The Rudolf Steiner Archive

What is the Earth in Reality in the Macrocosm?

(Goetheanum, January 1925)

[ 1 ] The development of the cosmos and of humanity has been examined in these considerations from the most diverse points of view. It has been shown how man derives the forces of his being from the extraterrestrial cosmos, apart from those which give him his self-consciousness. These come to him from the earth.

[ 2 ] This explains the significance of the earthly for man. The question must follow: What significance does the earthly have for the macrocosm?

[ 3 ] In order to come closer to the answer to this question, we must take a look at what has already been presented here.

[ 4 ] The macrocosm is found by the observing consciousness in ever greater vitality the further the gaze penetrates back into the past. It lives in the distant past in such a way that any calculation of its life revelations ceases there. Man is separated from this vitality. The macrocosm enters more and more into the sphere of the calculable.

[ 5 ] Thus, however, it gradually dies out. To the extent that the human being - the microcosm - emerges as an independent entity from the macrocosm, the latter dies out.

[ 6 ] In the cosmic present there is a macrocosm that has died. But it is not only the human being that came into being. The earth also emerged from the macrocosm.

[ 7 ] Man, who has the powers for his self-consciousness from the earth, is inwardly far too close to it to see through its essence. In the full development of self-consciousness in the age of the consciousness soul, one has become accustomed to turn one's gaze to the spatial greatness of the universe and to regard the earth as a speck of dust, insignificant compared to the physical-spatial universe.

[ 8 ] It will therefore seem strange at first if a spiritual contemplation reveals the true cosmic significance of this alleged "speck of dust".

[ 9 ] The other kingdoms, the plant and animal kingdoms, are embedded in the mineral foundation of the earth.

[ 10 ] In all of these live the forces that show themselves in their various manifestations during the course of the year. Look at the plant world. In fall and winter it shows physically dying forces. In this manifestation, the observing consciousness perceives the essence of those forces that have caused the macrocosm to die. In spring and summer, growing, sprouting forces appear in plant life. The observing consciousness perceives in this growth and sprouting not only that which gives rise to the plant blessing for the year, but a surplus, this surplus is one of germinating power. The plants contain more germinating power than they consume for leaf, flower and fruit growth. This surplus of germination power flows out into the extraterrestrial macrocosm in front of the observing consciousness.

[ 11 ] But in the same way, excess power also flows from the mineral kingdom into the extraterrestrial cosmos. This power has the task of bringing the forces coming from the plants to the right places in the macrocosm. Under the influence of the mineral forces, the plant forces become a newly formed image of a macrocosm.

[ 12 ] There are also forces emanating from the animal. These, however, do not work in the sense that they radiate from the earth like the mineral and vegetable forces, but in such a way that what is carried into the universe by the mineral forces holds itself together to form a sphere and thus the image of an all-round closed macrocosm arises.

[ 13 ] This is how the spirit-recognizing consciousness sees the essence of the earthly. This stands newly reviving within the dead macrocosm inside.

[ 14 ] Just as the whole large plant forms again from the plant germ, which is spatially so insignificantly small, when the old one first decays, so a new macrocosm is formed from the "grain of dust" earth when the old, dead one decays.

[ 15 ] This is a true contemplation of the earthly being, which sees a germinating world everywhere in it. One learns to understand the kingdoms of nature only through feeling this germinating in them.

[ 16 ] In the midst of this germinating life man accomplishes his earthly existence.- He participates in this germinating as well as in the dead life. From the dead life he has his powers of thought. As long as these powers of thought came from the still living macrocosm in the past, they were not the basis of the self-conscious human being. They lived as growth forces in the human being who did not yet have self-consciousness. The powers of thought must not have a life of their own for themselves if they are to form the basis for free human self-consciousness. Together with the dead macrocosm, they must be the dead shadows of the living of cosmic prehistory.

[ 17 ] On the other hand, man participates in the germinating of the earth. From him are his will-powers. They are life, but man with his self-consciousness does not participate in their essence. They radiate into the shadows of thought within the human being. They are flowed through by these shadows, and in the flowing through of the free thought unfolding in the germinating earth being, the full, free human self-consciousness lives itself into the human being in the age of the consciousness soul.

[ 18 ] The past casting shadows, the future containing germs of reality, meet in the human being. And the encounter is the human life of the present.

[ 19 ] The fact that this is the case becomes immediately clear to the observing consciousness when it enters the region of the spirit that directly adjoins the physical, and in which one also finds the activity of Michael.

[ 20 ] The life of everything earthly becomes transparent when one senses the germ of the world at its base. Every plant form, every stone, they appear to the human soul in a new light when it realizes how each of these beings contributes through its life, through its form, that the earth as a unity is the embryonic germ of a newly reviving macrocosm.

[ 21 ] Just try once to make the thought of these facts fully alive within yourself, and you will feel what it can mean within the human mind.

Goetheanum, January 1925.
Guiding Principles No. 153 to 155
(February 1, 1925)

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Further guiding principles issued by the Anthroposophical Society at the Goetheanum (with reference to the preceding consideration: What is the Earth in reality in the macrocosm?)

[ 22 ] 153. At the beginning of the age of the consciousness soul, one has become accustomed to direct one's gaze to the spatial-physical size of the universe, and above all to feel this. This is why the earth is called a speck of dust within this physically powerful universe.

[ 23 ] 154. This "speck of dust" reveals itself to the observing consciousness as the seedbed of a newly emerging macrocosm, while the old one proves to be dead. It had to die so that man could separate himself from it with full self-consciousness.

[ 24 ] 155. In the cosmic present, man participates with his liberating powers of thought in the dead macrocosm, and with his powers of will, which are hidden from him by their nature, in the newly reviving macrocosm that is germinating as an earth being.