Michaelmas and the Soul-Forces of Man
GA 223
27 September 1923, Vienna
Lecture I
When anthroposophy is discussed in certain circles today, one of the many misstatements made about it is that it is intellectualistic, that it appeals too predominantly to the scientific mind, and that it does not sufficiently consider the needs of the human Gemüt. For this reason I have chosen Anthroposophy and the Human Gemüt as the subject of this short cycle of lectures which, to my great satisfaction, I am able to deliver to you here in Vienna, my dear friends.
The human Gemüt has indeed been wholly excluded from the domain of cognition by the intellectualistic development of civilization in the last three or four centuries. It is true that today one never tires of insisting that man cannot stop short at what the dry, matter-of-fact intellect can comprehend. Nevertheless, when it is a case of acquiring knowledge people depend exclusively upon this intellect. On the other hand, it is constantly being emphasized that the human Gemüt ought to come into its own again—yet it is not given the chance to do so. It is denied the opportunity of making any contact whatever with cosmic enigmas, and its sphere of action is limited to the most intimate concerns of men, to matters that are decided only in the most personal way.
Today we shall discuss first in what I might call a sort of historical retrospect how, in earlier periods of human evolution, this Gemüt was granted a voice in the search for knowledge, when it was permitted to conjure up grandiose and mighty images before the human soul, intended to illuminate man's efforts of realizing his incorporation into the body of world events, into the cosmos, and his participation in the changing times. In those days when the human Gemüt was still allowed to contribute its share in the matter of world views, these images really constituted the most important element of them. They represented the vast, comprehensive cosmic connections and assigned man his position in them.
In order to create a basis for further study of the human Gemüt from the viewpoint of anthroposophy, I should like to present to you today one of those grandiose, majestic images that formerly were intended to function as I have indicated. It is at the same time one of those images especially fitted, at present, to be brought before men's souls in a new manner, with which we shall also deal. I should like to talk to you about that image with which you are all familiar, but whose significance for human consciousness has gradually partly faded, partly suffered through misconception: I refer to the image of the conflict, the battle, of Michael with the Dragon. Many people are still deeply affected by it, but its more profound content is either dim or misunderstood. At best it makes no such close contact with the human Gemüt as was once the case, even as late as the 18th Century. People of today have no conception of the changes that have taken place in this respect, of how great a proportion of what so-called clever people call fantastic visions constituted the most serious elements of the ancient world views. This has been preeminently the case with the image of Michael's combat with the Dragon.
Nowadays, when a man reflects upon his development on the earth, a materialist world view inclines him to trace his relatively more perfect human form back to less perfect ones, farther and farther back to physical-animal forbears. In this way one really moves away from present-day man who is able to experience his own being in an inner, psycho-spiritual way, and arrives at far more material creatures from whom man is supposed to have descended—creatures that stood much closer to material existence. People assume that matter has gradually developed upward to the point where it experiences spirit. That was not the view in comparatively recent times: it was really the exact opposite.
Even as late as the 18th Century, when those who had not been infected by the materialistic viewpoint and frame of mind—there were not yet many who were so infected—cast their inner gaze back to prehistoric mankind, they looked upon their ancestors not as beings less human than themselves but as beings more spiritual. They beheld beings in whom spirituality was so inherent that they did not assume physical bodies in the sense that people on earth do today. Incidentally, the earth did not even exist then. They beheld beings living in a higher, more spiritual way and having—to express it crudely—a body of much finer, more spiritual substance. To that sphere one did not assign beings like present-day men but more exalted ones—beings having at most an etheric body, not a physical one. Such, approximately, were our ancestors as people then conceived them.
People used to look back at a time when there were not so-called higher animals either, when at most there were animals whose descendants of the jelly-fish kind live in the oceans of today. On what was the ancestor of our earth, they represented, so to speak, the animal kingdom, the plane below that of man; and above the latter was the kingdom embracing only beings with at most an etheric body. What I enumerated in my Occult Science, an Outline, as beings of the higher hierarchies would still be today, though in a different form, what was then considered in a certain sense the ancestry of man.
These beings—Angeloi, Archangeloi, and Archai—in the stage of their evolution of that time, were not destined to be free beings in the sense in which today we speak of freedom in connection with man. The will of these beings was not experienced by them in such a way as to give them that singular feeling we express by the phrase: to desire something arbitrarily. These beings desired nothing arbitrarily; they willed what flowed into their being as divine will; they had completely identified their will with the divine will. The divine beings ranking above them and signifying, in their interrelationships, the divine guidance of the world—these beings willed, in a sense, through the lower spirits—archangels and angels; so that the latter willed absolutely according to the purpose and in the sense of superior, divine-spiritual will.
The world of ideas of this older mankind was as follows: In that ancient epoch the time had not yet arrived in which beings could develop who would be conscious of the feeling of freedom. The divine-spiritual world-order had postponed that moment to a later epoch, when a number of those spirits, identified with the divine will, were, in a sense, to receive a free will of their own. That was to occur when the right time had come in world evolution.—It is not my purpose to corroborate today from the anthroposophical viewpoint what I have been characterizing; that will be done in the next lectures. Today I am merely describing the conceptions occupying the most enlightened spirits even as late as the 18th Century. I shall present them historically, for only by this method shall we arrive at a new view of the problem of reviving these conceptions in a different form.
But then—as these people saw it—among these spirits, whose real cosmic destiny was to remain identified with the will of the divine spirits, there arose a number of beings that wanted to disassociate their will, as it were, to emancipate it, from the divine will. In superhuman pride, certain beings revolted because they desired freedom of will before the time had come for their freedom to mature; and the most important one of these beings, their leader, was conceived of as the being taking shape in the Dragon that Michael combats—Michael, who remained above in the realm of those spirits that wanted to continue molding their will to the divine-spiritual will above them.
By thus remaining steadfast within the divine-spiritual will, Michael received the impulse to deal adequately with the spirit that grasped at freedom prematurely, if I may put it that way; for the forms possessed by the beings of the hierarchy of the Angeloi, Archangeloi, and Archai were simply not adapted to a being destined to have a free will, emancipated from divine will, as described. Not until later in world evolution were such forms to come into being, namely, the human form.—But all this is conceived as happening in a period in which cosmic development of the human form was not yet possible; nor were the higher animal forms possible—only the low ones I mentioned.
Thus a form had to come into being that might be called cosmically contradictory, and the refractory spirit had to be poured into this mold, so to speak. It could not be an animal form like those destined to appear only later, nor could it be the form of an animal of that time, of the then prevalent softer matter, so to say. It could only be an animal form differing from any that would be possible in the physical world, yet resembling an animal by reason of representing a cosmic contradiction. And the only form that could be evolved out of what was possible at that time is the form of the Dragon. Naturally it was interpreted in various ways when painted or otherwise represented—more or less suitably, according to the inner imaginative cognition of the artist concerning what was possible at that time in a being that had developed a refractory will. But in any case this form is not to be found among those that became possible in the animal scale up to man in the physical world: it had to remain a super-sensible being. But as such it could not exist in the realm inhabited by the beings of the higher hierarchies—angels, archangels, and so forth: it had to be transferred, as it were, placed among the beings that could evolve in the course of physical development. And that is the story of “The Fall of the Dragon from Heaven to Earth.” It was Michael's deed, this bestowing of a form that is supra-animalistic: super-sensible, but intolerable in the super-sensible realm: for although it is super-sensible it is incompatible with the realm of the super-sensible where it existed before it rebelled.
Thus this form was transferred to the physical world, but as a superphysical, super-sensible form. It lived thereafter in the realm where the minerals, plants, and animals live: in what became the earth. But it did not live there in such a way that a human eye could perceive it as it does an ordinary animal. When the soul's eye is raised to those worlds for which provision was made, so to speak, in the plan of higher worlds, it beholds in its imaginations the beings of the higher hierarchies; when the human physical eye observes the physical world it sees simply what has come into being in the various kingdoms of nature, up to the form of the physical-sensible human being. But when the soul's eye is directed to what physical nature embraces, it beholds this inherently contradictory form of the Adversary, of him who is like an animal and yet not like an animal, who dwells in the visible world, yet is himself invisible: it beholds the form of the Dragon. And in the whole genesis of the Dragon men of old saw the act of Michael, who remained in the realm of spirit in the form suitable to that realm.
Now the earth came into being, and with it, man; and it was intended that man should become, in a sense, a twofold being. With one part of his being, with his psycho-spiritual part, he was to reach up into what is called the heavenly, the super-sensible world; and with the other, with the physical-etheric part, he was to belong to that nature which came into being as earth-nature, as a new cosmic body—the cosmic body to which the apostate spirit, the Adversary, was relegated. This is where man had to come into being. He was the being who, according to the primordial decree that underlies all, belongs in this world. Man belonged on the earth. The Dragon did not belong on the earth, but he had been transferred thither.
And now consider what man encountered on the earth, as he came into existence with the earth. He encountered what had developed as external nature out of previous nature kingdoms, tending toward and culminating in our present mineral, plant, and animal kingdoms, up to his own physical form. That is what he encountered—in other words, what we are accustomed to call extra-human nature. What was this? It was, and still is today, the perpetuation of what was intended by the highest creative powers in the continuous plan for the world's evolution. That is why the human being, in experiencing it in his Gemüt, can look out upon external nature, upon the minerals and all that is connected with the mineral world, upon the wondrous crystal formations—also upon the mountains, the clouds, and all the other forms—and he beholds this outer nature in its condition of death, as it were; of not being alive. But he sees all this that is not alive as something that an earlier divine world discarded—just as the human corpse, though in a different significance, is discarded by the living man at death.
Although the aspect of the human corpse as it appears to us is not primarily anything that can impress us positively, yet that which, in a certain sense, is also a divine corpse, though on a higher plane, and which originated in the mineral kingdom, may be regarded as the factor whose form and shape reflects the originally formless-living divinity. And what then comes into being as the higher kingdoms of nature can be regarded as a further reflection of what originally existed as the formless divine. So man can gaze upon the whole of nature and may feel that this extra-human nature is a mirror of the divine in the world. And after all, that is what nature is intended to give to the human Gemüt. Naïvely, and not through speculation, man must be able to feel joy and accord at the sight of this or that manifestation of nature, feel inner jubilation and enthusiasm when he experiences creative nature in its sprouting and blossoming. And his very unawareness of the cause of this elation, this enthusiasm, this overflowing joy in nature—that is what should evoke deep down in his heart the feeling that his Gemüt is so intimately related to this nature that he can say to himself—though in dim consciousness: all this the Gods have taken out of themselves and established in the world as their mirror—the same gods from whom my Gemüt derived, from whom I myself sprang by a different way.—And all our inner elation and joy in nature, all that rises in us as a feeling of release when we participate vividly in the freshness of nature, all this should be attuned to the feeling of relationship between our human Gemüt and what lives out there in nature as a mirror of Divinity.
