Michaelmas and the Soul-Forces of Man
GA 223
1 October 1923, Vienna
Lecture IV
The aim of everything we have been considering during the last three days, my dear friends, has been to point the way in which the human being can once more be converted, as it were, from an earth citizen to a citizen of the cosmos, how the horizon of his life can be expanded to the reaches of the universe, and how thereby his earthly life, too, can be enriched, not only as regards such expansion, but in the intensity of his inner impulses as well.
Yesterday I told you how a genuine spiritual approach can disclose the true nature of the planets: that they are not the mere physical bodies of which modern astronomy tells us, but rather that they can enter our consciousness as manifestations of spiritual beings. In this connection I spoke of the moon and of Saturn. It is not possible in the allotted time to consider each separate planet, nor is it necessary for our present purposes. My aim was merely to point out how our whole frame of mind can be expanded from the earth to cosmic space. But only in this way does it become possible to feel the outer world as part of ourself, in the same way as we do all that takes place inside our skin—our breathing, circulation, and so forth.
Present-day natural science considers our earth merely a dead mineral body. In our civilization it never occurs to a man who is studying some aspect of cosmology, for example, that there is no element of reality in what he has in mind. The present frame of mind is astonishingly obtuse in the matter of a feeling for reality. People cheerfully call a saline crystal “real,” and also a rose, without in any way differentiating these realities from each other. Yet a saline crystal is a self-contained reality bounded within itself, while a rose is not. A rose can have no existence other than in connection with the rosebush. A rose—I refer to the flower—cannot come into being of itself. So if we imagine the flower of a rose at all—even if it fills us with delight to see this conception realized—we have an abstraction, for all that we can touch it: we have not the reality represented by the rosebush. Nor is there any true reality in that earth of primitive rock, slate, limestone, etc., described by modern external science for there is no such earth as that: it is purely fictitious. Has not the earth produced substantial plants, animals, human beings? That is all part of the earth, just as much as is the crystalline slate of mountain ranges; and if I only consider an earth consisting of stone I have no earth at all. Nothing that external natural science deals with today in any branch of geology is a reality.
So what we should do in this our last lecture is to proceed not only logically but realistically. The obvious errors in the general knowledge of today are not very formidable obstacles because they can readily be refuted. The worst evil in present-day knowledge and cognition is what appears to be absolutely irrefutable. You see, the calculation of everything in the modern science of geology that pertains, for instance, to the origin of the earth, so and so many million years ago, calls for mental brilliance and exact knowledge. True, these calculations disagree by a trifle: some call it twenty million years, others two hundred million; but people of today take such figures in their stride—in other fields as well. {In the matter of post-war inflation, for example, the situation reached a point in 1923 at which 2 billion Marks had the value of 1 pre-war Mark.} In spite of all this, however, the method employed for such computations really calls for the greatest respect. It is exact, it is accurate—but in what way? It is comparable to the following procedure: I examine a human heart today, and then again in a month. By some sort of more sensitive examination I discover changes in this human heart, so I know how it has altered in the course of a month. Then I observe it again after the lapse of another month, and so forth; that is, I apply the same method to the human heart that geologists use to calculate geologic epochs by millions of years: they compute the little changes by the variations of deposits in the strata, and so forth, in order to arrive at the time lapses. But what am I going to do with the conclusions arrived at concerning the changes in the human heart? I can apply that method to these changes and figure out how this human heart looked three hundred years ago and how it will look in another three hundred years. The calculation may be quite correct, only this heart was not in existence three hundred years ago, nor will it be three hundred years hence.—Similarly, the most brilliant and exact methods of computation tempt the present science of geology into setting forth how the earth looked three million years ago, when there was no trace of Silurian or other strata. Again, the figures can be perfectly correct, but the earth was not in existence. The physicists today calculate the changes that will occur in various substances in twenty million years. In this direction American scientists have done some extraordinarily interesting research and have told us, for instance, how albumen is going to look then—only the earth will no longer be in existence as a physical cosmic body.
Logical methods, then—exactitude—these really constitute the greatest danger, because they are incapable of refutation. Given the correct method, a statement of what the heart looked like three hundred years ago, or how the earth appeared two hundred million years ago, cannot be disproved, nor would it be of any avail to occupy oneself with such refutations: what we need is a realistic way of thinking, a realistic way of looking at the world.
The indispensable factor in every domain of spiritual science is just such a universal grasp of reality; and by means of such methods as I have described—inner, intimate methods that lead to an acquaintance with the population of the moon and that of Saturn—one learns as well, not only the relation of the earth to its own beings, but the relation of every being of the universe to the being of the cosmos. Everywhere in the world matter contains spirit, for matter is, of course, only the expression of spirit. At every point imagination, inspiration, and intuition find the spirit in the sensible, in the physical—not as enclosed in sharp contours, but as incessant mobility, as perpetual life. And just as there is no reality in the stone formations offered us by geology—for it is a matter of seeking the earth, including its production of plants, animals and physical men—so, if it is to be grasped in its all-embracing entirety, the earth must be understood as the outer, physical configuration of spirit.
Through imagination we learn first how the spirit principle of the earth differs from that of the human being, if I may so express it. In confronting someone, I perceive many different expressions of his being: I notice how he walks, I hear how he speaks, I see his physiognomy and the gestures of his hands and arms; but all this impels me to seek a homogeneous psycho-spiritual principle dominating him. And just as here one instinctively searches for a unified psycho-spiritual principle in the self-enclosed human being, so imaginative cognition, in contemplating the earth, finds not an undivided earth-spirit principle, but a multiplicity of manifold variety. It is therefore wrong to infer by analogy, for example, a homogeneous spirit principle in the earth from the spirit principle of man; for true vision reveals a multiplicity of earth spirituality, of spiritual beings, as it were, that dwell in the kingdoms of nature. But these spiritual beings are passing through a life: they are in a process of becoming.
Now let us see what this imagination perceives during the course of a year in the way of earth activity when it is supplemented by inspiration, and we will direct our soul's gaze first to the winter. Outwardly, frost and snow cover the ground, and the germs of the earth beings, of the plants, so to speak, are received back into the earth. All that is connected with the earth as germination—we can here ignore the world of animals and men—is withdrawn by the earth into itself. In addition to the familiar burgeoning life of spring and summer, winter shows us dying life. But what does this dying life of winter mean in a spiritual sense? It means that those spiritual beings whom we call elemental spiritual beings—beings that constitute the life-giving principle proper, especially in plants—withdraw into the earth itself and become intimately connected with it. Such is the imaginative aspect of the earth in winter: it takes into its body, as it were, its spiritual elemental beings and shelters them there. In winter the earth is at its most spiritual; that is, it is most fully permeated by its elemental spirit beings.
Like all super-sensible observation, all this passes over into feeling, into sensibility, in him who envisions it. As he feelingly observes the earth in winter and sees the snow on the ground, he knows that this makes a covering for the earth's body so that within it the elemental spirit-beings of earth life themselves may dwell. With the coming of spring the relation of these beings to the earth is transformed into a relation to the cosmic environment. Everything in these beings that during the winter had produced a close relationship with the earth itself becomes related to the cosmic environment in spring: the elemental beings seek to escape out of the earth; and spring really consists of the earth's sacrificial devotion to the universe in letting its elemental beings flow out into it. In winter these elemental beings need repose in the bosom of the earth; in spring they need to stream up through the air, through the atmosphere—to be determined by the spiritual forces of the planetary system, namely, of Mercury, Mars, Jupiter, and so on. Nothing that can act upon the earth spirits from the planetary system does so in winter: this commences in the spring. And here we can observe a more spiritual cosmic process, and compare it with a corresponding but more material one in the human being: our breathing process. We inhale the outer air, hold it in our own body, then exhale it again. In-breathing, out-breathing—that is one component of human life.
Now, in the winter the earth has inhaled its whole spirituality, and with the commencement of spring it starts to exhale it again into the cosmos. In the very old periods of human evolution, when there still existed a sort of instinctive clairvoyance, men felt this; and therefore they felt it to be in conformity with earth existence to celebrate the Christmas Festival during the winter solstice. Then the earth was at its most spiritual—that was the time when it could hold the mystery of the Christmas Festival. The Redeemer could unite only with an earth that had drawn all its spirituality into itself. But for the festival intended to induce a feeling in man that he belongs not only to the earth but to the whole universe, that as an earth citizen his soul can be awakened through cosmic agencies, for this festival of resurrection only that season could serve which carries all the spirituality of the earth out into the cosmos. That is why we find the Christmas Festival linked with phenomena pertaining to the earth, with the dark of winter, with a sort of earth sleep, while on the other hand we see the Easter Festival so fitted into the course of the seasons that we determine it not by earthly but by cosmic events: the first Sunday after the first full moon of spring. It was the stars that in former times had to tell men when Easter should be celebrated—the time when the whole earth opens itself to the cosmos. One resorted to the cosmic script: man had to become aware that he is an earth being, and that at the Spring Festival of Easter he has to open himself to cosmic reaches.
It positively hurts to hear people discussing such glorious thoughts of a bygone age as they have been doing now for twenty or twenty-five years: well-meaning people who do not want the Easter Festival to be so movable. At the very least, they say, it should be held on the first Sunday in April; they want it all quite external and abstract. I have had to listen to arguments pointing out that it creates confusion in commercial ledgers to have Easter so movable, and that business could be carried on in a much more regular way if the date of Easter were strictly assigned. It is really distressing to see how world-alien our civilization has become—this civilization that fancies itself practical. A suggestion such as the one just mentioned is as unpractical as can be, because our civilization can establish something that may be practical for a day, but never for a century. In order to be practical for a century, the matter in question must be in harmony with the universe. But herein the cycle of the seasons must ever be able to point man to his inner life in conjunction with the entire cosmos.
Advancing from spring toward summer, the earth more and more loses its inner spirituality. This spirituality, these elemental beings, pass from the terrestrial to the extra-terrestrial realm and come wholly under the influence of the cosmic planetary world; and in a former epoch this was celebrated in the great and profound rites performed in certain Mysteries at the height of summer, the season in which we have instituted the Festival of St. John. This was the time when the initiates of yore, the Mystery priests of those sanctuaries where the St. John Festival was celebrated in its original significance, were deeply permeated with the contemplation: That which in the winter time, during the winter solstice, I had to seek by gazing into the interior of the earth through the blanket of snow that became transparent for me, that I will now find by directing my vision outward; and the elemental beings that during the winter were determined by what pertains to the inner earth, these are now determined by the planets. From the beings which in winter I had to seek in the earth I gather, at the height of summer, knowledge of their experiences with the planets.—And just as we experience our respiratory process unconsciously, simply as something inwardly a part of our existence, so man once experienced his existence as part of the course of the seasons in the spirituality that pertains to the earth. In winter he sought his kindred elemental nature-beings in the depths of the earth, in midsummer he sought them high in the clouds. In the earth he found them inwardly permeated and saturated with their own earth forces coupled with what the moon forces have left behind in the earth; and in the summertime he found them given over to the vast universe.
