Man in the Past, Present, and Future
GA 228
10 September 1923, Stuttgart
The Sun-Initiation of the Druid Priest and His Moon-Science
From the most varied points of view—the point of view in Occult Science is only one of these—I have indicated how in a certain very early condition of our planet, Sun, Moon, Earth (indeed the other planets too, only this will not concern us today) were one whole, and how we must speak first of a departure of the Sun from the one whole, Sun-Moon-Earth; and then at a much later epoch, of a departure of the Moon.
All these matters have, of course, their external aspect, derived from sense-conceptions. But they have also an inner aspect, which is this: that Beings are bound up with such an existence, with Sun-existence, with Moon-existence—Beings who also on their part liberated themselves from the one whole with the separation of the Sun and entered into an entirely different kind of existence in the Cosmos. So that as regards the further evolution of the Earth we cannot merely speak of a detached Sun, exerting its physical and etheric influences on the Earth, but, when it is a question of taking the spiritual element of the cosmos into account, we must speak of a Sun population, of Sun Beings, who although they were once united with the Earth now lead an existence outside the Earth-evolution—an existence that extends far beyond this Earth-existence, and is much more sublime.
It is exactly the same in the case of what may be called the Moon population. And when we were describing the spiritual side of such cosmic processes, it was necessary to point to the fact that within the Earth-evolution itself there once existed a primordial wisdom. But this primordial wisdom did not, of course, consist of concepts which, as it were, floated around in the air; it proceeded from Beings who do not assume a physical body in the human sense, but who, as the result of the instinctive clairvoyant forces possessed by man at that time, did nevertheless live in man; it proceeded from the Beings who continued their existence on the Moon, after the Moon as an external cosmic body had separated from the Earth. We must therefore say that within the Moon-being, not in the light that the Moon radiates back as reflected sunlight, and not in all the rest of what the Moon radiates back from the Cosmos, but in the inner being of this Moon-existence there live Beings who were once the founders of the primordial wisdom among Earth men. These are the Beings who passed over into the figures of myths and sagas in picture form, who did not assume forms perceptible to the ordinary consciousness; they are primordial Beings who were once the founders of the primordial wisdom among Earth men. These are the Beings who passed over into the figures of myths and sagas in picture form, who did not assume forms perceptible to the ordinary consciousness; they are primordial Beings to whom we look back with wonder and awe, even if we only discover them externally as the real foundations of the myths, sagas—primordial Beings to whom the intellectual forces of present humanity can attain only by great exertion through the development once again of Imagination, Inspiration, and so on. But there did remain, at all event within humanity itself, something that was a kind of unconscious memory. And then in the different evolutionary epochs of human civilization, by which I mean, of course, the more ancient epochs of civilization, these unconscious memories appeared in man's life of feeling and in his whole constitution of soul, so that when we survey civilization we can speak of a Sun civilization and a Moon civilization. These are, as it were, consciousness-memories of something that in earlier times worked in a far-reaching sense as Nature-forces in man; and what man perceived of them is only an appendage, reminiscent of growth forces, forces of inner organization.
On the basis of such conceptions we are able to penetrate in some degree into the Druid culture. With the means accessible today to external science man will ask in vain as to what was the real soul-constitution of these Druid priests. (I might just as well call them Druid sages, for both are expressions entirely suited to that age, although of course they did not exist then.) What was it that lived in the impulses by means of which these Druid priests guided their people?
What is often narrated in history, and indeed often sounds terrible, always signifies something that was active in the epochs of decadence and degeneration. What I am going to describe here invariably refers to what preceded this epoch of degeneration, and was active when the civilization was in its prime. For these cromlechs, these Sun circles, in what they truly represent, draw attention to what existed in the epoch when the Druid Mysteries were in their prime. And with the means given us by anthroposophical Spiritual Science, we can in a certain way even today penetrate into the whole manner and mode of working of these Druid priests. It may be said that they were everything to their people, or rather their tribe. They were the authorities for the religious requirements, so far as one can speak of religious requirements at that time. They were the authorities for the social impulses, and also, for instance, for the healing methods of that time. They united in one all that later on was distributed over many branches of human civilization.