As you know, man's position in his evolution is such that he takes nature into himself—takes it in through nourishment, through breathing, and—though in a spiritual way—through perceiving it with his senses. In these three ways external nature enters into man, and it is this that makes him a twofold being. Through his psycho-spiritual being he is related to the beings of the higher hierarchies, but a part of his being he must form out of what he finds in nature. That he takes into himself; and by being received in him as nourishment, as the stimulus of breathing, and even in the more delicate etheric process of perception, it extends in him the processes of outer nature. This appears in him as instinct, passion, animal lust—as everything animalistic that rises out of the depths of his nature. Let us note that carefully. Out there we see wondrously formed crystals, mineral masses that tower into gigantic mountains, fresh mineral forms that flow as water over the earth in the most manifold ways. On a higher plane of formative force we have before us the burgeoning substance and nature of plants, the endless variety of animal forms, and finally the human physical form itself.
All that, living in outer nature, is a mirror of the Godhead. It stands there in its marvelous naïve innocence before the human Gemüt, just because it mirrors the Godhead and is at bottom nothing but a pure reflection. Only, one must understand this reflection. Primarily it is not to be comprehended by the intellect, but only, as we shall hear in the next lectures, precisely by the Gemüt. But if man does understand it with his Gemüt—and in the olden times of which I spoke, men did—he sees it as a mirror of the Godhead.—but then he turns to what lives in nature—in the salts, in plants, and in the parts of animals that enter his own body; and he observes what it is that sprouts in the innocent green of the plants and what is even still present in a naïve way in the animal body. All this he now perceives when he looks into himself: he sees it arising in him as passions, as bestial lusts, animal instincts; and he perceives what nature becomes in him.
That was the feeling still cherished by many of the most enlightened men even in the 18th Century. They still felt vividly the difference between outer nature and what nature becomes after man has devoured, breathed, and perceived it. They felt intensely the difference between the naïve outer nature, perceptible to the senses, on the one hand, and human, inwardly surging sensuality, on the other. This difference was still livingly clear to many men who in the 18th Century, experienced nature and man and described them to their pupils, described how nature and man are involved in the conflict between Michael and the Dragon.
In considering that this radical contrast still occupied the souls of men in the 18th Century—outer nature in its essential innocence, nature within man in its corruption—we must now recall the Dragon that Michael relegated to this world of nature because he found him unworthy to remain in the world of spirituality. Out there in the world of minerals, plants, even of animals, that Dragon, whose form is incompatible with nature, assumed none of the forms of nature beings. He assumed that dragon form which today must seem fantastic to many of us—a form that must inevitably remain super-sensible. It cannot enter a mineral, a plant, or an animal, nor can it enter a physical human body. But it can enter that which outer, innocent nature becomes, in the form of guilt in the welling-up of life of instincts in the physical human body. Thus many people as late as the 18th Century said: And the Dragon, the Old Serpent, was cast out of heaven down to the earth, where he had no home; but then he erected his bulwark in the being of man, and now he is entrenched in human nature.
In this way that mighty image of Michael and the Dragon still constituted for those times an integral part of human cognition. An anthroposophy appropriate to that period would have to explain that by taking outer nature into himself through nourishment, breathing, and perception, man creates within himself a sphere of action for the Dragon. The Dragon lives in human nature; and this conception dwelt so definitely in the Gemüt of 18th Century men that one could easily imagine them as having stationed some clairvoyant being on another planet to draw a picture of the earth; and he would have shown everything existing in the minerals, plants and animals—in short, in the extra-human—as bearing no trace of the Dragon, but he would have drawn the Dragon as coiling through the animality in man, thereby representing an earth-being.
Thus the situation had changed for people of the 18th Century from that out of which it all had grown in pre-human times. For pre-humanity the conflict between Michael and the Dragon had to be located in outer objectivity, so to speak; but now the Dragon was outwardly nowhere to be found. Where was he? Where would one have to look for him? Anywhere wherever there were men on earth. That's where he was. If Michael wanted to carry on his mission, which in pre-human times lay in objective nature, when his task was to conquer the Dragon, the world-monster, externally, he must henceforth continue the struggle within human nature.—This occurred in the remote past and persisted into the 18th Century. But those who held this view knew that they had transferred to the inner man an event that had formerly been a cosmic one; and they said, in effect: Look back to olden times when you must imagine Michael to have cast the Dragon out of heaven down to earth—an event taking place in extra-human worlds. And behold the later time: man comes to earth, he takes into himself outer nature, transforms it, thus enabling the Dragon to take possession of it, and the conflict between Michael and the Dragon must henceforth be carried on on the earth.
Such thought trends were not as abstract as people of the present would like thoughts to be. Today people like to get along with thoughts as obvious as possible. They put it this way: Well, formerly an event like the conflict between Michael and the Dragon was simply thought of as external; but during the course of evolution mankind has turned inward, hence such an event is now perceived only inwardly.—Truly, those who are content to stop at such abstractions are not to be envied, and in any case they fail to envision the course of the world history of human thought. For it happened as I have just presented it; the outer cosmic conflict of Michael and the Dragon was transferred to the inner human being, because only in human nature could the Dragon now find his sphere of action.
But precisely this infused into the Michael problem the germinating of human freedom; for if the conflict had continued within man in the same way it had formerly occurred without, the human being would positively have become an automaton. By reason of being transferred to the inner being, the struggle became in a sense—expressed by an outer abstraction—a battle of the higher nature in man against the lower. But the only form it could assume for human consciousness was that of Michael in the super-sensible worlds, to which men were led to lift their gaze. And as a matter of fact, in the 18th Century there still existed numerous guides, instructions, all providing ways by which men could reach the sphere of Michael, so that with the help of his strength they might fight the Dragon dwelling in their own animal nature.
Such a man, able to see into the deeper spiritual life of the 18th Century would have to be represented pictorially somewhat as follows: outwardly the human form; in the lower, animalistic portion the Dragon writhing—even coiling about the heart; but then—behind the man, as it were, for we see the higher things with the back of our head—the outer cosmic figure of Michael, towering, radiant, retaining his cosmic nature but reflecting it in the higher human nature, so that the man's own etheric body reflects etherically the cosmic figure of Michael. Then there would be visible in this human head—but working down into the heart—the power of Michael, crushing the Dragon and causing his blood to flow down from the man's heart to the limbs.
That was the picture of the inner-human struggle of Michael with the dragon still harbored by many people of the 18th Century. It was also the picture which suggested at that time to many people that it was their duty to conquer the “lower” with the help of the “higher,” as they expressed it: that man needed the Michael power for his own life.
The intellect sees the Kant-Laplace theory; it sees the Kant-Laplace primal vapor—perhaps a spiral vapor. Out of this, planets evolve, leaving the sun in the middle. On one of the planets gradually arise the kingdoms of nature; man comes into being. And looking into the future, all this is seen to pass over again into the great graveyard of natural existence—The intellect cannot help imagining the matter in this way; and because more and more the intellect has become the only recognized autocrat of human cognition, the world view has gradually become what it is for mankind in general. But in all those earlier people of whom I have spoken today the eye of the Gemüt, as I might call it, was active. In his intellect a man can isolate himself from the world, for everyone has his own head and in that head his own thoughts. In his Gemüt he cannot do that, for the Gemüt is not dependent upon the head but upon the rhythmic organism of man. The air I have within me at the present moment, I did not have within me a moment ago: it was the general air, and in another moment it will again be the general air when I exhale it. It is only the head that isolates man, makes of him a hermit on the earth. Even in respect of the physical organization of his Gemüt, man is not isolated in this way: in that respect he belongs to the cosmos, is merely a figure in the cosmos.
But gradually the Gemüt lost its power of vision, and the head alone became seeing. The head alone, however, develops only intellectuality—it isolates man. When men still saw with their Gemüt they did not project abstract thoughts into the cosmos with the object of interpreting it, of explaining it: they still read grandiose images into it, {Translator's Note: “Saw” them into it, is Rudolf Steiner's expression} like that of Michael's Fight with the Dragon. Such a man saw what lived in his own nature and being, something that had evolved out of the world, out of the cosmos, as I described it today. He saw the inner Michael struggle come to life in the human being, in the anthropos, and take the place of the external Michael battle in the cosmos. He saw anthroposophy develop out of cosmosophy. And whenever we look back to an older world view from the abstract thoughts that affect us as cold and matter-of-fact, whose intellectuality makes us shiver, we are guided to images, one of the most grandiose of which is this of Michael at war with the Dragon; Michael, who first cast the Dragon to earth where, I might say, the Dragon could occupy his human fortress; Michael, who then became the fighter of the Dragon in man, as described.
In this picture that I have evoked for you, Michael stands cosmically behind man, while within man there is an etheric image of Michael that wages the real battle through which man can gradually become free; for it is not Michael himself who wages the battle, but human devotion and the resulting image of Michael. In the cosmic Michael there still lives that being to whom men can look up and who engaged in the original cosmic struggle with the Dragon. Truly, not upon earth alone do events take place—in fact, earth events remain incomprehensible for us unless we are able to see them as images of events in the super-sensible world and to find their causes there. In this sense a Michael deed was performed in the super-sensible realm shortly before our time, a deed I should like to characterize in the following way. In doing so I must speak in a manner that is nowadays discredited as anthropomorphic; but how could I relate it otherwise than by using human words to describe what occurs in the super-sensible world?
The epoch during which Michael cast the Dragon down to earth was thought of as lying far back in the pre-human times; but then, man appeared upon the earth and there occurred what I have described: the war between Michael and the Dragon became ever more an inner struggle. It was at the end of the 19th century that Michael could say: The image in man is now sufficiently condensed for him to be aware of it within himself: he can now feel in his Gemüt the Conqueror of the Dragon—at least, the image means something to him.—In the evolution of mankind the last third of the 19th Century stands for something extraordinarily important. In older times there was in man primarily only a tenuous image of Michael; but it condensed more and more, and in the last third of the 19th Century there appeared what follows: In earlier times the invisible, super-sensible Dragon was predominant, active in the passions and instincts, in the desires and in the animal lusts. For ordinary consciousness that Dragon remains subsensible; he dwells in man's animal nature. But there he lives in all that tends to drag man down, goading him into becoming gradually sub-human. The condition was such that Michael always intervened in human nature, in order that humanity should not fall too low.
But in the last third of the 19th Century the Michael image became so strong in man that the matter of directing his feelings upward and rising to the Michael image came to depend upon his good-will, so to speak; so that on the one hand, in unenlightened experience of the feelings, he may glimpse the image of the Dragon, and on the other hand, the radiant figure of Michael may stand before the soul's eye—radiant in spiritual vision, yet within the reach of ordinary consciousness. So the content of the human Gemüt can be this: The power of the Dragon is working within me, trying to drag me down. I do not see it—I feel it as something that would drag me down below myself. But in the spirit I see the luminous Angel whose cosmic task has always been the vanquishing of the Dragon. I concentrate my Gemüt upon this glowing figure, I let its light stream into my Gemüt, and thus my illumined and warmed Gemüt will bear within it the strength of Michael. And out of a free resolution I shall be able, through my alliance with Michael, to conquer the Dragon's might in my own lower nature.
If the requisite good-will were forthcoming in extensive circles to raise such a conception to a religious force and to inscribe it in every Gemüt we would not have all the vague and impotent ideas such as prevail in every quarter today—plans for reforms, and the like. Rather, we would have something that once again could seize hold on the whole inner man, because that is what can be inscribed in the living Gemüt—that living Gemüt which enters into a living relationship with the whole cosmos the moment it really comes to life.