And when summer begins to wane after the St. John season, the earth starts inbreathing its spirituality again; and once more the time approaches for the earth to harbor its spirituality within.
We are nowadays little inclined to observe this in-and out-breathing of the earth. Human respiration is more a physical process; the breathing of the earth is a spiritual process—the passing out of the elemental earth-beings into cosmic space and their re-immersion in the earth. Yet it is a fact that just as we participate, in the tenor of our inner life, in what goes on in our circulation, so, as true human beings, we take part in the cycle of the seasons. As the blood circulation inside us is essential for our existence, the circulation of the elemental beings between earth and the heavens is indispensable for us as well; and only the bluntness of their sensibility prevents men today from glimpsing the factors within themselves that are conditioned by this external course of the year. {See: Rudolf Steiner, Calendar of the Soul, Anthroposophic Press, New York.} But the very necessity which in the course of time will compel men to learn to receive the ideas of spiritual science, of super-sensible cognition—the necessity to develop the inner activity indispensable for a full realization of what spiritual-scientific revelations entrust them with—this in itself will sharpen and refine their capacity for sentient receptivity.
This, my dear Friends, is what you really should await as a result of deep absorption in that super-sensible cognition aimed at by anthroposophy. You see, if you read a book or a lecture cycle on anthroposophy just as you read any other book—that is, as abstractly as you read other books—there is no point whatever in reading anthroposophic literature at all. In that case I should advise reading cookery books or technical books on mechanics: that would be more useful; or read about How to Become a Good Business Man. Reading books or listening to lectures on anthroposophy has sense only when you realize that to receive its messages a frame of mind is called for totally different from the one involved in the gleaning of other information. This is confirmed even by the fact that those who today fancy themselves particularly clever consider anthroposophic literature quite mad. Well, they must have a reason for this view, and it is this: Everybody else describes things quite differently, presents the world in an entirely different way; and we cannot stand these anthroposophists who come along and change it all around.
And indeed, the conclusions reached by anthroposophy and appearing in the world today are very different from what emanates from the other quarters; and I must say that a certain policy adhered to by some of our friends, namely, that of making anthroposophy generally palatable by minimizing the discrepancies between it and the trivial opinions of others—such efforts cannot be approved at all, though they are frequently met with. What is needed is a totally different attitude, a different orientation of the soul, if the message of anthroposophy is to be considered plausible, comprehensible, understandable, intelligent—instead of mad.
But given this different orientation, not only the human intellect but the human Gemüt will in a short time undergo a schooling that will render it more sensitive to impressions: it will no longer feel winter merely as the time for donning a heavy coat, or summer as the signal for shedding various articles of clothing; but rather, it will learn to feel the subtle transitions occurring in the course of the year, from the cold snow of winter to the sultry midsummer of earth life. We shall learn to sense the course of the year as we do the expressions of a living, soul-endowed being. Indeed, the proper study of anthroposophy can bring us to the point at which we feel the manifestations of the seasons as we do the assent or dissent in the soul of a friend. Just as in the words of a friend and in the whole attitude of his soul we can perceive the warm heartbeat of a soul-endowed being whose manner of speaking to us is quite different from that of a lifeless thing, so nature, hitherto mute, will begin to speak to us as though out of her soul. In the cycle of the seasons we shall learn to feel soul, soul in the process of becoming; we will learn to listen to what the year as the great living being has to tell us, instead of occupying ourself only with the little living beings; and we shall find our place in the whole soul-endowed cosmos.
But then, when summer passes into autumn, and winter approaches, something very special will speak to us out of nature. One who has gradually acquired the sensitive feeling for nature just described—and anthroposophists will notice in due time that this can indeed be brought about in the soul, in the Gemüt, through anthroposophical endeavor—such a one will learn to distinguish between nature-consciousness, engendered during the spring and summer, and self-consciousness proper which thrives in the fall and winter. What is nature consciousness? When spring comes, the earth develops its sprouting, blossoming life; and if I react to this in the right way, if I let all that the spring really embraces speak within me—I need not be conscious of it: it speaks to the unconscious depths of a consummate human life as well—if I achieve all this I do not merely say, the flower is blooming, the plant is germinating, but I feel a true concord with nature and can say, my ego blooms in the flower, my ego germinates in the plant. Nature-consciousness is engendered only by learning to take part in all that develops in the burgeoning and unfolding life of nature. To be able to germinate with the plant, to blossom with the plant, to bear fruit with the plant, that is what is meant by “passing out of one's own inner self” and by “becoming one with outer nature.” Truly, the term “to develop spirituality” does not mean to become abstract: it means to be able to follow the spirit in its being and expansion. And if, by participating in the germinating, the flowering, and the bearing fruit, man develops this delicate feeling for nature during the spring and summertime, he prepares himself to live in devotion to the universe, to the firmament, precisely at the height of summer. Every little firefly will be for him a mysterious revelation of the cosmos; every breath in the atmosphere in midsummer will proclaim the cosmic principle within the terrestrial.
But then—if we have learned to feel with nature, to blossom with the flowers, to germinate with the seeds, to take part in the bearing of fruit—then, because we have learned to dwell in nature with our own being, we cannot help co-experiencing the essence of the fall and winter as well. He who has learned to live with nature in the spring learns also to die with nature in the autumn. Thus we attain again by a different way to those sensations that once so intensely permeated the soul of the Mithras priest, as I have described. He sensed the course of the seasons in his own body. That is no longer possible for present-day mankind; but what will become more and more incumbent upon humanity in the near future—and herein anthroposophists must be the pioneers—is to experience the cycle of the seasons: to learn to live with the spring and to die with the autumn.
But man must not die: he must not let himself be overpowered. He can live united with burgeoning, blossoming nature, and in doing so he can develop his nature-consciousness; but when he experiences the dying in nature the experience is a challenge to oppose this dying with the creative forces of his own inner being. Then the spirit-soul principle, his true self-consciousness, will come to life within him; and by sharing in nature's dying during the fall and winter he will become in the highest degree the awakener of his own self-consciousness. In this way the human being evolves: he transforms himself in the course of the seasons by experiencing this alternation of nature-consciousness and self-consciousness. When he takes part in nature's dying, that is the time when his inner life force must awake; when nature draws her elemental beings into herself the inner human force must become the awakening of self-consciousness.
Michael forces! Now we feel them again. In the old days of instinctive clairvoyance the picture of Michael's combat with the Dragon arose from quite different premises. Now, however, if we vividly comprehend the idea embraced in nature-consciousness—self-consciousness: spring-summer—autumn-winter, the end of September will once more reveal to us the same force that points us to the victorious power which should evolve on this grave if we take part in the dying of nature: the victorious power that fans the true, strong self-consciousness of man into bright flame. Here we have again Michael vanquishing the Dragon.
It is indispensable that anthroposophical knowledge, anthroposophical cognition, should stream into the human Gemüt as a force. And the way leads from the dry and abstract, although exact conceptions of today to that goal where the living enlightenment taken into our Gemüt once more confronts us with something as full of life as was in olden times the glorious picture of Michael in battle with the Dragon. This infuses into our cosmogony something very different from abstract concepts; and furthermore, do not imagine that such experience is without consequences for the totality of man's life on earth!
I have frequently set forth in our meetings here in Vienna how we can enter and feel at home in the consciousness of immortality, in the awareness of prenatal existence. At this meeting I wanted particularly to show you how we can gather into our Gemüt the spiritual forces from the spiritual world, in the wholly concrete sense. It is truly not enough to talk in a general, pantheistic, or other vague way about spirit underlying all matter. That would be just as abstract as it would to be satisfied with the truism: Man is endowed with spirit. What possible meaning could that have? The term spirit takes on meaning only when it speaks to us in concrete details, when it keeps revealing itself to us concretely, when it can bring us comfort, uplift, joy. The pantheistic “spirit” in philosophical speculations means nothing whatever. Only the living spirit, that speaks to us in nature in the same way as the human soul in man speaks to us, can enter the human Gemüt in a vitalizing and exalting way. But when this does occur our Gemüt will derive powers from the enlightenment transformed in it, precisely those powers that are needed in our social life. During the last three or four centuries mankind has simply acquired the habit of considering all nature, and human existence as well, in intellectual, abstract conceptions; and now that humanity is confronted with the great problems of social chaos, people try to solve these, too, with the same intellectual means. But never in the world will anything but chimeras be brought forth in this way. A consummate human heart is a prerequisite to the right to an opinion in the social realm; but this no man can possess without finding his relation with the cosmos, and in particular, with the spiritual substance of the cosmos.
When the human Gemüt will have received into itself spirit-consciousness—the spirit-consciousness engendered by the transition from nature-consciousness (spring-summer) to self-consciousness (autumn-winter)—then will dawn the solution, among others, of the social problems of the moment. Not the intellectual substance of such problems as the social question, but the forces they need, depend in a deep sense upon the contingency of a sufficient number of men being able to make such spiritual impulses their own.
All this must be brought to our Gemüt if we would consider adding the autumn festival, the Michael Festival, to the three we have: the festivals of Christmas, Easter and St. John, that have become mere shadows. How wonderful it would be if this Michael Festival could be celebrated at the end of September with the whole power of the human heart! But never must it be celebrated by making certain arrangements that bring about nothing but abstract Gemüt sensations: a Michael Festival calls for human beings who feel in their souls in fullest measure everything that can activate spirit-consciousness.
What does Easter represent in the year's festivals? It is a festival of resurrection. It commemorates the Resurrection realized in the Mystery of Golgotha through the descent of Christ, the Sun-Spirit, into a human body. First death, then resurrection: that is the outer aspect of the Mystery of Golgotha. One who understands the Mystery of Golgotha in this sense sees death and resurrection in this way of redemption; and perhaps he will feel in his soul that he must unite in his Gemüt with Christ, the victor over death, in order to find resurrection in death. But Christianity does not end with the traditions associated with the Mystery of Golgotha: it must advance. The human Gemüt turns inward and deepens more and more as time goes on; and in addition to this festival that brings alive the Death and Resurrection of Christ, man needs that other one which reveals the course of the year as having its counterpart within him, so that he can find in the round of the seasons first of all the resurrection of the soul—in fact, the necessity for achieving this resurrection—in order that the soul may then pass through the portal of death in a worthy way. Easter: death, then resurrection; Michaelmas: resurrection of the soul, then death. This makes of the Michael Festival a reversed Easter Festival. Easter commemorates for us the Resurrection of Christ from death; but in the Michael Festival we must feel with all the intensity of our soul: In order not to sleep in a half-dead state that will dim my self-consciousness between death and a new birth, but rather, to be able to pass through the portal of death in full alertness, I must rouse my soul through my inner forces before I die. First, resurrection of the soul—then death, so that in death that resurrection can be achieved which man celebrates within himself.
