The Inner Nature of Music and the Experience of Tone
GA 283
12 November 1906, Berlin
The Inner Nature of Music II
Through spiritual scientific investigation, we see how the world and all nature surrounding us becomes intelligible. It also becomes increasingly clear to us how the outer facts of our surroundings can have a more-or-less profound significance for the inner being of man. Today we will develop further the theme of why music affects the human soul in such a definite, unique way. In doing this, we will cast light on the very foundations of the soul.
To begin with we must ask how a remarkable hereditary line such as we see in the Bach family, for example, can be explained. Within a period of 250 years, nearly thirty members of this family exhibited marked musical talent. Another case is the Bernoulli family, in which a mathematical gift was inherited in a similar way through several generations, and eight of the family members were mathematicians of some renown. Here are two phenomena that can be understood by heredity, yet they are totally different situations.
To those who have sought to penetrate deeply into the nature of things, music appears to be something quite special. Music has always occupied a special place among the arts. Consider this from Schopenhauer's viewpoint. In his book, The World as Will and Idea, he speaks of art as a kind of knowledge that leads more directly to the divine than is possible for intellectual knowledge. This opinion of Schopenhauer's is connected with his world view, which held that everything surrounding us is only a reflection of the human mental image or idea. This reflection arises only because outer things call forth mental images in the human senses, enabling man to relate to the things themselves. Man can know nothing of that which is unable to make an impression on the senses. Schopenhauer speaks physiologically of specific sense impressions. The eye can receive only light impressions; it can sense only something that is light. Likewise, the ear can sense only tone impressions, and so on. According to Schopenhauer's view, everything observed by man as the world around him reflects itself like a Fata Morgana within him; it is a kind of reflection called forth by the human soul itself.
According to Schopenhauer, there is one possibility of bypassing the mental image. There is one thing perceptible to man for which no outer impression is needed, and this is man himself. All outer things are an eternally changing, eternally shifting Fata Morgana for man. We experience only one thing within ourselves in an immutable manner: ourselves. We experience ourselves in our will, and no detour from outside is required to perceive its effects on us. When we exercise any influence on the outer world, we experience will, we ourselves are this will, and we therefore know what the will is. We know it from our own inner experience, and by analogy we can conclude that this will working within us must exist and be active outside us as well. There must exist forces outside us that are the same as the force active within us, as will. These forces Schopenhauer calls “the world will.”
Now let us pose the question of how art originates. In line with Schopenhauer's reasoning, the answer would be that art originates through a combination of the Fata Morgana outside us and that within us, through a uniting of both. When an artist, a sculptor, for example, wishes to create an ideal figure, say of Zeus, and he searches for an archetype, he does not focus on a single human being in order to find the archetype in him; instead, he looks around among many men. He gathers a little from one man, a little from another, and so on. He takes note of everything that represents strength and is noble and outstanding, and from this he forms an archetypal picture of Zeus that corresponds to the thought of Zeus he carries. This is the idea in man, which can be acquired only if the particulars the world offers us are combined within man's mind.
Let us place Schopenhauer's thought alongside one of Goethe's, which finds expression in the words, “In nature, it is the intentions that are significant.” We find Schopenhauer and Goethe in complete agreement with one another. Both thinkers believe that there are intentions in nature that she can neither bring completely to expression nor attain in her creations, at least not with the details. The creative artist tries to recognize these intentions in nature; he tries to combine them and represent them in a picture. One now comprehends Goethe, who says that art is a revelation of nature's secret intentions and that the creative artist reveals the continuation of nature. The artist takes nature into himself; he causes it to arise in him again and then lets it go forth from him. It is as if nature were not complete and in man found the possibility of guiding her work to an end. In man, nature finds her completion, her fulfillment, and she rejoices, as it were, in man and his works.
In the human heart lies the capability of thinking things through to the end and of pouring forth what has been the intention of nature. Goethe sees nature as the great, creative artist that cannot completely attain her intentions, presenting us with something of a riddle. The artist, however, solves these riddles; he thinks the intentions of nature through to the end and expresses them in his works.
Schopenhauer says that this holds true of all the arts except music. Music stands on a higher level than all the other arts. Why? Schopenhauer finds the answer, saying that in all the other creative arts, such as sculpture and painting, the mental images must be combined before the hidden intentions of nature are discovered. Music, on the other hand, the melodies and harmonies of tones, is nature's direct expression. The musician hears the pulse of the divine will that flows through the world; he hears how this will expresses itself in tones. The musician thus stands closer to the heart of the world than all other artists; in him lives the faculty of representing the world will. Music is the expression of the will of nature, while all the other arts are expressions of the idea of nature. Since music flows nearer the heart of the world and is a direct expression of its surging and swelling, it also directly affects the human soul. It streams into the soul like the divine in its different forms. Hence, it is understandable that the effects of music on the human soul are so direct, so powerful, so elemental.
Let us turn from the standpoint of significant individuals such as Schopenhauer and Goethe concerning the sublime art of music to the standpoint of spiritual science, allowing it to cast its light on this question. If we do this, we find that what man is makes comprehensible why harmonies and melodies affect him. Again, we return to the three states of consciousness that are possible for the human being and to his relationship to the three worlds to which he belongs during any one of these three states of consciousness.
Of these three states of consciousness, there is only one fully known to the ordinary human being, since he is unaware of himself while in either of the other two. From them, he brings no conscious recollection or impression back into his familiar state of consciousness, that is, the one we characterized as waking day-consciousness. The second state of consciousness is familiar to an extent to the ordinary human being. It is dream-filled sleep, which presents simple daily experiences to man in symbols. The third state of consciousness is dreamless sleep, a state of a certain emptiness for the ordinary human being.
Initiation, however, transforms the three states of consciousness. First, man's dream-life changes. It is no longer chaotic, no longer a reproduction of daily experiences often rendered in tangled symbols. Instead, a new world unfolds before man in dream-filled sleep. A world filled with flowing colors and radiant light-beings surrounds him, the astral world. This is no newly created world. It is new only for a person who, until now, had not advanced beyond the lower state of day-consciousness. Actually, this astral world is always present and continuously surrounds the human being. It is a real world, as real as the world surrounding us that appears to us as reality. Once a person has been initiated, has undergone initiation, he becomes acquainted with this wonderful world. He learns to be conscious in it with a consciousness as clear—no even clearer—than his ordinary day-consciousness. He also becomes familiar with his own astral body and learns to live in it consciously. The basic experience in this new world that unfolds before man is one of living and weaving in a world of colors and light. After his initiation, man begins to awaken during his ordinary dream-filled sleep; it is as though he feels himself borne upward on a surging sea of flowing light and colors. This glimmering light and these flowing colors are living beings. This experience of conscious dream-filled sleep then transmits itself into man's entire life in waking day-consciousness, and he learns to see these beings in everyday life as well.
Man attains the third state of consciousness when he is capable of transforming dreamless sleep into a conscious state. This world that man learns to enter shows itself to him at first only partially, but in due time more and more is revealed. Man lives in this world for increasingly longer periods. He is conscious in it and experiences something very significant there.