We obtain a right perspective of this Druid culture—and it is quite correct to use this expression—only when we realize that its essence is to be found in an epoch preceding that which echoes to us from those mythological conceptions of the North that are connected with the name of Wotan or Odin. What is associated with the name of Wotan really lies later in time than this epoch when the Druid culture was in its prime. In the orbit of wisdom that points to the divine name of Wotan or Odin we must recognize something that comes over from the East, proceeding in the first place from Mysteries in the proximity of the Black Sea. The spiritual content of these Mysteries flowed from the East towards the West, in the certain “colonizing” Mysteries, emanating from the Black Sea and proceeding westwards, were founded in the most varying ways.
All this, however, streamed into a culture that must be called sublime in a deeper sense, into a primordial wisdom, Druid wisdom. This Druid wisdom was really an unconscious echo, a kind of unconscious memory of the Sun and Moon elements existing in the Earth before the Sun and Moon were separated from it. Initiation in the Druid Mysteries was essentially a Sun-Initiation, bound up with what was then able to become Moon wisdom through the Sun-Initiation. What was the purpose of these cromlechs, these Druid circles? They were there essentially for the purpose of a spiritual observation of the relation of the Earth to the Sun. When we look at the single dolmens we find that they are really instruments whereby the outer physical effects of the Sun were shut off in order that the Initiate who was gifted with seership could observe the effects of the Sun in the dark space. The inner qualities of the Sun element, how these permeate the Earth, and how they are again radiated back from the Earth into cosmic space—this was what the Druid priest was able to observe in the single cromlechs. The physical nature of the light of the Sun was warded off, a dark space was created by means of the stones, which were fitted into the soil with a roof stone above them and in this dark space it was possible by the power of seeing through the stones to observe the spiritual nature and being of the Sun's light.
Thus the Druid priest standing before his altar was concerned with the inner qualities of the Sun element so far as he needed the wisdom that then streamed into him—streamed in, however, in such a way that the wisdom had still the character of a Nature-force—for the purpose of directing and guiding his people.
But we must always bear in mind that we are here speaking of an epoch when men could not look at the calendar to see when it was right to sow, when this or that grain of seed ought to be entrusted to the soil. In those ages men did not look at a book in order to get information about the time of the year. The only booking in existence was the Cosmos itself. And the letters that formed themselves into words arose from the observations as to how the Sun worked on one or other contrivance that had been erected. Today, when you want to know something, you read. The Druid priest looked at the action of the Sun in his cromlech, and there he read the mysteries of the Cosmos. He read there when corn, rye and so forth were to be sown. These are only instances. The impulses for all that was done were read from the Cosmos. The greater impulses, which were needed, one may say, to complete the yearly calendar, were obtained from observation within the shadow of the Druid circle. So that in this age, when there was nothing that was derived from the human intellect, the Cosmos alone was there. And instead of the printing-press man had the cromlech in order to unravel from out of the Cosmos the mysteries it contained.
Reading the cosmic book in this way, men were therefore concerned with the element of the Sun. And in contradistinction to the Sun element, they perceived the Moon element. The forces which were then concentrated in the Moon were once united with the Earth. These forces, however, did not wholly withdraw; they left something behind in the Earth. If there had been Sun-forces alone, rampant, growing cells only would have arisen, life elements, always with the character of small or large cells. The diversity, the formation, does not emanate from the Sun-forces, but from the Moon-forces working together with the Sun-forces.