I trust these lectures have contributed a little toward bridging the gap between the purely mental enlightenment anthroposophy has to offer, and what this anthroposophy can mean to the human Gemüt. That would make me very happy; and I should be able to look back affectionately on all that we have been privileged to discuss in these lectures, which were truly not addressed to your mind but to your Gemüt, and through which, in a manner not customary nowadays, I wanted to point out, among other things, the social stimulus so sorely needed by mankind today. Humanity will become attuned to such social impulses only by an inner deepening of the Gemüt. That is what fills my soul, now that I must bring these lectures to a close. It was from an inner need of my heart that I delivered them to you, my dear Austrian friends.
Vierter Vortrag
Alle Betrachtungen, die hier in den letzten Tagen von mir vor Ihnen angestellt worden sind, zielten darauf hin, darauf aufmerksam zu machen, wie der Mensch wiederum aus einem Erdenbürger gewissermaßen ein Bürger des Kosmos werden kann, wie der Horizont seines Lebens sich hinausdehnen kann in die Weltenweiten, und wie dadurch das Leben auch innerhalb der irdischen Sphäre nicht nur eine Bereicherung nach Seiten der Ausdehnung, sondern auch eine Bereicherung nach Seiten der Intensität innerer Impulse erlangen kann.
Ich habe das letzte Mal davon gesprochen, wie eine wirkliche Geistesanschauung den Menschen hinführt zu durchschauen, wie die Planeten unseres Planetensystems nicht nur jene physischen Körper sind, von denen die heutige Astronomie spricht, sondern wie sie uns wirklich bewußt werden können als Offenbarungen von geistigen Wesenheiten. Ich habe in dieser Beziehung vom Monde, ich habe vom Saturn gesprochen. Bei der Kürze dieser Betrachtung kann ich nun natürlich nicht auf alle einzelnen Planeten eingehen, das ist auch für unser gegenwärtiges Ziel nicht von Belang. Ich wollte nur darauf hinweisen, wie man die ganze menschliche Seelenverfassung von der Erde in die Weltenräume hinaus erweitern kann. Dadurch aber wird es einem erst möglich, die äußere Welt als zu sich gehörig zu betrachten, ebenso wie man als zu sich gehörig das betrachtet, was innerhalb der menschlichen Haut vor sich geht, wie man also als zu sich gehörig betrachtet seine Atmung, seine Blutzirkulation und so weiter.
Die heutige Naturwissenschaft betrachtet ja auch unsere Erde so, als ob diese unsere Erde ein bloßer mineralischer, toter Körper wäre. In der heutigen Zivilisation denkt der Mensch gar nicht daran, daß er mit dem, was er zum Beispiel kosmologisch betrachtet, gar keine Wirklichkeit im Auge hat. Für Wirklichkeitsempfinden ist die heutige Seelenverfassung außerordentlich stumpf. Der Mensch nennt leicht zum Beispiel einen Salzkristall wirklich, er nennt auch eine Rose wirklich, und er unterscheidet diese beiden Wirklichkeiten nicht voneinander. Aber ein Salzkristall ist eine in sich abgeschlossene Wirklichkeit, die für sich bestehen kann, eine Rose nicht. Eine Rose hat nur eine Existenz, wenn sie am Rosenstock ist. Eine Rose, ich meine die Blüte der Rose, kann nicht für sich da draußen entstehen. Wenn wir also überhaupt die Vorstellung einer Rosenblüte haben, an der wir unsere Freude haben mögen, sofern wir diese Vorstellung äußerlich realisiert haben, dann haben wir ein Abstraktum, auch wenn wir dieses Abstraktum betasten können, wir haben aber keine wahre Wirklichkeit, die hat nur der Rosenstock. Und ebensowenig hat eine wahre Wirklichkeit jene Erde mit ihrem Urgestein, Schiefer- und Kalkgestein und so weiter, von der uns heute die äußere Wissenschaft erzählt, denn diese Erde gibt es gar nicht, sie ist nur erdacht. Und die wirkliche Erde, hat sie nicht aus dem Festen Pflanzen hervorgebracht, hat sie nicht die Tiere, die Menschen hervorgebracht? Das gehört zur Erde, gehört ebenso zur Erde wie der kristallinische Schiefer der Gebirge, und wenn ich nur eine Erde betrachte, die aus Stein besteht, so habe ich keine Erde. Das ist keine Realität, was die äußere Naturwissenschaft auf irgendeinem Gebiete in der Geologie heute betrachtet.
So handelt es sich eigentlich für unsere ganze letzte Betrachtung darum, nicht nur logisch, sondern wirklichkeitsgemäß vorzugehen. Wir können heute sagen: Die offenbaren Irrtümer der heutigen Bildung genieren uns eigentlich wenig; das leicht Widerlegliche geniert uns wenig. Was am schlimmsten im heutigen Wissen, in der heutigen Erkenntnis ist, das ist das, was sich scheinbar gar nicht widerlegen läßt. - Sehen Sie, es gehört wirklich Geist-Reichtum, exakte Erkenntnis dazu, um alle diejenigen Dinge zu berechnen, die zum Beispiel die heutige geologische Wissenschaft für die Entstehung der Erde berechnet, die Entstehung der Erde vor so und so vielen Millionen Jahren. Allerdings weichen da diese Rechnungen um Kleinigkeiten voneinander ab. Manche Geologen sagen zwanzig Millionen, manche zweihundert Millionen Jahre, aber zwanzig Millionen oder zweihundert Millionen sind heute für die Menschen auch Bagatellen auf andern Gebieten geworden. Trotzdem aber diese Leute so verschiedener Ansicht sind, ist die Rechnungsmethode, die da angewendet wird, wirklich eine solche, daß man allen Respekt davor haben kann. Sie ist exakt, sie ist genau. Aber wie ist sie? Sie ist so, wie wenn ich das menschliche Herz untersuchen würde heute, dann in einem Monat wieder. Durch irgendwelche, sagen wir feinere Untersuchungen komme ich darauf, Veränderungen dieses menschlichen Herzens festzustellen, und ich weiß dann, wie sich dieses Herz im Laufe eines Monats verändert hat. Dann beobachte ich wieder, wie es sich nach einem weiteren Monat verändert hat und so weiter. Das heißt, ich wende auf das menschliche Herz dieselbe Methode an, die die Geologen anwenden, um die geologischen Zeiträume nach Millionen von Jahren zu berechnen, da rechnet man ja auch auf Grund der Ablagerungen und so weiter in den Erdschichten, um daraus, wenn man die kleinen Veränderungen in der entsprechenden Weise zusammenhält, Zahlenangaben zu errechnen. Aber wie kann ich es mit meinen Ergebnissen, die ich über die Veränderungen des menschlichen Herzens gewonnen habe, nun machen? Ich kann jetzt die Methode auf die Veränderungen anwenden und ausrechnen, wie dieses menschliche Herz vor dreihundert Jahren ausgeschaut hat und wie es nach dreihundert Jahren ausschauen wird. Die Rechnung kann stimmen. Nur ist dies Herz vor dreihundert Jahren nicht da gewesen und wird nach dreihundert Jahren auch nicht da sein. So können die geistvollsten, exakten Rechnungsmethoden dazu führen, daß man heute in der geologischen Wissenschaft Angaben darüber macht, wie die Erde vor drei Millionen Jahren ausgeschaut habe, wo es noch kein Silur gegeben habe und so weiter. Die Rechnung kann durchaus stimmen, aber die Erde war noch nicht da. Und ebenso kann heute ausgerechnet werden - das tun die Physiker -, wie nach zwanzig Millionen Jahren die verschiedenen Substanzen ganz anders sein werden. In dieser Beziehung haben die amerikanischen Forscher außerordentlich interessante Forschungen und Darstellungen gegeben, zum Beispiel wie dann Eiweiß aussehen würde; nur wird die Erde als physischer Weltenkörper dann nicht mehr da sein! Logische Methoden also, Exaktheit sind eigentlich gerade das Gefährliche, denn sie lassen sich nicht widerlegen. Es läßt sich nicht widerlegen, wenn man ausrechnen würde, wie das Herz vor dreihundert Jahren ausgeschaut hat, wenn die Methode richtig ist, oder wie die Erde vor zwanzig Millionen Jahren ausgeschaut hat, es läßt sich auch nichts damit tun, wenn man sich um diese Widerlegungen bemühte, sondern wir müssen ein wirklichkeitsgemäßes Denken, eine wirklichkeitsgemäße Weltanschauung erfassen.
Auf eine solche allseitige Erfassung der Wirklichkeit kommt es gerade bei der Geisteswissenschaft auf allen Gebieten an. Und durch solche Methoden, wie ich sie gestern dargestellt habe, durch solche verinnerlichten Methoden, durch die man, wie ich gestern zeigte, die Mond- und die Saturnbevölkerung kennenlernt, lernt man nun auch nicht nur das Verhältnis der Erde zu ihren eigenen Wesen, sondern das Verhältnis jedes Wesens des Weltenalls zu dem Wesen des Kosmos kennen. Überall in der Welt ist im Materiellen, das nur der äußere Ausdruck für das Geistige ist, das Geistige enthalten. Imagination, Inspiration und Intuition finden überall in dem Sinnlichen, in dem Physischen das Geistige, aber sie finden dieses Geistige nicht bloß so, daß man es, sagen wir, in scharfen Konturen erfassen kann, sondern sie finden das Geistige in einer unaufhörlichen Beweglichkeit, in einem unaufhörlichen Leben. Und geradeso wie das, was die Geologie als die Gesteine uns liefert, keine Wirklichkeit hat, sondern die Erde zunächst auch in ihrem Hervorbringen von Pflanzen, Tieren und physischen Menschen gesucht werden muß, so muß die Erde, wenn sie in ihrer Gesamtwirklichkeit erfaßt werden soll, auch erfaßt werden als die äußere physische Ausgestaltung des Geistigen.
