The Inner Nature of Music and the Experience of Tone
GA 283
16 March 1923, Dornach
The Experience of Tone III
Recently, I have called attention repeatedly to the fact that, just as one can give a biographical description of man's waking life, so one could offer one of the time spent during sleep. Everything the human being experiences during his waking hours is experienced through his physical and etheric bodies. By virtue of the appropriately developed sense organs in the physical and etheric bodies he is conscious of this world, which, as his environment, is related to the physical and etheric bodies; it is at one with them, so to speak. Since man at his present level of evolution has not similarly developed soul-spiritual organs in his astral body and “I” that would serve as super-sensible sense organs—to coin a paradoxical expression—he cannot bring his consciousness into what he experiences between falling asleep and awakening. Only spiritual vision, therefore, could survey that which would be contained in the biography of this “I” and astral body, which runs parallel to the biography that we come to with the help of the physical and the etheric bodies.
If one speaks of man's waking experiences, they necessarily include what, together with him and caused by him, takes place in his physical-etheric environment. One therefore must speak of a physical-etheric environment or world in which man exists during this waking life. Likewise, man is in another world during sleep; this world, however, is totally different from the physical-etheric world. Just as the physical world is our environment when we are awake, so super-sensible vision is in a position to speak of a world that surrounds us similarly when we sleep. In this lecture we shall bring before our souls some of the aspects that can illuminate that world. The basic elements for it are described in my book, An Outline Of Occult Science. There you will find described in a certain way, though in a sketchy form, how the realms of the physical-etheric world—the mineral, plant, animal, and human realms—continue upward into the realms of the higher hierarchies. We shall now take a closer look at this.
When in the waking state, we turn our eyes or other sense organs in the direction of our physical-etheric environment, we perceive the three, or four, realms of nature, namely, the mineral, plant, animal, and human realms. Ascending to those regions that are accessible only to super-sensible consciousness, we find a continuation, as it were, of these realms: the realms of the Angeloi, Archangeloi, Archai, Exusiai, Dynamis, Kyriotetes, and so forth (see following diagram.)
We therefore have two worlds interpenetrating one another, the physical-etheric world and the super-sensible world. We already know that during sleep we are indeed in this super-sensible world and have experiences there, despite the fact that, due to the absence of soul-spiritual organs, these experiences do not reach ordinary consciousness.
To arrive at a more specific comprehension of what the human being experiences in this super-sensible world, one must describe this world in the same way as one describes the physical-etheric world by means of natural science and history. Regarding the super-sensible science that concerns the actual course of events in the world in which we exist as sleeping human beings, we naturally must select particular details to begin with. Today, I shall select one event of profound significance for the whole evolution of humanity in the last few thousand years. We have already discussed this event repeatedly from the viewpoint of the physical-etheric world and its history. Today, we shall discuss it from another viewpoint, that of the super-sensible world. The event to which I refer is one that falls in the fourth century A.D.
I have described how the whole composition of human souls in the West becomes different in that century. Without spiritual scientific insight into this matter, one actually no longer understands how human beings sensed and felt before the fourth century A.D. We have frequently described, however, this composition of soul, this feeling. We have described in different words what human beings experienced in the course of that age. Now we shall take a brief glance at what the beings who belong to the super-sensible realm experienced during that same time. We shall turn to the other side of life, as it were, and take the viewpoint of the super-sensible realm.
It is a prejudice of contemporary, so-called enlightened human beings to believe that their thoughts are confined only to their heads. We would discover nothing of the things around us through thoughts if these thoughts were only within the heads of man. He who believes that thoughts are only in the human head is as prejudiced as one—paradoxical as this might sound—who believes that the drink of water with which he quenches his thirst originated on his tongue instead of flowing into his mouth from the glass of water. It is as ridiculous to claim that thoughts originate in the human head as it is to claim that the drink of water originates in the mouth. Indeed, thoughts are spread out all through the world. Thoughts are forces that dwell in all things. Our organ of thinking is simply something that partakes of the cosmic reservoir of thought forces, absorbing thoughts of itself. We therefore cannot speak of thoughts as if they were the possession only of the human being. Instead, we must be aware that thoughts are world-dominating forces, spread out everywhere in the cosmos. These thoughts, however, do not freely float about, as it were, but are always borne and worked upon by some beings; and, most important, they are not always borne by the same beings.
When we make use of the super-sensible world, we find through super-sensible research that, up into the fourth century A.D., the thoughts with which human beings made the world comprehensible to themselves were borne outside in the cosmos (I could also say, “they flowed out”—our earthly terms are ill-suited for these sublime occurrences and states of being), that these thoughts were borne or flowed from those hierarchical beings that we designate as the Exusiai or beings of form (see following diagram).
If, out of the science of the mysteries, an ancient Greek wished to give an account of how he actually had acquired his thoughts, he would have had to do it in the following way. He would have said, “I turn my spiritual sight up toward those beings who, through the science of the mysteries, have been revealed to me as the beings of form, the forces or beings of form. They are the bearers of cosmic intelligence, they are the bearers of cosmic thoughts. They let thoughts stream through all the world events, and they bestow these human thoughts upon the world so that it can experience them consciously.” A person who, through a special initiation, had gained access to the super-sensible world in those ancient Greek times and had come to experience and behold these form beings, would, in order to form a correct picture, a true imagination of them, have had to attribute to them the thoughts that stream and radiate through the world. As an ancient Greek he beheld how, from their limbs, as it were, these form beings let stream forth radiant thought forces which then entered the world processes and there continued to be effective as the world-creative powers of intelligence.
He thus could say that in the cosmos, the universe, the Exusiai, the forces of form, have the task of pouring thoughts into all the world processes. A material science describes human deeds by noting what people do individually or together. In focusing on the activity of the form forces of that particular age, a super-sensible science would have to describe how these super-sensible beings let the thought forces stream from one to the other, how they received them from one another, and how, in this streaming and receiving, the world processes are incorporated that appear outwardly to man as natural phenomena.
The evolution of humanity now approached the fourth century A.D. In the super-sensible world, thought brought about an extremely significant event; namely, the Exusiai—the forces or beings of form—gave their thought forces up to the Archai, to the primal forces or primal beginnings. (See diagram above) The primal beginnings, or Archai, took over the task formerly executed by the Exusiai. Such things happen in the super-sensible world. This was a particularly sublime and significant cosmic event. From that time on, the Exusiai, the form beings, retained only the task of regulating the outer sense perceptions, therefore ruling with the particular cosmic forces over everything existing in the world of colors, tones, and so forth. Concerning the age that now dawned after the fourth century A.D. a person who can discern these matters must say that he beholds how the world-dominating thoughts are passed on to the Archai, the primal beginnings, how what eyes see and what ears hear, the manifold world phenomena engaged in perpetual metamorphosis, are the tapestry woven by the Exusiai. They formerly bestowed the thoughts on human beings; they now give human beings their sense impressions, while the primal beginnings bestow the thoughts on human beings.
This fact of the super-sensible world was mirrored below in the sense world. In the ancient age in which lived the Greek, for example, thoughts were objectively perceived in all things. Just as today we believe that we perceive the color red or blue streaming forth from an object, so the ancient Greek found not only that he grasped a thought with his brain but that the thought streamed forth out of the things, just as red or blue streams forth. In my book, The Riddles of Philosophy, I have described the human side, so to speak, of the matter, how this important process of the super-sensible world is reflected in the physical-sensible world. There, I employed philosophical expressions, because philosophical terminology is a language for the material world. When one discusses the matter from the viewpoint of the super-sensible world, however, one must speak of the super-sensible fact that the task of the Exusiai passed on to the Archai.
Such things are prepared in humanity through whole epochs of time and are connected with fundamental changes in human souls. I said that this super-sensible event took place in the fourth century A.D., but this is only an approximation, a mean point in time, as it were. This transference of a spiritual task took place over a long period of time. It had been prepared already in pre-Christian times and was completed only in the twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth centuries A.D. The fourth century is just the mean century, which is mentioned so as to pinpoint something definite in the historical development of humanity.
This is also the point of time in humanity's evolution when the view of the super-sensible world began to vanish completely for man. The consciousness of the soul ceased to see supersensibly, to perceive, because this human soul surrendered itself to the earth. You perhaps will understand this more clearly if we shed light on it from yet another angle.
What is really implied here? What am I trying to point out so intensely? It is the fact that human beings feel themselves more and more in their individuality. As the world of thoughts passes from the form beings to the primal beginnings, from the Exusiai to the Archai, man increasingly senses the thoughts in his own being, because the Archai live one level nearer man than the Exusiai. Now, when man begins to see supersensibly, he has the following impression. He realizes that this [see diagram] is the world that he perceives as the sense world. One side [yellow in diagram] is turned toward his senses, the other [red] is already hidden from the senses. Ordinary consciousness knows nothing of the relationships that are to be considered here. Supersensible consciousness, on the other hand, has the impression that between man [see diagram] and the sense impressions there are the Angeloi, Archangeloi, and Archai; they are really on this side of the sense world. Though one does not see them with ordinary eyes, they actually are situated between man and the whole tapestry of sense impressions. The Exusiai, Dynamis, and Kyriotetes are actually located beyond this realm; they are concealed by the tapestry of sense impressions.
