soul and spirit, which also belong to this world. Just as a piece of ice floating on water is the substance of the surrounding water, but stands out from it through certain properties, so the sensory things are the substance of the soul and spirit world surrounding them; and they stand out from these through certain properties that make them perceptible to the senses. They are - half figuratively speaking - condensed formations of spirit and soul; and the condensation has the effect that the senses can gain knowledge of them. Yes, just as ice is only a form in which water exists, so the sensory things are only a form in which the soul and spirit beings exist. Once one has understood this, one also understands that, like water in ice, the spirit world can pass over into the soul world and the latter into the sense world.
[ 2 ] From this point of view, it also follows why man can think about sensual things. For there is a question which every thinker ought to ask himself, namely: what is the relationship between the thought which man forms about a stone and this stone itself? For those people who take a particularly deep look at external nature, this question appears before the spiritual eye with complete clarity. They sense the harmony of the human world of thought with the structure and arrangement of nature. The great astronomer Kepler, for example, speaks about this harmony in a beautiful way: "It is true that the divine call, which calls men to learn astronomy, is written in the world itself, not in words and syllables, but in substance, by virtue of the adequacy of human concepts and senses to the concatenation of heavenly bodies and conditions." - Only because the things of the sense world are nothing other than the condensed spiritual entities can the human being, who elevates himself through his thoughts to these spiritual entities, understand the things in his thinking. The sensory things originate from the spirit world, they are only another form of the spirit entities; and when man thinks about things, his inner being is only directed away from the sensory form and towards the spiritual archetypes of these things. Understanding a thing through thought is a process that can be compared to that by which a solid body is first made liquid in fire so that the chemist can then examine it in its liquid form.
[ 3 ] The spiritual archetypes of the sensual world appear in the various regions of the spirit world (see above). In the fifth, sixth and seventh regions, these archetypes can still be found as living germinal points; in the four lower regions, they form themselves into spiritual entities. The human spirit perceives these spiritual formations in a shadowy reflection when it wants to gain an understanding of sensual things through its thinking. How these formations have condensed into the sensory world is a question for those who strive for a spiritual understanding of their environment. - First of all, for the human sensory perception, this environment is divided into four distinct levels: the mineral, the vegetable, the animal and the human. The mineral kingdom is perceived through the senses and understood through thought. If you think about a mineral body, you are dealing with two things: the sensory thing and the thought. Accordingly, one has to imagine that this sense thing is a condensed thought being. Now one mineral being acts on another in an external way. It touches it and moves it; it warms it, illuminates it, dissolves it, and so on. This external effect can be expressed through thought. Man thinks about how the mineral things act on each other externally according to law. In this way his individual thoughts expand into a mental image of the entire mineral world. And this mental image is a reflection of the archetype of the entire mineral world of the senses. It can be found as a whole in the spiritual world. - In the plant kingdom, the phenomena of growth and reproduction are added to the external effect of one thing on another. The plant enlarges and brings forth from itself beings of its own kind. In addition to what man encounters in the mineral kingdom, there is also life. The simple reflection on this fact provides a perspective that brings light. The plant has within itself the power to give itself a living form and to produce this form in a being of its own kind. And between the formless nature of mineral substances, as we encounter them in gases, liquids and so on, and the living form of the plant world, the forms of crystals stand in the middle. In the crystals we have to look for the transition from the formless mineral world to the living formative capacity of the plant kingdom. - In this outwardly sensual process of formation - in the two realms, the mineral and the vegetable - we have to see the sensual condensation of the purely spiritual process that takes place when the spiritual germs of the three upper regions of the spirit land form themselves into the spiritual forms of the lower regions. The process of crystallization corresponds in the spiritual world as its archetype to the transition from the formless spirit germ to the formed entity. If this transition is so condensed that the senses can perceive it in its result, it presents itself in the world of the senses as a mineral process of crystallization. - But a formed spirit-germ is also present in plant life. But here the formed being still retains the living ability to form. In the crystal, the spirit germ has lost its ability to form during its formation. It has lived itself out in the form it has created. The plant has form and also the ability to form. The characteristic of the spirit germs in the upper regions of the spirit land has been preserved in plant life. The plant is therefore a form like the crystal, and also has the power to form. Apart from