When he exposed himself to all that his circles, his cromlechs could reveal to him, the Druid priest did not receive the mere abstract impression which we today receive, quite rightly, when in our way—that is to say in an intellectual way—we enter into the things of the spirit. For the forces of the Sun spoke to him directly. In the shadow of the Sun the spiritual Sun-nature worked into him directly, and it worked far more intensely than a sense-impression does on us today, for it was related to far deeper forces. As the priest stood before his place of ritual, observing this Sun-nature, his breathing changed even as he observed. It became unloving, it was blunted, it went in waves so that the one breath merged into the other. He, with all that he was as a human being through his breath, lived in what was given as a resulting influence of the Sun. And the outcome was no abstract knowledge, but something that worked in him like the circulation of the blood, pulsating inwardly through him, kindling his human being even into the physical. Yet this working into the physical was spiritual at the same time, and the inner stimulations he experienced—these were really his knowledge.
We must conceive this knowledge in a far more living way, as far more intense—we must conceive it as living experience. Moreover, the Druid priest received it at certain times only. With a lesser intensity of life it could be kindled in him every day at noon; but if the great secrets were to be revealed, the priest had to expose himself to these influences at the time which we now call the season of St. John. Then there arose what I may call the great wave of his knowledge as against the lesser daily waves. And while, through the Sun-influences which he thus caught up on Earth in a peculiar and artificial way, he experienced what he felt as his Initiation—his Sun-Initiation—he became able also to understand the forces which had remained behind as Moon-forces in the Earth when the Moon had left it. Such was the Nature-lore he gained under the influence of Sun-Initiation. What was revealed on the surface of things was unimportant to him, but what welled forth from below as the Moon-forces in the Earth, this was important. Through the principle of Initiation, whose relics, as we have seen, are preserved in these strange monuments today, he placed himself in a condition to gain knowledge. And the knowledge he gained was of all that works in Nature, especially when in the sky at night-time the stars stood over the Earth, and the Moon traveled across the heavens.
The Sun-Initiation gave the Druid priest the spiritual impulse, and as a result he had his science of Nature. Our science of Nature is an earthly science. His was a Moon-science. The underlying Moon-forces, as they ray forth in the plants from the depths of the Earth, as they work in wind and weather and so forth—these he felt. He felt them, not in the abstract way, as we today—having an earthly science—feel the forces of Nature. He felt them in all their livingness.
And what was thus livingly revealed to him, this he felt as the elemental beings living in the plants, in the stones, in all things. These elemental beings, having their dwelling place in trees and plants and so forth, were enclosed in certain bounds. But they were not those narrow bounds that are set to man today. They were far wider. His science of Nature being a Moon-science, the Druid priest perceived how the elemental beings can grow and expand into gigantic size.
From this resulted his knowledge of the Jötuns, the giant-beings. When he looked into the root-nature of a plant beneath the soil, where the Moon-forces were living, there he found the elemental being in its true bounds. But the beings were ever striving to go forth and grow outward gigantically. When the kind of elemental beings who lived beneficially in the root-nature, expanded into giants, they became the giants of the frost, whose outward physical symbol is in the frost, who live in all that sweeps over the Earth as the destructive hoar frost and other destructive forces of the frost-nature. These were the loosened root-forces of the plants which lived within the frost, as it swept with its giant forces over the Earth, working destructively; whereas in the root-nature the same forces worked bounteously and beneficially. And what worked in the growth of the leaves, this too could grow to giant size. Then it lived as a giant elemental being in the misty storms that swept over the Earth, with all that they contained in certain seasons—with the pollen of the plants, and so forth.
And what lives gently, modestly, as it were, in the flower-forces of the plants, when this grows to giant size, it becomes the all-destroying fire.
Thus in the weather-processes the Druid priests beheld the forces of being expanded into giants—the same forces that lived within their right limits in the kingdoms of Nature. The chosen places where we find these old heathen centers of ritual show that what they received on the one hand through the Sun-circles and the cromlechs, was developed into the Earth-knowledge which was thus made possible. They developed it so as to be able properly to observe the mysterious working and weaving of wind and weather as they sweep over the Earth—the working together of the water and the airy nature, the hoar-frost oozing forth from the earth, the melting dew. It was through the Sun-Initiation and the knowledge of the Moon-beings that there arose this most ancient conception which we find at the very foundations of European culture.