Then those glowing Michael thoughts would be the first harbingers of our ability to penetrate once more into the super-sensible world. The striving for enlightenment would become inwardly and deeply religious. And thereby men would be prepared for the festivals of the year, the understanding of which only glimmers faintly across the ages—but at least it glimmers—and they would celebrate in full consciousness the festival the calendar sets at the end of September, at the beginning of autumn: the Michael Festival. This will regain its significance only when we are able to experience in our soul such a living vision. And when we are able to feel it in a living way and to make it into an instinctive social impulse of the present, then this Michael Festival—because the impulses spring directly from the spiritual world—could be regarded as the crowning impulse—even the initial impulse we need to find our way out of the present disaster: to add something real to all the talk about ideals, something not originating in human heads or hearts but in the cosmos.
And then, when the trees shed their leaves and blossoms ripen into fruit, when nature sends us her first frost and prepares to sink into her winter death, we would be able to feel the burgeoning of spirit, with which we should unite ourselves—just as we feel the Easter Festival with the sprouting, budding spring. Then, as citizens of the cosmos, we would be able to carry impulses into our lives which, not being abstract, would not remain ineffectual but would manifest their power immediately. Life will not have a soul content again until we can develop cosmic impulses in our Gemüt.
Erster Vortrag
Es wird, wenn von Anthroposophie heute in manchen Kreisen die Rede ist, neben manchem unzutreffenden Worte auch dieses gesagt, daß Anthroposophie intellektualistisch sei, daß sie zu stark an den wissenschaftlichen Verstand appelliere, und daß sie zu wenig Rücksicht nehme auf die Bedürfnisse des menschlichen Gemütes. Deshalb habe ich gerade für diesen kurzen Vortragszyklus, den ich zu meiner großen Befriedigung wieder in Wien hier vor Ihnen halten darf, das Thema gewählt: «Die Anthroposophie und das menschliche Gemüt.»
Das menschliche Gemüt ist gewiß von der Erkenntnis ausgeschlossen worden durch die intellektualistische Entwickelung der Zivilisation in den letzten drei bis vier Jahrhunderten. Man wird heute allerdings nicht müde, immer wieder und wieder zu betonen, daß der Mensch nicht stehenbleiben könne bei dem nüchternen, trockenen Verstande und seinen Einsichten, aber man baut doch, wenn es sich um Erkenntnisse handeln soll, ausschließlich auf diesen Verstand. Auf der andern Seite wird immer wieder und wieder hervorgehoben, das menschliche Gemüt müsse zu seinem Rechte kommen; allein man gibt ihm dieses Recht nicht. Man spricht ihm jede Möglichkeit ab, irgendwie eine Beziehung zu den Weltengeheimnissen draußen zu gewinnen; man schränkt sozusagen das menschliche Gemüt gerade in das ein, was nur die persönlichen Angelegenheiten des Menschen sind, in dasjenige, worüber nur die persönlichsten Angelegenheiten des Menschen entscheiden sollen.
Heute wollen wir nun zunächst, ich möchte sagen, wie in einer Art historischer Erinnerung davon sprechen, wie dieses menschliche Gemüt in älteren Zeiten der Menschheitsentwickelung auch erkenntnismäßig sprechen durfte, wie es große, gewaltige Bilder vor die Menschenseele hinzaubern durfte, die aufklärend auf den Menschen wirken sollten, wenn es sich darum handelte, daß der Mensch seine Eingliederung in den ganzen Weltengang finden könne, in den Kosmos, in die Zeitenfolge. Diese Bilder bildeten im Grunde genommen in jener Zeit, als das menschliche Gemüt noch weltanschauungsmäßig sprechen durfte, gerade das Wichtigste in diesen Weltanschauungen. Sie stellten die großen, umfassenden Weltenzusammenhänge dar und stellten den Menschen in diese großen, umfassenden Weltenzusammenhänge hinein.
Ich möchte, weil ich gerade dadurch eine Grundlage für die weitere Betrachtung des menschlichen Gemütes vom anthroposophischen Gesichtspunkte aus schaffen kann, heute eines jener grandiosen, majestätischen Bilder vor Ihre Seele führen, die so zu wirken bestimmt waren, wie ich es jetzt angedeutet habe; zugleich eines jener Bilder, welche vor allen Dingen dazu bestimmt sind, in einer neuen Art, von der wir noch sprechen wollen, auch in der Gegenwart wieder an den Menschen herangerückt zu werden. Ich möchte heute zu Ihnen sprechen von dem Bilde, das Sie alle kennen, dessen Bedeutung aber nach und nach im menschlichen Bewußtsein zum Teil verblaßt ist, zum Teil mißverständlich erfaßt ist: von dem Bilde des Kampfes, des Streites Michaels mit dem Drachen. Ergreifend wirkt es noch auf viele Menschen, aber der eigentliche tiefere Gehalt, wie gesagt, ist entweder verblaßt oder wird mißverstanden, mindestens wird er nicht so an das menschliche Gemüt herangebracht, wie er einst zu diesem menschlichen Gemüt gestanden hat, ja wie er selbst noch im 18. Jahrhundert im Gemüte vieler Menschen gestanden hat. Man macht sich heute gar keinen Begriff davon, wieviel sich in dieser Beziehung geändert hat, wieviel von dem, wovon der sogenannte gescheite Mensch sagt, es seien phantastische Bilder, als die ernstesten Bestandteile der alten Weltanschauungen genommen wurde. So war das insbesondere mit dem Bilde vom Streit des Michael mit dem Drachen.
Wenn heute der Mensch darüber nachdenkt, wie er sich selber auf der Erde entwickelt hat, dann kommt er — im Sinne seiner materialistischen Weltauffassung - dazu, die jetzige, in einem gewissen Sinne relativ vollkommenere Menschengestalt auf unvollkommenere Gestalten, auf physisch-tierische Vorfahren, immer weiter und weiter zurückzuführen. Man kommt dadurch eigentlich von dem jetzigen Menschen, der in der Lage ist, sein eigenes Wesen innerlich seelisch-geistig zu erleben, zu viel materielleren Geschöpfen, von denen der Mensch abstammen solle, die dem materiellen Dasein eben viel näher standen. Man nimmt an, daß sich die Materie allmählich immer mehr und mehr zu einem Erleben des Geistigen heraufentwickelt habe. So war die Anschauung einer verhältnismäßig noch kurz zurückliegenden Zeit nicht, sie war gegenüber dieser Anschauung eigentlich geradezu umgekehrt. Wenn noch im 18. Jahrhundert diejenigen Menschen, die damals - viele waren das ja auch noch nicht - nicht angefressen waren von materialistischer Anschauung, von materialistischer Gesinnung, mit dem Seelenblick zurückschauten in die Vorzeit der Menschheit, dann sahen sie nicht auf weniger menschliche Wesen als ihre Vorfahren hin, sondern sie sahen auf geistigere Wesen hin, als es der Mensch selber ist. Sie sahen auf Wesen hin, denen die Geistigkeit so eigen war, daß diese Wesen noch nicht einen physischen Leib annahmen in dem Sinne, wie es der Mensch heute auf der Erde - die übrigens auch noch nicht in diesen älteren Zeiten vorhanden war tut. Wenn sie auf die Menschheit zurückschauten, schauten sie hin auf Wesenheiten, die in einer höheren, geistigeren Art lebten, und die, wenn ich mich grob ausdrücken darf, einen Leib von viel dünnerer, mehr geistiger Substanz hatten. In diese Sphäre, von der die Menschen da sprachen, versetzte man noch nicht hinein Wesen von der Art des heutigen Menschen, sondern höherstehende Wesen mit höchstens einem ätherischen Leib, nicht mit einem physischen Leib, Wesen, die gewissermaßen die Menschenvorfahren sein sollten. Man schaute zurück in eine Zeit, in der auch noch nicht die sogenannten höheren Tiere da waren, in der höchstens diejenigen Tiere da waren, die man heute wie in ihren Nachkommen in den gallertartigen Tieren der Meere findet. Das war sozusagen auf dem Vorfahr der Erde als unter dem Menschen stehendes Tierreich vorhanden; darüber ein Reich, das, wie gesagt, nur Wesen hatte in höchstens einem ätherischen Leib. Das was wir heute aufzählen im Sinne meiner «Geheimwissenschaft im Umriß» als die Wesen der höheren Hierarchien, würde in anderer Form heute noch das sein, was dazumal in einer gewissen Beziehung als Vorfahrenschaft des Menschen gedacht worden ist.
Diese Wesenheiten - Angeloi, Archangeloi, Archai - in ihren damaligen Formen, sie waren vor allen Dingen noch nicht zur Freiheit bestimmt in dem Sinne, wie wir heute beim Menschen von Freiheit sprechen. Der Wille dieser Wesen wurde nicht so erlebt, daß sie selber jenes eigentümliche Gefühl gehabt hätten, das wir aussprechen mit den Worten: Wir wollen willkürlich etwas. — Diese Wesen wollten nicht willkürlich etwas, sie wollten das, was als der göttliche Wille in ihre Wesenheit einfloß. Diese Wesenheiten hatten ihren Willen vollständig in dem göttlichen Willen beschlossen. Die göttlichen Wesen, die über ihnen standen oder stehen und die in ihren Zusammenhängen die göttliche Weltenlenkung bedeuten, «wollten» gewissermaßen durch die niedrigeren Geister der Archangeloi und Angeloi, so daß diese niedrigeren Geister durchaus in der Richtung, im Sinne des über ihnen stehenden göttlich-geistigen Willens wollten. So war die Ideenwelt dieser älteren Menschheit, daß sie sich sagte: In jener alten Zeit war überhaupt der Zeitpunkt noch nicht gekommen, wo sich Wesen entwickeln konnten, die in ihrem Bewußtsein das Freiheitsgefühl haben sollten. - Im Sinne der göttlich-geistigen Weltenordnung war dieser Zeitpunkt auf eine spätere Epoche verlegt. Da sollte dann gewissermaßen ein Teil der im göttlichen Willen beschlossenen Geister zum eigenen, freien Willen kommen. Er sollte zum eigenen, freien Willen kommen, wenn in der Weltenentwickelung dazu die Zeit wäre.
Ich will mit alledem heute nicht etwas schildern, was ich vom anthroposophischen Gesichtspunkte aus irgendwie schon rechtfertigen wollte, darüber werden wir dann in den nächsten Tagen sprechen, sondern ich will die Vorstellungen schildern, die gerade bis ins 18. Jahrhundert herein bei erleuchtetsten Geistern gelebt haben. Ich will sie historisch schildern, denn nur dadurch, daß wir sie uns in ihrer historischen Gestalt vor die Seele rücken, werden wir auch zu einer neuen Anschauung darüber kommen, inwiefern diese Vorstellungen in einer andern Form wieder erneuert werden könnten.
Da aber - so sagten sich diese Menschen - erhob sich unter diesen Geistern, deren kosmisches Schicksal es eigentlich war, im Willen der göttlichen Geister beschlossen zu sein, eine Anzahl von solchen Wesenheiten, die ihren Willen gewissermaßen abschnüren wollten von dem göttlichen Willen, die ihren Willen emanzipieren wollten vom göttlichen Willen. Es erhoben sich in einem übermenschlichen Hochmut Wesenheiten, die, bevor die Zeit dazu da war, in der die Freiheit reifen sollte, zu dieser Freiheit ihres Willens kommen wollten. Und als den Bedeutendsten, den Anführer dieser Wesenheiten dachte man sich dasjenige Wesen, das dann Gestalt bekommen hat in demDrachen, den Michael bekämpft, jener Michael, der oben geblieben ist im Reiche derjenigen Geister, die ihren Willen auch weiterhin orientieren wollten im Sinne des göttlich-geistigen Willens, der über ihnen steht.