Man lernt zunächst durch die Imagination kennen, wie das Erdengeistige sich dennoch in einer gewissen Beziehung unterscheidet von dem, wenn ich mich so ausdrücken darf, Menschengeistigen. Tritt ein Mensch vor mich hin, so sind allerdings viele, mannigfaltige Äußerungen seines Wesens vor meiner Anschauung. Ich sehe, wie er geht, ich höre, wie er spricht, ich sehe seine Physiognomie, ich sehe die Gesten seiner Arme und Hände. Das alles aber leitet mich an, nach einem einheitlichen Seelisch-Geistigen, das in ihm die Herrschaft hat, zu suchen. Geradeso wie hier schon der Instinkt nach einem einheitlichen Seelisch-Geistigen in dem abgeschlossenen Menschenwesen suchen muß, so findet die imaginative Erkenntnis, wenn sie die Erde betrachtet, nun nicht ein einheitliches Erdengeistiges, sondern sie findet gerade das Erdengeistige als eine Vielheit, als eine Mannigfaltigkeit. Man sollte daher nicht aus Analogie vom Geistigen des Menschenwesens schließen auf einen einheitlichen Erdengeist, denn die wirkliche Anschauung gibt eine Mannigfaltigkeit von Erdengeistigkeit, sozusagen von geistigen Wesenheiten, die in den Reichen der Natur der Erde leben. Aber diese geistigen Wesenheiten machen ein Leben durch, sind in einem Werden.
Nun schauen wir uns einmal an, was diese Imagination, die durch die Inspiration unterstützt wird, im Laufe eines Jahres an Erdenwerden wahrnimmt. Lenken wir zuerst den Seelenblick auf den Winter. Die Erde bedeckt sich äußerlich mit Frost und Schnee, die Keime sozusagen der Erdenwesen, der Pflanzen, sind zurückgenommen in die Erde. Gerade das, was keimend mit der Erde zusammenhängt von der Tier- und Menschenwelt können wir dabei absehen -, zieht die Erde in ihr Inneres zurück. Wir lernen zu dem sprießenden, sprossenden Leben des Frühlings und des Sommers im Winter das ersterbende Leben kennen. Aber was bedeutet in geistiger Beziehung dieses ersterbende Leben des Winters? Es bedeutet, daß jene geistigen Wesenheiten, die wir als elementarische geistige Wesenheiten bezeichnen können, die das eigentlich Belebende namentlich in den Pflanzen sind, sich in die Erde selber zurückziehen, mit der Erde inniglich verbunden sind. Das ist im Winter der imaginative Anblick der Erde, daß die Erde gewissermaßen ihre geistigen Elementarwesen in ihren Körper aufnimmt, sie in ihrem Körper birgt. Die Erde ist im Winter am geistigsten, das heißt am meisten durchdrungen von ihren elementarischen Geistwesen.
Bei demjenigen, der dieses anschaut, geht wie alle übersinnliche Anschauung auch diese in die Empfindung, in das Gefühl über. Er schaut während des Winters auf die Erde empfindend hin und sagt sich: Da, wo die Schneedecke liegt, wird aber der Erdenkörper so zugedeckt, daß in diesem Erdenkörper die elementargeistigen Wesen des Erdendaseins selber wohnen. Kommt der Frühling, dann verwandelt sich die Verwandtschaft dieser elementargeistigen Wesen mit der Erde in die Verwandtschaft mit der kosmischen Umgebung. Was während des Winters in diesen Wesen eine tiefe Verwandtschaft abgegeben hat mit der Erde selber, wird während des Frühlings mit der kosmischen Umgebung verwandt, die Elementarwesen streben aus der Erde heraus. Und der Frühling besteht eigentlich darin, daß die Erde ihre Elementarwesen in Hingabe an das Weltenall entströmen läßt. Diese Elementarwesen brauchen im Winter das Ruhen im Schoße der Erde, sie brauchen im Frühling das Ausströmen durch die Luft, durch die Atmosphäre, das Bestimmtwerden durch die geistigen Kräfte des Planetensystems, die geistigen Kräfte von Merkur, Mars, Jupiter und so weiter. Alles das, was vom Planetensystem auf die Erdengeister wirken kann, das wirkt im Winter nicht, es beginnt zu wirken im Frühling. Und es ist wirklich so, daß wir hier einen kosmischen Vorgang beobachten können, der mehr geistig ist im Verhältnis zu einem Vorgang im Menschen, der mehr materiell ist: dem Atmungsvorgang im Menschen. Wir atmen die äußere Luft ein, bergen sie in unserem eigenen Leibe, wir atmen sie wieder aus; wir atmen ein, wir atmen aus. Einatmen, ausatmen ist ein Bestandteil des menschlichen Lebens. Die Erde hat ihre ganze Geistigkeit im Winter eingeatmet, beginnt, wenn der Frühling kommt, ihre Geistigkeit wieder in den Kosmos hinauszuatmen. Und der Mensch empfand das in sehr alten Zeiten der Menschheitsentwickelung, als noch eine Art instinktives Hellsehen vorhanden war. Er empfand daher das Angemessene des Erdendaseins zur Wintersonnenwende in dem Weihnachtsfest. Da wo die Erde am geistigsten ist, da durfte sie ihm das Geheimnis des Weihnachtsfestes bergen. Der Erlöser konnte sich nur mit einer Erde verbinden, die ihre ganze Geistigkeit in ihren Schoß aufgenommen hat.
Aber für das Fest, für welches die Empfindung aufleben sollte, daß der Mensch nicht nur der Erde angehört, sondern daß er dem ganzen Weltenall angehört, und daß er als Erdenbürger mit seiner Seele am Weltenall erwachen kann, für dieses Auferstehungsfest konnte nur diejenige Zeit in Anspruch genommen werden, welche alles Erdengeistige in den Kosmos hinausführt. Daher sehen wir das Weihnachtsfest verbunden mit Erdentatsachen, mit der Winterfinsternis der Erde, mit dem - in einem gewissen Sinne — Schlafen der Erde. Das Osterfest dagegen sehen wir so in den Jahreslauf eingezeichnet, daß wir es nicht nach Erdenangelegenheiten bestimmen, daß wir es bestimmen nach kosmischen Angelegenheiten. Der erste Sonntag nach Frühlingsvollmond ist bestimmend für das Osterfest. Also die Sterne mußten den Menschen in früheren Zeiten sagen, wann das Osterfest sein soll, weil da die ganze Erde sich öffnet dem Kosmos. Da mußte die Schrift des Kosmos zu Hilfe genommen werden, da mußte der Mensch gewahr werden, daß er nicht nur ein Erdenwesen ist, daß er im Frühlingsosterfest sich selber öffnen muß den kosmischen Weiten.
Es tut einem wirklich in der Seele weh, wenn diese großartigen Gedanken einer durchlebten Zeit der Menschheit, die in bezug auf solche Gedanken noch größer war als die heutige, nun heute so diskutiert werden, wie wir es schon seit zwanzig, fünfundzwanzig Jahren gewohnt sind, daß allerlei Leute, die es glauben gut zu meinen mit der Menschheit, sich darüber unterhalten, wie man doch das Osterfest nicht so beweglich halten sollte; wenigstens sollte man es auf den ersten Sonntag im April festsetzen, also äußerlich, ganz abstrakt. Ich habe Diskussionen anhören müssen, wo man darauf aufmerksam machte, wie das in den Bilanzbüchern der Kaufleute Unordnung mache, daß das Osterfest so beweglich ist, und wie es viel regelmäßiger mit den Geschäften abgehen würde, wenn das Osterfest streng geregelt wäre. Es tut einem, wie gesagt, in der Seele weh, wenn man sieht, wie weltenfremd diese Zivilisation geworden ist, die sich praktisch dünkt, denn ein solcher Vorschlag ist das Unpraktischste, was sich denken läßt; unpraktisch, weil diese Zivilisation zwar für den Tag Praxis begründen kann, nie aber für das Jahrhundert. Für das Jahrhundert kann nur dasjenige Praxis begründen, was im Einklange mit dem Weltenall ist. Da muß aber der Jahreslauf den Menschen immer hinweisen können auf das innere Leben mit dem ganzen Kosmos.
Und gehen wir vom Frühling nach dem Sommer zu, so verliert die Erde immer mehr und mehr ihre Geistigkeit im Inneren. Diese Geistigkeit, die Elementarwesen, gehen vom Irdischen in das Außerirdische, kommen ganz unter den Einfluß der kosmischen, planetarischen Welt. Das war einstmals die ungeheuer tiefe Kulthandlung, die innerhalb gewisser Mysterienstätten in derjenigen Zeit entfaltet wurde, in der wir heute das Johannifest im Hochsommer ansetzen. Dieses Johannifest im Hochsommer war einstmals diejenige Zeit, wo die Eingeweihten, die Mysterienptiester derjenigen Stätten, wo Johannifeste in ihrer ursprünglichen Bedeutung abgehalten wurden, tief durchdrungen waren davon: Was du in der tiefen Winterzeit, bei Wintersonnenwende, suchen mußtest, indem du durch die geistig durchsichtig werdende Schneedecke in das Innere der Erde schautest, das findest du jetzt, indem du den Seelenblick hinaustichtest. Und die Elementarwesen, die während der Winterzeit innerhalb der Erde von dem Erdengründigen bestimmt waren, sind jetzt bestimmt von den Planeten. Du lernst von den Wesen, die du im Winter in der Erde suchen mußtest, während der Hochsommerzeit ihre Erlebnisse mit den Planeten kennen. — Und so wie sonst der Mensch unbewußt seinen Atmungsvorgang als etwas erlebt, was zu seinem Dasein innerlich gehört, so erlebte der Mensch einstmals sein Dasein hinzugehörig zu dem Jahreslaufe - im Geistigen, das zur Erde gehört. Er suchte die ihm verwandten Elementarwesen der Natur während des Winters in den Erdentiefen; er suchte sie während der Hochsommerzeit in Wolkenhöhen. Er fand sie in den Tiefen der Erde innerlich durchwoben und durchlebt von den eigenen Erdenkräften in Verbindung mit dem, was die Mondenkräfte in der Erde zurückgelassen haben; er fand sie während der Hochsommerzeit hingegeben an die Weiten des Weltenalls.
Und wenn die Hochsommerzeit sich neigt, dann beginnt auch wieder die Erde einzuatmen ihr Geistiges, so daß von der Johannizeit abwärts, wenn die Erde ihr Geistiges einatmet, sich wiederum diejenige Zeit vorbereitet, wo die Erde ihr Geistiges in sich tragen wird.