Thus the Druid priest read and deciphered the cosmic secrets which his institutions of the Sun-Initiation enabled him to gain from the Cosmos. Thus, stimulated by the Sun-Initiation, he gained his knowledge from his science of Moon-nature. But with all this the whole social and religious life stood in close connection. Whatever the priest could say to the people arose on the spiritual foundations of this element in which the people lived. We see it best of all in what the Druid priests possessed as a science of healing. They saw on the one hand the elemental beings contained within their bounds in the various growths and products of the mineral and especially of the plant kingdom. Then they observed what happened to the plants when these were exposed to frost, exposed to the influences which the giants of the storm and wind carry through the airy spaces, or again, exposed to the seething of the fire-giants. They studied what the giants of frost and hoar-frosts, the giants of the storm, the fire-giants, if loosed and set free, would do to the plants. At length they came to the point of taking the plants themselves, and imitating within certain limits all that was indicated in outer Nature as the influence of the giants. They subjected the plants to a certain process, to the freezing cold process, the process of burning, the process of binding and solution.
The Druid priests said to themselves: “Looking out into this world of Nature we behold the destructive working of the giants, of frost and storm and fire. But we can take from these giants, from the Jötuns, what they spread so awkwardly and clumsily over the world; we can wrest it from them; we can harness once more within narrow limits these loosened forces of the Moon.”
This they did. They studied what takes place in the thawing earth, in storm and wind, in the fierce, seething heat of the Sun. All this they applied to the Sun-nature which lived in the plants and which they themselves received in their Initiation. And in so doing they created their remedies, their healing herbs and the like, all of which were based upon the fact that the giants were reconciled with the Gods. In those times each single remedy bore witness to the reconciliation of the foes of the Gods with the Gods themselves.
What man received immediately under the influences of Sun and Moon, just as it was offered by Nature herself, this would be a food-stuff. A medicine, on the other hand, would be something that man himself created, in that he continued Nature beyond herself, harnessing the giant-force to place it in the service of the Sun.
We must imagine the Druid civilization spread out over a great portion of Northern and Central Europe about 3,000 or 3,500 years ago. Men had nothing at all similar to writing. They had only this cosmic writing. Then into all this there spread from the East, to begin with from a Mystery in the region of the Black Sea, what is now contained as an insoluble riddle for the ordinary consciousness in the Norse Mythology, associated with the name of Wotan.
For what is Wotan? The Mystery from which this Wotan culture proceeded was a Mercury Mystery, a Mystery that added to the impulses of Sun and Moon the impulse of Mercury. One might say that that old civilization was there in a sun-and Moon-radiant innocence and simplicity, untouched by what could be told to mankind through the Jupiter impulses. Only away in the East these Jupiter impulses were already present. From thence they now spread, colonizing, towards the West. Wotan-Mercury carried his influence westward.
Here at the same time we have thrown light upon the fact that Wotan is described as the bringer of the Runes, the Runic art of writing. He was the bringer of what man drew forth from himself in the first primitive way of intellectuality as an art of deciphering the universe. This is the very first entry of intellectualism, the Wotan impulse. Thus one might say that the Mercury, the Wotan-nature, was now added to the Sun-and Moon-natures.