A human being having super-sensible consciousness senses that the thoughts are coming closer to him since having been given over to the Archai. He senses them as being located more in his world, whereas formerly they were located behind the appearance of things; they approached man, as it were, through the red or blue color, or the tone of c-sharp or g. Since this transference of thoughts, man feels a freer association with the world of thoughts. This also gives rise to the illusion that man himself produces the thoughts.
In the course of time, the human being evolved to the point where he could enclose in himself, as it were, what formerly offered itself to him as objective outer world. This came about only gradually in human evolution. Going back into the distant past of human evolution, to the ancient Atlantean time preceding the Atlantean catastrophe, picture to yourselves the human configuration at that time, as described in my books, An Outline Of Occult Science or Cosmic Memory. As you know, human beings of that time were formed completely differently. The substance of their bodies was more delicate than it became later in the post-Atlantean age. For this reason, the soul element also stood in a different relationship to the world—all this is described in the above books—and these Atlanteans experienced the world completely differently. I just wish to point out one aspect of their particular kind of experience. Atlanteans could not yet experience musical intervals of thirds, not even fifths. Their musical experience really began with feeling the sevenths. They then felt further intervals, of which the seventh was the smallest. They missed hearing thirds and fifths; these intervals did not exist for Atlanteans.
The experience of tone structure was completely different, and the soul had a completely different relationship to the tone structure. One who lives musically only in sevenths, with no intervals in between, as naturally as did the Atlanteans does not even perceive the musical element as something that occurs around or within him. The moment he perceives the musical element he feels transported out of his body into the cosmos. This was the case with the Atlanteans. Their musical experience converged with a direct religious experience. Their experience of the seventh did not make them feel that they themselves had something to do with the appearance of the interval of the seventh. Instead, they sensed how the gods, who pervaded and wove through the world, revealed themselves in sevenths. The statement, “I make music,” would have made no sense to them. The only meaningful thing for them to say was, “I live in music made by the gods.”
In a much diminished form, this musical experience still existed in the post-Atlantean age during the period when people lived mainly in the interval of the fifth. This must not be compared to man's present-day feeling for the fifth. Today, the fifth gives man an impression of being something external that lacks content. Man experiences something empty in the fifth, though in a positive sense of the word empty. The fifth has become empty because the gods have withdrawn from human beings.
Still, in the post-Atlantean age too, man experienced in the internal of the fifth that the gods actually lived in these fifths. Only later, when the third appeared in the musical element—both major and minor thirds—the musical element submerged itself, as it were, into human feeling [Gemüt]; hence, man no longer felt transported from his body while experiencing music. Man was definitely transported in musical life during the true era of the fifth. In the era of thirds, however, which as you know dawned only relatively recently, man is within himself when he experiences music. He brings the musical element close to his corporeality. He interweaves it with his corporeality. Along with the experience of the third, therefore, the difference between major and minor keys arises. Man becomes aware of what can be experienced through the major key on the one hand and the minor key on the other. With the third and the appearance of major and minor keys, the musical experience now links itself with uplifting, joyous human moods and with depressed, sad moods, which the human being experiences as a bearer of his physical and etheric bodies. In a manner of speaking, man withdraws his experiences as a bearer of his physical and etheric bodies. In a manner of speaking, man withdraws his experience of the world from the cosmos and unites it with himself. Formerly, his most important experience of the world was such—this was definitely still the case in the “fifth-era,” if I may put it like this, but much more so in the “seventh-era”—that it directly transported him, that he could say, “The world of tones draws my ‘I’ and my astral body out of my physical and etheric bodies. I interweave my earthly existence with the divine-spiritual world, and, on the wings of the tone structure, the gods move through the world. I participate in their moving when I perceive the tones.”
In this specific area you can see how cosmic experience draws near to man, as it were; how the cosmos penetrates man; how, when we go back to earlier ages, we must seek in the super-sensible for the most important human experiences; and how the age is approaching when man as an earthly sense phenomenon must be taken along, as it were, when the most important world events are described. This occurs in the age before which the dominion over thoughts passed from the form beings to the primal beginnings. This is also reflected in the fact that the ancient “fifth-era,” which preceded the above cosmic event, passes on to the “era of thirds” and the experience of major and minor modes.
It is of special interest regarding man's musical experience to go back into a still earlier time, an age of human earthly evolution reaching back into the dimmest primeval past, which can be brought into view by super-sensible vision. We arrive at an age—you find it described as the “Lemurian Age” in my Occult Science—in which generally man cannot perceive the musical element that can become conscious in him in an interval within one octave. In that age, man perceives only an interval that surpasses one octave:
cdefgabcd
He perceives only the above interval c to d above c1. In the Lemurian age we discover a musical experience that excludes hearing any interval within one octave; the interval instead reaches to the first tone of the following octave. It is difficult to put into words what the human being experienced then, but perhaps one can form an idea of it if I say that Lemurian man experienced the second of the next higher and the third of the second higher octave. He experienced a kind of objective third, and there he also experienced both major and minor thirds. It is not a third in our sense, of course, because one has an actual third only when I take the prime in the same octave and the tone that I refer to as being the second-nearest to the prime. Because ancient man was able to experience such intervals, however—we should say today, prime in the first octave, second in the next, third in the third octave—he perceived something like an objective major and minor mode, not one experienced within himself but one that was felt to be an expression of the soul experiences of the gods. One cannot say that Lemurians experienced joy and suffering, exaltation and depression, but one must say that, due to the particular musical sensation of the Lemurian age, when, in a completely transported state, human beings perceived these intervals, they experienced the god's cosmic sounds of joy and lamentation. We thus can look back upon an epoch of the earth actually experienced by human beings when what man experiences today in major and minor modes was projected, so to speak, into the universe. What today he experiences inwardly was once projected out into the universe. What today wells up in his life of feeling [Gemüt], in his sensation, he perceived—transported from his physical body—as the experience of the gods. Our present inner experience of a major musical mood was perceived by Lemurian man, when he was transported from his physical body, as the cosmic song of jubilation, as the cosmic music of jubilation, produced by the gods as an expression of joy over their world creation. What today we know as an inner minor mood experience, man perceived in the Lemurian age as the overwhelming lamentation of the gods concerning the possibility that humanity could fall victim to what subsequently has been described by the Bible as the fall into sin, the falling away from the benevolent divine-spiritual powers.
This is something that sounds forth to us from the wonderful knowledge of the ancient mysteries, which at the same time was in itself artistic; it is not an abstract description of how humanity once passed through the Luciferic and Ahrimanic seduction and temptation and experienced such and such a thing. Human beings actually heard how, in primeval times, the gods made jubilant music in the cosmos because they rejoiced over their cosmic creativity. They also heard how the gods prophetically envisioned man's fall from the divine-spiritual powers and brought this to expression in their cosmic lamentation. This knowledge, which later took on increasingly intellectual forms, resounds as an artistic conception from the ancient mysteries. From this we can gain the profound conviction that it was only a single source from which flowed knowledge, art and religion. From this the conviction must grow in us that we must return to that human soul composition, and it will arise again if the soul perceives [erkennt], through the religious welling up in it, the artistic streaming through it. Such a composition of soul will understand vividly once again what Goethe meant when he said, “Beauty is a manifestation of secret natural laws without which these phenomena would have remained forever hidden.” The secret of human evolution within earthly existence, within earthly becoming, betrays itself to us by this inner unity of everything that man, perceiving religiously and artistically, must go through with the world, so that along with the world he can experience his entire development.
The time has come when man must become conscious again of these matters, because otherwise the soul qualities of human nature will simply deteriorate. Through the increasingly intellectual, one-sided form of knowledge, man of today and the immediate future would have to become arid in his soul; the arts, grown one-sided, would dull his soul; and the one-sided religion would drain him of his soul altogether, if he were unable to find the path that could lead him to an inner harmony and union of these three; if he could not find the way to rise out of himself—in a more conscious way than was formerly the case—and once again to see and hear the super-sensible together with the sense world.
When, with the air of the science of the spirit, one looks back at the ancient, great personalities of the dawning Greek culture, whose descendants were men like Aeschylus or Heraclitus, one finds that, in so far as they were initiated into the mysteries, these personalities all had the same feeling born out of their knowledge and their artistic forces of creativity just as Homer did, who said, “Sing, O Muse, to me of the wrath of Achilles,” not as something personal pervading them but as something they accomplished in their religious experience in community with the spiritual world. It motivated them to say the following: in primeval times, human beings actually experienced themselves as human beings by withdrawing from themselves during their most important human activities—I explained to you that this was in the case of music, but it was like this also in forming thoughts—and communing with the gods. Human beings have lost what they thus experienced. This mood of the loss of an ancient cognitive, artistic and religious treasure of humanity weighted heavily on the deeper Greek souls.
Another mood must come over modern man. By unfolding the appropriate forces of his soul experience he must reach the point where he rediscovers what once was lost. I would like to put it like this: man must develop a consciousness—after all, we live in the age of consciousness—of how that which has become inward can once again find the way out to the divine-spiritual. In one realm, for example, this will be accomplished when the inner wealth of feeling experienced in a melody one day will be discovered in the single tone, at which time the secret of individual tone will be experienced by man. In other words, man not only will experience intervals but will be able to experience the single tone with the same inner richness and inner variation of experience that he can experience today with melody. As yet, today, man can hardly imagine what this will be like.