Man can arrive at perception of the second world, the astral world, only if he undergoes the discipline of so-called “great stillness.” He must become still, utterly still, within himself. The great peace must precede the awakening in the astral world. This deep stillness becomes more and more pronounced when man approaches the third state of consciousness, the state in which he begins to have sensations in dreamless sleep. The colors of the astral world become increasingly transparent, and the light becomes ever clearer and at the same time spiritualized. Man has the sensation that he himself lives in this color and this light, and if they do not surround him but rather he himself is color and light. He feels himself astrally within this astral world, and he feels afloat in a great, deep peace. Gradually, this deep stillness begins to resound spiritually, softly at first, then louder and louder. The world of colors and light is permeated with resounding tones. In this third state of consciousness that man now approaches, the colorful world of the astral realm in which he dwelt up to now becomes suffused with sound. This new dimension that opens to man is Devachan, the so-called mental world, and he enters this wondrous world through the portals of the “great stillness.” Through the great stillness, the tone of this other world rings out to him. This is how the Devachanic world truly appears.
Many theosophical books contain other descriptions of Devachan, but they are not based on personal experiences of the reality of the world. Leadbeater, for example, gives an accurate description of the astral plane and of experiences there, but his description of Devachan is inaccurate. It is merely a construction modeled on the astral plane and is not experienced personally by him. All descriptions that do not describe how a tone rings out from the other side are incorrect and are not based on actual perception. Resounding tone is the particular characteristic of Devachan, at least essentially. Of course, one must not imagine that the Devachanic world does not radiate colors as well. It is penetrated by light emanating from the astral world, for the two worlds are not separated: the astral world penetrates the Devachanic world. The essence of the Devachanic realm, however, lies in tone. That which was light in the great stillness now begins to resound.
On a still higher plane of Devachan, tone becomes something akin to words. All true inspiration originates on this plane, and in this region dwell inspired authors. Here they experience a real permeation with the truths of the higher worlds. This phenomenon is entirely possible.
We must bear in mind that not only the initiate lives in these worlds. The only difference between the ordinary human being and the initiate is that an initiate undergoes these various altered conditions consciously. The states that ordinary man undergoes unconsciously again and again merely change into conscious ones for him. The ordinary human being passes through these three worlds time after time, but he knows nothing about it, because he is conscious neither of himself nor of his experiences there. Nevertheless, he returns with some of the effects that these experiences called forth in him. When he awakens in the morning, not only is he physically rejuvenated by the sleep, but he also brings back art from those worlds. When a painter, for example, goes far beyond the reality of colors in the physical world in his choice of the tones and color harmonies that he paints on his canvas, it is none other than a recollection, albeit an unconscious one, of experiences in the astral world. Where has he seen these tones, these shining colors? Where has he experienced them? They are the after-effects of the astral experiences he has had during the night. Only this flowing ocean of light and colors, of beauty and radiating, glimmering depths, where he has dwelt during sleep, gives him the possibility of using these colors among which he existed. With the dense, earthy colors of our physical world, however, he is unable to reproduce anything close to the ideal that he has experienced and that lives in him. We thus see in painting a shadow-image, a precipitation of the astral world in the physical world, and we see how the effects of the astral realm bear magnificent, marvelous fruits in man.
In great art there are wonderful things that are much more comprehensible to a spiritual scientist, because he discerns their origin. I am thinking, for instance, of two paintings by Leonardo da Vinci that hang in the Louvre in Paris. One portrays Bacchus, the other St. John. Both paintings show the same face; evidently the same model was employed for both. It is not their outward narrative effect, therefore, that makes them totally different from each other. The artistic mysteries of light contained in the paintings are based more purely on their effects of color and light. The painting of Bacchus displays an unusual glistening reddish light that is poured over the body's surface. It speaks of voluptuousness concealed beneath the skin and thus characterizes Bacchus's nature. It is as if the body were imbibing the light and, permeated with its own voluptuous nature, exuded it again. The painting of John, on the other hand, displays a chaste, yellowish hue. It seems as if the color is only playing about the body. The body allows the light only to surround its forms; it does not wish to absorb anything from outside into itself. An utterly unselfish corporeality, fully pure and chaste, addresses the viewer from this painting.
A spiritual scientist understands all this. One must not believe, however, that an artist is always intellectually aware of what is concealed in his work. The precipitations of his astral vision need not penetrate as far as physical consciousness in order to live in his works. Leonardo da Vinci perhaps did not know the occult laws by which he created his paintings—that is not what matters—but he followed them out of his instinctive feeling. We thus see in painting the shadow, the precipitation, of the astral world in our physical realm.
The composer conjures a still higher world; he conjures the Devachanic world into the physical world. The melodies and harmonies that speak to us from the compositions of our great masters are actually faithful copies of the Devachanic world. If we are at all capable of experiencing a foretaste of the spiritual world, this would be found in the melodies and harmonies of music and the effects it has on the human soul.
We return once again to the nature of the human being. We find first of all the physical world, then the etheric body, then the astral body, and finally the “I” of which man first became conscious at the end of the Atlantean age.1A note in the German edition states that a brief description followed here concerning the various members of the human organization but that the transcript was too poor to be reproduced. They were similar to those given in Steiner's Theosophy in the chapter “The Being of Man.” In particular, the separation of the astral body into sentient body and sentient soul was emphasized.
When man sleeps, the astral body and the sentient soul release themselves from the lower nature of man. Physical man lies in bed connected with his etheric body. All his other members loosen and dwell in the astral and Devachanic worlds. In these worlds, specifically in the Devachanic world, the soul absorbs into itself the world of tones. When he awakens each morning, man actually has passed through an element of music, an ocean of tones. A musical person is one whose physical nature is such that it follows these impressions, though he need not know this. A sense of musical pleasure is based on nothing other than the right accord between the harmonies brought from beyond and the tones and melodies here. We experience musical pleasure when outer tones correspond with those within.
Regarding the musical element, the cooperation of sentient soul and sentient body is of special significance. One must understand that all consciousness arises through a kind of overcoming of the outer world. What comes to consciousness in man as pleasure of joy signifies victory of the spiritual over merely animated corporeality [Körperlich-Lebendige], the victory of the sentient soul over the sentient body. It is possible for one who returns from sleep with the inner vibrations to intensify these tones and to perceive the victory of the sentient soul over the sentient body, so that the soul feels itself stronger than the body. In the effects of a minor key the sentient soul vibrates more intensely and predominates over the sentient body. When the minor third is played, one feels pain in the soul, the predominance of the sentient body, but when the major third resounds, it announces the victory of the soul.
Now we can grasp the basis of the profound significance of music. We understand why music has been elevated throughout the ages to the highest position among the arts by those who know the relationships of the inner life, why even those who do not know these relationships grant music a special place, and why music stirs the deepest strings of our soul, causing them to resound.
Alternating between sleeping and waking, man continuously passes from the physical to the astral and from these worlds to the Devachanic world, a reflection of his overall course of incarnations. When in death he leaves the physical body, he rises through the astral world up into Devachan. There he finds his true home; there he finds his place of rest. This solemn repose is followed by his re-entry into the physical world, and in this way man passes continuously from one world to another.
The human being, however, experiences the elements of the Devachanic world as his own innermost nature, because they are his primeval home. The vibrations flowing through the spiritual world are felt in the innermost depths of his being. In a sense, man experiences the astral and physical as mere sheaths. His primeval home is in Devachan, and the echoes from this homeland, the spiritual world, resound in him in the harmonies and melodies of the physical world. These echoes pervade the lower world with inklings of a glorious and wonderful existence; they churn up man's innermost being and thrill it with vibrations of purest joy and sublime spirituality, something that this world cannot provide. Painting speaks to the astral corporeality, but the world of tone speaks to the innermost being of man. As long as a person is not yet initiated, his homeland, the Devachanic world, is given to him in music. This is why music is held in such high esteem by all who sense such a relationship. Schopenhauer also senses this in a kind of instinctive intuition and expresses it in his philosophical formulations.