Aus diesem Stehenbleiben im göttlich-geistigen Willen entstand bei Michael der Impuls, das Richtige zu tun mit demjenigen Wesen, das vorzeitig, wenn ich so sagen darf, zur Freiheit gegriffen hat. Denn die Gestalten, welche die Wesenheiten der Hierarchie der Archangeloi, Angeloi, Archai hatten, waren einfach nicht angemessen einem Wesen, das in der angedeuteten Art einen freien, von dem Göttlichen emanzipierten Willen haben sollte. Dazu sollte im Laufe der Entwickelung der Welt die Gestalt erst später entstehen, nämlich die menschliche Gestalt. Aber das alles wird in eine Zeit versetzt, in der im Zusammenhange des Kosmos die menschliche Gestalt noch nicht möglich war; auch die höheren tierischen Gestalten waren noch nicht möglich, nur jene niederen tierischen Gestalten, die ich vorhin charakterisiert habe. Und so mußte sozusagen eine kosmisch widerspruchsvolle Gestalt entstehen. In die mußte gewissermaßen der widersetzliche Geist gegossen werden. Es konnte nicht eine Tiergestalt sein, die erst später entstehen durfte, es konnte auch nicht eine der Tiergestalten sein, wie sie dazumal waren in der gewöhnlichen, sozusagen weichen Materie. Es konnte nur eine Tiergestalt sein, welche von den in der physischen Welt möglichen Tiergestalten abwich, aber doch wiederum, weil sie einen kosmischen Widerspruch darstellen sollte, tierähnlich wurde. Und die Gestalt, die einzig und allein aus dem heraus, was damals möglich war, geschaffen werden konnte, diese Gestalt ist die Gestalt des Drachen. Natürlich wurde sie dann von dem einen so, von dem andern anders aufgefaßt, wenn sie gemalt oder sonstwie wiedergegeben werden sollte; sie wird mehr oder weniger treffend oder auch unzutreffend dargestellt werden, je nachdem derjenige, der sie darstellt, eine innere imaginative Einsicht hat in das, was dazumal möglich war für eine \Wesenheit, die einen widersetzlichen Willen entwickelt hat. Aber unter denjenigen Gestalten jedenfalls, die in der physischen Welt in der Tierreihe bis zum Menschen herauf möglich geworden sind, ist diese Gestalt nicht. Sie mußte eine übersinnliche bleiben. Aber eine solche übersinnliche Gestalt konnte nicht in jenem Reiche sein, in dem die Wesen der höheren Hierarchien, Archangeloi, Angeloi und so weiter sind, sie mußte sozusagen unter diejenigen Gestalten versetzt werden, die im Laufe der physischen Entwickelung entstehen konnten. Das ist der Sturz des Drachen vom Himmel auf die Erde. Das ist die Tat des Michael, daß gewissermaßen diese Gestalt in eine Form kam, die übertierisch ist, übersinnlich ist, die aber nicht im Reiche des Übersinnlichen verbleiben darf, denn trotzdem sie eine übersinnliche ist, widerspricht sie dem Reiche des Übersinnlichen, in dem sie vor ihrer Widersetzlichkeit war. Und so wurde diese Gestalt in die Welt versetzt, welche die physische Welt ist, aber als eine überphysische, übersinnliche. Sie lebte fortan in dem Reiche, in dem die Mineralien, Pflanzen, Tiere sind; sie lebte fortan in dem, was als Erde entstand. Aber sie lebte nicht so, daß Menschenaugen sie schen könnten, wie Menschenaugen die gewöhnlichen Tiere sehen können. Wenn das Seelenauge sich hinaufrichtet in die Welten, die sozusagen in dem höheren Weltenplane vorgesehen waren, so schaut es in seinen Imaginationen die Wesenheiten der höheren Hierarchien. Wenn das menschliche physische Auge sich richtet auf die physische Welt, so schaut es das, was in den verschiedenen Reichen der Natur bis herauf zur physisch-sinnlichen Menschengestalt entstanden ist. Wenn sich aber das Seelenauge auf das richtet, was in der physischen Natur ist, dann schaut es diese in sich widerspruchsvolle Gestalt des Widersachers, desjenigen, der tierisch und doch wieder nicht tierisch ist, der in der sichtbaren Welt lebt und wieder selbst nicht sichtbar ist: es schaut die Gestalt des Drachen. Und in dem ganzen Entstehen des Drachen schauten diese Menschen einer älteren Zeit die Tat des Michael, der im Reiche des Geistigen in jener Gestalt zurückgeblieben war, die dem Reiche des Geistigen angemessen ist.
Und nun entstand die Erde, mit der Erde der Mensch, und der Mensch sollte so entstehen, daß er gewissermaßen ein Doppelwesen wurde. Auf der einen Seite sollte er mit einem Teil seines Wesens, mit seinem seelisch-geistigen Teile hinaufragen in das, was man die himmlische, die übersinnliche Welt nennt; mit dem andern Teile seines Wesens, mit dem physisch-ätherischen Teile, sollte er angehören derjenigen Natur, die als die Erdennatur, als ein neuer Weltenkörper entstand, jener Weltenkörper, auf den der abtrünnige Geist, der Widersacher, versetzt wurde. Dort mußte der Mensch entstehen. Er war dasjenige Wesen, das in diese Welt gehört nach dem ursprünglichen Ratschluß, der dem Ganzen zugrunde liegt. Der Mensch gehörte auf die Erde. Der Drache gehörte nicht auf die Erde, war aber auf die Erde versetzt worden.
Und nun bedenken Sie, was der Mensch auf der Erde, als er im Laufe der Entwickelung mit der Erde erstand, nun antraf auf dieser Erde. Er traf das an, was als äußere Natur sich aus den früheren Naturreichen entwickelt hatte, was dann die Tendenz annahm, die dann gipfelte in dem jetzigen Mineralreich, in unserem Pflanzenreich, Tierreich bis herauf zu seiner eigenen physischen Menschengestalt. Das traf er an. Er traf, mit andern Worten, das an, was wir gewohnt sind, die außermenschliche Natur zu nennen. Was war diese außermenschliche Natur? Sie war die Fortsetzung und ist heute noch die Fortsetzung desjenigen, was von den höchsten schaffenden Mächten im fortlaufenden Entwickelungsplane der Welt gemeint war. Der Mensch darf daher, indem er dies in seinem Gemüte erlebt, in die äußere Natur hinausschauen, darf die Mineralien anschauen mit alledem, was mit der mineralischen Welt zusammenhängt, darf in die wunderbaren Kristallformen hinausschauen, darf aber auch auf die Berge, die Wolken und die andern Formen hinschauen, und er schaut dann diese äußere Natur gewissermaßen in ihrem Ertötetsein, in ihrem Unlebendigsein. Aber der Mensch schaut sie so an, wie das, was als Unlebendiges da ist, was eine ehemalige göttliche Welt selbst aus sich herausgesetzt hat, so wie der menschliche Leichnam - allerdings jetzt in einer andern Bedeutung — aus dem lebendigen Menschen im Tode herausgesetzt wird. Ist dieser Anblick des menschlichen Leichnams zunächst, so wie er dem Menschen entgegentritt, nicht irgend etwas, was auf den Menschen einen bejahenden Eindruck machen kann, so darf aber dasjenige, was in gewissem Sinne auch göttlicher Leichnam ist, aber Leichnam auf einer höheren Stufe und im Mineralreich erstanden ist, von dem Menschen als das angesehen werden, was in der Form, in der Gestalt das ursprünglich gestaltlos-lebendige Göttliche spiegelt. Und in dem, was dann als die höheren Naturreiche hervorgebracht wird, wird eine weitere Spiegelung desjenigen gesehen, was ursprünglich als gestaltlos Göttliches vorhanden war. So darf der Mensch hinausschauen in die ganze Natur und darf fühlen von der Natur, daß diese außermenschliche Natur ein Spiegel des Göttlichen in der Welt ist.
Das ist schließlich dasjenige auch, was die Natur dem menschlichen Gemüte geben soll. Naiv, nicht durch Spekulation, soll der Mensch in der Lage sein, beim Anblicke dieser oder jener Naturwesenhaftigkeit Freude, Sympathie, ja vielleicht inneres Jauchzen, inneren Enthusiasmus gegenüber den Gestaltungen, gegenüber dem Sprießen und Blühen in der Natur zu empfinden. Und dann soll in bezug auf das, was er sich nicht ganz klarmacht bei diesem Jauchzen, bei diesem Enthusiasmus, bei dieser überströmenden Freude über die Natur, in seinen Untergründen eigentlich die Empfindung leben, wie er in seinem ganzen Gemüte sich so innig verwandt fühlt mit dieser Natur, indem er sich sagen kann, wenn es ihm auch nur dumpf zum Bewußtsein kommt: Das haben die Götter aus sich heraus als ihren Spiegel in die Welt hineingestellt, dieselben Götter, denen mein eigenes Gemüt entstammt, dieselben Götter, van denen ich auf einem andern Wege komme. — Und eigentlich sollte alles innere Jauchzen über die Natur, alle Freude über die Natur, alles was als ein so befreiendes Gefühl in uns aufkommt, wenn wir die Frische in der Natur innerlich lebendig nacherleben, darauf gestimmt sein, daß das menschliche Gemüt sich verwandt fühlt mit dem, was in der Natur draußen als Spiegel der Gottheit lebt.
Aber der Mensch steht so in seiner Entwickelung drinnen, daß er die Natur in sich hereinnimmt, hereinnimmt durch das Ernähren, hereinnimmt durch das Atmen, hereinnimmt — wenn auch auf geistige Weise — dadurch, daß er die Natur mit seinen Sinnen anschaut, sie wahrnimmt. Auf dreifache Weise nimmt so der Mensch die äußere Natur in sich herein: indem er sich ernährt, indem er die Luft atmet, indem er wahrnimmt. Dadurch ist der Mensch ein Doppelwesen. Er ist mit seiner geistig-seelischen Wesenheit verwandt den Wesenheiten der höheren Hierarchien, und er muß einen Teil seines Wesens aus dem gestalten, was als Natur draußen vorhanden ist. Das nimmt er in sich herein. Und indem es aufgenommen wird als Nahrungsmittel, als Atmungsanregung, ja selbst in jener feinen ätherischen Weise, in der es lebt im Wahrnehmungsprozeß, setzt es im Menschen die Vorgänge, die man draußen in der Natur sieht, fort. Das lebt im Menschen auf als Instinkt, als Trieb, als tierische Lust, als alles das, was aus den Tiefen der Menschennatur als Animalisches im Menschen aufsteigt.