the form which the primordial beings have assumed in the plant form, there is another form at work in it which bears the imprint of the spirit beings from the upper regions. However, only that which lives itself out in the finished form is perceptible to the senses in the plant; the formative beings that give this form its vitality are present in the plant kingdom in a way that is imperceptible to the senses. The sensual eye sees the small lily of today and the larger one after some time. This eye does not see the formative power that works the latter out of the former. This formative power entity is the sensually invisible weaving part of the plant world. The spirit germs have descended a step in order to work in the realm of forms. In spiritual science we can speak of elemental kingdoms. If the primordial forms, which do not yet have a form, are described as the first elemental kingdom, then the sensually invisible beings of power, which act as the masters of plant growth, are members of the second elemental kingdom. - In the animal world, sentience and instinct are added to the abilities of growth and reproduction. These are manifestations of the spiritual world. A being endowed with them belongs to this world, receives impressions from it and exerts effects on it. Now every sensation, every instinct that arises in an animal being is drawn out of the subsoil of the animal soul. The form is more permanent than the sensation or the instinct. One can say that just as the changing plant form relates to the rigid crystal form, so the life of sensation relates to the more permanent living form. To a certain extent, the plant is absorbed in the form-forming power; it constantly adds new forms during its life. First it creates the root, then the leaf formations, then the flowers and so on. The animal concludes with a form that is complete in itself and develops within it the changing life of sensation and instinct. And this life has its existence in the spiritual world. Just as the plant is that which grows and reproduces, so the animal is that which feels and develops its instincts. For the animal, these are the formless that develops in ever new forms. Ultimately, they have their archetypal processes in the highest regions of the spirit land. But they are active in the spiritual world. Thus, in the animal world, in addition to the beings of power that direct growth and reproduction as sensual-invisible beings, there are others that have risen one step lower into the spiritual world. In the animal kingdom there are formless beings who clothe themselves in soul shells as the master craftsmen who bring about the sensations and instincts. They are the actual master builders of animal forms. In spiritual science, the area to which they belong can be described as the third elementary kingdom. - In addition to the abilities mentioned for plants and animals, man is also endowed with the ability to process his sensations into ideas and thoughts and to regulate his instincts by thinking. Thought, which appears in the plant as form and in the animal as mental power, appears in him as thought itself, in its own form. The animal is soul; man is spirit. The spirit entity has descended one step further. In the animal it is soul-forming. In man it has entered the sensual world of matter itself. The spirit is present within the human sensory body. And because it appears in sensual dress, it can only appear as that shadowy reflection which thought represents of the spirit being. The spirit appears in man through the conditions of the physical brain organism. - But the spirit has also become man's inner being. Thought is the form which the formless spirit entity assumes in man, as it assumes form in the plant and soul in the animal. Thus man has no elemental realm outside himself to build him up, insofar as he is a thinking being. His elemental kingdom works in his sensual body. Only in so far as man is a form and sentient being do the elemental beings of the same kind work on him that work on plants and animals. The thought organism in man, however, is worked out entirely from within his physical body. In man's spiritual organism, in his nervous system, which has been developed into a perfect brain, we have before us in a sensuous-visible way what works on the plants and animals as non-sensuous beings of power. This is the reason why the animal shows self-consciousness, whereas the human being shows self-consciousness. In the animal the spirit feels itself as soul; it does not yet realize itself as spirit. In man the spirit recognizes itself as spirit, even if - through the physical conditions - as a shadowy reflection of the spirit, as thought. - In this sense, the threefold world is structured in the following way:
- The realm of archetypal formless beings (first elemental realm);
- the realm of form-creating beings (second elemental realm);
- the realm of spiritual beings (third elemental realm);
- the realm of created forms (crystal forms);
- the realm that becomes sensually perceptible in forms, but in which the form-creating beings are active (plant realm);
- the realm that becomes sensually perceptible in forms, but in which the form-creating and the soul-expressing beings are also active (animal realm); and
- the realm in which the forms are sensually perceptible, but in which the form-creating and soul-expressing entities are still at work and in which the spirit itself is formed in the form of thought within the world of the senses (human realm)