Through esoteric knowledge the world, and above all the arts, become comprehensible to us. As it is above so it is below, and as below so above. One who understands this expression in its highest sense learns to recognize increasingly the preciousness in the things of this world, and gradually he experiences as precious recognition the imprints of ever higher and higher worlds. In music, too, he experiences the image of a higher world.
The work of an architect, built in stone to withstand centuries, is something that originates in man's inner being and is then transformed into matter. The same is true of the works of sculptors and painters. These works are present externally and have taken on form.
Musical creations, however, must be generated anew again and again. They flow onward in the surge and swell of their harmonies and melodies, a reflection of the soul, which in its incarnations must always experience itself anew in the onward-flowing stream of time. Just as the human soul is an evolving entity, so its reflection here on earth is a flowing one. The deep effect of music is due to this kinship. Just as the human soul flows downward from its home in Devachan and flows back to it again, so do its shadows, the tones, the harmonies. Hence the intimate effect of music on the soul. Out of music the most primordial kinship speaks to the soul; in the most inwardly deep sense, sounds of home rebound from it. From the soul's primeval home, the spiritual world, the sounds of music are borne across to us and speak comfortingly and encouragingly to us in surging melodies and harmonies.
Zweiter Vortrag
Wir sehen, wie uns die Welt, die ganze Natur um uns herum, durch die geisteswissenschaftliche Betrachtungsweise verständlich wird, und es wird uns mehr und mehr klar, wie äußere Tatsachen unserer Umgebung eine mehr oder weniger tiefgehende Bedeutung für die innere Wesenheit des Menschen haben können. Wir werden heute einiges entwickeln über das Thema: Warum wirkt die Musik in einer ganz bestimmten, eigenartigen Weise auf die menschliche Seele? — Dabei wollen wir tief hineinleuchten in die Gründe der Seele.
An den Ausgangspunkt stellen wir die Frage, wie es sich denn erklären läßt, daß eine so merkwürdige Vererbung stattfinden kann, wie wir sie zum Beispiel in der Familie Bach sehen, in der innerhalb eines Zeitraumes von zweihundertfünfzig Jahren eine Anzahl von beinahe dreißig Mitgliedern eminente musikalische Begabung zeigten. Oder eine andere Tatsache: daß in der Familie Bernoulli die mathematische Begabung in ähnlicher Weise sich vererbte und acht ihrer Mitglieder mehr oder weniger große Mathematiker waren. Das sind zwei Erscheinungen, die sich unter Vererbung begreifen lassen; doch sind sie total verschiedene Dinge.
Die Musik erschien von jeher den Geistern, die versuchten, etwas tiefer in das Wesen der Dinge einzudringen, als etwas ganz Besonderes. Stets nahm die Musik eine besondere Stellung innerhalb der Kunst ein. Stellen wir uns einmal auf den Standpunkt Schopenhauers. In seinem Werke «Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung» spricht er von den Künsten als von einer Art Erkenntnis, die unmittelbarer ins Göttliche führe, als es der Verstandeserkenntnis möglich sein könne. Diese Ansicht Schopenhauers hängt damit zusammen, daß er über die Welt die Anschauung hatte, alles, was uns umgibt, sei nur ein Spiegelbild menschlicher Vorstellung. Dieses Spiegelbild kommt nur dadurch zustande, daß äußere Dinge in den menschlichen Sinnen Vorstellungen hervorrufen und daß der Mensch dadurch zu ihnen in Beziehung tritt. Von dem, was keinen Eindruck machen kann auf die Sinne, kann der Mensch nichts wissen. Physiologisch spricht er von spezifischen Sinnesempfindungen. Das Auge kann nur Lichtempfindungen in sich aufnehmen, allen anderen Eindrücken gegenüber verhält es sich unempfindlich; nur das, was Licht ist, kann es empfinden, und gleichermaßen das Gehör nur Tonempfindungen und so weiter. Alles was der Mensch so als seine Welt ringsum betrachtet, spiegelt sich, nach der Anschauung Schopenhauers, als eine Art Fata Morgana in ihm wieder, ist eine Art Spiegelung, hervorgerufen durch die menschliche Seele selbst.
Nun sagt Schopenhauer, es gibt doch eine Möglichkeit, hinter die Vorstellung zu kommen. Ein Ding gibt es, zu dessen Wahrnehmung der Mensch keiner äußeren Einwirkung bedarf, und das ist der Mensch selber. Alles Äußere ist ihm eine ewig wechselnde, ewig sich verschiebende Fata Morgana. Nur eines spüren wir unabänderlich und immer in derselben Weise in uns, das sind wir selber. Unser Wille ist es, in dem wir uns spüren, und es ist kein Umweg von außen nötig, um seine Einwirkungen auf uns wahrzunehmen. Wenn wir irgendeine Wirkung auf die Außenwelt vollziehen, dann spüren wir den Willen, wir sind selbst dieser Wille, daher wissen wir, was der Wille ist. Wir wissen es aus eigener, innerer Erfahrung, und aus der Analogie können wir schließen, daß dieser in uns wirkende Wille auch außer uns vorhanden und tätig sein muß, daß Kräfte außer uns vorhanden sein müssen, gleich wie die Kraft, die innerhalb unser als Wille tätig ist. Und diese Kräfte nennt er den Weltwillen.
Stellen wir uns nun die Frage: Wie entsteht Kunst? — Die Antwort auf diese Frage, immer noch im Sinne Schopenhauers, lautet: Durch ein Kombinieren der Fata Morgana außer uns und in uns, durch ein Zusammenfassen beider. Wenn der Künstler, zum Beispiel als Bildhauer, eine Idealgestalt, sagen wir, von Zeus schaffen will, und er sich nach einem Urbilde umschaut, dann sieht er sich nicht einen einzelnen Menschen an, um in ihm das Urbild zu finden, sondern hält Umschau unter vielen Menschen. Er nimmt von dem einen Menschen ein wenig, von dem anderen wieder ein wenig und so weiter. Er prägt sich alles ein, was Stärke, was edel, was hervorragend ist, und daraus formt er sich ein typisches Bild von Zeus, so wie er den Zeusgedanken in sich trägt. Das ist die Idee im Menschen, die nur dadurch zu gewinnen ist, daß man das, was die Welt uns bietet, was in Einzelheiten an uns herantritt, in sich kombiniert.
Stellen wir diesen Gedanken Schopenhauers mit dem Goetheschen Gedanken zusammen, der seinen Ausdruck findet in den Worten: In der Natur sind mehr die Absichten bedeutsam. - Da finden wir, daß Schopenhauer und Goethe vollkommen miteinander einverstanden sind. Beide nehmen an, daß es Absichten in der Natur gibt, die sie in ihren Werken nicht ganz erreicht, nicht ganz zum Ausdruck bringen kann, wenigstens im einzelnen nicht voll erreicht. Der schaffende Künstler nun versucht, diese Absichten in der Natur zu erkennen, sie zusammenzufassen und im Bilde darzustellen. So versteht man, daß Goethe sagt, die Kunst sei Offenbarung geheimer Naturabsichten, daß der schaffende Künstler die Fortsetzung der Natur offenbare. Der Künstler nimmt die Natur in sich auf; er läßt sie wieder in sich erstehen und aus sich herausgehen. Es ist, als ob die Natur nicht fertig würde und in den Menschen die Möglichkeit hineingießen würde, ihr Werk zu Ende zu führen. Die Natur findet in ihm ihre Vollendung, ihre Krönung, sie jauchzt gewissermaßen auf in ihm und in seinem Werke.