Der Mensch ist heute wenig geneigt, auf dieses Einatmen und Ausatmen der Erde hinzuschauen. Die menschliche Atmung ist mehr ein physischer Vorgang, die Erdenatmung ist ein geistiger Vorgang, ist ein Hinausschreiten der elementarischen Wesenheiten der Erde in Weltenräume und ein Eingesenktwerden dieser Wesenheiten in die Erde. Aber wirklich, geradeso wie der Mensch das, was in seiner Blutzirkulation vorgeht, in seiner inneren Lebenshaltung miterlebt, so erlebt er eigentlich als vollmenschliches Wesen den Jahreslauf mit. Wie das Kreisen des Blutes innerlich wesentlich ist für sein Dasein, so ist - in einem weiteren Sinne — für das Menschendasein wesentlich dieses Kreisen der elementarischen Wesenheiten von der Erde hinauf zum Himmel und wieder zur Erde zurück. Und nur die Grobheit der Empfindung läßt den Menschen heute nicht mehr ahnen, was da eigentlich in ihm selber abhängt von diesem äußeren Gang im Jahre. Aber indem der Mensch im Laufe der Zeit sich wird bemühen müssen, die Vorstellungen aufzunehmen, welche Geisteswissenschaft, übersinnliche Erkenntnis ihm liefert, indem er jene innere Aktivität wird entwickeln müssen, die er braucht, um dasjenige wirklich sich innerlich-seelisch gegenwärtig zu machen, was als geisteswissenschaftliche Resultate ihm anvertraut wird, wird ein solches Erfassen dieser geisteswissenschaftlichen Resultate auch seine Empfindungsfähigkeit feiner machen. Dies ist es eigentlich, was Sie alle von der Vertiefung in jene übersinnliche Erkenntnis erwarten sollten, welche die Anthroposophie meint. Wenn Sie ein anthroposophisches Buch lesen, meinetwillen sogar wenn Sie einen Zyklus lesen, und Sie lesen ihn so, daß Ihr Lesen gleicht dem Lesen eines andern Buches, daß Ihr Lesen so abstrakt vor sich geht wie das Lesen eines andern Buches, dann haben Sie eigentlich gar nicht nötig, anthroposophische Literatur zu lesen. Da rate ich lieber, lesen Sie Kochbücher oder technische Lehrbücher oder dergleichen, denn das ist dann nützlicher, oder eine Anleitung, wie man am besten Geschäfte macht. Anthroposophische Bücher lesen oder anthroposophische Vorträge anhören, hat nur dann einen Sinn, wenn man gewahr wird, daß man, um diese Resultate aufzunehmen, sich ganz anders stimmen muß als für andere Resultate. Das geht schon daraus hervor, daß diejenigen Menschen, die heute sich eigentlich für die besonders Klugen halten, diese anthroposophische Literatur doch für einen Wahnsinn halten. Ja, sie müssen doch auch Gründe dafür haben, daß sie sie für einen Wahnsinn halten. Die Gründe sind diese, daß sie sagen: Alles andere sagt anderes, alles andere stellt uns die Welt anders dar. Wir können uns doch nicht darauf einlassen, daß da diese Anthroposophen kommen und die Welt ganz anders darstellen! - Ja, anders ist es eben, was als anthroposophische Resultate in die Welt tritt, als das, was einem heute sonst erzählt wird. Ich muß schon sagen: Die Politik, die manchmal befolgt wird von manchen unserer Freunde, Anthroposophie dadurch schön machen zu wollen vor der Welt, daß man eigentlich die Sache so hinstellt, als ob es gar keine Widersprüche gäbe mit den trivialen Meinungen der andern: diese Bestrebungen kann man eigentlich nicht richtig finden, obwohl man sie immer wieder antrifft. Man braucht eine andere Einstellung, eine ganz andere Orientierung der Seele, wenn man das nun wirklich plausibel, faßbar, begreiflich, gescheit und nicht für wahnsinnig halten will, was Anthroposophie sagt.
Wenn man aber diese andere Orientierung bekommt, dann wird nach einiger Zeit nicht nur der menschliche Intellekt dadurch eine Schulung durchmachen, sondern es wird das menschliche Gemüt eben eine Schulung durchmachen; es wird feiner empfindlich werden, dieses Gemüt. Und das Gemüt wird nicht nur den Winter so fühlen, daß man sich da den Winterrock anzieht, wenn es kalt wird, und es wird den Sommer nicht nur so fühlen, daß man eine Anzahl Kleider ablegt, wenn es wieder warm wird, sondern man wird im Laufe des Jahres jene feinen Übergänge vorgehen fühlen von dem frostigen Schnee im Winter zur schwülen Hochsommerzeit im Erdendasein. Und man wird lernen, den Gang des Jahres wirklich so zu empfinden, wie wir die Äußerungen eines lebendigen, beseelten Wesens empfinden. Ja man kann durch richtiges Anthroposophiestudieren das Gemüt so weit bringen, daß einem der Jahreslauf so sprechend wirklich wird, daß man sich den Äußerungen dieses Jahreslaufes gegenüber fühlt wie den Zusprüchen oder den Absprüchen einer Freundesseele. Wie man aus den Worten der Freundesseele, aus dem ganzen Gebaren der Freundesseele empfinden kann den warmen Pulsschlag des beseelten Wesens, der einen wahrhaftig anders anspricht als irgend etwas Lebloses, Unbeseeltes, so wird die erst stumme Natur wie beseelt für den Menschen zu sprechen beginnen können. Der Mensch wird Seele, im Werden verlaufende Seele im Jahreslaufe empfinden lernen, wird hinhorchen lernen auf das, was das Jahr zu sagen hat, wie auf das große lebendige Wesen, während er es sonst in seinem Leben mit kleinen lebendigen Wesens zu tun hat, er wird lernen, sich in den ganzen beseelten Kosmos hineinzustellen. Wenn aber dann der Sommer übergeht in den Herbst und der Winter sich naht, dann wird ihm gerade dadurch ein Besonderes aus der Natur heraus sprechen.
Wer diejenige feine Empfindung gegenüber der Natur, die ich charakterisieren wollte, nach und nach sich aneignet - und der Anthroposoph wird nach einiger Zeit bemerken, daß dies das Gefühlsresultat, das Gemütsresultat seines anthroposophischen Strebens sein kann -, wird unterscheiden lernen: Naturbewußtsein, das da entsteht während der Frühlings- und Sommerzeit, und eigentliches Selbstbewußtsein, das da sich wohlfühlt während der Herbstes- und Winterzeit. Naturbewußtsein: die Erde entwickelt, wenn der Frühling kommt, ihr sprießendes, sprossendes Leben. Und wer die richtige Empfindung gegenüber diesem sprießenden, sprossenden Leben hat, wer sprechen läßt in sich, was da eigentlich während des Frühlings vorhanden ist- man braucht es nicht bewußt zu haben, es spricht auch im Unterbewußtsein zum vollen menschlichen Leben -, wer das alles hat, der sagt nicht bloß: Die Blume blüht, die Pflanze keimt -, sondern der fühlt wahrhaftig ein Hingegebensein an die Natur, so daß er sagen kann: Mein Ich blüht in der Blume, mein Ich keimt in der Pflanze. - Dadurch erst entsteht Naturbewußtsein, daß man mitmachen lernt dasjenige, was im sprießenden, sprossenden Leben sich entwickelt, sich entfaltet. Mit der Pflanze keimen können, mit der Pflanze blühen können, mit der Pflanze fruchten können: das ist das, was Herausgehen des Menschen aus seinem Inneren bedeutet, was Aufgehen in der äußeren Natur bedeutet. Geistigkeit entwickeln, bedeutet wahrhaftig nicht, sich verabstrahieren. Geistigkeit entwickeln bedeutet, dem Geist in seinem Weben und Werden nachfolgen können. Und wenn so der Mensch, indem er mit der Blüte blüht, mit dem Keime keimt, mit der Frucht fruchtet, selber in seiner feinen Naturempfindung die Frühlings- und Sommerzeit hindurch dieses Naturempfinden entwickelt, so bereitet er sich dadurch vor, gerade in der Hochsommerzeit hingegeben an das Weltenall, an den Sternenhimmel zu leben. Dann wird jedes Leuchtkäferchen etwas wie eine geheimnisvolle Offenbarung des Kosmischen; dann wird, ich möchte sagen, jeder Hauch in der Atmosphäre zur Hochsommerzeit eine Ankündigung vom Kosmischen innerhalb des Irdischen.
Dann aber, wenn die Erde wieder einatmet, und wenn man gelernt hat, mit der Natur zu empfinden, mit den Blumen zu blühen, mit den Keimen zu keimen, mit den Früchten zu fruchten, dann kann man allerdings nicht anders, weil man gelernt hat, mit seinem eigenen Wesen in der Natur zu sein, als nun auch das Herbsten und das Wintern mitzuerleben. Wer gelernt hat, mit der Natur zu leben, der bringt es auch dahin, mit der Natur zu sterben. Wer gelernt hat, im Frühling mit der Natur zu leben, der lernt auch, im Herbst mit der Natur zu sterben. Und so ist es, daß man auf eine andere Weise wieder hineinkommt in jene Empfindungen, die einmal den Mithraspriester so innerlich durchseelten, wie ich es in diesen Tagen beschrieben habe. Der Mithraspriester empfand in seinem eigenen Leibe den Jahreslauf. Das ist nicht mehr der gegenwärtigen Menschheit angemessen. Aber das muß immer mehr und mehr der Menschheit der nächsten Zukunft angemessen werden, und die Anthroposophen sollen Pioniere dieses Erlebens sein, den Jahreslauf mitzuerleben, mit dem Frühling leben zu können, mit dem Herbst sterben zu können.
Aber der Mensch darf nicht sterben. Der Mensch darf sich nicht überwältigen lassen. Er kann mit der sprießenden, sprossenden Natur mitleben, er kann an ihr das Naturbewußtsein entwickeln. Aber wenn er das Sterben mit der Natur miterlebt, dann ist dieses Miterleben die Aufforderung, in seinem Inneren die eigenen Schaffenskräfte seines Wesens diesem Sterben entgegenzustellen. Dann sprießt und sproßt das Geistig-Seelische, das eigentliche Selbstbewußtsein in ihm auf, und er wird im innerlichen Erleben, wenn er das Sterben der Natur im Herbste und Winter mitmacht, der Auferwecker seines eigenen Selbstbewußtseins im höchsten Grade. Und so wird der Mensch, so metamorphosiert er sich selber im Jahreslaufe, indem er erlebt: Naturbewußtsein - Selbstbewußtsein. Da muß dann, wenn das Sterben der Natur mitgemacht wird, die innere Lebenskraft erwachen. Wenn die Natur ihre Elementarwesen hineinnimmt in ihren Schoß, muß die innere Menschenkraft zum Erwachen des Selbstbewußtseins werden.