You see, however, how matters proceed from the seventh to the fifth, from the fifth to the third, and from the third down to the prime, the single tone, and so forth. What was once the loss of the divine must transform itself for human evolution if humanity on earth is not to perish but to continue its development. The loss must transform itself for earthly humanity into a rediscovery of the divine.
We understand the past correctly only if we are able to confront it with the right image for our evolution in the future; if deeply, deeply shaken we are able to feel what a profound person could feel in ancient Greek times, “I have lost the presence of the gods”: if, with a shaken, but intensely and warmly striving soul, we are able to counter this with the resolve, “We shall bring the spirit that is within us like a seed to blossoming and fruition so that we can find the gods once again!”
Das Tonerlebnis im Menschen III
In der letzten Zeit hatte ich wiederholt darauf aufmerksam zu machen, daß man ebensogut eine Lebensbeschreibung des Menschen geben könnte für die Zeit, die er immer zwischen dem Einschlafen und Aufwachen zubringt, wie man eine solche gibt für die Zeit zwischen dem Aufwachen und Einschlafen. Alles, was der Mensch erlebt zwischen dem Aufwachen und Einschlafen, erlebt er durch seinen physischen und ätherischen Leib, Dadurch, daß er in dem physischen und ätherischen Leib entsprechend ausgebildete Sinnesorgane besitzt, ist es ja so, daß ihm diese Welt bewußt wird, die als seine Umgebung mit dem physischen und Ätherleib verbunden ist, sozusagen eines mit ihm ist. Weil er in seinem gegenwärtigen Entwickelungszustand in seinem Ich und astralischen Leib nicht in ähnlicher Weise geistseelische Organe ausgebildet hat, die gewissermaßen — wenn ich den paradoxen Ausdruck gebrauchen darf — übersinnliche Sinnesorgane wären, kann er das, was er zwischen dem Einschlafen und Aufwachen erlebt, nicht zu seinem Bewußtsein bringen. So daß also nur ein geistiges Anschauen dasjenige überblicken könnte, was gewissermaßen die Biographie dieses Ich und astralischen Leibes enthalten würde, parallel der Biographie, die mit Hilfe des physischen und ätherischen Leibes zustande kommt.
Nun, wenn man von den Erlebnissen des Menschen in der Zeit zwischen dem Aufwachen und Einschlafen spricht, so gehört ja notwendig zu diesen Erlebnissen dasjenige, was mit ihm zusammen, von ihm erlebt und durch ihn bewirkt, in seiner physisch-ätherischen Umgebung vorgeht. Man muß deshalb sprechen von einer physisch-ätherischen Umgebung, einer physisch-ätherischen Welt, in welcher der Mensch zwischen dem Aufwachen und Einschlafen ist. Ebenso ist er aber in einer Welt zwischen dem Einschlafen und Aufwachen, nur ist das eine Welt, die ganz anders geartet ist als die physisch-ätherische Welt. Und es besteht die Möglichkeit für das übersinnliche Anschauen, von dieser Welt zu sprechen, die geradeso unsere Umgebung ist, wenn wir schlafen, wie die physische Welt, wenn wir wachen, unsere Umgebung ist. Und wir wollen in diesen Vorträgen einiges vor unsere Seele treten lassen, was diese Welt beleuchten kann. Dazu sind ja die Elemente gegeben in dem, was Sie zum Beispiel beschrieben finden in meiner «Geheimwissenschaft im Umriß». Da finden Sie in einer gewissen Weise, wenn auch skizzenhaft beschrieben, wie sich die Reiche der physisch-ätherischen Welt, das mineralische, pflanzliche, tierische, menschliche Reich, hinauf fortsetzen in die Reiche der höheren Hierarchien. Wir wollen uns das heute einmal ein wenig vorhalten.
Wir wollen uns sagen: Wenn wir unsere Augen oder die anderen Sinnesorgane im wachenden Zustand hinauswenden in unsere physisch-ätherische Umgebung, dann nehmen wir die drei Reiche der Natur beziehungsweise vier Reiche wahr: das mineralische, das pflanzliche, das tierische und das menschliche Reich. Gehen wir nun weiter hinauf in diejenigen Regionen, die nur dem Übersinnlichen zugänglich sind, so haben wir gewissermaßen die Fortsetzung.dieser Reiche: das Reich der Angeloi, der Archangeloi, der Archai, der Exusiai, Dynamis, Kyriotetes und so weiter (siehe Zeichnung Seite 153).
Wir haben also zwei Welten, die sich gegenseitig durchdringen: die physisch-ätherische Welt und die übersinnliche Welt. Und wir wissen schon, daß wir zwischen dem Einschlafen und Aufwachen in dieser übersinnlichen Welt wirklich drinnen sind und mit ihr Erlebnisse haben, trotzdem diese Erlebnisse wegen der fehlenden geistseelischen Organe eben zu dem gewöhnlichen Bewußtsein nicht kommen.
Nun handelt es sich darum, daß genauer begriffen werden kann, was der Mensch in dieser übersinnlichen Welt erlebt, wenn man, ich möchte sagen, eine Art Beschreibung von dieser übersinnlichen Welt in derselben Weise gibt, wie man sie durch Naturwissenschaft, durch Geschichte, von der physisch-ätherischen Welt gibt. Man muß für eine solche, sagen wir, übersinnliche Wissenschaft des tatsächlichen Verlaufes in der Welt, in der wir als schlafende Menschen sind, natürlich zunächst einzelnes herausgreifen. Und ich werde heute zunächst ein Ereignis herausgreifen, das von einer tiefgehenden Bedeutung für die ganze Entwickelung der Menschheit in den letzten Jahrtausenden ist.
Von einer Seite nämlich, von der Seite der physisch-ätherischen Welt und ihrer Geschichte, haben wir dieses Ereignis schon des öfteren besprochen. Wir wollen es heute gewissermaßen von der anderen Seite besprechen, von der Seite, die sich zeigt, wenn man den Gesichtspunkt nicht in der physisch-ätherischen Welt, sondern in der übersinnlichen Welt nimmt. Das Ereignis, das ich meine und das ich von dem einen Gesichtspunkte aus öfter geschildert habe, ist dasjenige, das in das 4. nachchristliche Jahrhundert hineinfällt.
Ich habe ja beschrieben, wie die ganze Verfassung der Menschenseele des Abendlandes eine andere wird in diesem 4. nachchristlichen Jahrhundert, wie das tatsächlich so ist, daß man ohne ein geisteswissenschaftliches Eingehen auf die Sache überhaupt nicht mehr versteht, wie die Menschen in der Zeit gefühlt und empfunden haben, die dem 4. nachchristlichen Jahrhundert vorangegangen ist. Aber wir haben ja dieses Empfinden, diese Seelenverfassung des öfteren geschildert. Wir haben mit anderen Worten geschildert, was die Menschen im Laufe des Zeitraumes erlebt haben, in den dieses 4. nachchristliche Jahrhundert hineinfällt. Wir wollen nun heute ein wenig Rücksicht darauf nehmen, was in jener Zeit diejenigen Wesenheiten erlebt haben, die diesem übersinnlichen Reiche angehören. Wir wollen gewissermaßen uns auf die andere Seite des Lebens wenden, wir wollen den Gesichtspunkt im Übersinnlichen nehmen.
Es ist ja ein Vorurteil der gegenwärtigen sogenannt aufgeklärten Menschheit, daß ihre Gedanken nur in den Köpfen drinnenstecken. Wir würden nichts von den Dingen durch Gedanken erfahren, wenn diese Gedanken nur in den Köpfen der Menschen wären. Derjenige, der da glaubt, daß die Gedanken nur in den Köpfen der Menschen seien, der unterliegt, so paradox das klingt, demselben Vorurteil, wie einer, der glaubt, daß der Schluck Wasser, mit dem er sich den Durst löscht, auf seiner Zunge entstanden ist und nicht aus dem Wasserkrug in seinen Mund hineingeflossen ist. Es ist im Grunde genommen ebenso lächerlich zu behaupten, die Gedanken entstehen im Menschenkopfe, wie es lächerlich ist zu sagen — wenn ich meinen Durst mit einem Trunk Wasser lösche, den ich im Krug habe -, das Wasser sei in meinem Mund entstanden. Die Gedanken sind eben durchaus in der Welt ausgebreitet. Die Gedanken sind die in den Dingen waltenden Kräfte. Und unser Denkorgan ist eben nur etwas, was aus dem kosmischen Reservoir der Gedankenkräfte schöpft, was die Gedanken in sich hereinnimmt. Wir müssen also von Gedanken nicht so sprechen, als ob sie etwas wären, das nur dem Menschen angehört. Wir müssen von Gedanken so sprechen, daß wir uns bewußt sind: Gedanken sind die weltbeherrschenden Kräfte, die überall im Kosmos ausgebreitet sind. Aber diese Gedanken fliegen deshalb doch nicht frei herum, sondern sie sind immer getragen, bearbeitet von irgendwelchen Wesenheiten. Und, was das Wichtigste ist, sie sind nicht immer von denselben, nicht immer von den gleichen Wesenheiten getragen.