Im menschlichen Herzen liegt so die Befähigung, zu Ende zu denken, und das, was die Absicht der Natur war, hinauszugießen. Goethe sieht in der Natur die große, schaffende Künstlerin, die nur ihre Absichten nicht voll erreichen kann, die uns gewissermaßen vor ein Rätsel stellt. Der Künstler jedoch löst diese Rätsel; er ist der große Rätsellöser, indem er die Absichten der Natur zu Ende denkt und aus sich heraussetzt in seinen Werken.
Das trifft bei allen Künsten zu, sagt Schopenhauer, nur nicht bei der Musik. Sie steht auf einer höheren Stufe als alle anderen Künste. Warum? — Schopenhauer findet die Antwort, indem er sagt: Alle anderen schaffenden Künste, die Bildhauerei, die Malerei, sie müssen die Vorstellungen zusammenfassen, ehe sie die geheimen Absichten der Natur erraten; die Musik dagegen, die Melodien, die Harmonien der Töne, sie sind die unmittelbare Äußerung der Natur selber. Der Musiker hört unmittelbar den Pulsschlag göttlichen Willens durch die Welt fluten, er vernimmt es, wie sich dieser Wille ausdrückt in Tönen. So steht er näher dem Herzen der Welt als alle anderen Künstler; in ihm lebt die Fähigkeit, den Willen, den Weltenwillen darzustellen. Die Musik ist der Ausdruck des Willens der Natur, während alle anderen Künste der Ausdruck der Idee der Natur sind. Darum, weil die Musik näher dem Herzen der Welt flutet, weil sie so unmittelbar der Ausdruck seines Wogens und Wallens ist, darum wirkt sie auch unmittelbarer auf die menschliche Seele. Sie strömt ein in die Seele als das Göttliche in seinen verschiedenen Gestaltungen. Und so ist es erklärbar, daß die Musik so unmittelbar, so gewaltig, so elementar in ihren Wirkungen auf die menschliche Seele ist.
Wenden wir uns nun von diesem Standpunkt, den bedeutende Geister, wie Schopenhauer und Goethe, der erhabenen Kunst der Musik gegenüber einnehmen, zu dem Standpunkte, von dem aus der Okkultismus diese Frage beleuchtet, so finden wir merkwürdigerweise, daß aus dem, was der Mensch ist, uns verständlich und begreiflich wird, weshalb die Töne, die Harmonien und Melodien so auf ihn einwirken. Wir gehen da wieder zurück auf die bekannten drei Bewußtseinszustände, die dem Menschen möglich sind, und auf sein Verhältnis zu den drei Welten, zu denen er während dieser drei Bewußtseinszustände gehört.
Drei Bewußtseinszustände gibt es, doch nur einer von diesen ist dem gewöhnlichen Menschen voll bekannt, da er während der anderen beiden nichts von sich weiß, sie durchlebt, ohne eine Erinnerung, eine bewußte Einwirkung davon in den einen, ihm bekannten Bewußtseinszustand durchzubringen. Dieser letztere ist der Bewußtseinszustand, den wir als das gewöhnliche, wache Tagesbewußtsein bezeichnen. Der zweite Bewußtseinszustand ist dem gewöhnlichen Menschen teilweise bekannt; es ist der traumerfüllte Schlaf, dieser Symboliker, der dem Menschen in Symbolen oft einfache Alltagserlebnisse vorführt. Der dritte Bewußtseinszustand ist der traumlose Schlaf, der für den gewöhnlichen Menschen den Zustand einer gewissen Leere bedeutet.
Nun gibt aber die Initiation eine Verwandlung der drei Bewußtseinszustände. Zunächst verändert sich sein Traumleben. Es ist nicht mehr chaotisch, nicht mehr eine Reproduktion der Alltagserlebnisse in oft wirren Symbolen; sondern eine neue Welt tut sich dem Menschen auf im Traumschlaf, eine Welt voll flutender Farben, voll schimmernder Lichtwesen umgibt ihn da, die astrale Welt. Das ist keine neu erschaffene Welt, sie ist nur neu für den Menschen, der bisher über den niederen Bewußtseinszustand, den des Alltagsbewußtseins, nicht hinausgekommen ist, Diese Welt ist vielmehr immer da, sie umgibt fortwährend den Menschen. Sie ist eine wirkliche Welt, ebenso wirklich, wie die uns umgebende Welt, die uns als Wirklichkeit erscheint. Sobald der Mensch eingeweiht ist, die Initiation empfangen hat, lernt er diese wunderbare Welt kennen. Er lernt bewußt in ihr sein, mit einem ebenso klaren, nein klareren Bewußtsein, als es sein Tagesbewußtsein ist. Er lernt auch seinen eigenen Astralleib kennen und lernt bewußt in ihm zu leben. Was er nun in dieser neuen Welt, die sich vor ihm auftut, erlebt, ist ein Leben und Weben in einer Farben- und Lichtwelt im wesentlichen. Der Mensch beginnt nach der Einweihung, aus dem gewöhnlichen Traumschlaf heraus zu erwachen; es ist, als ob er sich erhoben fühlte aus einem wogenden Meer von flutendem Licht und Farben. Und lebendige Wesenheiten sind diese flutenden Farben, dieses schimmernde Licht. Dies Erleben im bewußten 'Traumschlaf überträgt sich dann auch auf das ganze Leben im Tages-Wachbewußtsein; diese Wesenheiten lernt er auch im Alltagsleben sehen.
Den dritten Bewußtseinszustand erreicht der Mensch dann, wenn er den traumlosen Schlaf in einen bewußten Zustand zu verwandeln vermag. Auch die Welt, in die der Mensch dadurch eintreten lernt, zeigt sich ihm zunächst nur teilweise, dann immer mehr und mehr. Immer länger und länger lebt er in ihr, ist bewußt in ihr und erlebt in ihr ein sehr Bedeutsames.
Nun kann der Mensch zur Wahrnehmung der zweiten, der astralen Welt nur kommen, wenn er durch die sogenannte «Große Stille» hindurchgeht. Er muß still, ganz still in sich werden. Die große Ruhe muß vorausgehen dem Aufwachen in der astralen Welt. Und diese tiefste Stille wird immer größer und größer, wenn er anfängt, sich dem dritten Bewußtseinszustande zu nähern, dem Zustand, wo er im traumlosen Schlaf empfindet. Die Farben der Astralwelt werden immer durchsichtiger, das Licht immer klarer, gleichsam durchgeistigter. Der Mensch hat dann die Empfindung, als ob er selbst in dieser Farbe, in diesem Lichte lebe, als ob nicht sie ihn umgebe, sondern er selbst Farbe und Licht sei. Er fühlt sich selbst als astralisch innerhalb dieser astralischen Welt, wie schwimmend in großer, tiefer Ruhe. Dann beginnt diese tiefe Stille nach und nach aufzutönen, es fängt an, leise und immer lauter geistig zu klingen; wie durchzogen wird die Welt des Lichtes und der Farben von klingenden Tönen. Dieser dritte Bewußtseinszustand, in den der Mensch nun nach und nach eintritt, besteht darin, daß die farbige Welt, in der er im Astralen lebte, durchklungen wird. Und das ist Devachan, das ist die sogenannte mentale Welt, die sich nun vor ihm auftut. Und hinein tritt er in diese wunderbare Welt durch das Tor der Großen Stille; aus der Großen Stille klingt der Ton von der anderen Welt zu ihm herüber. So verhält es sich wirklich mit der devachanischen Welt.