Wherever this Wotan impulse worked itself out fully, everything that was present from earlier experiences was influenced by it. It all received a certain impulse from this Wotan element. For there was one thing, a special secret of the Druid culture. We know that at all places things arise that do not belong there. Weeds grow on the tilled land. We might say that the Druid culture recognized as the good plants of civilization only the Sun and Moon qualities, and if, hastening forward as it were to a later time, the intellectual element already then arose, they treated it as a weed. Among the many remedies the Druids had, there was one against the Mercury quality of deep thought and introspection. Strange as it may seem to us today, they had a remedy against this habit of sinking into one's inner being, or as we should say, of pondering on one's own salvation. The Druids wanted man to live with Nature and not to sink into himself, and they regarded as sick and ill anyone who even attempted to express anything in signs or the like, unless it were merely to imitate the things of Nature in a primitive form of art. Anyone who made signs was diseased and must be healed. Indeed he was then considered as black human being, he was not white. Yes, my dear friends, if we with all our present knowledge were transposed into the Druid culture, we should all be sent to a hospital and cured.
And now from the East the Wotan civilization brought this very illness. The Wotan civilization indeed was felt as an illness. But it also brought, with a power grown truly great and gigantic, what had formerly appeared as an abnormality, an unhealthy introspection. Into the midst of what had formerly been taken only from the cosmic writing, it brought the Rune. So that man now transferred his intellectual element into the signs he made. It brought in all that was felt as a Mercury culture. Thus it was no wonder that what proceeded from the Wotan culture, distilled from the best forces that were in it, viz., the Baldur-Being, the Sun-Being, was felt and thought of as one united not with life, but with death. Baldur had to go to Hel, into the dark forces of Death, the dwelling-place of Death.
Moreover, to begin with, men pondered most, as we can see from the traditions of the Edda, not on the question of how this Baldur, son of the Wotan forces, should be freed from Hel—for this is really a later conception—but on the question of how he should be healed. And at length they said: We have many means of healing, but Baldur, the intelligence proceeding from the Runes of Wotan—for this there are no remedies, and it can only lead to death.
Thus we see once more what I have pointed out to you from so many points of view in the study of human evolution. In olden times the instinctive knowledge of mankind knew nothing of the significance of death, for men remembered the pre-earthly life and knew that death is only a transformation. They did not feel death as any deeper incision than this. Above all there was no such thing as the tragedy of death. This only entered in when the Mystery of Golgotha approached, which became indeed a redemption from the fear of death. In the Baldur legend you see the most visible description of how, with the entry of intellectualism, there comes that mood of soul which reckons with deaths, and you see what thus entered into human evolution.
Thus what had been seen in the death of Baldur, who could not rise again, was only healed once more in the way of soul and spirit, when the Christ-figure who could rise from death was placed over against him.
It is wonderful how in the North, through the influence of the Mercury-forces on the Sun-and Moon-forces, the perception of the Christ-impulse was prepared. In Baldur, the God who falls into death and cannot rise again, we see the forerunner, in the North, of Christ, who also falls a victim to death, but who can rise, because He comes directly from the Sun. Baldur, on the other hand, the Sun-force coming from Wotan, is the Sun-force reflected back by Mercury, radiating forth from the signs which man makes out of his intellect.
Thus we see how evidently all these things evolve in the Northern regions, where man still appears to us living and reading in the Cosmos, seeking for his religious, social and medical conceptions from the Cosmos, until at a later stage he passes over to dwell with the Earth-forces. From his sacrificial stone the Druid priest gazes at the configuration of the shadow of the Sun, and reads what appears in the shadow, representing the spiritual aspects of the Sun. Then we approach the time when the Sun-Being, the Sun-nature that had been caught up, as it were, in the cromlechs is drawn in abstract lines, called rays. We approach the time when the relationship of what lives in root and leaf and blossom with what lives in frost and wind and fire is recognized at most in a chemical sense. Giants and elemental beings alike are transformed into “forces of Nature.” And yet in our forces of Nature no more is contained than the giants of ancient time. We are only unaware of the fact and feel immensely superior. It is a straight line of development from the giants to the forces of Nature. These are the latter-day children of them. Man who lives today in a highly derived, i.e., an unoriginal, civilization, cannot but be deeply moved when he looks at these scant relics of the Druid age. It is as though he were to behold the hoary ancestors of what is living in this present time.