Wenn wir uns an die übersinnliche Welt wenden, dann finden wir durch die übersinnliche Forschung, daß die Gedanken, durch die sich die Menschen die Welt begreiflich machen, draußen im Kosmos getragen wurden - ich könnte auch sagen: ausgeströmt wurden; irdische Ausdrücke passen wenig für diese erhabenen Vorgänge und Wesenhaftigkeiten -, daß also diese Gedanken getragen, ausgeströmt waren bis ins 4. nachchristliche Jahrhundert von den Wesen jener Hierarchien, die wir als Exusiai oder Formwesen bezeichnen (siehe Zeichnung Seite 153).
Wenn ein alter Grieche aus der Wissenschaft seiner Mysterien heraus sich hat Rechenschaft geben wollen darüber, woher er eigentlich seine Gedanken hat, so hat er das in der Art tun müssen, daß er sich sagte: Ich wende meinen geistigen Blick hinauf zu jenen Wesen, von denen mir geoffenbart wird durch die Mysterienwissenschaft als den Wesen der Form, als den Formkräften, Formwesen. Das sind die Träger der kosmischen Intelligenz, das sind die Träger der kosmischen Gedanken. Sie lassen die Gedanken durch die Weltenereignisse strömen, und sie geben diese menschlichen Gedanken an die Seele ab, die sich diese Gedanken erlebend vergegenwärtigt. - Wer etwa durch eine besondere Initiation sich in jenen alten Zeiten des griechischen Lebens in die übersinnliche Welt eingelebt hatte und bis zum Erleben dieser Formwesen gekommen war, der schaute diese Formwesen, und er mußte, um sich von ihnen das rechte Bild, die richtige Imagination zu machen, ihnen etwa als ein Attribut beigeben die durch die Welt strömenden, leuchtenden Gedanken. Er sah als alter Grieche diese Formwesen etwa wie von ihren Gliedern ausgehen lassend leuchtende Gedankenkräfte, die dann in die Weltenprozesse hineingehen und da als die weltschöpferischen Intelligenzmächte weiter wirken. Er sagte etwa: Die Kräfte der Form, die Exusiai, sie haben im Weltenall, im Kosmos, den Beruf, die Gedanken durch die Weltenvorgänge zu ergießen. Und so wie die sinnliche Wissenschaft das Tun der Menschen beschreibt, indem sie dies oder jenes notifiziert, was die Menschen einzeln oder miteinander tun, so müßte eine übersinnliche Wissenschaft beschreiben, wenn sie die Tätigkeit der Formkräfte für das charakterisierte Zeitalter ins Auge faßt, wie sich diese übersinnlichen Wesen gegenseitig die Gedankenkräfte zuströmen lassen, wie sie voneinander sie empfangen, und wie in diesem Zuströmenlassen und in diesem Empfangen eingegliedert sind jene Weltenvorgänge, die dann nach außen sich dem Menschen als die Naturerscheinungen darstellen.
Nun kam in der Entwickelung der Menschheit eben jenes 4. nachchristliche Jahrhundert heran. Und das brachte für diese übersinnliche Welt das außerordentlich bedeutsame Ereignis, daß die Exusiai — die Kräfte, die Wesenheiten der Form — ihre Gedankenkräfte abgaben an die Archai, an die Urkräfte oder Urbeginne (siehe Zeichnung).
Es traten damals die Urbeginne, die Archai, in den Beruf ein, den früher die Exusiai ausgeübt hatten. Solche Vorgänge gibt es eben in der übersinnlichen Welt. Das war ein ganz hervorragend wichtiges kosmisches Ereignis. Die Exusiai, die Formwesen, behielten sich von jener Zeit an lediglich die Aufgabe zurück, die äußeren Sinneswahrnehmungen zu regeln, also mit besonderen kosmischen Kräften alles das zu beherrschen, was in der Welt der Farben, der Töne und so weiter vorhanden ist. So daß derjenige, der in diese Dinge hineinschaut, für das Zeitalter, das nun nach dem 4. nachchristlichen Jahrhundert heraufkam, sagen muß: Er sieht, wie die weltbeherrschenden Gedanken übergeben werden an die Archai, an die Urbeginne, und wie das, was Augen sehen, Ohren hören, in seiner mannigfaltigen Weltgestaltung, in seiner ständigen Metamorphosierung das Gewebe ist, das da weben die Exusiai, die früher den Menschen die Gedanken gegeben haben, die also jetzt ihnen die Sinnesempfindungen geben, während ihnen die Urbeginne jetzt die Gedanken geben.
Und diese Tatsache der übersinnlichen Welt spiegelte sich hier unten in der sinnlichen Welt so, daß eben in jener älteren Zeit, in welcher zum Beispiel die Griechen lebten, die Gedanken objektiv in den Dingen wahrgenommen worden sind. So wie wir heute glauben, das Rot oder das Blau an den Dingen wahrzunehmen, so fand der Grieche einen Gedanken nicht bloß mit seinem Kopfe erfaßt, sondern hervorstrahlend, herausstrahlend aus den Dingen, wie eben das Rot oder das Blau herausstrahlt.
Das habe ich ja in meinem Buche «Die Rätsel der Philosophie» beschrieben, was diese andere, ich möchte sagen, die menschliche Seite der Sache ist. Wie sich dieser wichtige Vorgang der übersinnlichen Welt spiegelt in der physisch-sinnlichen Welt, das finden Sie durchaus in meinem Buche «Die Rätsel der Philosophie» beschrieben. Da gebraucht man dann philosophische Ausdrücke, weil die Philosophensprache eine Sprache für die materielle Welt ist, während man, wenn man den Gesichtspunkt in der übersinnlichen Welt bespricht, eben auch von der übersinnlichen Tatsache zu sprechen hat, daß der Beruf der Exusiai übergegangen ist an die Archai.
Solche Dinge bereiten sich in der Menschheit durch ganze Epochen hindurch vor. Solche Dinge sind mit gründlichen Umwandlungen der Menschenseelen verknüpft. Ich sage, daß diese übersinnliche Tatsache sich zugetragen hat im 4. nachchristlichen Jahrhundert; doch ist das ja nur annähernd gesagt, denn das ist sozusagen nur ein mittlerer Zeitpunkt, während diese Übergabe eben lange Zeiten hindurch gespielt hat. Sie hat sich schon in den vorchristlichen Zeiten vorbereitet und war erst vollendet im 12., 13., 14. nachchristlichen Jahrhundert. Das 4, Jahrhundert ist sozusagen nur der mittlere Zeitpunkt, den man angegeben hat, um auf etwas Bestimmtes im geschichtlichen Werden der Menschheit hinzudeuten.
Nun, damit sind wir gleichzeitig in jenem Zeitpunkt der Menschheitsentwickelung, in dem sich für den Menschen überhaupt der Ausblick in die übersinnliche Welt völlig zu verdunkeln beginnt, Es hört das Bewußtsein der Seele auf, übersinnlich zu schauen, wahrzunehmen, indem sich diese Menschenseele hingibt der Welt. Es wird das vielleicht noch intensiver vor Ihre Seele treten, wenn wir es von einer anderen Seite her beleuchten.
Worin besteht denn eigentlich das, worauf ich so intensiv hinweisen will? Es besteht darin, daß die Menschen immer mehr und mehr sich in ihrer Individualität fühlen. Indem die Gedankenwelt übergeht von den Formwesen zu den Urbeginnen, von den Exusiai zu den Archai, empfindet der Mensch die Gedanken seiner eigenen Wesenheit mehr, weil die Archai um eine Stufe näher dem Menschen leben als die Exusiai. Und wenn der Mensch beginnt, übersinnlich zu schauen, dann hat er den folgenden Eindruck. Dann sagt er: Nun ja, da ist diese Welt, die ich als die sinnliche überschaue. Sagen wir, das Gelbe (siehe Zeichnung Seite 156) ist die meinen Sinnen zugewendete Seite, das Rote ist die schon verborgene, von den Sinnen abgewendete Seite.
Das gewöhnliche Bewußtsein weiß von den hier in Betracht kommenden Verhältnissen überhaupt nichts. Aber das übersinnliche Bewußtsein hat durchaus die Empfindung: Wenn hier der Mensch ist (siehe Zeichnung Seite 156), dann sind zwischen dem Menschen und den Sinneseindrücken Angeloi, Archangeloi und Archai; die sind eigentlich diesseits der sinnlichen Welt. Man sieht sie nur nicht mit den gewöhnlichen Augen, aber sie liegen eigentlich zwischen dem Menschen und dem ganzen Sinnesteppich. Und die Exusiai, Dynamis, Kyriotetes sind eigentlich erst jenseits; die werden zugedeckt durch den Sinnesteppich. So daß also der Mensch, der ein übersinnliches Bewußtsein hat, die Gedanken, nachdem sie an die Archai übergeben sind, als an sich herankommend empfindet. Er empfindet sie so, als ob sie jetzt mehr in seiner Welt lägen, während sie früher hinter den Farben, dem Roten, dem Blauen, das an den Dingen ist, drinnen waren, gewissermaßen durch das Rote, das Blaue, oder auch durch das Cis oder durch das G herankamen. Er fühlt sich seit dieser Übergabe in einem freieren Verkehr mit der Gedankenwelt. Das ruft ja auch die Illusion hervor, als ob der Mensch die Gedanken selber machte.