[ 4 ] This shows how the basic components of the human being living in the body are connected with the spiritual world. The physical body, the etheric body, the sentient soul body and the intellectual soul are to be regarded as archetypes of the spirit world condensed in the world of the senses. The physical body comes into being through the human archetype being condensed into a sensual appearance. This physical body can therefore also be called an entity of the first elemental realm condensed into sensual vividness. The etheric body arises from the fact that the form created in this way is kept mobile by an entity that extends its activity into the sensory realm, but does not itself become sensually perceptible. If one wishes to characterize this entity completely, one must say that it first has its origin in the highest regions of the spirit land and then forms itself in the second region into an archetype of life. As such an archetype of life it works in the sensual world. In a similar way, the entity that builds up the sentient soul body has its origin in the highest regions of the spirit land, forms itself in the third region of the same into the archetype of the soul world and works as such in the sensual world. The intellectual soul, however, is formed by the fact that the thinking human being's archetype forms itself into a thought in the fourth region of the spirit world and as such works directly as a thinking human being in the sense world. - Thus man stands within the sense world; thus the spirit works on his physical body, on his etheric body and on his sentient soul body. This is how the spirit manifests itself in the intellectual soul. - In the three lower limbs of the human being, therefore, the archetypes work together in the form of entities that are externally opposite him in a certain way; in his mind soul he himself becomes a (conscious) worker on himself. - And the entities that work on his physical body are the same as those that form his mineral nature. On his etheric body work entities of the kind that live in the plant kingdom, on his sentient soul body those that live in the animal kingdom in a sensually imperceptible way, but which extend their activity into these realms.
[ 5 ] This is how the different worlds interact. The world in which man lives is the expression of this interaction.
[ 6 ] Once the sensory world has been understood in this way, an understanding of beings of a different kind than those that exist in the four realms of nature mentioned above also opens up. An example of such beings is what is called the spirit of the people (national spirit). This does not manifest itself directly in a sensual way. It lives itself out in the sensations, feelings, inclinations and so on which are observed as common to a people. It is an entity that does not embody itself sensually; but just as man forms his body sensually and vividly, so it forms its own from the substance of the world of the soul. This soul body of the spirit of the people is like a cloud in which the members of a people live, whose effects appear in the souls of the people concerned, but which does not originate from these souls themselves. For those who do not imagine the spirit of the people in this way, it remains a shadowy mental image without essence and life, an empty abstraction. - And something similar could be said with regard to what is called Zeitgeist. Indeed, the spiritual view is thereby widened over a multiplicity of others, of lower and higher entities, which live in man's environment without his being able to perceive them sensually. Those who have spiritual perception, however, perceive such beings and can describe them. To the lower kinds of such beings belong all that the perceivers of the spiritual world describe as salamanders, sylphs, undines, gnomes. It should not need to be said that such descriptions cannot be regarded as images of the reality on which they are based. If they were, the world they refer to would not be a spiritual, but a gross sensual one. They are illustrations of a spiritual reality that can only be represented in this way, through parables. It is quite understandable if those who only want to accept the sensual view regard such entities as the spawn of a wild imagination and superstition. Of course, they can never become visible to the sensual eye because they have no sensual body. Superstition does not lie in regarding such beings as real, but in believing that they appear in a sensuous way - beings of such a form participate in the construction of the world, and one meets them as soon as one enters the higher regions closed to the bodily senses. Superstitious are not those who see in such descriptions the images of spiritual realities, but those who believe in the sensual existence of the images, but also those who reject the spirit because they believe they must reject the sensual image. - There are also those beings who do not descend into the world of the soul, but whose shell is only woven from images of the spirit world. Man perceives them, becomes their comrade, when he opens his spiritual eye and ear to them. - Through such an opening many things become comprehensible to man, which without it he can only stare at uncomprehendingly. It becomes light around him; he sees the causes of what takes place in the sense world as effects. He grasps that which, without a spiritual eye, he either completely denies or to which he must be content with the statement: "There are more things in heaven and on earth than your scholastic wisdom can dream of." People of finer spiritual perception become restless when they sense a world other than the sensual one around them, become dimly aware of it and have to grope within it like a blind man between visible objects. Only the clear realization of these higher realms of existence, the understanding penetration into what is going on in them, can really strengthen man and lead him to his true destiny. Through the insight into that which is hidden from the senses, man expands his being in such a way that he experiences his life before this expansion as a "dreaming about the world".