Michael-Kräfte - jetzt spürt man sie wieder! Aus ganz andern Voraussetzungen ist das Bild des Streites Michaels mit dem Drachen in alten instinktiven Hellseherzeiten entstanden. Jetzt aber, indem wir in aller Lebendigkeit begreifen: Naturbewußtsein — Selbstbewußtsein, Frühlings-, Sommer-, Herbst-, Winterzeit, stellt sich mit dem Ende des September wieder dieselbe Kraft vor den Menschen hin, die ihm vergegenwärtigt, was eben, wenn man das Sterben der Natur mitmacht, aus diesem Grabe als siegende Kraft sich entwickeln soll, welche im Inneren des Menschen zur Hellheit das wahre, das starke Selbstbewußtsein entfacht. Jetzt ist wieder der über den Drachen siegende Michael da.
So muß einfach anthroposophisches Wissen, anthroposophische Erkenntnis als Kraft in das menschliche Gemüt einfließen. Und der Weg geht von unseren trockenen, abstrakten, aber exakten Vorstellungen dahin, wo die ins Gemüt aufgenommene lebendige Erkenntnis uns wiederum hinstellt vor etwas, was so lebensvoll ist wie in alten Zeiten das herrliche Bild des Michael, der den Drachen bekämpft. Anderes als abstrakte Begriffe steht damit wiederum in der Weltanschauung vor unseren Seelen. Glauben Sie nicht, daß solches Erleben ohne Folgen für das Gesamtdasein des Menschen auf der Erde ist. Wie der Mensch sich in das Unsterblichkeitsbewußtsein, wie er sich in das Bewußtsein des vorirdischen Daseins einlebt, das habe ich oftmals im Laufe der Jahre in den anthroposophischen Zusammenkünften auch hier in Wien dargestellt. Ich wollte Ihnen gerade bei diesem Zusammensein darstellen, wie der Mensch aus der geistigen Welt - aber jetzt in völlig konkretem Sinne - in sein Gemüt herein die geistige Kraft bekommen kann. Es genügt wahrlich nicht, daß man im allgemeinen in pantheistischer oder sonstiger Weise davon spricht, dem Äußeren liege auch ein Geist zugrunde. Das wäre geradeso abstrakt, wie wenn man sich damit begnügen möchte, zu sagen: Ein Mensch hat eben Geist. -— Was bedeutet das, nur sagen zu können: Ein Mensch hat Geist? — Geist hat für uns erst eine Bedeutung, wenn der Geist zu uns in konkreten Einzelheiten spricht, wenn er sich uns in konkreten Einzelheiten in jedem Augenblicke offenbart, wenn er uns Trost, Erhebung, Freude geben kann. Der pantheistische Geist in den philosophischen Spekulationen hat gar keine Bedeutung. Der lebendige Geist, der in der Natur zu uns spricht, wie die Menschenseele in einem Menschen zu uns spricht, er ist es erst, der belebend und erhebend in das menschliche Gemüt einziehen kann.
Dann aber wird dieses menschliche Gemüt aus einer solchen, im Gemüte verwandelten Erkenntnis auch für das Erdendasein jene Kräfte gewinnen, welche die Menschheit gerade für das soziale Leben braucht. Die Menschheit hat sich durch drei bis vier Jahrhunderte angewöhnt, alles Naturdasein und auch das Menschendasein nur mit intellektuellen, abstrakten Vorstellungen anzuschauen. Und jetzt, wo die Menschheit vor die großen Probleme des sozialen Chaos gestellt wird, möchte man mit diesem Intellektualismus auch die sozialen Probleme lösen. Niemals aber werden die Menschen damit etwas anderes als Schimären erzeugen. Um auf dem sozialen Gebiete mitreden zu können, dazu gehört ein volles Menschenherz. Aber das kann nicht da sein, wenn der Mensch nicht seine Beziehung zum Kosmos und namentlich zum geistigen Inhalt des Kosmos findet. In dem Augenblick wird die Morgendämmerung auch für ein notwendiges Lösen der augenblicklichen sozialen Fragen da sein, in dem die menschlichen Gemüter Geistbewußtsein in sich aufnehmen werden, jenes Geistbewußtsein, das sich zusammensetzt aus der Abwandlung von Naturbewußtsein: Frühling-Sommerbewußtsein, zum Selbstbewußtsein: Herbst-Winterbewußtsein. Im tiefen Sinne hängt dadurch zum Beispiel nicht der Verstandesinhalt des sozialen Problems, sondern die Kraft, die das soziale Problem braucht, davon ab, daß eine genügend große Anzahl von Menschen solche geistigen Impulse in das Innere aufnehmen können.
Das alles aber ist notwendig, sich vor das menschliche Gemüt zu führen, wenn man daran denkt, daß zu den drei Festen, die abgeschattet sind in Weihnachtsfest, Osterfest, Johannifest, hinzugefügt werden soll das Herbstesfest, das Michael-Fest. Schön, ungeheuer schön wäre es, wenn dieses Michael-Fest Ende September mit aller menschlichen Herzenskraft gefeiert werden könnte. Aber es darf nicht so gefeiert werden, daß man diese oder jene Veranstaltungen macht, die als abstrakte Gemütsempfindungen verlaufen, sondern zu einem Michael-Fest gehören Menschen, die alles das in ihren Seelen voll erfühlen, was im Inneren des Menschen das Geistbewußtsein rege machen kann. Denn wie steht das Osterfest da unter den Festen des Jahres? Ein Auferstehungsfest ist es. Es erinnert uns an jene Auferstehung, die durch das Herabkommen des Sonnengeistes Christus in einen menschlichen Leib sich im Mysterium von Golgatha vollzogen hat. Erst der Tod, dann die Auferstehung für die äußere Anschauung des Mysteriums von Golgatha. Wer das Mysterium von Golgatha in dieser Sinne versteht, der schaut in diesem Erlösungsweg Tod und Auferstehung an. Und er spricht dann vielleicht in seiner Seele: Ich muß mich mit dem Christus, welcher der Sieger ist über den Tod, verbünden in meinem Gemüte, um im Tode die Auferstehung zu finden. Aber das Christentum ist nicht abgeschlossen mit den Traditionen, die sich an das Mysterium von Golgatha knüpfen, es muß weitergehen. Das menschliche Gemüt verinnerlicht sich im Laufe der Zeit, und der Mensch braucht zu diesem Feste, das ihm vor Augen stellt Tod und Auferstehung des Christus, jenes andere Fest, durch das dem Menschen in verinnerlichter Weise der Jahreslauf erscheint, so daß er zuerst im Jahreslaufe die Auferstehung der Seele finden kann, erst die Seele zur Auferstehung bringen muß, damit sie in würdiger Weise durch die Todespforte gehen kann. Osterfest: erst Tod, dann Auferstehung; Michael-Fest: erst Auferstehung der Seele, dann Tod.
Damit wird das Michael-Fest zu einem umgekehrten Osterfest. Im Osterfest feiert der Mensch die Auferstehung des Christus vom Tode. Im Michael-Fest muß der Mensch mit aller Intensität der Seele fühlen: Wenn ich nicht wie ein Halbtoter schlafen will, so daß ich mein Selbstbewußtsein abgedämpft finde zwischen Tod und neuer Geburt, sondern in voller Klarheit durch die Todespforte durchgehen will, muß ich, um das zu können, durch innere Kräfte meine Seele auferwecken vor dem Tode. - Erst Auferweckung der Seele, dann Tod, damit im Tode dann jene Auferstehung, die der Mensch in seinem Inneren selber feiert, begangen werden kann.
Mögen diese Vorträge ein wenig dazu beigetragen haben, sozusagen die Brücke zu schlagen zwischen den bloßen Verstandeserkenntnissen der Anthroposophie und demjenigen, was Anthroposophie sein kann den menschlichen Gemütern. Dann werde ich sehr froh sein und in der Zukunft lieb zurückdenken können gerade an das, was wir in diesen Vorträgen besprechen konnten, in diesen Vorträgen, die ich wahrhaftig nicht zu Ihrem Verstande, die ich zu Ihrem Gemüte sprechen wollte, und durch die ich auf eine Art, wie man es heute nicht gewohnt ist, hinweisen wollte auch auf die sozialen Anregungen, welche die Menschheit heute sogar sehr nötig hat. Stimmung für soziale Impulse werden wir eigentlich erst durch eine solche innerliche Vertiefung des Gemütes in die Menschheit hereinbekommen. Das ist es, was mir jetzt besonders stark vor die Seele tritt, wo ich diese Vorträge, die ich wirklich vor Ihnen hier, vor den lieben Österreichern, aus einem inneren Herzensbedürfnis heraus gehalten habe, abschließen muß.
Fourth Lecture
All the considerations that I have made here before you over the last few days have been aimed at drawing attention to how man can in turn become a citizen of the cosmos from a citizen of the earth, so to speak, how the horizon of his life can expand into the vastness of the world, and how life can thereby also attain an enrichment within the earthly sphere not only in terms of expansion, but also in terms of the intensity of inner impulses.
I spoke last time about how a real spiritual view leads man to see through how the planets of our planetary system are not only those physical bodies of which today's astronomy speaks, but how they can really become conscious to us as revelations of spiritual beings. In this connection I have spoken of the moon, I have spoken of Saturn. In the brevity of this consideration I cannot, of course, go into all the individual planets, nor is that relevant to our present aim. I only wanted to point out how the whole human soul constitution can be extended from the earth into the world spaces. But only then is it possible to regard the outer world as belonging to oneself, just as one regards what goes on within the human skin as belonging to oneself, just as one regards one's breathing, blood circulation and so on as belonging to oneself.
Today's natural science also views our earth as if it were a mere mineral, dead body. In today's civilization, people don't even think about the fact that what they consider cosmologically, for example, has no reality in mind. Today's state of mind is extraordinarily dull when it comes to perceiving reality. Man easily calls, for example, a salt crystal real, he also calls a rose real, and he does not distinguish between these two realities. But a salt crystal is a self-contained reality that can exist on its own, a rose cannot. A rose only has an existence when it is on the rosebush. A rose, I mean the blossom of the rose, cannot come into being on its own out there. So if we even have the idea of a rose blossom, which we may enjoy, provided we have realized this idea externally, then we have an abstract thing, even if we can touch this abstract thing, but we have no true reality, only the rosebush has that. And neither does the earth with its primary rock, shale and limestone and so on, which external science tells us about today, have a true reality, because this earth does not exist, it is only imagined. And the real earth, did it not bring forth plants from the solid, did it not bring forth animals, human beings? That belongs to the earth, belongs to the earth just as much as the crystalline slate of the mountains, and if I only look at an earth that consists of stone, then I have no earth. This is not a reality that external natural science considers in any field of geology today.