Der Mensch hat sich aber auch erst im Laufe der Zeit dazu entwickelt, gewissermaßen in sich hereinzunehmen, was sich ihm früher als objektive äußere Welt darbot. Das ist erst nach und nach in der Menschheitsentwickelung so gekommen. Wenn wir jetzt einmal recht weit zurückgehen in der Menschheitsentwickelung, wenn wir hinter die atlantische Katastrophe in die alte atlantische Zeit zurückgehen, da bitte ich Sie, sich das Menschengebilde in der atlantischen Zeit so vorzustellen, wie ich es in meiner «Geheimwissenschaft» oder in den Abhandlungen «Aus der Akasha-Chronik» beschrieben habe. Diese Menschen waren ja, wie Sie wissen, ganz anders gestaltet. Ihre Leibessubstanz war von größerer Feinheit, als sie dann später, in der nachatlantischen Zeit, geworden ist. Dadurch war aber auch das Seelenhafte - es ist ja das alles in den Büchern beschrieben - in einem ganz anderen Verhältnis zur Welt, und diese Atlantier haben die Welt ganz anders erlebt. Ich will nur eines angeben von dieser besonderen Art des Erlebens. Diese Atlantier konnten zum Beispiel keine Terz erleben, nicht einmal eine Quinte. Sie konnten eigentlich das musikalische Erleben erst beginnen, indem sie die Septime empfanden. Und dann haben sie weitergehende Intervalle empfunden, deren kleinstes eben die Septime war. Terzen, Quinten, haben sie überhört; die gab es nicht für sie.
Dadurch aber war das Erleben der Tongebilde überhaupt ein ganz anderes, die Seele hatte ein ganz anderes Verhältnis zu den Tongebilden. Wenn man ohne die Zwischenintervalle musikalisch eben nur in Septimen lebt, und in so natürlicher Weise in Septimen lebt, wie die Atlantier in Septimen gelebt haben, dann nimmt man überhaupt das Musikalische nicht als etwas wahr, was an einem oder in einem als Mensch vorgeht, sondern man ist in dem Augenblicke, in dem man überhaupt musikalisch wahrnimmt, aus seinem Leibe draußen, man lebt im Kosmos draußen. Und so war es bei den Atlantiern. Bei den Atlantiern war es so, daß ihnen das musikalische Erlebnis zusammenfiel mit einem unmittelbar religiösen Erlebnis. Ihr Septimenerlebnis gab sich ihnen so, daß sie nicht etwa sagen konnten, sie haben selbst etwas zu tun mit der Entstehung der Septimenintervalle, sondern sie empfanden, wie Götter, die durch die Welt wallten und webten, sich in Septimen offenbarten. Sie hätten gar keinen Sinn damit verknüpfen können: Ich mache Musik. — Sie konnten nur einen Sinn damit verbinden, wenn sie sagten: Ich lebe in der von den Göttern gemachten Musik.
Nun, in einer wesentlichen Abschwächung war dieses musikalische Erleben auch noch in der nachatlantischen Zeit vorhanden, in derjenigen Zeit, in der im wesentlichen in Quintenintervallen gelebt wurde. Sie dürfen das nicht vergleichen mit der heutigen Empfindung der Quinten durch den Menschen. Heute empfindet der Mensch die Quinte etwa so, daß sie ihm den Eindruck eines nicht erfüllten Äußeren gibt. Sie hat für ihn etwas Leeres, im besten Sinne des Wortes, aber etwas Leeres. Sie ist leer geworden, weil sich die Götter von den Menschen zurückgezogen haben.
Auch noch in der nachatlantischen Zeit erlebte der Mensch bei seinen Quintenintervallen, daß in diesen Quinten eigentlich die Götter lebten. Und erst als später innerhalb des Musikalischen die Terz auftrat, die große und die kleine Terz, da war es so, daß nun das Musikalische gewissermaßen untertauchte in das menschliche Gemüt, daß der Mensch mit dem musikalischen Erleben nicht mehr entrückt war. Im richtigen Quintenzeitalter war der Mensch mit dem musikalischen Leben durchaus noch entrückt. Im Terzenzeitalter, das, wie Sie wissen, erst verhältnismäßig spät heraufgezogen ist, ist der Mensch mit dem musikalischen Erleben in sich selbst darinnen. Er nimmt das Musikalische an seine Leiblichkeit heran. Er verwebt das Musikalische mit seiner Leiblichkeit. Daher tritt mit dem Terzenerlebnis der Unterschied zwischen Dur und Moll auf, und man erlebt auf der einen Seite das, was man eben beim Dur erleben kann, auf der anderen Seite dasjenige, was mit dem Moll erlebt werden kann. An die menschlichen gehobenen, freudigen, an die deprimierten, schmerzvollen, leidvollen Stimmungen, die der Mensch als der Träger seines physischen und ätherischen Leibes erlebt, knüpft sich das musikalische Erleben mit der Entstehung der Terz, mit dem Hereinkommen von Dur und Moll in das Musikalische. Der Mensch nimmt gewissermaßen sein Welterleben aus dem Kosmos heraus, verbindet sich selber mit seinem Welterleben. In älteren Zeiten hatte er sein wichtigstes Welterleben so — und das war durchaus noch der Fall in der Quintenzeit, aber in einem höheren Maße in der Septimenzeit, wenn ich mich dieser Ausdrücke bedienen darf -, daß es ihn unmittelbar entrückte, daß er sagen konnte: Die Welt der Töne zieht mein Ich und meinen astralischen Leib aus meinem physischen und Ätherleib unmittelbar heraus. Ich verwebe mein irdisches Dasein mit der göttlich-geistigen Welt, und es ertönen die Tongebilde als etwas, auf dessen Flügeln die Götter durch die Welt wallen, deren Wallen ich miterlebe, indem ich die Töne wahrnehme.
Sie sehen also auf diesem besonderen Gebiete, wie gewissermaßen das kosmische Erleben an den Menschen herankommt, wie der Kosmos in den Menschen hineindringt, wie wir gewissermaßen, wenn wir in alte Zeiten zurückgehen, das wichtigste Menschenerleben im Übersinnlichen suchen müssen, und wie dann die Zeit heraufkommt, wo der Mensch als sinnlich-irdische Erscheinung, ich möchte sagen, mitgenommen werden muß, wenn die wichtigsten Weltereignisse beschrieben werden.
Das geschieht in jenem Zeitalter, das eintritt, nachdem die Gedanken von den Formwesen an die Urbeginne abgegeben sind. Das drückt sich auch dadurch aus, daß das alte Quintenzeitalter - das schon früher war als jene Übergabe — übergeht in das Terzenzeitalter, in das Erleben von Dur und Moll.
Nun ist es besonders interessant, wenn gerade mit diesem Erleben in eine noch ältere Zeit als die atlantische zurückgegangen wird, also in eine Zeit der menschlichen Erdenentwickelung, die in grauester, fernster Vergangenheit für die Rückschau verschwimmt, deren Anschauung aber hervorgeholt werden kann durch das übersinnliche Schauen. Da kommen wir sogar zu einem Zeitalter — Sie finden es in meiner «Geheimwissenschaft» als das lemurische Zeitalter beschrieben -, wo der Mensch überhaupt das Musikalische nicht mehr so wahrnehmen kann, daß ihm innerhalb einer Oktave ein Intervall bewußt werden kann, sondern da kommen wir in eine Zeit, in welcher der Mensch ein Intervall nur wahrnimmt, indem das Intervall die Oktave übergreift, also etwa so:
so daß der Mensch nur dieses Intervall c-d wahrnimmt, das heißt das d der nächsten Oktave.
Im lemurischen Zeitalter haben wir also durchaus ein musikalisches Erleben, das sich gar nicht abspielen kann im Anhören eines Intervalls innerhalb einer Oktave, sondern da geht das Intervall über die Oktave hinaus, bis zum ersten Ton der folgenden Oktave, und dann geht es bis zum folgenden Ton der zweitnächsten Oktave. Und da erlebt der Mensch etwas, was schwer zu benennen ist; aber man kann sich vielleicht eine Vorstellung davon machen, wenn ich sage: Es erlebt der Mensch die Sekund der nächsten Oktave und die Terz der zweitnächsten Oktave. Er erlebt eine Art objektiver Terz, und da auch wiederum die zwei Terzen, nämlich die große und die kleine Terz. Nur daß die Terz — dasjenige, was er da erlebt — natürlich in unserem Sinne keine Terz ist, denn nur, wenn ich die Prim in derselben Oktave annehme, ist der Ton, den ich in bezug auf die zweitnächste Prim meine, die Terz. Aber indem der Mensch unmittelbar die Intervalle erleben konnte, die für uns heute so sind, daß wir sagen: Prim in einer Oktave, Sekund in der nächsten Oktave, Terz in der dritten Oktave -, nahm dieser ältere Mensch dasjenige wahr, was eine Art objektiven Durs und objektiven Molls ist, ein nicht mehr in sich erlebtes Dur und Moll, sondern ein Dur und Moll, das als der Ausdruck des seelischen Erlebens der Götter empfunden wurde. Die Menschen des lemurischen Zeitalters erlebten, man kann jetzt nicht sagen Freude und Leid, Erhebung und Deprimierung, sondern man muß sagen: Die Menschen erlebten durch dieses besondere musikalische Empfinden in der lemurischen Zeit, indem sie ganz außer sich entrückt waren in dem Wahrnehmen dieser Intervalle, die kosmischen Jubelklänge der Götter und die kosmischen Klagen der Götter. -— Und wir können zurückschauen auf ein irdisches, von den Menschen wirklich erlebtes Zeitalter, in dem sozusagen hinausprojtziert war in das Weltenall dasjenige, was der Mensch heute erlebt bei Dur und Moll. Was er heute innerlich erlebt, es war hinausprojiziert in das Weltenall. Was ihn heute durchwellt in seinem Gemüte, in seiner Empfindung, das vernahm er in Entrückung von seinem physischen Leibe als Erlebnis der Götter draußen. Was wir heute als innerliches Durerlebnis charakterisieren müßten, nahm er in der Entrückung von seinem Leibe draußen als den kosmischen Jubelgesang, als die kosmische Jubelmusik der Götter wie den Ausdruck der Freude über ihr Weltschaffen wahr. Und was wir heute als innerliche Mollerlebnisse haben, nahm einstmals der Mensch in der lemurischen Zeit als die ungeheure Klage der Götter wahr über die Möglichkeit, daß die Menschen verfallen können in das, was dann in der biblischen Geschichte als der Sündenfall, als der Abfall von den göttlich-geistigen Mächten, von den guten Mächten, geschildert worden ist.