To go more into detail, we too today speak of medicine and remedies in a strangely abstract way, very intellectually, describing abstractly their mode of preparation. All this we must imagine transformed into something altogether living if we would look back on the way the Druid priest regarded his remedies. For he felt the Sun-forces which he knew so well and which in plants and other products of Nature he treated with the forces of the giants. All this was altogether living for him. From the giants he wrested the forces of preparation to transform the plants into medicaments. He knew that in so doing he did something for the whole Cosmos. Then he gazed on man himself. Through his peculiar knowledge of man, the most intimate parts of the natural man, e.g. in the dream-recognized the symptoms coming forth, as it were, from the imaginations that arose, the vague, unconscious flickering-upward of the deeper human nature into consciousness under the influence of these remedies in which the giant-forces were subdued and held in check, he recognized how these things worked in the human being into whom they were instilled. Thus he had on the one hand his Loki in the wild influences of the outer fire, and on the other hand what he had taken away from Loki in order to transform this or that plant by a combustion process into a medicament. From the way this worked within the human being, he then beheld the Loki-force in man. For here it was disarmed. And the Druid said: That which out there in the world of the giants is working with threatening danger and destruction works healingly when brought in the right manner into the inner man. Poisonous forces as it were on a large scale become healing forces when brought to the right place.
Thus the Druid in his way perceived the varied forces and workings of Nature. Thus he was within the spiritual whereby he sent forth the religious, social, medicinal and other impulses into his community. Thus in that time the ancient primeval wisdom which the Moon Beings, so long as they were here, had cultivated on the Earth, and which was now no longer here directly, since they themselves had gone with the Moon—this primeval wisdom was preserved through Beings that were found and known by a kind of Sun-Initiation in the way I have described to you today.
Die Sonneninitiation Des Druidenpriesters Und Seine Mondenwesenerkenntnis
Ich möchte zunächst, um die schon gestern angedeuteten Betrachtungen genauer bringen zu können, erinnern an einzelnes, das ich vor meiner Reise hier in den Vorträgen erwähnt habe, die über die geistige Wesenheit unseres Planetensystems handelten. Es war ja in mehr geistiger Beziehung — hingewiesen worden auf etwas, das Ihnen lange bekannt ist aus den Darstellungen in meiner «Geheimwissenschaft im Umriß». Wir wissen Ja, wie innerlich zusammenhängen die Erdenentwickelung einerseits und die Sonnen- und Mondenentwickelung andrerseits. Von den verschiedensten Gesichtspunkten aus - nur einer davon ist derjenige, der in der «Geheimwissenschaft im Umriß» besprochen ist — habe ich darauf hingedeutet, wie in einem gewissen sehr frühen Zustande unseres Planetensystems Sonne, Mond und Erde, ja auch die übrigen Planeten — das wollen wir aber jetzt nicht berühren - ein Ganzes waren, wie wir sprechen müssen gewissermaßen von einem Auszug, von einem Hinausgehen zunächst der Sonne aus dem Ganzen - Sonne, Mond, Erde -, und dann in einer viel späteren Zeit von einem Hinausgehen des Mondes.
Alle diese Dinge haben natürlich den äußeren, gewissermaßen aus den Vorstellungen der Sinne hergenommenen Aspekt. Aber sie haben ja auch einen innerlichen Aspekt, den nämlich, daß an jedes solches Dasein, Sonnendasein, Mondendasein, gewisse Wesenheiten gebunden sind, Wesenheiten, die, sagen wir, mit der Trennung der Sonne von der Erde sich nun auch ihrerseits aus diesem Ganzen herauslösen und im Kosmos ein ganz andersartiges Dasein gewinnen. So daß man für die spätere Erdenentwickelung nicht nur von einer losgelösten Sonne, die ihre physischen Wirkungen, ihre ätherischen Wirkungen auf die Erde ausübt, sprechen kann, sondern daß man, wenn man das Geistige des Kosmos in Betracht zieht, eben sprechen muß von einer Sonnenbevölkerung, von Sonnenwesen, die, während sie früher mit der irdischen Entwickelung verbunden waren, nun außerhalb dieser irdischen Entwickelung ein weit über das Erdendasein hinausgehendes, viel erhabeneres Dasein führen.