Betrachten wir das nur recht. Da haben wir draußen die wunderbar gestalteten Kristalle, die Mineralmassen, die sich zu den gigantischen Bergen auftürmen, die frischen Mineralmassen, die als Wasser über die Erde in der verschiedensten Weise sich ergießen; da haben wir die in einer höheren Gestaltungsfähigkeit vor uns sprießende pflanzliche Substanz und Wesenhaftigkeit, da haben wir die verschiedensten tierischen Gestalten, und da haben wir auch die menschlich-physische Gestalt selber. Das alles, was da draußen lebt, ist Spiegel der Gottheit, steht in wunderbarer naiver Unschuld vor dem menschlichen Gemüte, weil es die Gottheit spiegelt und im Grunde genommen nichts ist als das reine Spiegelbild. Man muß nur die Spiegelung verstehen. Verstehen kann sie der Mensch zunächst nicht mit seinem Intellekt; verstehen kann er sie, wie wir in den nächsten Vorträgen noch hören werden, gerade mit seinem Gemüt. Aber wenn er sie mit seinem Gemüte recht versteht — und er hat sie in den früheren Zeiten, von denen ich jetzt spreche, mit seinem Gemüte verstanden -, dann sieht er sie als den Spiegel der Gottheit. Aber jetzt betrachtet er, was draußen in der Natur lebt in den Salzen, was in den Pflanzen lebt und in den tierischen Bestandteilen, die dann in seinen eigenen Leib hineinkommen, und beobachtet, was im unschuldigen Grün der Pflanzen sprießt, und was selbst noch in naiver Weise im tierischen Leibe animalisch vorhanden ist. Das betrachtet der Mensch nun, sich innerlich anschauend, wie es in ihm als die Triebe aufwallt, als die tierischen, animalischen Lüste, als tierische Instinkte; er sieht, was die Natur in ihm wird.
Das war das Gefühl, das noch viele der erleuchtetsten Menschen im 18. Jahrhundert gehabt haben. Sie haben lebendig noch den Unterschied gefühlt zwischen der Natur draußen und der Natur, wie sie wird, wenn der Mensch sie verzehrt, veratmet, wahrnimmt. Sie haben so recht den Unterschied gefühlt zwischen der naiven äußeren, sinnenfälligen Natur und der menschlichen innerlich quellenden Sinnlichkeit. Was da als Unterschied lebte, das stand in einer wunderbar scharfen Lebendigkeit vor vielen Menschen noch, die im 18. Jahrhundert vor sich selber und ihren Schülern geschildert haben Natur und Mensch und das Eingespanntsein von Natur und Mensch in den Streit zwischen Michael und dem Drachen.
Indem wir nun diesen polarischen Gegensatz, Natur draußen in ihrer elementarischen Unschuld, Natur im Menschen in ihrer Schuld, vor dem Seelenauge des Menschen selbst noch des 18. Jahrhunderts sehen, müssen wir uns jetzt an den Drachen erinnern, den Michael in diese Welt der Natur hereingestellt hat, weil er ihn in der Welt der Geistigkeit zu belassen nicht würdig fand. Draußen in der Welt der Mineralien, in der Welt der Pflanzen, selbst in der Welt der Tiere, da hat jener Drache, der in seiner Gestalt der Natur widerspricht, keine der Formen angenommen, welche die Naturwesen angenommen haben. Er hat jene, für uns heute vielfach so phantastische Drachenform angenommen, die in der Übersinnlichkeit bleiben muß. Sie kann nicht hinein in ein Mineral, sie kann nicht hinein in eine Pflanze, sie kann nicht hinein in ein Tier, und sie kann auch nicht hinein in einen physischen Menschenkörper. Aber sie kann hinein in das, was im physischen Menschenkörper jetzt die äußere unschuldige Natur in Form der Schuld im aufwallenden Triebleben geworden ist. Und so sagten sich noch viele Menschen im 18. Jahrhundert: Und es ward der Drache, die alte Schlange, heruntergeworfen vom Himmel zur Erde. Da hatte sie aber zunächst keine Stätte. Dann aber errichtete sie ihr Bollwerk im Wesen des Menschen, und so ist sie nun in der menschlichen Natur verschanzt.
So lieferte jenes gewaltige Bild vom Michael und dem Drachen für jene Zeiten noch ein Stück Menschenerkenntnis. Wollte man noch für das 18. Jahrhundert die der damaligen Zeit entsprechende Anthroposophie hinstellen, dann müßte man davon sprechen, daß im Menschen, insofern er die äußere Natur durch Ernähren, Eratmen und Wahrnehmen in sich hereinnimmt, die Stätte für den Drachen geschaffen wird. Der Drache wohnt in der menschlichen Natur. Ich möchte sagen, so genau lebte das in den Gemütern der Menschen des 18. Jahrhunderts noch, daß man sich ganz gut vorstellen könnte, solche Menschen des 18. Jahrhunderts hätten vielleicht irgendein Seherwesen auf einen fremden Weltenkörper verpflanzt und es die Erde aufzeichnen lassen. Da würde dieses Seherwesen die Erde so gezeichnet haben, daß alles, was im Mineralischen, Pflanzlichen, Tierischen, kurz, im Außermenschlichen lebte, drachenfrei gezeichnet worden wäre, daß dagegen sich der Drache geschlungen hätte durch die animalische Wesenhaftigkeit des Menschen und damit ein Erdenwesen dargestellt hätte. Damit aber war die Situation für jene Menschen auch noch des 18. Jahrhunderts eine andere geworden gegenüber der Situation, aus der das Ganze in der vormenschlichen Zeit hervorgegangen ist. Für die vormenschliche Zeit mußte man den Drachenstreit des Michael sozusagen ins Objektiv-Äußerliche verlegen. Jetzt aber war der Drache nirgendwo äußerlich zu finden. Wo war denn der Drache, wo mußte man ihn suchen? Überall, wo Menschen auf der Erde sind! Da war er. Wollte also jetzt Michael seine Mission fortsetzen, die er in der vormenschlichen Zeit in der objektiven Natur gehabt hat, wo er den Drachen äußerlich als das Weltengetier zu besiegen hatte, so mußte er jetzt seinen Kampf im Inneren der Menschennatur verrichten. Es wurde der Streit Michaels - schon seit langen Zeiten, seit dem grauen Altertum, aber eben bis zum 18. Jahrhundert - in das Innere des Menschen verlegt. Doch diejenigen, die so sprachen, wußten, daß sie nun in das Innere des Menschen ein Ereignis verlegt hatten, das früher ein kosmisches Ereignis war. Und sie sagten etwa: Schauet hin in uralte Zeiten. Da muß man sich vorstellen, daß damals der Drache durch Michael vom Himmel auf die Erde verstoßen wurde, ein Ereignis, das sich in den außermenschlichen Welten abspielte. Und schauet hin auf die neuere Zeit. Da muß man sich denken, wie der Mensch auf die Erde kommt, wie er die äußere Natur in sich hereinnimmt, sie umgestaltet, so daß der Drache von ihr Besitz ergreifen kann. Und man muß den Drachenkampf des Michael von da an auf die Erde verlegen.
Solche Wendung des Gedankens war nicht von jener Abstraktheit, in der man heute oftmals so gerne spricht. Heute liebt man es, mit möglichst kurzmaschigen Gedanken auszukommen. Man sagt: Nun ja, früher haben die Menschen ein solches Ereignis wie den Streit Michaels mit dem Drachen eben nach außen verlegt. Im Verlaufe der Entwickelung ist die Menschheit innerlicher geworden, und jetzt wird daher ein solches Ereignis nur noch im Inneren geschaut. -— Man braucht diejenigen wahrhaftig nicht zu beneiden, die bei diesen Abstraktionen stehenbleiben können, aber den Gang der Weltgeschichte der menschlichen Gedanken treffen diese Leute ganz gewiß nicht. Denn so, wie ich es jetzt dargestellt habe, geschah es, daß der äußere kosmische Streit des Michael mit dem Drachen in die innere menschliche Wesenheit hineinversetzt wurde, weil der Drache nur noch in der Menschennatur seinen Platz finden konnte. Damit aber war gerade in das Michael-Problem hineingelegt das Aufkeimen der menschlichen Freiheit, denn der Mensch wäre rein zum Automaten geworden, wenn der Kampf in ihm sich ebenso fortgesetzt hätte, wie er früher draußen war. Indem der Kampf in das Innere des Menschen verlegt wurde, wurde er, gewissermaßen äußerlich abstrakt genommen, ein Kampf der höheren gegen die niedere Natur im Menschen. Aber er konnte für das menschliche Bewußtsein nur diejenige Form annehmen, welche die Menschen zum Aufschauen nach der Gestalt des Michael in den übersinnlichen Welten hinleitete. Und im Grunde genommen gab es noch im 18. Jahrhundert zahlreiche Anleitungen für die Menschen, die alle darauf hinausliefen, wie sie sich in die Sphäre des Michael begeben könnten, um mit Hilfe der Michael-Kraft in sich den in ihrem eigenen Animalischen wesenden Drachen zu bekämpfen.
Ein solcher Mensch, der hineingeschaut hätte in das tiefere Geistesleben noch des 18. Jahrhunderts, hätte etwa malerisch so dargestellt werden müssen: Äußerlich die menschliche Gestalt, im niederen animalischen Teile der Drache, sich windend und selbst das Herz umwindend. Dann aber, hinter dem Menschen gewissermaßen - weil der Mensch das Höhere mit dem Hinterhaupte sieht -, die äußere kosmische Gestalt des Michael, überragend, glanzvoll, sein kosmisches Wesen behaltend, aber spiegelnd dieses Wesen im Inneren der menschlichen höheren Natur, so daß der Mensch ein ätherisches Spiegelbild in seinem eigenen Ätherleibe bietet von der kosmischen Gestalt des Michael. Und dann wäre in diesem Menschenhaupt sichtbar geworden, aber hinunterwirkend zum Herzen, die Kraft des Michael, zermalmend den Drachen, so daß sein Blut herunterfließt vom Herzen in die Gliedmaßen des Menschen. Das war das Bild, das vom innermenschlichen Streit Michaels mit dem Drachen noch zahlreiche Menschen des 18. Jahrhunderts in sich herumtrugen. Das war zu gleicher Zeit das Bild, welches in der damaligen Zeit vielen Menschen nahelegte, wie der Mensch mit Hilfe des Oberen das Untere, wie man sich ausdrückte, zu besiegen hat, wie der Mensch die Michael-Kraft für sein eigenes Leben braucht.