Das ist etwas, was uns herübertönt aus jener wunderbaren, von selbst in das Künstlerische übergehenden Erkenntnis der alten Mysterien, daß wir vernehmen, wie nicht nur etwa abstrakt geschildert wird, daß einstmals die Menschen durch die luziferische und ahrimanische Verführung und Versuchung gegangen sind und dies oder jenes erfahren haben, sondern daß die Menschen gehört haben, wie in uralten Erdenzeiten die Götter jubelnd musiziert haben im Kosmos aus der Freude ihres Weltenschaffens heraus, und wie sie gleichsam prophetisch schon hingeschaut haben auf den Abfall der Menschen von den göttlich-geistigen Mächten, und dieses Hinschauen in der kosmischen Klage zum Ausdrucke brachten.
Dieses künstlerische Erfassen von etwas, was später immer intellektualistischere Formen angenommen hat, das ist etwas, was aus den alten Mysterien heraustönt, und aus dem wir die so tiefe Überzeugung gewinnen können, daß es eine Quelle ist, aus der Erkenntnis, Kunst, Religion geflossen sind. Und daraus muß uns die Überzeugung werden, ‘daß wir wieder zurück müssen zu jener menschlichen Seelenverfassung, die wiederum entstehen wird, wenn die Seele erkennt, indem sie religiös durchwellt, künstlerisch durchströmt wird; zu jener Seelenverfassung, die wiederum tief lebensvoll das versteht, was schon Goethe gemeint hat mit dem Worte: Das Schöne ist eine Manifestation geheimer Naturgesetze, die ohne dessen Erscheinung ewig verborgen geblieben wären. — Das Geheimnis der Menschheitsentwickelung innerhalb des Erdenseins, innerhalb des Erdenwerdens, das verrät uns selbst diese innerliche Einheit alles dessen, was der Mensch erkennend, religiös und künstlerisch mit der Welt zusammen durchmachen muß, damit er mit dieser Welt zusammen seine Gesamtentfaltung erleben kann.
Und es ist schon so, daß jetzt die Zeit gekommen ist, wo diese Dinge den Menschen wiederum zum Bewußtsein kommen müssen, weil sonst einfach die menschliche Natur in ihrer Seelenhaftigkeit verfallen müßte. Der Mensch müßte heute und in die nächste Zukunft hinein durch die intellektualistisch werdende einseitige Erkenntnis seelisch vertrocknen, er müßte durch die einseitig gewordene Kunst seelisch stumpf werden und durch die einseitig gewordene Religion überhaupt seelenlos werden, wenn er nicht den Weg finden könnte, der ihn zur inneren Harmonie und Einheit dieser drei führen könnte, wenn er nicht den Weg finden könnte, auf eine bewußtere Art, als es einmal der Fall war, aus sich herauszukommen und das Übersinnliche wiederum mit dem Sinnlichen zusammen zu schauen und zusammen zu hören.
Gerade wenn man mit Geisteswissenschaft hinblickt auf die älteren, tieferen Persönlichkeiten der werdenden griechischen Kultur, auf jene Persönlichkeiten, als deren Nachkommen sich dann ein Äschylos, ein Heraklit entwickelt haben, dann findet man, daß diese Persönlichkeiten, insofern sie in die Mysterien eingeweiht waren, alle ein gleiches Gefühl hatten aus ihrer Erkenntnis heraus und aus ihren künstlerischen Schöpferkräften, die sie eben noch so fühlten, wie ja auch Homer «Singe, o Muse, vom Zorn mir des Peleiden Achilleus» — nicht als etwas persönlich in ihnen Waltendes, sondern als etwas, was sie in ihrem religiösen Empfinden in Gemeinsamkeit mit der geistigen Welt verrichteten, und wodurch sie sich sagten: Die Menschen haben in uralten Zeiten sich eigentlich als Menschen erlebt, indem sie durch die wichtigsten menschlichen Betätigungen — wie ich es Ihnen für das Musikalische gezeigt habe, aber auch bei dem Gedankenfassen war es so aus sich herausgingen und mit den Göttern zusammen erlebten. Das, was sie da erlebten, das haben die Menschen verloren.
Diese Stimmung des Verlustes eines uralten Erkenntnis- und künstlerischen und religiösen Besitzes der Menschheit, die lastete durchaus auf den tieferen griechischen Seelen.
Über den neueren Menschen muß etwas anderes kommen. Über den neueren Menschen muß kommen, daß er durch Entfaltung der rechten Kräfte seines seelischen Erlebens dahin gelangt, das, was einstmals verloren worden ist, wieder zu finden. Ich möchte sagen: Der Mensch muß ein Bewußtsein davon entwickeln — wir leben ja im Bewußtseinszeitalter —, wie das, was nun innerlich geworden ist, wiederum den Weg nach außen zu dem Göttlich-Geistigen findet. Und solches wird sich vollziehen können - ich habe es angedeutet auf eine Frage hin, die im Goetheanum beim ersten Hochschulkurs gestellt worden ist —, solches wird sich auf einem Gebiete zum Beispiel ereignen, wenn der innerliche Reichtum der Empfindungen, der in der Melodie erlebt wird, einmal auf den einzelnen Ton übergehen wird, wenn der Mensch das Geheimnis des einzelnen Tones erfahren wird, wenn, mit anderen Worten, der Mensch nicht nur Intervalle erleben wird, sondern wirklich auch mit innerlichem Reichtum, mit innerlicher Mannigfaltigkeit des Erlebens den einzelnen Ton wie eine Melodie wird erleben können. Davon ist heute noch kaum eine Vorstellung vorhanden.
Aber Sie sehen, wie die Dinge fortgehen: von der Septime zur Quinte, von der Quinte zur Terz, von der Terz zur Prim herunter bis zum einzelnen Ton, und dann weiter fort. So daß dasjenige, was einstmals ein Verlieren des Göttlichen war, sich wandeln muß für die Menschheitsentwickelung, wenn die Menschheit auf Erden sich weiterbilden und nicht untergehen will, sich wandeln muß für die Erdenmenschheit in ein Wiederfinden des Göttlichen.
Wir verstehen die Vergangenheit nur richtig, wenn wir ihr das rechte Ebenbild für unsere Entwickelung in die Zukunft hinein entgegenzustellen vermögen, wenn wir ganz tief, erschütternd tief das empfinden können, was noch in uralter Griechenzeit ein tieferer Mensch empfunden hat: Ich habe die Gegenwart der Götter verloren —, und wenn wir dem entgegensetzen können wiederum aus erschütterter, aber intensiv und innigst strebender Seele: Wir wollen den Geist, der im Keim in uns ist, zum Blühen und Fruchten bringen, damit wir die Götter wiederfinden können.
The Sound Experience in Humans III
Recently, I have repeatedly pointed out that one could just as well give a description of a person's life for the time they spend between falling asleep and waking up as one gives for the time between waking up and falling asleep. Everything that human beings experience between waking up and falling asleep, they experience through their physical and etheric bodies. Because they have appropriately developed sense organs in their physical and etheric bodies, they become aware of this world, which is connected to their physical and etheric bodies as their environment, and is, so to speak, one with them. Because, in their present state of development, they have not developed spiritual-soul organs in their ego and astral bodies in a similar way, which would be, so to speak — if I may use the paradoxical expression — supersensible sense organs, they cannot bring what they experience between falling asleep and waking up into their consciousness. So only spiritual observation could survey what would, in a sense, be the biography of this ego and astral body, parallel to the biography that comes about with the help of the physical and etheric bodies.