Manche theosophischen Bücher bringen andere Beschreibungen von ihr; doch beruhen diese nicht auf eigener Erfahrung der Wirklichkeit dieser Welt. Leadbeater zum Beispiel bringt eine zutreffende Beschreibung des Astralplanes und des Erlebens auf diesem, doch seine Beschreibung des Devachanplans ist nicht zutreffend. Sie ist lediglich eine Konstruktion, zusammengestellt nach dem Muster des astralen Planes, sie ist nicht von ihm selbst erlebt. Alle Beschreibungen, die Ihnen nicht schildern, wie von der anderen Seite der Ton herüberklingt, die sind nicht richtig, sind nicht aus der Anschauung heraus. Dem Devachanischen ist besonders eigen, daß es eine tönende Welt ist, wenigstens im wesentlichen. Man darf sich selbstverständlich nicht denken, daß die Devachanwelt nicht auch eine in Farben erstrahlende sei. Sie ist selbstverständlich auch durchleuchtet von der astralen Welt, denn sie ist ja nicht getrennt von ihr, das Astralische durchdringt auch das Devachanische. Doch das eigentlich Devachanische liegt im Tönen. Das, was das Licht in der Großen Stille war, fängt jetzt an zu tönen.
Auf einem noch höheren Plan des Devachans wird aus dem Ton etwas Wortähnliches. Von da kommt alle wirkliche Inspiration, und in diesem Gebiete bewegen sich die Autoren, die inspiriert waren. Sie erleben dort ein wirkliches Einklingen der Wahrheiten der höheren Welten. Dieses Phänomen ist durchaus möglich.
Nun müssen wir uns vorstellen, daß nicht nur der Eingeweihte in diesen Welten lebt. Der Unterschied ist nur, daß der Eingeweihte in Bewußtheit diese verschiedenen modifizierten Zustände durchlebt. In ihm ist nur ins Bewußte umgeändert, was der gewöhnliche Mensch wieder und wieder unbewußt durchmacht. Denn auch der gewöhnliche Mensch geht tatsächlich durch diese drei Welten immer wieder hindurch, nur weiß er nichts davon, weil er sich seiner selbst und seiner Erlebnisse dort nicht bewußt wird. Doch bringt er sich trotzdem von den Wirkungen, die dieses Erleben in ihm hervorruft, etwas mit. Wenn er morgens aus dem Schlafe erwacht, bringt er mit sich nicht nur die körperliche Erquickung durch den Schlaf, sondern er bringt mit sich aus jenen Welten auch die Kunst. Denn nichts anderes ist es, als ein, wenn auch unbewußtes Sich-Erinnern an die Erlebnisse der astralen Welt, wenn zum Beispiel der Maler in seinen Farbentönen, Farbenharmonien, die er auf seine Leinwand hinsetzt, weit über die Wirklichkeit der Farben der physischen Welt hinausgeht. Wo hat er diese Töne, diese schimmernden Farben gesehen, wo sie erlebt? Das sind die Nachwirkungen der astralen Erlebnisse seiner Nächte. Nur dieses flutende Meer von Licht und Farben, von einer Schönheit, einer strahlenden, schimmernden Tiefe, in dem er während seines Schlafes gelebt, gibt ihm die Möglichkeit, jene Farben, in denen er gelebt, so wieder zu verwerten, wenn er auch in den schweren, erdigen Farben unserer physischen Welt nicht annähernd das Ideal, das in ihm lebt, das erlebt worden ist, wiedergeben kann.
So sehen wir in der Malerei ein Schattenbild, einen Niederschlag der astralischen Welt auf die physische Welt, und wir sehen ihre Wirkungen sich so großartig, so wunderbar im Menschen ausleben.
In der großen Kunst gibt es wunderbare Dinge, die für den Okkultisten ganz anders verständlich sind, weil er ihren Ursprung durchschaut. Ich denke da zum Beispiel an zwei Bilder von Leonardo da Vinci, die im Louvre in Paris hängen. Das eine stellt den Bacchus, das andere den Johannes dar. Beide Bilder zeigen dasselbe Gesicht; es ist also für beide dasselbe Modell benutzt worden. Sie sind mithin nicht durch ihre äußere novellistische Wirkung so total voneinander verschieden; die malerischen Lichtmysterien, die sie enthalten, beruhen vielmehr lediglich auf ihrer Farben- und Lichtwirkung. Das Bacchusbild zeigt ein eigentümliches, ins Rötliche schimmerndes Licht, das über die Körperfläche ausgegossen ist. Es ist, als ob der Körper dies Licht in sich eingesogen habe, es spricht von einer unter der Haut verborgenen Üppigkeit und kennzeichnet so die Bacchusnatur. Es ist, als ob er das Licht aufsauge, und es mit dem Eigenen, eben jener Üppigkeit durchsetzt, wieder von sich gebe. Das Johannes-Bild dagegen zeigt eine keusche, gelbliche Tönung. Es scheint, als ob die Farbe den Körper nur umspiele, ab ob derselbe das Licht nicht aufnehme, nur seine Formen von dem Licht umgeben lasse, aber nichts von außen in sich hineinnehmen wolle. Es ist eine völlig selbstlose Körperlichkeit, völlig rein, völlig keusch, die in diesem Bilde zum Beschauer spricht.
Alles das versteht der Okkultist. Nur muß man nicht glauben, daß sich ein Künstler immer verstandesmäßig klar ist über das, was in seine Werke hineingeheimnißt ist. Die Niederschläge seiner astralen Visionen brauchen nicht bis in das physische Bewußtsein zu dringen, um in seinen Werken zu leben. Leonardo da Vinci hat die okkulten Gesetze, nach denen er seine Bilder geschaffen, vielleicht nicht gekannt - darauf kommt es nicht an -, aber aus seinem instinktiven Empfinden heraus hat er sie befolgt.
So sehen wir in der Malerei den Schatten, den Niederschlag der astralischen Welt auf unsere physische Welt. Der Musiker hingegen zaubert eine noch höhere Welt, er zaubert die devachanische Welt in die physische hinein. Tatsächlich sind die Melodien, die Harmonien, die zu uns aus den Werken unserer großen Meister sprechen, richtige Abbilder der devachanischen Welt. Wenn irgendwo wir einen Schatten, einen Vorgeschmack der devachanischen Welt zu empfangen vermögen, so ist es in den Melodien und Harmonien der Musik, in ihren Wirkungen auf die menschliche Seele.
Wir kehren noch einmal zur Wesenheit des Menschen zurück. Wir finden da zunächst den physischen Leib, dann den Ätherleib, dann den Astralleib, dann das Ich, das zuerst dem Menschen bewußt ward am Ende der atlantischen Zeit.