So for our final consideration it is actually a matter of proceeding not only logically, but in accordance with reality. We can say today that the obvious errors of today's education are actually of little concern to us; the easily refuted are of little concern to us. What is worst in today's knowledge, in today's cognition, is that which apparently cannot be refuted at all. - You see, it really takes spiritual wealth, exact knowledge, to calculate all those things that today's geological science, for example, calculates for the formation of the earth, the formation of the earth so and so many millions of years ago. However, these calculations deviate from each other by small amounts. Some geologists say twenty million, some two hundred million years, but twenty million or two hundred million have become trivialities for people in other areas today. Despite the fact that these people have such different opinions, the method of calculation used is really such that one can have every respect for it. It is exact, it is precise. But how is it? It is as if I were to examine the human heart today, then again in a month's time. Through some, let's say, more subtle examinations, I come to determine changes in this human heart, and then I know how this heart has changed in the course of a month. Then I observe again how it has changed after another month and so on. In other words, I apply the same method to the human heart that geologists use to calculate the geological periods after millions of years, where they also calculate on the basis of the deposits and so on in the layers of the earth, in order to calculate figures from this, if you keep the small changes together in the appropriate way. But how can I do this with the results I have obtained about the changes in the human heart? I can now apply the method to the changes and calculate what this human heart looked like three hundred years ago and what it will look like after three hundred years. The calculation can be correct. But this heart was not there three hundred years ago and will not be there after three hundred years. Thus the most ingenious, exact methods of calculation can lead to the fact that today in geological science one makes statements about what the earth looked like three million years ago, where there was no Silurian and so on. The calculation may well be correct, but the earth was not there yet. And it is also possible to calculate today - as physicists do - how the various substances will be completely different after twenty million years. In this respect, American researchers have carried out extraordinarily interesting research and descriptions, for example of what protein would look like then; only the earth as a physical world body will no longer be there! Logical methods and exactness are actually the dangerous thing, because they cannot be refuted. It cannot be refuted if one were to calculate what the heart looked like three hundred years ago, if the method is correct, or what the earth looked like twenty million years ago, nor can anything be done by trying to refute them, but we must grasp a realistic way of thinking, a realistic world view.
It is precisely this kind of all-round grasp of reality that is important in spiritual science in all areas. And through such methods as I described yesterday, through such internalized methods, through which, as I showed yesterday, one gets to know the moon and Saturn, one learns not only the relationship of the earth to its own beings, but also the relationship of every being in the universe to the being of the cosmos. Everywhere in the world, the spiritual is contained in the material, which is only the external expression of the spiritual. Imagination, inspiration and intuition find the spiritual everywhere in the sensual, in the physical, but they do not find this spiritual merely in such a way that it can be grasped, let us say, in sharp contours, but they find the spiritual in an incessant mobility, in an incessant life. And just as what geology provides us with as the rocks has no reality, but the earth must first be sought in its production of plants, animals and physical human beings, so the earth, if it is to be grasped in its overall reality, must also be grasped as the external physical manifestation of the spiritual.
First of all one learns through the imagination how the earthly spiritual nevertheless differs in a certain respect from the human spiritual, if I may express myself so. When a human being steps in front of me, there are many different expressions of his being before my eyes. I see how he walks, I hear how he speaks, I see his physiognomy, I see the gestures of his arms and hands. But all this leads me to search for a unified soul-spirituality that has dominion in him. Just as here instinct must search for a unified soul-spirituality in the self-contained human being, so imaginative cognition, when it looks at the earth, does not find a unified earth-spirituality, but finds the earth-spirituality as a multiplicity, as a manifoldness. One should therefore not conclude from analogy from the spiritual of the human being to a uniform earth spirit, because the real view gives a multiplicity of earth spirituality, so to speak of spiritual entities that live in the realms of the nature of the earth. But these spiritual entities go through a life, are in a process of becoming.
Now let us take a look at what this imagination, which is supported by inspiration, perceives in the course of a year of becoming on earth. Let us first direct the soul's gaze to winter. The earth is outwardly covered with frost and snow, the germs, so to speak, of the earth beings, the plants, are taken back into the earth. Precisely that which has a germinating connection with the earth - we can disregard the animal and human world - withdraws the earth into its interior. In addition to the sprouting, budding life of spring and summer, we get to know the dying life of winter. But what does this dying life of winter mean spiritually? It means that those spiritual entities, which we can call elementary spiritual entities, which are the actual animating beings in plants in particular, withdraw into the earth itself, are intimately connected with the earth. This is the imaginative sight of the earth in winter, that the earth, so to speak, takes its spiritual elemental beings into its body, shelters them in its body. The earth is most spiritual in winter, that is, most permeated by its elemental spiritual beings.
With the one who looks at this, like all supersensible contemplation, this also passes over into sensation, into feeling. During the winter he looks at the earth with feeling and says to himself: "But where the blanket of snow lies, the earth's body is covered in such a way that the elemental spiritual beings of earthly existence themselves dwell in this earthly body. When spring comes, the relationship of these elemental-spiritual beings with the earth changes into a relationship with the cosmic environment. What during winter has given off a deep kinship in these beings with the earth itself, becomes kinship with the cosmic environment during spring, the elemental beings strive out of the earth. And spring actually consists of the earth allowing its elemental beings to flow out in devotion to the universe. In winter these elemental beings need to rest in the bosom of the earth, in spring they need to flow out through the air, through the atmosphere, to be determined by the spiritual forces of the planetary system, the spiritual forces of Mercury, Mars, Jupiter and so on. Everything that can have an effect on the earth spirits from the planetary system does not work in winter, it begins to work in spring. And it really is the case that we can observe a cosmic process here that is more spiritual in relation to a process in man that is more material: the breathing process in man. We breathe in the outer air, hold it in our own body, we breathe it out again; we breathe in, we breathe out. Breathing in, breathing out is an integral part of human life. The earth has breathed in all its spirituality in winter and begins to breathe its spirituality back out into the cosmos when spring arrives. And man felt this in very ancient times of human development, when a kind of instinctive clairvoyance was still present. He therefore sensed the appropriateness of being on earth at the winter solstice in the Christmas festival. Where the earth is most spiritual, there it was allowed to hold the secret of Christmas for him. The Redeemer could only connect with an earth that had absorbed all its spirituality into its womb.
But for the feast, for which the feeling should come to life that man not only belongs to the earth, but that he belongs to the whole universe, and that he can awaken as an earth citizen with his soul in the universe, for this feast of resurrection only that time could be used which leads all earth spirituality out into the cosmos. This is why we see Christmas in connection with earthly events, with the winter eclipse of the earth, with the - in a certain sense - sleep of the earth. Easter, on the other hand, we see as being marked in the course of the year in such a way that we do not determine it according to earthly affairs, but according to cosmic affairs. The first Sunday after the spring full moon is decisive for Easter. So in earlier times the stars had to tell people when Easter should be, because that is when the whole earth opens up to the cosmos. The scriptures of the cosmos had to be consulted, man had to realize that he is not just an earthly being, that he must open himself to the cosmic expanses in the spring Easter.
It really hurts one's soul when these great thoughts of a lived-through time of humanity, which was even greater in terms of such thoughts than the present, are now being discussed today, as we have been used to for twenty, twenty-five years, that all kinds of people who believe they mean well with humanity are talking about how Easter should not be kept so flexible; at least it should be fixed on the first Sunday in April, i.e. externally, quite abstractly. I have had to listen to discussions in which people have pointed out how it makes a mess of merchants' accounts that Easter is so flexible, and how business would be much more regular if Easter were strictly regulated. As I said, it hurts one's soul to see how unworldly this civilization, which considers itself practical, has become, for such a proposal is the most impractical thing imaginable; impractical because this civilization can establish practice for the day, but never for the century. For the century, only that which is in harmony with the universe can justify practice. But the course of the year must always be able to point man to the inner life with the whole cosmos.
And as we move from spring to summer, the earth loses more and more of its inner spirituality. This spirituality, the elemental beings, pass from the earthly into the extraterrestrial, come completely under the influence of the cosmic, planetary world. This was once the tremendously profound ritual act that unfolded within certain mystery sites at the time when we now celebrate St. John's Day in midsummer. This St. John's festival in midsummer was once the time when the initiates, the mystery priests of those places where St. John's festivals were held in their original meaning, were deeply imbued with the idea that what you had to seek in the depths of winter, at the winter solstice, by looking through the spiritually transparent blanket of snow into the interior of the earth, you would now find by casting your soul's gaze outwards. And the elemental beings that were determined by the earth's foundations during the winter time within the earth are now determined by the planets. You learn from the beings that you had to search for in the earth in winter, their experiences with the planets during midsummer. - And just as man otherwise unconsciously experiences his breathing process as something that belongs inwardly to his existence, so man once experienced his existence as belonging to the course of the year - in the spiritual, which belongs to the earth. He sought the elemental beings of nature related to him in the depths of the earth during the winter; he sought them in the heights of the clouds during the height of summer. He found them in the depths of the earth inwardly interwoven and lived through by their own earth forces in connection with what the moon forces had left behind in the earth; he found them during midsummer devoted to the vastness of the universe.
And when the time of midsummer comes to an end, then also the earth begins again to breathe in its spiritual, so that from the time of St. John downwards, when the earth breathes in its spiritual, again that time prepares itself where the earth will carry its spiritual in itself.