Now, when we speak of human experiences in the time between waking and falling asleep, these experiences necessarily include what happens in the person's physical-etheric environment, together with them, experienced by them, and brought about by them. We must therefore speak of a physical-etheric environment, a physical-etheric world, in which the human being is between waking and falling asleep. But he is also in a world between falling asleep and waking up, only this is a world that is completely different in nature from the physical-etheric world. And it is possible for the supersensible observer to speak of this world, which is just as much our environment when we sleep as the physical world is our environment when we are awake. And in these lectures we want to bring before our soul some things that can shed light on this world. The elements for this are given in what you will find described, for example, in my “Outline of Esoteric Science.” There you will find, in a certain way, albeit described in sketch form, how the realms of the physical-etheric world, the mineral, plant, animal, and human realms, continue upward into the realms of the higher hierarchies. We want to keep that in mind a little today.
Let us say to ourselves: when we turn our eyes or other sense organs in the waking state toward our physical-etheric environment, we perceive the three realms of nature, or rather four realms: the mineral, plant, animal, and human realms. If we now ascend further into those regions that are only accessible to the supersensible, we have, in a sense, the continuation of these realms: the realm of the Angeloi, the Archangeloi, the Archai, the Exusiai, Dynamis, Kyriotetes, and so on (see drawing on page 153).
So we have two worlds that interpenetrate each other: the physical-etheric world and the supersensible world. And we already know that between falling asleep and waking up we are actually inside this supersensible world and have experiences with it, even though these experiences do not reach our ordinary consciousness because of the lack of spiritual-soul organs.
Now it is a matter of understanding more precisely what human beings experience in this supersensible world by giving, I would say, a kind of description of this supersensible world in the same way as one gives a description of the physical-etheric world through natural science and history. For such a, let us say, supersensible science of the actual course of events in the world in which we are as sleeping human beings, we must of course first pick out individual aspects. And today I will first pick out an event that is of profound significance for the entire development of humanity over the last millennia.
We have already discussed this event many times from one perspective, namely that of the physical-etheric world and its history. Today we want to discuss it, so to speak, from the other side, from the side that reveals itself when we take our point of view not in the physical-etheric world but in the supersensible world. The event I am referring to, and which I have often described from this one point of view, is the one that falls within the fourth century after Christ.
I have described how the entire constitution of the Western human soul changed in the fourth century AD, how it is actually the case that without a spiritual scientific approach to the matter, it is no longer possible to understand how people felt and perceived things in the period preceding the fourth century AD. But we have often described this feeling, this state of mind. In other words, we have described what people experienced during the period that falls within this 4th century AD. Today, we want to consider a little what the beings belonging to this supersensible realm experienced during that time. We want, so to speak, to turn to the other side of life; we want to take the supersensible point of view.
It is a prejudice of today's so-called enlightened humanity that their thoughts are only in their heads. We would learn nothing about things through thoughts if these thoughts were only in people's heads. Anyone who believes that thoughts exist only in people's heads is, paradoxical as it may sound, subject to the same prejudice as someone who believes that the sip of water with which he quenches his thirst originated on his tongue and did not flow into his mouth from the water jug. It is basically just as ridiculous to claim that thoughts arise in the human mind as it is to say—when I quench my thirst with a drink of water that I have in a jug—that the water originated in my mouth. Thoughts are spread throughout the world. Thoughts are the forces that rule in things. And our thinking organ is just something that draws from the cosmic reservoir of thought forces, that takes thoughts into itself. So we must not speak of thoughts as if they were something that belongs only to human beings. We must speak of thoughts in such a way that we are aware that thoughts are the forces that rule the world, that are spread throughout the cosmos. But these thoughts do not fly around freely; they are always carried and processed by certain beings. And, most importantly, they are not always carried by the same beings.
When we turn to the supersensible world, we find through supersensible research that the thoughts through which human beings comprehend the world were carried out into the cosmos — I could also say: streamed out; Earthly expressions are not really suitable for these sublime processes and beings – that these thoughts were carried, streamed out until the 4th century AD by the beings of those hierarchies that we call Exusiai or form beings (see drawing on page 153).
When an ancient Greek, drawing on his knowledge of the mysteries, wanted to account for where his thoughts actually came from, he had to do so by saying to himself: I turn my spiritual gaze upward to those beings who are revealed to me through the science of the mysteries as the beings of form, as the form forces, the form beings. These are the bearers of cosmic intelligence, the bearers of cosmic thoughts. They allow thoughts to flow through world events, and they pass these human thoughts on to the soul, which experiences these thoughts. Those who, through a special initiation, had become attuned to the supersensible world in those ancient times of Greek life and had come to experience these form beings, saw these form beings, and in order to form the right image, the right imagination of them, they had to add to them, as an attribute, the shining thoughts flowing through the world. As an ancient Greek, he saw these form beings as emitting luminous thought forces from their limbs, which then entered into the world processes and continued to work there as world-creating powers of intelligence. He said, for example: The forces of form, the Exusiai, have the task in the universe, in the cosmos, of pouring out thoughts through the world processes. And just as sensory science describes human activity by noting this or that which humans do individually or together, so a supersensory science, when considering the activity of the forces of form for the age it characterizes, would have to describe how these supersensory beings allow the forces of thought to flow to each other, how they receive them from each other, and how the world processes that then present themselves to humans as natural phenomena are incorporated into this flowing and receiving.
Now, in the development of humanity, the 4th century AD arrived. And this brought about an extraordinarily significant event for this supersensible world, namely that the Exusiai — the forces, the beings of form — surrendered their thought forces to the Archai, the primordial forces or primordial beginnings (see illustration).
At that time, the primordial beginnings, the Archai, took up the profession that had previously been exercised by the Exusiai. Such processes occur in the supersensible world. This was an extremely important cosmic event. From that time on, the Exusiai, the beings of form, retained only the task of regulating the outer senses, that is, of controlling with special cosmic forces everything that exists in the world of colors, sounds, and so on. So that anyone who looks into these things must say, for the age that now dawned after the 4th century AD: They see how the thoughts that rule the world are handed over to the Archai, the primordial beginnings, and how what the eyes see and the ears hear, in its manifold world formation, in its constant metamorphosis, is the fabric woven by the Exusiai, who formerly gave humans their thoughts and now give them their sensory perceptions, while the primordial beginnings now give them their thoughts.
And this fact of the supersensible world was reflected here below in the sensory world in such a way that in those older times, in which the Greeks lived, for example, thoughts were perceived objectively in things. Just as we today believe we perceive red or blue in things, the Greeks found that thoughts were not merely grasped with the head, but radiated, emanated from things, just as red or blue radiates.
I have described this in my book “The Riddles of Philosophy,” which is, I would say, the human side of the matter. How this important process of the supersensible world is reflected in the physical-sensible world is described in my book “The Riddles of Philosophy.” Philosophical expressions are used here because the language of philosophy is a language for the material world, whereas when discussing the point of view in the supersensible world, one must also speak of the supersensible fact that the profession of the exusiai has passed to the archai.
Such things are prepared in humanity throughout entire epochs. Such things are linked to profound transformations in human souls. I say that this supersensible fact took place in the 4th century AD; but that is only an approximation, for it is, so to speak, only a midpoint in time, whereas this transition took place over a long period. It was already being prepared in pre-Christian times and was only completed in the 12th, 13th, and 14th centuries AD. The 4th century is, so to speak, only the middle point in time that has been indicated in order to point to something specific in the historical development of humanity.
Now, this brings us to the point in human development when people's view of the supersensible world begins to darken completely. The soul's consciousness ceases to see and perceive supersensibly as the human soul surrenders itself to the world. This may become even more apparent to your soul when we examine it from another perspective.
What is it that I want to point out so intensely? It is that people feel more and more their individuality. As the world of thought shifts from the form beings to the primordial beginnings, from the Exusiai to the Archai, people feel the thoughts of their own being more, because the Archai live one step closer to humans than the Exusiai. And when human beings begin to see supersensibly, they have the following impression. They say: Well, there is this world that I perceive as the sensory world. Let us say that the yellow (see drawing on page 156) is the side turned toward my senses, and the red is the side that is already hidden, turned away from the senses.
Ordinary consciousness knows nothing at all about the circumstances under consideration here. But supersensible consciousness has the distinct feeling that when the human being is here (see drawing on page 156), there are Angeloi, Archangeloi, and Archai between the human being and the sensory impressions; they are actually on this side of the sensory world. They cannot be seen with ordinary eyes, but they actually lie between the human being and the entire sensory tapestry. And the Exusiai, Dynamis, and Kyriotetes are actually only beyond; they are covered by the sensory tapestry. So that the human being who has supersensible consciousness perceives the thoughts, after they have been handed over to the Archai, as coming to him. They feel as if they now lie more in their world, whereas before they were behind the colors, the red, the blue, that is on things, and came, as it were, through the red, the blue, or also through the C or through the G. Since this transfer, he feels he is in freer communication with the world of thoughts. This also creates the illusion that man creates the thoughts himself.
However, it is only in the course of time that human beings have developed the ability to take in, as it were, what previously presented itself to them as the objective external world. This has only come about gradually in the course of human development. If we now go back quite far in human development, if we go back beyond the Atlantean catastrophe to the ancient Atlantean period, I ask you to imagine the human form in the Atlantean period as I have described it in my “Secret Science” or in the treatises “From the Akashic Records.” As you know, these people were very differently formed. Their physical substance was of greater delicacy than it later became in the post-Atlantean era. As a result, however, the soul aspect — all of which is described in the books — was in a completely different relationship to the world, and these Atlanteans experienced the world in a completely different way. I will mention just one example of this special kind of experience. These Atlanteans, for example, could not experience a third, not even a fifth. They could only begin their musical experience by perceiving the seventh. And then they perceived further intervals, the smallest of which was the seventh. They could not hear thirds or fifths; these did not exist for them.