Ebenso ist es mit dem, was man die Mondenbevölkerung nennen könnte. Und wir mußten ja auch darauf hinweisen, indem wir eben die geistige Seite solcher kosmischen Vorgänge besprachen, wie innerhalb der Erdenentwickelung selbst einmal eine Urweisheit da war. Aber diese Urweisheit waren natürlich nicht etwa in der Luft herumfliegende Begriffe, sondern diese kam von Wesenheiten, die zwar nicht in dem Sinne des Menschen einen physischen Leib annahmen, die aber wegen der damals entwickelten instinktiv hellseherischen Kräfte der Menschen doch in den Menschen lebten; sie kam von denjenigen Wesenheiten, die dann, nachdem der Mond als äußerer Weltenkörper sich von der Erde getrennt hatte, ihr Dasein auf dem Monde fortsetzten. So daß man, wie ich schon damals in jenem Vortrage sagte, sprechen muß davon, daß innerhalb der Mondenwesenheit nicht in dem Lichte, das der Mond als reflektiertes Sonnenlicht zurückstrahlt, und auch nicht in dem, was der Mond sonst vom Weltenall zurückstrahlt, aber daß im Innern dieses Mondenwesens Wesenheiten leben, welche dieselben sind, die einmal unter Erdenmenschen die Begründer der Urweisheit waren. Es sind das Wesenheiten, die dann in die Mythen, Sagen, in die Mythologie überhaupt, übergegangen sind und bildhafte, nicht mehr für das gewöhnliche Bewußtsein durchschaubare Gestalt angenommen haben: Urweisheiten, zu denen wir staunend zurückblicken, wenn wir sie auch nur äußerlich als die reale Grundlage der Mythen, der Sagen und so weiter entdecken, Urweisheiten, zu denen sich nur, indem wiederum Imagination, Inspiration und Intuition entwickelt werden, mit großer Anstrengung hindurchringen die intellektualistischen Kräfte der gegenwärtigen Menschheit. Aber durchaus blieb von alledem, was da einstmals mit der Erde verbunden war, wenigstens innerhalb der Menschheit selbst etwas zurück wie eine unbewußte Erinnerung. Und es treten dann in verschiedenen Entwickelungsepochen der Menschheitszivilisation, wobei ich die älteren Zivilisationsepochen durchaus mitrechne, im menschlichen Fühlen, in der ganzen menschlichen Seelenverfassung diese unbewußten Erinnerungen auf, so daß wir, wenn wir dann hinschauen auf die Zivilisation, von einer sonnenhaften und einer mondenhaften Zivilisation sprechen können.
Das sind gewissermaßen Bewußtseinserinnerungen an etwas, was früher in umfassenderem Sinne wie Naturkräfte im Menschen gewirkt hat. Und dasjenige, was der Mensch von ihnen empfunden hat, ist nur wie ein Anhängsel, an Wachstumskräfte, an innere Organisationskräfte erinnernd.
Gerade wenn wir dieses, was ich Ihnen geschildert habe vor meiner englischen Reise, uns heute vor die Seele stellen, können wir an das gestern hier Erzählte anknüpfen und auf der Grundlage der Vorstellungen, die wir uns so verschafft haben, nun ein wenig eindringen in dasjenige, was ich Ihnen gestern, mehr von der Außenseite her, als die Druidenkultur geschildert habe, deren Spuren gerade in so auffälliger Weise in jenen Gebieten vorhanden sind, in denen der gestern geschilderte Vortragszyklus stattgefunden hat.