Der Verstand sieht die Kant-Laplacesche Theorie, sieht den KantLaplaceschen Urnebel, vielleicht einen Spiralnebel; aus diesem gliedern sich die Planeten ab, lassen in der Mitte die Sonne erscheinen; auf einem der Planeten entstehen nach und nach die Naturreiche, entsteht der Mensch. Und wenn dann die Zukunft vorausgeschaut wird, dann geht das alles wiederum in den großen Kirchhof des Naturdaseins über. Der Verstand kann nicht anders, als die Sache so zu denken. Deshalb, weil diesem Verstande immer mehr und mehr die Alleinherrschaft in der menschlichen Erkenntnis zugestanden worden ist, wurde nach und nach die Weltanschauung dasjenige für die allgemeine Menschheit, was sie jetzt geworden ist. Aber bei allen diesen Leuten, auf die ich vorhin hingewiesen habe, wirkte, ich möchte sagen, das Auge des Gemütes. Im Verstande kann sich der Mensch isolieren von der Welt, denn es hat jeder seinen eigenen Kopf und im Kopfe seine eigenen Gedanken. Im Gemüte kann er das nicht, denn das Gemüt ist nicht an den Kopf, das Gemüt ist an Jen rhythmischen Organismus des Menschen gebunden. Die Luft, die ich jetzt in mir habe, habe ich vor kurzem noch nicht in mir gehabt, da war sie die allgemeine Luft, und sie wird, wenn ich sie wieder ausatme, wiederum die allgemeine Luft sein. Nur der Kopf isoliert den Menschen, nur der Kopf macht ihn zum Eremiten auf der Erde. Selbst in bezug auf die Organe ist der Mensch in dem, was die physische Organisation seines Gemütes ist, nicht in dieser Weise isoliert, da gehört er dem allgemeinen Kosmos an, ist nur ein Stück im Kosmos. Aber nach und nach ist das Gemüt unsehend geworden, der Kopf allein ist sehend geworden. Der Kopf allein aber entwickelt nur die Intellektualität, isoliert den Menschen. Ja, als der Mensch noch mit dem Gemüte sah, da sah er nicht abstrakte Gedanken in den Kosmos hinein zu dessen Deutung, zur Erklärung, sondern da sah er hinein noch grandiose Bilder wie das Bild des Kampfes Michaels mit dem Drachen. Da sah dieser Mensch, was in seiner eigenen Natur und Wesenheit lebte, etwas, was in der Art, wie ich es heute geschildert habe, aus der Welt, aus dem Kosmos sich herausgebildet hat. Da sah er wie lebendig werden den inneren Michael-Kampf im Menschen, im Anthropos, hervorgehend aus dem äußeren Michael-Kampf im Kosmos. Da sah er Anthroposophie aus Kosmosophie sich herausentwickeln.
Und so werden wir überall, indem wir zu einer älteren Weltanschauung zurückgehen, von abstrakten Gedanken, die uns kalt und nüchtern berühren, die uns frösteln machen ob ihrer Intellektualität, zu Bildern geführt, deren eines der grandiosesten dieses Bild Michaels im Streite mit dem Drachen ist, Michaels, der den Drachen erst auf die Erde gestoßen hat, wo dann der Drache, ich möchte sagen, seine Menschenfestung gewinnen konnte. Und dann wurde Michael der Bekämpfer des Drachen im Menschen in der geschilderten Art. In diesem Bilde, das ich vor Ihre Seele hingestellt habe, ist Michael kosmisch hinter dem Menschen. Im Menschen lebt ein ätherisches Abbild des Michael, das den eigentlichen Kampf im Menschen ausführt, wodurch der Mensch im Michael-Kampfe allmählich frei werden kann, weil nicht Michael den Kampf ausführt, sondern die menschliche Hingabe und das dadurch hervorgerufene Abbild des Michael. In dem kosmischen Michael bleibt immer noch jenes Wesen leben, zu dem der Mensch aufschauen kann, und das den ursprünglichen kosmischen Kampf mit dem Drachen eingeleitet hat.
Wahrhaftig, nicht bloß auf der Erde geschehen Ereignisse. Diese Ereignisse, die auf der Erde geschehen, sind im Grunde genommen für den Menschen unverständlich, wenn er sie nicht als die Bilder von Ereignissen ansehen kann, die in der übersinnlichen Welt geschehen, wenn er nicht die Ursachen dazu in der übersinnlichen Welt sehen kann. Und so geschah schon einmal im Reiche des Übersinnlichen, kurz vor unserer Zeit, eine Michael-Tat, jene Michael-Tat, die ich etwa in der folgenden Art charakterisieren möchte. Ich muß dabei in der Art reden, die man heute als anthropomorphisch verpönt, aber wie sollte ich sie denn anders erzählen, als daß ich Menschenworte gebrauche für dasjenige, was sich in der übersinnlichen Welt abspielt.
Jene Zeit wurde weit zurückliegend gedacht als die vormenschliche Zeit, in der Michael den Drachen auf die Erde herabwarf. Aber dann trat der Mensch auf der Erde auf, und da stellte sich das ein, was ich geschildert habe: immer mehr und mehr kommend der innere menschliche Kampf des Michael mit dem Drachen. Gerade gegen das Ende des 19. Jahrhunderts war es, daß Michael sagen konnte: Nun hat sich das Bild im Menschen so verdichtet, daß der Mensch es innerlich gewahr werden kann, daß er nun in seinem Gemüte erfühlen kann den Drachenbesieger, wenigstens im Bilde etwas erfühlen kann. In der Entwickelung der Menschheit bedeutet das letzte Drittel des 19. Jahrhunderts wahrhaftig etwas außerordentlich Wichtiges. In den älteren Zeiten war zunächst nur etwas wie ein dünnes Bild des Michael im Menschen; es verdichtete sich immer mehr und mehr. Im letzten Drittel des 19. Jahrhunderts war es folgendermaßen: In den früheren Zeiten war stark der unsichtbare übersinnliche Drache, der in den Trieben und Instinkten, in den Wünschen und in der animalischen Menschenlust wirkte; er bleibt für das gewöhnliche Bewußtsein untersinnlich, er lebt im Animalischen des Menschen. Aber da lebt er, lebt sich aus; da lebt er aufstachelnd den Menschen, allmählich ihn untermenschlich zu machen, da lebt er in alledem, was den Menschen herabziehen will. Es war so, daß Michael immer selber eingriff in die menschliche Natur, damit die Menschen nicht gar zu sehr herabkamen. Aber im letzten Drittel des 19. Jahrhunderts war es so, daß das Michael-Bild im Menschen so stark wurde, daß es nur sozusagen von dem guten Willen des Menschen abhing, um nach oben fühlend, bewußt sich zum Michael-Bilde zu erheben, damit ihm auf der einen Seite wie im unerleuchteten Gefühlserlebnis sich das Drachenbild darstelle, und dann auf der andern Seite, in geistiger Schau und doch schon für das gewöhnliche Bewußtsein, die Leuchtgestalt des Michael vor dem Seelenauge stehen kann. So kann dann vor dem Menschen der Gemütsinhalt stehen: Da wirkt in mir die Drachenkraft, die mich herunterziehen will; ich schaue sie nicht, ich fühle sie als das, was mich unter mich bringen will. Aber ich schaue im Geiste den leuchtenden Engel, dessen kosmische Aufgabe es immer war, den Drachen zu besiegen. Ich konzentriere mein Gemüt auf diese Leuchtgestalt, ich lasse ihr Licht in mein Gemüt hereinstrahlen. - Dann wird das so erleuchtete und erwärmte Gemüt die Michael-Kraft in sich tragen, und im freien Entschlusse wird der Mensch in der Lage sein, durch sein Bündnis mit Michael die Drachenkraft in seinem Untermenschen zu besiegen.
Würde der gute Wille in den weitesten Kreisen aufgebracht, eine solche Vorstellung zu einer religiösen Kraft zu erheben und in jedes Gemüt einzuschreiben, dann würden wir nicht matte Ideen haben in unserem Leben der Gegenwart, wie wir sie heute überall finden können, wie sie als Reformgedanken und dergleichen auftreten, sondern dann würden wir etwas haben, was wieder innerlich den ganzen Menschen erfassen kann, weil solches sich einschreiben kann in das lebendige Gemüt, in jenes lebendige Gemüt, das in dem Augenblick, wo es nur wirklich lebendig wird, auch in eine lebendige Beziehung zum ganzen Kosmos kommen wird. Und es würden dann jene Leuchtgedanken des Michael die ersten Ankündiger sein des Wiederhineindringens des Menschen in die übersinnliche Welt. Es würde das erkenntnismäßige Schauen sich religiös verinnerlichen, sich religiös vertiefen können. Der Mensch würde dadurch vorbereitet sein für die Feste des Jahres, deren Verständnis ihm aus alten Zeiten auch nur noch herabdämmert, aber wenigstens dämmert, um jenes Fest mit vollem Bewußtsein zu begehen, das im Kalender am Ende des September, im Beginne des Herbstes steht: das Michael-Fest.
Eine Bedeutung wird dieses Fest erst wieder haben, wenn wir in die Lage kommen, eine solche lebendige Schauung vor die Seele hinzustellen. Und indem wir in der Lage sind, es in lebendiger Weise zu empfinden und es zu dem instinktiven sozialen Impuls der Gegenwart zu machen, könnte dieses Michael-Fest, weil hier die Impulse unmittelbar aus dem Geistigen kommen, als die Krönung, ja als der eigentliche Anfang der Impulse angesehen werden, die wir brauchen, wenn wir aus dem heutigen Niedergange herauskommen wollen, wenn wir zu allem Reden über Ideale etwas hinzufügten, was nicht aus dem Menschenkopfe oder der Menschenbrust wäre, sondern was ein Ideal wäre, herausgesprochen aus dem Kosmos. Und indem dann die Bäume ihr Laub verlieren, die Blüten zu Früchten reifen, indem die Natur uns ihren ersten Frost schickt und sich anschickt, in den Wintertod zu gehen, könnten wir dann, so wie wir das Osterfest mit dem sprießenden, sprossenden Frühling fühlen, so das Aufgehen des Geistigen, mit dem sich der Mensch verbinden soll, fühlen. Und dann würden wir als Bürger des Kosmos Impulse hineinbringen können in das Leben, die, weil sie keine abstrakten Gedanken sind, nicht so unwirksam bleiben werden, wie sonst abstrakte Impulse unwirksam sind, sondern die ihre Wirksamkeit unmittelbar erweisen werden. Seeleninhalt wird das Leben erst wieder bekommen, wenn wir Impulse in unserem Gemüte aus dem Kosmos heraus entwickeln können. Davon will ich dann im nächsten Vortrag weiter sprechen.
First Lecture
When anthroposophy is spoken of in some circles today, it is said, along with many inaccurate words, that anthroposophy is intellectualistic, that it appeals too strongly to the scientific mind, and that it takes too little account of the needs of the human mind. That is why I have chosen the topic for this short lecture cycle, which I am very pleased to be able to give to you again here in Vienna: “Anthroposophy and the human mind.”
The human mind has certainly been excluded from knowledge through the intellectualistic development of civilization in the last three to four centuries. Today, however, one never tires of emphasizing again and again that man cannot stop at the sober, dry intellect and its insights, but when it comes to knowledge, one relies exclusively on this intellect. On the other hand, it is emphasized again and again that the human mind must be given its due; but it is not given this right. It is denied any possibility of somehow gaining a relationship to the mysteries of the world outside; the human mind is, so to speak, restricted precisely to that which is only the personal affairs of man, to that which only the most personal affairs of man are supposed to decide.
Today we want to speak first, I would like to say, as if in a kind of historical memory, of how this human mind was also allowed to speak cognitively in older times of human development, how it was allowed to conjure up great, powerful images before the human soul, which were to have an enlightening effect on man when it was a matter of man being able to find his integration into the whole course of the world, into the cosmos, into the sequence of time. In those days when the human mind was still allowed to speak in terms of world views, these images were basically the most important part of these world views. They represented the great, comprehensive world contexts and placed people in these great, comprehensive world contexts.