Wenn der Mensch schläft, löst sich der Astralleib und die Empfindungsseele von der niederen Wesenheit des Menschen los. Im Bette liegt der physische Mensch, verbunden mit seinem Ätherleib. Alle seine anderen Teile lösen sich los und leben in der astralischen und der devachanischen Welt. Und in diesen Welten, und zwar in der Devachanwelt, nimmt die Seele in sich auf die Welt der Töne. Der Mensch ist tatsächlich beim Erwachen jeden Morgen durchgegangen durch ein Musikalisches, durch ein Meer von Tönen. Und der Mensch, der seine physische Natur so gegliedert hat, daß sie diesen Eindrücken folgt er braucht es nicht zu wissen -, der ist eine musikalische Natur. Das musikalische Wohlgefühl beruht in nichts anderem als in dem richtigen Zusammenstimmen der Harmonien, die er von drüben gebracht, mit den Tönen und Melodien von hier. Entsprechen die Töne von außen diesen Tönen des Inneren, so haben wir das musikalische Wohlgefühl.
Für das Musikalische ist das Zusammenwirken von Empfindungsseele und Empfindungsleib von besonderer Bedeutung. Man muß wissen, daß das ganze Bewußtsein entsteht aus einer Art Überwindung der äußeren Welt. Was dem Menschen als Lust, als Freude zum Bewußtsein kommt, bedeutet den Sieg des Geistigen über das bloß Körperlich-Lebendige, der Empfindungsseele über den Empfindungsleib. Für den aus dem Schlafe mit den inneren Schwingungen zurückkehrenden Menschen gibt es eine Möglichkeit, die Töne stärker zu stimmen und den Sieg der Empfindungsseele über den Empfindungsleib wahrnehmen zu können, so daß die Seele imstande ist, sich stärker zu fühlen als der Leib. Der Mensch kann immer bei der Wirkung von Moll wahrnehmen, wie die Schwingungen des Empfindungsleibes stärker sind, während bei der Dur-Tonart die Empfindungsseele stärker schwingt und den Empfindungsleib überwältigt. Sobald die kleine Terz eintritt, fühlt man den Schmerz der Seele, das Überwiegen des Empfindungsleibes; erklingt aber die große Terz, so verkündet sie den Sieg der Seele.
Wir können jetzt auch begreifen, worauf die tiefe Bedeutung der Musik beruht, warum ihr von allen, die den Zusammenhang der inneren Dinge kennen, von jeher die höchste Stelle unter den Künsten eingeräumt wurde, warum ihr auch von Nichtwissenden eine besondere Stellung zugewiesen wurde, und warum sie in unserer Seele die tiefsten Saiten anrührt und erklingen läßt.
Wenn der Mensch im Wechsel zwischen Schlafen und Wachen fortwährend einen Übergang von der physischen zur astralischen und von dieser zur devachanischen Welt vollführt, sehen wir darin ein Abbild seiner Inkarnationen. Wenn er im Tode seinen physischen Leib verläßt, steigt er durch die astrale Welt hinauf zur devachanischen. Dort findet er seine eigentliche Heimat; dort ist seine Ruhestätte. Der feierlichen Ruhezeit dort folgt sein Wiederhinabsteigen in die physische Welt, und er vollführt so einen fortwährenden Übergang von einer Welt zur anderen.
Aber als sein Ureigenstes, weil Heimatlichstes, empfindet der Mensch das, was der devachanischen Welt angehört. Die Vibrationen, die diese durchfluten, werden durch sein tiefinnerstes Wesen gefühlt. Das Astrale und Physische empfindet er gewissermaßen nur als Hülle. Im Devachanischen ist seine Urheimat, und die Nachklänge aus dieser Heimatwelt, der geistigen Welt, ertönen ihm in den Harmonien und Melodien der physischen Welt. Sie durchziehen diese niedere Welt mit den Ahnungen eines herrlichen, wunderbaren Daseins; sie durchwühlen sein tiefinnerstes Wesen und durchzittern es mit Schwingungen von reinster Freude, erhabenster Geistigkeit, die ihm diese Welt nicht geben kann. Die Malerei spricht zur astralen Leiblichkeit, doch die Tonwelt spricht zum Innersten des Menschen. Und solange der Mensch noch kein Eingeweihter ist, ist ihm zunächst die Devachanwelt, seine Heimatwelt, im Musikalischen gegeben. Daher die hohe Schätzung der Musik von allen, die solchen Zusammenhang ahnen. Auch Schopenhauer ahnt ihn in einer Art instinktiver Intuition, die er in seinen philosophischen Formeln ausspricht.
So wird uns die Welt, so werden uns vor allem die Künste begreiflich, vermöge des Okkultismus. Es ist oben alles wie unten und unten alles so wie oben. Wer im höheren Sinne diesen Ausspruch versteht, der lernt in den Dingen der Welt Wertvolles und wieder Wertvolleres zu erkennen, und nach und nach in dem von ihm als wertvoll Erkannten den Abdruck immer höherer und höherer Welten zu empfinden; der empfindet auch im Musikalischen das Bild einer höheren Welt.
Das Werk des Architekten, aus Stein gefügt, der den Jahrhunderten widersteht, es ist aus ihm herausgesetzt, in Materie umgesetzt, und so auch die Werke der Bildhauerei und Malerei. Sie sind äußerlich da, sie haben Form angenommen.
Doch die Werke der Musik müssen sich immer wieder von neuem erzeugen. Sie fluten dahin im Wogen und Wallen ihrer Harmonien und Melodien, ein Abbild der Seele, die in ihren Inkarnationen sich auch immer wieder von neuem erleben muß im Dahinfluten der Zeiten. Wie die menschliche Seele ein Werdendes ist, so ist ihr Abbild hier auf Erden ein Fließendes. Die tiefe Wirkung der Musik beruht auf dieser Verwandtschaft. Die menschliche Seele flutet abwärts aus ihrer Heimat, dem Devachan; sie flutet hinauf zu ihm, und ebenso ihre Schatten, die Töne, die Harmonien. Daher die intime Wirkung der Musik auf die Seele. Aus ihr spricht zur Seele die ureigenste Verwandtschaft, aus ihr klingen in sie hinein Heimatklänge im tiefinnersten Sinne. Aus ihrer Urheimat, aus der geistigen Welt, aus der Heimatwelt, da tönen zu uns herüber die Klänge der Musik und sprechen tröstend und erhebend zu uns in den wogenden Melodien und Harmonien.
Second Lecture
We see how the world, the whole of nature around us, becomes understandable to us through the spiritual scientific approach, and it becomes increasingly clear to us how external facts of our environment can have a more or less profound meaning for the inner being of human beings. Today we will explore the topic: Why does music have such a specific, unique effect on the human soul? — In doing so, we want to shine a light on the reasons behind the soul.
We begin by asking how it can be explained that such a remarkable heredity can take place, as we see, for example, in the Bach family, in which, within a period of two hundred and fifty years, a number of almost thirty members showed eminent musical talent. Or another fact: that in the Bernoulli family, mathematical talent was inherited in a similar way, and eight of its members were more or less great mathematicians. These are two phenomena that can be understood in terms of heredity, but they are totally different things.