As a result, however, the experience of sound structures was completely different; the soul had a completely different relationship to sound structures. If one lives musically only in sevenths, without the intermediate intervals, and lives in sevenths as naturally as the Atlanteans lived in sevenths, then one does not perceive music as something that happens to or within oneself as a human being, but at the moment when one perceives music at all, one is outside one's body, one lives outside in the cosmos. And so it was with the Atlanteans. For the Atlanteans, the musical experience coincided with an immediate religious experience. Their experience of sevenths was such that they could not say that they themselves had anything to do with the creation of the seventh intervals, but they felt how gods, who swept and wove through the world, revealed themselves in sevenths. They could not have associated any meaning with it: I make music. — They could only associate a meaning with it when they said: I live in the music made by the gods.
Now, in a significantly weakened form, this musical experience was still present in the post-Atlantean period, the period in which people essentially lived in fifth intervals. You must not compare this with the way people perceive fifths today. Today, people perceive the fifth in such a way that it gives them the impression of something unfulfilled. For them, it has something empty about it, in the best sense of the word, but something empty nonetheless. It has become empty because the gods have withdrawn from humanity.
Even in the post-Atlantean era, people experienced their fifth intervals as if the gods actually lived in these fifths. And it was only later, when the third appeared in music, the major and minor third, that music, so to speak, submerged into the human mind, so that people were no longer enraptured by the musical experience. In the true age of the fifth, human beings were still completely enraptured by musical life. In the age of the third, which, as you know, arrived relatively late, human beings are immersed in the musical experience within themselves. They take the musical into their physicality. They weave the musical into their physicality. Therefore, with the experience of thirds, the difference between major and minor arises, and on the one hand, one experiences what can be experienced in major, and on the other hand, what can be experienced in minor. The musical experience is linked to the elevated, joyful, depressed, painful, and sorrowful moods that humans experience as the bearers of their physical and etheric bodies, with the emergence of the third and the introduction of major and minor into music. In a sense, human beings draw their experience of the world from the cosmos and connect themselves with their experience of the world. In earlier times, their most important experience of the world was such — and this was certainly still the case in the age of fifths, but to a greater extent in the age of sevenths, if I may use these terms — that it immediately transported them, so that they could say: The world of sounds draws my ego and my astral body directly out of my physical and etheric bodies. I weave my earthly existence into the divine-spiritual world, and the sound structures resound as something on whose wings the gods sweep through the world, whose sweeping I experience by perceiving the sounds.
So you see in this particular area how, in a sense, the cosmic experience approaches human beings, how the cosmos penetrates into human beings, how, in a sense, when we go back to ancient times, we must seek the most important human experience in the supersensible, and how then the time comes when human beings, as sensual-earthly phenomena, I would like to say, must be taken along when the most important world events are described.
This happens in the age that begins after the thoughts have been handed over from the form beings to the primordial beginnings. This is also expressed in the fact that the old age of fifths — which was earlier than that handover — transitions into the age of thirds, into the experience of major and minor.
Now it is particularly interesting when this experience takes us back to a time even older than the Atlantean era, that is, to a time in human earthly development that is blurred in the gravest, most distant past when looked back on, but whose vision can be brought forth through supersensible seeing. We even come to an age — you will find it described in my “Occult Science” as the Lemurian age — when human beings can no longer perceive music in such a way that they can become aware of an interval within an octave, but we come to a time when human beings only perceive an interval when it spans the octave, something like this:
so that humans only perceive this interval c-d, that is, the d of the next octave.
In the Lemurian age, we therefore have a musical experience that cannot take place at all when listening to an interval within an octave, but rather the interval extends beyond the octave to the first note of the following octave, and then to the following note of the second octave. And there, humans experience something that is difficult to name; but perhaps you can get an idea of it when I say: humans experience the second of the next octave and the third of the second octave. They experience a kind of objective third, and there again the two thirds, namely the major and minor third. Except that the third — what they experience there — is of course not a third in our sense, because only if I assume the prime in the same octave is the tone I mean in relation to the second prime the third. But by being able to experience the intervals directly, which for us today are such that we say: prime in one octave, second in the next octave, third in the third octave — this older human being perceived what is a kind of objective major and objective minor, a major and minor that was no longer experienced within oneself, but a major and minor that was felt as the expression of the soul experience of the gods. The people of the Lemurian age experienced, one cannot say joy and sorrow, elation and depression, but one must say: through this special musical sensibility in the Lemurian age, by being completely enraptured in the perception of these intervals, people experienced the cosmic sounds of jubilation of the gods and the cosmic lamentations of the gods. — And we can look back on an earthly age, truly experienced by human beings, in which what human beings today experience in major and minor keys was, so to speak, projected out into the universe. What they experience inwardly today was projected out into the universe. What today surges through their minds and feelings, they perceived in ecstasy, detached from their physical bodies, as the experience of the gods outside. What we today would characterize as an inner experience of major, they perceived in ecstasy, detached from their bodies, as the cosmic song of jubilation, as the cosmic music of jubilation of the gods, as the expression of their joy at their creation of the world. And what we today have as inner experiences of sorrow, man once perceived in the Lemurian era as the tremendous lament of the gods over the possibility that human beings could fall into what is then described in biblical history as the Fall, as the falling away from the divine-spiritual powers, from the good powers.
This is something that resonates with us from that wonderful insight into the ancient mysteries, which naturally flows into the artistic, that we hear not only an abstract description of how humans once went through Luciferic and Ahrimanic seduction and temptation and experienced this or that, but that humans heard how in ancient times on Earth the gods made jubilant music in the cosmos out of the joy of their world creation, and how they already looked prophetically, as it were, at the fall of human beings from the divine-spiritual powers, and expressed this looking in cosmic lamentation.
This artistic grasp of something that later took on increasingly intellectual forms is something that resounds from the ancient mysteries, and from which we can gain the deep conviction that it is a source from which knowledge, art, and religion have flowed. And from this we must become convinced that we must return to that human state of mind which will arise again when the soul recognizes, as it is religiously permeated and artistically inspired; to that state of mind which again deeply and vividly understands what Goethe meant when he said: Beauty is a manifestation of secret laws of nature that would have remained eternally hidden without its appearance. — The mystery of human development within earthly existence, within earthly becoming, reveals to us this inner unity of all that man must experience with the world, cognitively, religiously, and artistically, in order to experience his total development together with this world.
And it is indeed the case that the time has now come when these things must once again come to human consciousness, because otherwise human nature would simply have to decay in its soulfulness. Today and in the near future, human beings would have to wither spiritually as a result of increasingly intellectualistic, one-sided knowledge, they would become spiritually dulled by one-sided art and become completely soulless by one-sided religion if they could not find the path that could lead them to inner harmony and unity between these three, if they could not find the path to come out of themselves in a more conscious way than was once the case and to see and hear the supersensible together with the sensible again.
When we look with spiritual science at the older, deeper personalities of the emerging Greek culture, at those personalities whose descendants were Aeschylus and Heraclitus, we find that these personalities, insofar as they were initiated into the mysteries, all had the same feeling based on their knowledge and their artistic creative powers, which they still felt in the same way as Homer: “Sing, O Muse, of the wrath of Peleus' son Achilles” — not as something personal within them, but as something they did in their religious feeling in communion with the spiritual world, and through which they said to themselves: In ancient times, people actually experienced themselves as human beings by going beyond themselves through the most important human activities — as I have shown you in the case of music, but also in the case of thinking — and experiencing them together with the gods. What they experienced there, people have lost.
This mood of loss of an ancient knowledge and artistic and religious possession of humanity weighed heavily on the deeper Greek souls.
Something else must come to the newer human being. The newer human being must, through the development of the right forces of his soul experience, come to rediscover what was once lost. I would like to say: human beings must develop an awareness — we are, after all, living in the age of consciousness — of how that which has now become internal can once again find its way outwards to the divine-spiritual. And this will be possible — I hinted at this in response to a question asked at the Goetheanum during the first university course — this will happen in one area, for example, when the inner richness of feelings experienced in melody is transferred to the individual tone, when human beings experience the mystery of the individual tone, when, in other words, human beings will not only experience intervals, but will also be able to experience the individual tone like a melody with inner richness, with inner diversity of experience. Today, there is hardly any conception of this.
But you see how things proceed: from the seventh to the fifth, from the fifth to the third, from the third to the first, down to the individual tone, and then further on. So that what was once a loss of the divine must be transformed for the development of humanity, if humanity on earth wants to continue to evolve and not perish, it must be transformed for the earth's humanity into a rediscovery of the divine.
We can only understand the past correctly if we are able to contrast it with the right image for our development into the future, if we can feel deeply, shockingly deeply, what a deeper human being felt in ancient Greek times: I have lost the presence of the gods — and if we can counter this with a shaken but intensely and deeply striving soul: We want to bring the spirit that is in us to blossom and bear fruit, so that we can rediscover the gods.