I would like, precisely because I can thereby create a basis for the further contemplation of the human mind from the anthroposophical point of view, to bring before your soul today one of those grandiose, majestic images which were destined to work in the way I have now indicated; at the same time one of those images which, above all, are destined to be brought closer to man again in the present in a new way, of which we still want to speak. I would like to speak to you today about the image that you all know, but whose meaning has gradually faded in the human consciousness and is sometimes misunderstood: the image of the battle, of Michael's fight with the dragon. It still has a moving effect on many people, but the actual deeper content, as I said, has either faded or is misunderstood, at least it is not brought to the human mind as it once was to this human mind, indeed as it was in the minds of many people even in the 18th century. Today we have no idea how much has changed in this respect, how much of what the so-called clever man says are fantastic images has been taken as the most serious components of the old world views. This was particularly the case with the image of Michael's battle with the dragon.
When man today thinks about how he himself has developed on earth, then he comes - in the sense of his materialistic world view - to trace back the present, in a certain sense relatively more perfect human form to more imperfect forms, to physical-animal ancestors, further and further. This actually takes us from the present human being, who is able to experience his own being inwardly in a soul-spiritual way, to much more material creatures from which the human being is supposed to have descended, who were much closer to material existence. It is assumed that matter gradually developed more and more into an experience of the spiritual. This was not the view of a relatively recent time, it was actually quite the opposite of this view. When those people in the 18th century who at that time - and many of them were not yet - were not yet infected by a materialistic view, by a materialistic attitude, looked back with the soul's gaze into the prehistory of mankind, then they did not look at less human beings than their ancestors, but they looked at more spiritual beings than man himself. They looked at beings to whom spirituality was so inherent that these beings did not yet take on a physical body in the sense that man does today on earth - which incidentally was not yet present in these older times either. When they looked back at mankind, they looked at beings who lived in a higher, more spiritual way and who, if I may express myself roughly, had a body of much thinner, more spiritual substance. Into this sphere, of which men spoke, they did not yet place beings of the kind of today's man, but higher beings with at most an etheric body, not a physical body, beings who were to be, as it were, the ancestors of man. We looked back to a time when the so-called higher animals were not yet there, when at most those animals were there that we find today, as in their descendants in the gelatinous animals of the seas. This was, so to speak, present on the ancestor of the earth as an animal kingdom standing below man; above it a kingdom which, as I said, only had beings in at most one etheric body. That which we enumerate today in the sense of my “Secret Science in Outline” as the beings of the higher hierarchies would still be today in a different form that which was then thought of in a certain respect as the ancestry of man.
These beings - Angeloi, Archangeloi, Archai - in their forms at that time, they were above all not yet destined to freedom in the sense in which we speak of freedom in man today. The will of these beings was not experienced in such a way that they themselves would have had that peculiar feeling which we express with the words: We want something arbitrarily. - These beings did not want something arbitrarily, they wanted what flowed into their beingness as the divine will. These beings had completely resolved their will in the divine will. The divine beings who stood or stand above them and who, in their contexts, signify the divine control of the world, “willed”, so to speak, through the lower spirits of the Archangeloi and Angeloi, so that these lower spirits willed in the direction, in the sense of the divine-spiritual will standing above them. Such was the world of ideas of this older humanity that it said to itself: In those ancient times the time had not yet come at all when beings could develop who were to have the feeling of freedom in their consciousness. - In the sense of the divine-spiritual world order, this point in time was postponed to a later epoch. Then, as it were, a part of the spirits decided in the divine will should come to their own free will. It was to come to its own free will when the time was right in the development of the world.
With all this, I do not want to describe today something that I somehow wanted to justify from the anthroposophical point of view, which we will talk about in the next few days, but I want to describe the ideas that lived among the most enlightened spirits right up to the 18th century. I want to describe them historically, because only by placing them before our souls in their historical form will we also arrive at a new view of the extent to which these ideas could be renewed in a different form.
But then - so these people said to themselves - among these spirits, whose cosmic destiny it actually was to be decided in the will of the divine spirits, a number of such beings arose who wanted to cut off their will from the divine will so to speak, who wanted to emancipate their will from the divine will. In a superhuman arrogance, beings arose who, before the time had come for freedom to mature, wanted to achieve this freedom of their will. And the most important, the leader of these beings was thought to be the being who then took shape in the dragon that Michael fought, the Michael who remained at the top in the realm of those spirits who wanted to continue to orientate their will in the sense of the divine-spiritual will that stands above them.
From this standing still in the divine-spiritual will the impulse arose with Michael to do the right thing with that being, which has prematurely, if I may say so, reached for freedom. For the forms which the beings of the Hierarchy of the Archangeloi, Angeloi, Archai had were simply not appropriate to a being which was to have a free will emancipated from the Divine in the manner indicated. In addition, in the course of the development of the world, the form was only to emerge later, namely the human form. But all this is placed in a time when the human form was not yet possible in the context of the cosmos; even the higher animal forms were not yet possible, only those lower animal forms which I have just characterized. And so a cosmically contradictory form had to emerge, so to speak. The contradictory spirit had to be poured into it, so to speak. It could not be an animal form, which could only arise later, nor could it be one of the animal forms as they were at that time in ordinary, so to speak soft matter. It could only be an animal form which differed from the animal forms possible in the physical world, but which nevertheless became animal-like because it was supposed to represent a cosmic contradiction. And the form that could only be created out of what was possible at that time was the form of the dragon. Of course, it was then understood in one way by one person and differently by another when it was to be painted or otherwise depicted; it will be depicted more or less accurately or even inaccurately, depending on whether the person depicting it has an inner imaginative insight into what was possible at that time for an \being that had developed an opposing will. But this form is not among the forms that have become possible in the physical world in the animal series up to man. It had to remain a supersensible one. But such a supersensible form could not be in that realm in which the beings of the higher hierarchies, Archangeloi, Angeloi and so on are, it had to be placed, so to speak, among those forms which could arise in the course of physical development. This is the fall of the dragon from heaven to earth. This is the deed of Michael, that this form came into a form that is supernatural, supersensible, but which may not remain in the realm of the supersensible, for although it is supersensible, it contradicts the realm of the supersensible in which it was before its opposition. And so this figure was transferred into the world, which is the physical world, but as a superphysical, supersensible one. Henceforth it lived in the realm in which the minerals, plants and animals are; henceforth it lived in that which came into being as earth. But it did not live in such a way that human eyes could see it, as human eyes can see ordinary animals. When the soul-eye raises itself into the worlds which were, so to speak, foreseen in the higher world-plan, it sees in its imaginations the entities of the higher hierarchies. When the human physical eye focuses on the physical world, it sees what has arisen in the various realms of nature up to the physical-sensual human form. But when the soul's eye focuses on what is in physical nature, then it sees the contradictory form of the adversary, the one who is animal and yet not animal, who lives in the visible world and yet is not visible himself: it sees the form of the dragon. And in the whole emergence of the dragon these people of an older time saw the deed of Michael, who had remained behind in the realm of the spiritual in that form which is appropriate to the realm of the spiritual.
And now the earth came into being, with the earth man, and man was to come into being in such a way that he became as it were a double being. On the one hand he was to ascend with one part of his being, with his soul-spiritual part, into that which is called the heavenly, the supersensible world; with the other part of his being, with the physical-etheric part, he was to belong to that nature which came into being as the earth nature, as a new world body, that world body to which the apostate spirit, the adversary, was transferred. Man had to come into being there. He was the being that belonged in this world according to the original decree on which the whole thing was based. Man belonged on earth. The dragon did not belong on earth, but had been placed on earth.
And now consider what man on earth, when he arose in the course of development with the earth, now encountered on this earth. He encountered that which had developed as outer nature from the earlier kingdoms of nature, which then took on the tendency that culminated in the present mineral kingdom, in our plant kingdom, animal kingdom up to his own physical human form. That is what he encountered. In other words, he encountered what we are accustomed to call extra-human nature. What was this extra-human nature? It was the continuation, and is still today the continuation, of that which was intended by the highest creative powers in the ongoing developmental plan of the world. Therefore, by experiencing this in his mind, man may look out into external nature, may look at the minerals with all that is connected with the mineral world, may look out into the wonderful crystal forms, but may also look at the mountains, the clouds and the other forms, and he then sees this external nature, as it were, in its deadness, in its lifelessness. But man looks at it as that which is there as inanimate, which a former divine world has put out of itself, just as the human corpse - though now in a different meaning - is put out of the living man in death. If this sight of the human corpse, as it confronts man, is at first not something that can make an affirmative impression on man, then that which in a certain sense is also a divine corpse, but a corpse on a higher level, and which has arisen in the mineral kingdom, may be regarded by man as that which in form, in shape, reflects the originally formless, living divine. And in that which is then brought forth as the higher kingdoms of nature, a further reflection of that which was originally present as the formless divine is seen. Thus man may look out into the whole of nature and may feel from nature that this extra-human nature is a mirror of the divine in the world.
After all, this is what nature is supposed to give to the human mind. Naively, not through speculation, man should be able to feel joy, sympathy, perhaps even inner exultation, inner enthusiasm towards the formations, towards the sprouting and blossoming in nature at the sight of this or that natural entity. And then, in relation to what he does not quite realize in this exultation, in this enthusiasm, in this overflowing joy over nature, there should actually live in his subconscious the sensation of how he feels so intimately related to this nature in his whole mind, in that he can say to himself, even if it only dimly comes to his consciousness: The gods have placed this out of themselves as their mirror into the world, the same gods from whom my own mind comes, the same gods from whom I come by another way. - And actually, all inner rejoicing over nature, all joy over nature, everything that arises in us as such a liberating feeling when we inwardly experience the freshness of nature, should be tuned to the fact that the human mind feels related to that which lives outside in nature as a mirror of the Godhead.
But man is so inside in his development that he takes nature into himself, takes it in through nourishment, takes it in through breathing, takes it in - even if in a spiritual way - by looking at nature with his senses, by perceiving it. Thus man takes in external nature in three ways: by nourishing himself, by breathing the air, by perceiving. This makes man a dual being. With his spiritual-soul being he is related to the beings of the higher hierarchies, and he must form a part of his being from that which is present outside as nature. He takes this into himself. And by taking it in as nourishment, as respiratory stimulation, indeed even in that subtle etheric way in which it lives in the process of perception, it continues in man the processes that are seen outside in nature. This comes to life in man as instinct, as drive, as animal lust, as everything that rises from the depths of human nature as animalistic in man.
Let us consider this correctly. Outside we have the wonderfully formed crystals, the mineral masses that pile up into gigantic mountains, the fresh mineral masses that pour out as water over the earth in the most diverse ways; there we have the plant substance and beingness that sprouts before us in a higher formative capacity, there we have the most diverse animal forms, and there we also have the human-physical form itself. Everything that lives out there is a mirror of the divinity, stands before the human mind in wonderful naive innocence, because it reflects the divinity and is basically nothing but the pure mirror image. One only has to understand the reflection. At first man cannot understand it with his intellect; he can understand it, as we shall hear in the next lectures, precisely with his mind. But if he understands it correctly with his mind - and he has understood it with his mind in the earlier times of which I am now speaking - then he sees it as the mirror of the Godhead. But now he observes what lives outside in nature in the salts, what lives in the plants and in the animal components that then enter his own body, and observes what sprouts in the innocent green of the plants, and what is still present in a naive animalistic way in the animal body. Man now observes this, looking inwardly at how it surges up in him as the instincts, as the animal, animalistic lusts, as animal instincts; he sees what nature becomes in him.