Music has always seemed very special to minds that have attempted to penetrate more deeply into the essence of things. Music has always occupied a special position within the arts. Let us consider Schopenhauer's point of view. In his work “The World as Will and Representation,” he speaks of the arts as a kind of knowledge that leads more directly to the divine than intellectual knowledge can. Schopenhauer's view is related to his perception of the world as a mirror image of human imagination. This reflection only comes about because external things evoke ideas in the human senses and because humans thereby enter into a relationship with them. Humans can know nothing about anything that cannot make an impression on the senses. Physiologically, he speaks of specific sensory perceptions. The eye can only perceive light sensations; it is insensitive to all other impressions; it can only perceive what is light, and similarly, the ear can only perceive sound sensations, and so on. According to Schopenhauer's view, everything that humans perceive as their surrounding world is reflected in them as a kind of mirage, a kind of reflection caused by the human soul itself.
Now Schopenhauer says that there is a way to get behind this idea. There is one thing that humans can perceive without any external influence, and that is the human being itself. Everything external is an ever-changing, ever-shifting mirage. There is only one thing that we feel unalterably and always in the same way within ourselves, and that is ourselves. It is our will that we feel within ourselves, and no detour from the outside is necessary to perceive its effects on us. When we exert any effect on the outside world, we feel the will; we ourselves are this will, and therefore we know what the will is. We know this from our own inner experience, and from analogy we can conclude that this will acting within us must also exist and be active outside us, that forces must exist outside us, just like the force that acts within us as will. And he calls these forces the world will.
Let us now ask ourselves the question: How does art come into being? — The answer to this question, still in Schopenhauer's sense, is: Through a combination of the mirage outside us and within us, through a synthesis of both. When an artist, for example a sculptor, wants to create an ideal figure, say, of Zeus, and looks around for an archetype, he does not look at a single person in order to find the archetype in him, but looks around among many people. He takes a little from one person, a little from another, and so on. He memorizes everything that is strong, noble, and outstanding, and from this he forms a typical image of Zeus, as he carries the idea of Zeus within himself. This is the idea in man, which can only be gained by combining within oneself what the world offers us, what approaches us in detail.
Let us combine this idea of Schopenhauer with Goethe's idea, which finds expression in the words: In nature, intentions are more important. - Here we find that Schopenhauer and Goethe are in complete agreement. Both assume that there are intentions in nature that they cannot fully achieve in their works, cannot fully express, at least not in detail. The creative artist now attempts to recognize these intentions in nature, to summarize them and represent them in images. Thus, we understand Goethe when he says that art is the revelation of nature's secret intentions, that the creative artist reveals the continuation of nature. The artist absorbs nature into himself; he lets it arise again within himself and flow out of him. It is as if nature were not finished and poured into humans the possibility of completing its work. Nature finds its completion, its crowning glory, in humans; it rejoices, as it were, in humans and in their work.
Thus, the human heart has the ability to think things through to their conclusion and to express what was nature's intention. Goethe sees nature as the great, creative artist who is unable to fully achieve her intentions, who presents us with a mystery, so to speak. The artist, however, solves this mystery; he is the great mystery solver, thinking through nature's intentions to their conclusion and expressing them in his works.
This applies to all the arts, says Schopenhauer, except music. It stands on a higher level than all other arts. Why? — Schopenhauer finds the answer by saying: All other creative arts, sculpture, painting, must summarize ideas before they can guess the secret intentions of nature; music, on the other hand, melodies, harmonies of sounds, are the direct expression of nature itself. The musician hears the pulse of divine will flowing through the world, he hears how this will expresses itself in sounds. Thus he is closer to the heart of the world than all other artists; in him lives the ability to represent the will, the will of the world. Music is the expression of the will of nature, while all other arts are the expression of the idea of nature. Because music flows closer to the heart of the world, because it is so directly the expression of its surging and swelling, it also has a more immediate effect on the human soul. It flows into the soul as the divine in its various forms. And so it is understandable that music is so immediate, so powerful, so elemental in its effects on the human soul.
Let us now turn from this point of view, which eminent minds such as Schopenhauer and Goethe take on the sublime art of music, to the point of view from which occultism illuminates this question. we find, strangely enough, that from what man is, it becomes understandable and comprehensible to us why sounds, harmonies, and melodies have such an effect on him. We go back to the three well-known states of consciousness that are possible for man and to his relationship to the three worlds to which he belongs during these three states of consciousness.
There are three states of consciousness, but only one of these is fully known to the ordinary human being, since he is unaware of himself during the other two, living through them without bringing any memory or conscious influence of them into the one state of consciousness known to him. The latter is the state of consciousness we call ordinary, waking daytime consciousness. The second state of consciousness is partially known to ordinary people; it is dream-filled sleep, this symbolist, which often presents people with simple everyday experiences in symbols. The third state of consciousness is dreamless sleep, which for ordinary people means a state of a certain emptiness.
But initiation brings about a transformation of the three states of consciousness. First of all, one's dream life changes. It is no longer chaotic, no longer a reproduction of everyday experiences in often confused symbols; instead, a new world opens up to the individual in dream sleep, a world full of flowing colors, full of shimmering beings of light surrounding them, the astral world. This is not a newly created world; it is only new to the person who has not yet transcended the lower state of consciousness, that of everyday consciousness. Rather, this world is always there, constantly surrounding the person. It is a real world, just as real as the world around us, which appears to us as reality. As soon as a person is initiated, has received the initiation, they get to know this wonderful world. They learn to be conscious in it, with a consciousness that is just as clear, no, clearer than their everyday consciousness. They also get to know their own astral body and learn to live consciously in it. What they now experience in this new world that opens up before them is essentially a life and weaving in a world of colors and light. After initiation, the human being begins to awaken from ordinary dream sleep; it is as if they feel lifted out of a surging sea of flowing light and colors. And these flowing colors, this shimmering light, are living beings. This experience in conscious ‘dream sleep’ then carries over into their entire life in daytime waking consciousness; they also learn to see these beings in everyday life.
Human beings reach the third state of consciousness when they are able to transform dreamless sleep into a conscious state. The world that human beings learn to enter in this way also reveals itself to them only partially at first, then more and more. They live in it longer and longer, are conscious in it, and experience something very significant in it.
Now, humans can only perceive the second, astral world if they pass through the so-called “Great Silence.” They must become still, completely still within themselves. The great stillness must precede the awakening in the astral world. And this deepest silence becomes greater and greater as they begin to approach the third state of consciousness, the state in which they perceive in dreamless sleep. The colors of the astral world become more and more transparent, the light more and more clear, more spiritual, as it were. The person then has the sensation as if they themselves were living in this color, in this light, as if it were not surrounding them, but they themselves were color and light. They feel themselves to be astral within this astral world, as if floating in great, deep tranquility. Then this deep silence gradually begins to sound, it begins to sound softly and ever louder spiritually; as if permeated, the world of light and colors is filled with sounding tones. This third state of consciousness, into which the human being now gradually enters, consists in the colored world in which he lived in the astral being filled with sound. And that is Devachan, the so-called mental world, which now opens up before him. And he enters this wonderful world through the gate of the Great Silence; from the Great Silence, the sound of the other world reaches him. This is how it really is with the Devachanic world.
Some theosophical books give other descriptions of it; but these are not based on personal experience of the reality of this world. Leadbeater, for example, gives an accurate description of the astral plane and the experience on it, but his description of the Devachan plane is not accurate. It is merely a construction, compiled according to the pattern of the astral plane; it is not based on his own experience. Any descriptions that do not describe how sound comes across from the other side are not correct, are not based on observation. It is particularly characteristic of the Devachanic world that it is a world of sound, at least in essence. Of course, one must not think that the Devachanic world is not also a world resplendent in color. It is, of course, also illuminated by the astral world, for it is not separate from it; the astral also permeates the Devachanic. But the true Devachanic lies in sound. What was light in the Great Silence now begins to sound.