Man today is little inclined to look at this inhaling and exhaling of the earth. Human breathing is more of a physical process, earth breathing is a spiritual process, it is a stepping out of the elemental beings of the earth into world spaces and a sinking of these beings into the earth. But really, just as the human being experiences what is going on in his blood circulation in his inner attitude to life, so he actually experiences the course of the year as a fully human being. Just as the circulation of the blood is inwardly essential to his existence, so - in a broader sense - this circulation of the elemental entities from earth up to heaven and back to earth again is essential to human existence. And it is only the coarseness of perception that makes man today no longer suspect what actually depends within himself on this outer course of the year. But in the course of time man will have to make an effort to absorb the ideas which spiritual science, supersensible knowledge provides him with, in that he will have to develop that inner activity which he needs in order to really make present to himself in his inner soul that which is entrusted to him as spiritual scientific results, such a grasping of these spiritual scientific results will also make his ability to feel finer. This is actually what you should all expect from the deepening of that supersensible knowledge which anthroposophy means. If you read an anthroposophical book, even if you read a cycle, and you read it in such a way that your reading is like reading another book, that your reading is as abstract as reading another book, then you really have no need to read anthroposophical literature. I would rather advise you to read cookery books or technical textbooks or the like, because that is more useful, or a manual on how best to do business. Reading anthroposophical books or listening to anthroposophical lectures only makes sense if you realize that in order to absorb these results you have to tune yourself quite differently than for other results. This can be seen from the fact that those people who actually consider themselves to be particularly clever today consider this anthroposophical literature to be madness. Yes, they must also have reasons for thinking it is madness. The reasons are that they say: everything else says otherwise, everything else presents the world to us differently. We can't accept that these anthroposophists come along and present the world in a completely different way! - Yes, what comes into the world as anthroposophical results is different from what we are told today. I must say that the policy sometimes pursued by some of our friends of trying to make anthroposophy look good to the world by actually presenting it as if there were no contradictions at all with the trivial opinions of others: one cannot really find these endeavors correct, although one encounters them again and again. You need a different attitude, a completely different orientation of the soul, if you really want to find what anthroposophy says plausible, comprehensible, understandable, clever and not insane.
But if one gets this other orientation, then after some time not only the human intellect will undergo a training, but the human mind will undergo a training; it will become more sensitive, this mind. And the mind will not only feel the winter in such a way that one puts on the winter coat when it gets cold, and it will not only feel the summer in such a way that one takes off a number of clothes when it gets warm again, but in the course of the year one will feel those fine transitions from the frosty snow in winter to the sultry midsummer time in earthly existence. And one will learn to really feel the course of the year in the same way as we feel the expressions of a living, animated being. Indeed, through proper study of anthroposophy one can bring the mind so far that the course of the year becomes so eloquently real to one that one feels towards the expressions of this course of the year as towards the assurances or the claims of a friend's soul. Just as one can feel from the words of the friend's soul, from the whole demeanor of the friend's soul, the warm pulse of the ensouled being, which truly speaks to one differently than something lifeless, unsouled, so nature, which was first silent, will be able to begin to speak for man as if ensouled. Man will learn to feel soul, soul in the process of becoming, in the course of the year, will learn to listen to what the year has to say, as to the great living being, while otherwise in his life he has to deal with small living beings, he will learn to place himself in the whole ensouled cosmos. But when summer turns into fall and winter approaches, a special something will speak to him from nature.
Whoever gradually acquires the fine feeling towards nature that I wanted to characterize - and the anthroposophist will notice after some time that this can be the emotional result, the result of his anthroposophical striving - will learn to distinguish between: nature-consciousness, which arises during the spring and summer time, and actual self-consciousness, which feels well during the autumn and winter time. Consciousness of nature: when spring comes, the earth develops its sprouting, budding life. And he who has the right feeling towards this sprouting, budding life, who lets speak within himself what is actually present during spring - one need not have it consciously, it also speaks in the subconscious to full human life - he who has all this does not merely say: The flower blooms, the plant germinates - but he truly feels a devotion to nature, so that he can say: My ego blooms in the flower, my ego germinates in the plant. - It is only through this that a consciousness of nature arises, that one learns to participate in that which develops and unfolds in sprouting, budding life. To be able to germinate with the plant, to blossom with the plant, to bear fruit with the plant: that is what it means for man to emerge from his inner being, to be absorbed in outer nature. Developing spirituality truly does not mean becoming abstract. Developing spirituality means being able to follow the spirit in its weaving and becoming. And if, by blossoming with the flower, germinating with the sprout, bearing fruit with the fruit, man himself develops this sense of nature in his subtle perception of nature throughout the spring and summer, he prepares himself to live in the height of summer, devoted to the universe, to the starry sky. Then every little firefly becomes something like a mysterious revelation of the cosmic; then, I would like to say, every breath in the atmosphere at midsummer time becomes an announcement of the cosmic within the earthly.
But then, when the earth breathes again, and when one has learned to feel with nature, to blossom with the flowers, to germinate with the sprouts, to bear fruit with the fruits, then one cannot help but experience autumn and winter, because one has learned to be in nature with one's own being. Those who have learned to live with nature will also be able to die with nature. He who has learned to live with nature in spring also learns to die with nature in fall. And so it is that in a different way one returns to those feelings that once pervaded the inner life of the Mithras priest, as I have described in these days. The Mithras priest felt the course of the year in his own body. This is no longer appropriate to present-day humanity. But it must become more and more appropriate to the humanity of the near future, and the anthroposophists should be pioneers of this experience, of experiencing the course of the year, of being able to live with spring and die with autumn.
But man must not die. Man must not allow himself to be overwhelmed. He can live with the sprouting, budding nature, he can develop a consciousness of nature through it. But if he experiences dying together with nature, then this co-experience is the invitation to confront this dying with the creative powers of his own being. Then the spiritual-soul, the actual self-consciousness, sprouts and buds in him, and in his inner experience, when he participates in the dying of nature in autumn and winter, he becomes the resurrector of his own self-consciousness in the highest degree. And thus man becomes, thus he metamorphoses himself in the course of the year by experiencing: nature-consciousness - self-consciousness. Then, when the dying of nature is experienced, the inner life force must awaken. When nature takes her elemental beings into her womb, the inner human power must become the awakening of self-consciousness.
Michael forces - now you can feel them again! The image of Michael's quarrel with the dragon arose from quite different conditions in the old instinctive times of clairvoyance. Now, however, as we realize in all liveliness: Nature-consciousness - self-consciousness, spring-, summer-, autumn-, winter-time, with the end of September the same power presents itself again before man, which makes him realize what, if one participates in the dying of nature, is to develop from this grave as a victorious power, which kindles in the inner being of man the true, the strong self-consciousness to brightness. Now Michael, victorious over the dragon, is here again.
So anthroposophical knowledge, anthroposophical insight must simply flow into the human mind as a force. And the path leads from our dry, abstract, but exact ideas to where the living knowledge absorbed into the mind again places us before something as full of life as the glorious image of Michael fighting the dragon in ancient times. Thus something other than abstract concepts again stands before our souls in the world view. Do not believe that such an experience is without consequences for the entire existence of man on earth. How the human being settles into the consciousness of immortality, how he settles into the consciousness of pre-earthly existence, I have often described over the years in the anthroposophical meetings here in Vienna. I wanted to show you at this meeting how man can receive spiritual power from the spiritual world - but now in a completely concrete sense - into his mind. It is certainly not enough that one generally speaks in a pantheistic or other way of the fact that the outer world is also based on a spirit. That would be just as abstract as if one were content to say: A human being has spirit. -- What does it mean just to be able to say: A person has spirit? - Spirit only has meaning for us when the spirit speaks to us in concrete details, when it reveals itself to us in concrete details in every moment, when it can give us comfort, upliftment, joy. The pantheistic spirit in philosophical speculation has no meaning at all. It is the living spirit that speaks to us in nature, just as the human soul speaks to us in a human being, that can enter the human mind in an invigorating and uplifting way.
But then this human mind will also gain those powers for earthly existence from such knowledge transformed in the mind, which humanity needs precisely for social life. For three or four centuries mankind has been accustomed to looking at all natural existence and also human existence only with intellectual, abstract ideas. And now that humanity is faced with the great problems of social chaos, people want to solve social problems with this intellectualism. But people will never use it to create anything other than chimeras. A full human heart is needed to be able to have a say in the social sphere. But this cannot be there if man does not find his relationship to the cosmos and in particular to the spiritual content of the cosmos. At that moment the dawn will also be there for a necessary solution of the present social questions, in which human minds will absorb spiritual consciousness, that spiritual consciousness which is composed of the modification of nature-consciousness: Spring-Summer consciousness, to Self-consciousness: Autumn-Winter consciousness. In the deep sense, for example, it is not the intellectual content of the social problem, but the power that the social problem needs, that depends on a sufficiently large number of people being able to absorb such spiritual impulses into their inner being.
But all this is necessary to bring before the human mind when one thinks of the fact that to the three festivals, which are shadowed in Christmas, Easter and St. John, the autumn festival, the Michaelmas festival, is to be added. It would be wonderful, tremendously wonderful, if this Michaelmas could be celebrated at the end of September with all the strength of the human heart. But it must not be celebrated in such a way that this or that event takes place as an abstract emotional experience, but a Michaelmas festival belongs to people who fully experience in their souls everything that can stir the spiritual consciousness within a person. For how does Easter stand among the festivals of the year? It is a festival of resurrection. It reminds us of the resurrection that took place in the Mystery of Golgotha through the descent of the Sun-Spirit Christ into a human body. First death, then resurrection for the external view of the Mystery of Golgotha. Anyone who understands the Mystery of Golgotha in this sense looks at death and resurrection in this path of redemption. And he may then say in his soul: I must ally myself in my mind with Christ, who is the victor over death, in order to find resurrection in death. But Christianity is not finished with the traditions linked to the Mystery of Golgotha, it must continue. The human mind internalizes itself in the course of time, and man needs for this feast, which places before his eyes the death and resurrection of Christ, that other feast through which the course of the year appears to man in an internalized way, so that he can first find the resurrection of the soul in the course of the year, must first bring the soul to resurrection so that it can pass through the gates of death in a worthy manner. Easter: first death, then resurrection; Michaelmas: first resurrection of the soul, then death.
Thus the Michaelmas feast becomes a reversed Easter. In Easter, man celebrates the resurrection of Christ from death. In the Michaelmas feast, man must feel with all the intensity of his soul: If I do not want to sleep like a half-dead person, so that I find my self-consciousness dampened between death and new birth, but want to pass through the gate of death in full clarity, I must, in order to be able to do so, raise my soul from death through inner forces. - First resurrection of the soul, then death, so that in death the resurrection that man celebrates within himself can be celebrated.
May these lectures have contributed a little to building a bridge, so to speak, between the mere intellectual insights of anthroposophy and what anthroposophy can be for the human mind. Then I will be very happy and will be able to think back fondly in the future on precisely what we were able to discuss in these lectures, in these lectures which I truly did not want to speak to your intellect, which I wanted to speak to your mind, and through which I also wanted to point to the social impulses which humanity is in great need of today, in a way that we are not used to today. It is only through such an inner deepening of the mind that we will actually get the mood for social impulses into humanity. That is what is now particularly strong in my mind as I have to conclude these lectures, which I have really given to you here, to the dear Austrians, out of an inner need of the heart.