This was the feeling that many of the most enlightened people in the 18th century still had. They still vividly felt the difference between nature outside and nature as it becomes when man consumes it, inhales it, perceives it. They really felt the difference between the naive, external, sensual nature and the human, inwardly springing sensuality. What lived there as a difference still stood in a wonderfully sharp vividness before many people who in the 18th century described nature and man to themselves and their students and the entanglement of nature and man in the conflict between Michael and the dragon.
When we now see this polar opposition, nature outside in its elementary innocence, nature in man in its guilt, before the soul-eye of man himself still in the 18th century, we must now remember the dragon that Michael placed in this world of nature because he did not find it worthy to be left in the world of spirituality. Outside in the world of minerals, in the world of plants, even in the world of animals, that dragon, which in its form contradicts nature, has not taken on any of the forms that natural beings have assumed. It has assumed that dragon form, which is often so fantastic for us today, and which must remain in the supersensible. It cannot enter into a mineral, it cannot enter into a plant, it cannot enter into an animal, nor can it enter into a physical human body. But it can enter into what in the physical human body has now become the outer innocent nature in the form of guilt in the surging life of instinct. And so many people in the 18th century still said to themselves: And the dragon, the old serpent, was thrown down from heaven to earth. But there he had no place at first. But then it erected its stronghold in the being of man, and so it is now entrenched in human nature.
So that powerful image of Michael and the dragon still provided a piece of human knowledge for those times. If one still wanted to present the anthroposophy of the 18th century that corresponded to that time, then one would have to speak of the fact that in man, insofar as he takes external nature into himself through nourishing, breathing and perceiving, the place for the dragon is created. The dragon dwells in human nature. I would like to say that this still lived so precisely in the minds of the people of the 18th century that one could well imagine that such people of the 18th century might have transplanted some visionary being to a foreign world body and had it record the earth. This visionary being would have drawn the earth in such a way that everything that lived in the mineral, vegetable, animal, in short, in the extra-human, would have been drawn free of the dragon, while the dragon would have looped itself through the animal nature of man and thus represented an earthly being. Thus, however, the situation for those people, even in the 18th century, was different from the situation from which the whole emerged in pre-human times. In pre-human times, Michael's dragon fight had to be transferred, so to speak, to the objective-external. Now, however, the dragon was nowhere to be found externally. Where was the dragon, where did one have to look for him? Everywhere where there were people on earth! There it was. So if Michael now wanted to continue his mission, which he had had in pre-human times in the objective nature, where he had to defeat the dragon externally as the world beast, he now had to carry out his battle within the human nature. Michael's battle - for a long time, since ancient times, but until the 18th century - was transferred to the interior of man. But those who spoke in this way knew that they had now transferred into the inner being of man an event that was formerly a cosmic event. And they said something like: Look back to ancient times. Imagine that at that time the dragon was cast from heaven to earth by Michael, an event that took place in the extra-human worlds. And look at more recent times. There you have to imagine how man comes to earth, how he takes outer nature into himself, reshapes it so that the dragon can take possession of it. And from then on, Michael's dragon fight must be transferred to the earth.
Such a turn of thought was not of that abstractness in which one often likes to speak today. Today, people like to get by with the shortest possible thoughts. People say: "Well, in the past, people simply externalized such an event as Michael's fight with the dragon. In the course of development mankind has become more inward, and now such an event is only seen inwardly. -- There is truly no need to envy those who can stop at these abstractions, but these people certainly do not grasp the course of the world history of human thought. For, as I have now described, it happened that the outer cosmic conflict of Michael with the dragon was transferred into the inner human being, because the dragon could only find its place in the human nature. Thus, however, it was precisely in the Michael problem that the germination of human freedom was laid, for man would have become a mere automaton if the struggle had continued within him just as it had previously been outside. By transferring the struggle into the interior of man, it became, to a certain extent taken externally in the abstract, a struggle of the higher against the lower nature in man. But for human consciousness it could only take on the form that led people to look up to the form of Michael in the supersensible worlds. And basically, there were still numerous instructions for people in the 18th century, which all amounted to how they could enter the sphere of Michael in order to fight the dragon existing in their own animal nature with the help of the Michael power within them.
Such a person, who would have looked into the deeper spiritual life of the 18th century, would have had to be portrayed like this: Outwardly the human form, in the lower animal part the dragon, writhing and even writhing around the heart. But then, behind the human being, so to speak - because the human being sees the higher with the back of his head - the outer cosmic form of Michael, towering, glorious, retaining his cosmic nature, but reflecting this nature within the human higher nature, so that the human being offers an etheric reflection in his own etheric body of the cosmic form of Michael. And then the power of Michael would have become visible in this human head, but working down to the heart, crushing the dragon so that his blood flows down from the heart into the limbs of the human being. This was the image that many people of the 18th century still carried around with them of Michael's inner human conflict with the dragon. At the same time, this was the image that suggested to many people at the time how man had to defeat the lower, as they put it, with the help of the upper, how man needed the power of Michael for his own life.
The mind sees the Kant-Laplace theory, sees the Kant-Laplace primordial nebula, perhaps a spiral nebula; from this the planets separate, allowing the sun to appear in the center; on one of the planets the kingdoms of nature gradually arise, man arises. And when the future is then seen ahead, all of this in turn merges into the great churchyard of natural existence. The mind cannot help but think this way. Therefore, because this intellect has been granted more and more sole dominion in human knowledge, the world view has gradually become what it has now become for mankind in general. But in all these people to whom I referred earlier, I would say, the eye of the mind was at work. In the mind man can isolate himself from the world, for everyone has his own head and in his head his own thoughts. In the mind he cannot do this, because the mind is not bound to the head, the mind is bound to Jen, the rhythmic organism of man. The air that I have in me now, I did not have in me a short time ago, then it was the general air, and when I breathe it out again, it will again be the general air. Only the head isolates man, only the head makes him a hermit on earth. Even with regard to the organs, man is not isolated in this way in what is the physical organization of his mind; there he belongs to the general cosmos, is only a piece in the cosmos. But little by little the mind has become unseeing, the head alone has become seeing. But the head alone only develops intellectuality, isolates the human being. Yes, when man still saw with his mind, he did not see abstract thoughts into the cosmos to interpret it, to explain it, but he saw grandiose images such as the image of Michael's battle with the dragon. There this man saw something that lived in his own nature and being, something that had emerged from the world, from the cosmos, in the way I have described today. There he saw how the inner Michael-struggle in the human being, in the Anthropos, emerged from the outer Michael-struggle in the cosmos. There he saw anthroposophy developing out of cosmosophy.
And so we are led everywhere, by going back to an older world view, from abstract thoughts that touch us coldly and soberly, that make us shiver because of their intellectuality, to images, one of the most grandiose of which is this image of Michael in battle with the dragon, Michael who first pushed the dragon to earth, where the dragon could then, I would like to say, win his human fortress. And then Michael became the fighter of the dragon in man in the manner described. In this picture that I have placed before your soul, Michael is cosmically behind the human being. In man lives an etheric image of Michael, which carries out the actual battle in man, whereby man can gradually become free in the Michael battle, because it is not Michael who carries out the battle, but human devotion and the image of Michael that is thereby evoked. In the cosmic Michael there still remains that being to whom man can look up and who initiated the original cosmic battle with the dragon.
Truly, events do not just happen on earth. These events that happen on earth are basically incomprehensible to man if he cannot see them as images of events that happen in the supersensible world, if he cannot see the causes of them in the supersensible world. And so in the realm of the supersensible, shortly before our time, a Michael deed happened, that Michael deed which I would like to characterize in the following way. I have to speak in a way that is frowned upon today as anthropomorphic, but how else should I tell it than by using human words for that which takes place in the supersensible world?
That time was thought to be far in the past as the pre-human time when Michael threw the dragon down to earth. But then man appeared on earth and what I have described began to happen: Michael's inner human battle with the dragon became more and more intense. It was just towards the end of the 19th century that Michael was able to say: Now the image has condensed in man in such a way that man can become inwardly aware of it, that he can now feel the dragon conqueror in his mind, at least feel something in the image. In the development of mankind the last third of the 19th century truly means something extraordinarily important. In the older times there was at first only something like a thin image of Michael in man; it became more and more concentrated. In the last third of the 19th century it was as follows: In the earlier times the invisible supersensible dragon was strong, working in the drives and instincts, in the desires and in the animalistic human lust; he remains sub-sensible for the ordinary consciousness, he lives in the animalistic of man. But there he lives, lives himself out; there he lives inciting man to gradually make him subhuman, there he lives in everything that wants to pull man down. It was so that Michael himself always intervened in human nature so that people would not become too degraded. But in the last third of the 19th century it was so that the Michael image in man became so strong that it only depended, so to speak, on the good will of man to consciously raise himself, feeling upwards, to the Michael image, so that on the one side, as in the unenlightened emotional experience, the dragon image presents itself to him, and then on the other side, in spiritual vision and yet already for the ordinary consciousness, the luminous figure of Michael can stand before the soul's eye. In this way the content of the soul can stand before the human being: There works in me the dragon power that wants to pull me down; I do not see it, I feel it as that which wants to bring me under myself. But in my mind I see the shining angel whose cosmic task it has always been to defeat the dragon. I concentrate my mind on this luminous figure, I let its light shine into my mind. - Then the thus enlightened and warmed mind will carry the Michael-power within itself, and by free decision man will be able to defeat the dragon power in his sub-human through his alliance with Michael.
If the good will were mustered in the widest circles to raise such an idea to a religious power and to inscribe it in every mind, then we would not have vague ideas in our present life, such as we can find everywhere today, such as they appear as reform thoughts and the like, but then we would have something that can again inwardly grasp the whole human being, because such an idea can inscribe itself into the living mind, into that living mind which, the moment it becomes truly alive, will also come into a living relationship with the whole cosmos. And then those luminous thoughts of Michael would be the first heralds of man's re-entry into the supersensible world. The cognitive vision would be able to internalize itself religiously, to deepen religiously. Man would thus be prepared for the festivals of the year, the understanding of which only dawns on him from ancient times, but at least dawns, in order to celebrate with full consciousness that festival which stands in the calendar at the end of September, at the beginning of autumn: the Michaelmas festival.
This festival will only have meaning again when we are able to place such a living vision before the soul. And by being able to feel it in a living way and to make it the instinctive social impulse of the present, this Michaelmas, because here the impulses come directly from the spiritual, could be seen as the crowning, indeed as the actual beginning of the impulses that we need if we want to get out of today's decline, if we were to add to all talk about ideals something that would not be from the human head or the human breast, but something that would be an ideal, spoken out of the cosmos. And then, as the trees lose their leaves, as the blossoms ripen into fruit, as nature sends us its first frost and prepares to go into winter death, we could then, just as we feel Easter with the sprouting, budding spring, feel the emergence of the spiritual, with which man should connect. And then, as citizens of the cosmos, we would be able to bring impulses into life which, because they are not abstract thoughts, will not remain ineffective in the way that abstract impulses are otherwise ineffective, but which will prove their effectiveness immediately. Life will only regain soul content when we can develop impulses in our minds from the cosmos. I will talk more about this in the next lecture.