On an even higher plane of Devachan, the sound becomes something like words. This is where all real inspiration comes from, and this is where inspired authors move. There they experience a real resonance of the truths of the higher worlds. This phenomenon is entirely possible.
Now we must imagine that it is not only the initiate who lives in these worlds. The difference is only that the initiate consciously experiences these various modified states. In him, only what the ordinary person goes through unconsciously again and again is transformed into consciousness. For the ordinary person also actually passes through these three worlds again and again, only he is unaware of it because he is not conscious of himself and his experiences there. Nevertheless, they do bring something back with them from the effects that this experience has on them. When they wake up in the morning, they bring with them not only the physical refreshment of sleep, but also the art from those worlds. For it is nothing other than an unconscious recollection of the experiences of the astral world when, for example, the painter goes far beyond the reality of the colors of the physical world in the color tones and color harmonies he puts on his canvas. Where did he see these tones, these shimmering colors, where did he experience them? These are the aftereffects of the astral experiences of his nights. Only this flooding sea of light and colors, of a beauty, a radiant, shimmering depth, in which he lived during his sleep, gives him the opportunity to reuse those colors in which he lived, even if he cannot reproduce the ideal that lives in him, that has been experienced, in the heavy, earthy colors of our physical world.
Thus, we see in painting a shadow image, a reflection of the astral world on the physical world, and we see its effects played out so magnificently, so wonderfully in human beings.
In great art, there are wonderful things that are understood quite differently by the occultist because he sees through their origin. I am thinking, for example, of two paintings by Leonardo da Vinci that hang in the Louvre in Paris. One depicts Bacchus, the other John. Both paintings show the same face; the same model was therefore used for both. They are therefore not so totally different from each other in their external novelistic effect; the painterly mysteries of light they contain are based solely on their color and light effects. The Bacchus painting shows a peculiar, reddish shimmering light that is poured over the surface of the body. It is as if the body has absorbed this light into itself; it speaks of a voluptuousness hidden beneath the skin and thus characterizes the nature of Bacchus. It is as if he absorbs the light and, infusing it with his own essence, that very exuberance, emits it again. The image of John, on the other hand, shows a chaste, yellowish tint. It seems as if the color merely plays around the body, as if it does not absorb the light, but only allows its forms to be surrounded by the light, without wanting to take anything from the outside into itself. It is a completely selfless physicality, completely pure, completely chaste, that speaks to the viewer in this image.
The occultist understands all this. But one must not believe that an artist is always intellectually clear about what is hidden in his works. The manifestations of his astral visions do not need to penetrate his physical consciousness in order to live in his works. Leonardo da Vinci may not have known the occult laws according to which he created his paintings—that is not important—but he followed them out of his instinctive feeling.
Thus, in painting, we see the shadow, the reflection of the astral world on our physical world. The musician, on the other hand, conjures up an even higher world; he conjures the devachanic world into the physical world. In fact, the melodies and harmonies that speak to us from the works of our great masters are true reflections of the devachanic world. If there is anywhere we can receive a shadow, a foretaste of the devachanic world, it is in the melodies and harmonies of music, in their effects on the human soul.
Let us return once more to the essence of the human being. First we find the physical body, then the etheric body, then the astral body, then the ego, which first became conscious to human beings at the end of the Atlantean epoch.
When a person sleeps, the astral body and the sentient soul detach themselves from the lower being of the person. The physical person lies in bed, connected to their etheric body. All their other parts detach themselves and live in the astral and devachanic worlds. And in these worlds, namely in the devachanic world, the soul absorbs the world of sounds. When humans awaken each morning, they have actually passed through a musical world, a sea of sounds. And humans who have structured their physical nature in such a way that it follows these impressions — they do not need to know this — are musical beings. Musical well-being is based on nothing other than the correct harmonization of the harmonies brought from the other side with the sounds and melodies from here. When the sounds from outside correspond to these inner sounds, we experience musical well-being.
The interaction between the feeling soul and the feeling body is of particular importance for music. It is important to know that all consciousness arises from a kind of overcoming of the outer world. What comes to human consciousness as pleasure, as joy, signifies the victory of the spiritual over the merely physical-living, of the feeling soul over the feeling body. For the human being returning from sleep with inner vibrations, there is a possibility of tuning the tones more strongly and perceiving the victory of the feeling soul over the feeling body, so that the soul is able to feel stronger than the body. When minor keys are played, people can always perceive how the vibrations of the feeling body are stronger, while in major keys the feeling soul vibrates more strongly and overwhelms the feeling body. As soon as the minor third enters, one feels the pain of the soul, the predominance of the feeling body; but when the major third sounds, it proclaims the victory of the soul.
We can now also understand the profound significance of music, why it has always been accorded the highest place among the arts by all who know the connection between inner things, why it has also been assigned a special position by the uninformed, and why it touches and resonates with the deepest strings of our soul.
When human beings, in the alternation between sleeping and waking, continually make the transition from the physical to the astral world and from there to the devachanic world, we see in this a reflection of their incarnations. When they leave their physical body in death, they ascend through the astral world to the devachanic world. There they find their true home; there is their resting place. The solemn period of rest there is followed by his descent back into the physical world, and he thus makes a continuous transition from one world to another.
But human beings feel that which belongs to the devachanic world as their most authentic home. The vibrations that flow through it are felt by their innermost being. He perceives the astral and physical worlds as mere shells, so to speak. The Devachanic world is his original home, and the echoes from this home world, the spiritual world, resound in the harmonies and melodies of the physical world. They permeate this lower world with premonitions of a glorious, wonderful existence; they stir his innermost being and thrill it with vibrations of the purest joy, the most sublime spirituality, which this world cannot give him. Painting speaks to the astral body, but the world of sound speaks to the innermost being of man. And as long as man is not yet an initiate, the Devachanic world, his home world, is first given to him in music. Hence the high esteem in which music is held by all who sense this connection. Schopenhauer also senses it in a kind of instinctive intuition, which he expresses in his philosophical formulas.
Thus, through occultism, the world, and above all the arts, become comprehensible to us. Above is like below, and below is like above. Those who understand this saying in a higher sense learn to recognize what is valuable and even more valuable in the things of the world, and gradually to perceive in what they recognize as valuable the imprint of ever higher and higher worlds; they also perceive in music the image of a higher world.
The work of the architect, built of stone, which withstands the centuries, is set out from him, translated into matter, and so too are the works of sculpture and painting. They are there externally, they have taken shape.
But works of music must constantly recreate themselves. They flow along in the surging and swelling of their harmonies and melodies, a reflection of the soul, which in its incarnations must also constantly experience itself anew in the flow of time. Just as the human soul is a becoming, so its reflection here on earth is a flowing. The profound effect of music is based on this kinship. The human soul flows down from its home, the Devachan; it flows up to it, and so do its shadows, the tones, the harmonies. Hence the intimate effect of music on the soul. From it speaks to the soul its most intimate kinship; from it resound into it the sounds of home in the deepest sense. From its original home, from the spiritual world, from the home world, the sounds of music resound to us and speak to us comfortingly and upliftingly in the surging melodies and harmonies.