Man wird sich heute mit den Mitteln, die eine äußere Wissenschaft hat, ganz vergeblich fragen, was eigentlich denn diese Druidenpriester — ich könnte sie ebensogut Druidengelehrte nennen, denn das sind Ausdrücke, die durchaus auf die damalige Zeit passen, obwohl es diese Ausdrücke natürlich in der damaligen Zeit nicht gegeben hat -, was denn eigentlich diese Druidenpriester für eine Seelenverfassung gehabt haben? Was lebte in den Impulsen, durch die sie ihre Gemeinde leiteten?
Dasjenige, was in der Geschichte oftmals erzählt wird, was ja schrecklich oft erklingt, das bedeutet immer nur etwas, was in den Dekadenzzeiten, in den Verfallszeiten rege war. Was ich hier schildern will, bezieht sich immer auf dasjenige, was diesen Verfallszeiten vorangeht und in den Blütezeiten rege war. Denn diese Kromlechs, diese verschiedenen Sonnenzirkel, von denen ich gestern gesprochen habe, die erinnern eben durchaus in dem, was sie in Wahrheit sind, an das, was in der Blütezeit der Druidenmysterien vorhanden war. Und wir können schon heute in einer gewissen Weise mit den Mitteln, die uns die anthroposophische Geisteswissenschaft an die Hand gibt, in die ganze Art und Weise eindringen, wie diese Druidenpriester wirkten. Sie waren ja in einer gewissen Beziehung ihren Völkern, besser gesagt ihren Volksstämmen, alles. Sie waren es, die für die religiösen Bedürfnisse, so weit man von solchen in der damaligen Zeit sprechen kann, maßgebend waren. Sie waren es, die für die sozialen Impulse maßgebend waren. Sie waren aber auch diejenigen, welche maßgebend waren zum Beispiel für die Heilmethode der damaligen Zeit. Sie waren alles das in einem, was auf viele Zweige des menschlichen Zivilisationslebens in der späteren Zeit sich verteilt hat. |
Wir sehen nur in einer richtigen Weise auf diese - wir können sie durchaus so nennen - Druidenkultur hin, wenn wir das Wesentliche in ihr in einer früheren Epoche sehen als derjenigen, aus welcher uns jene mythologischen Vorstellungen vom Norden herüberklingen, die sich an den Namen des Wotan oder Odin knüpfen. Was sich an den Namen des Wotan knüpft, ist im Grunde genommen der Zeit nach später gelegen als diese Blütezeit der Druidenkultur. Man muß in dem Weisheitskreise, möchte man sagen, der hinweist auf den Götternamen des Wotan oder Odin, etwas sehen, was zunächst vom Osten herübergekommen ist von einem Mysterienkreise, der in der Nähe des Schwarzen Meeres war, und der dann seinen geistigen Inhalt von dem Osten nach dem Westen ergossen hat, indem gewissermaßen koloniale Mysterienstätten vom Schwarzen Meer herüber nach dem Westen hin in der verschiedensten Weise gegründet worden sind.
Aber das alles strahlte hinein in eine, im tieferen Sinne so zu nennende, erhabene Kultur, Urweisheit, Druidenweisheit. Diese Druidenweisheit war tatsächlich ein unbewußter Nachklang, etwas wie eine unbewußte Erinnerung an alles das, was die Erde von Sonne und Mond her hatte, bevor sich Sonne und Mond von der Erde getrennt hatten. Die Initiation in den Druidenmysterien war im wesentlichen eine Sonneninitiation, verbunden mit dem, was dann Mondenweisheit durch die Sonneninitiation werden konnte. Worauf waren denn diese Kromlechs, diese Druidenzirkel eigentlich berechnet? Aus der gestrigen Darstellung wird Ihnen hervorgehen, daß sie im wesentlichen darauf berechnet waren, in einer geistigen Art das Verhältnis von Erde und Sonne zu betrachten. Wenn wir auf die einzelnen Dolmen hinschauen, dann finden wir ja, daß in ihnen eigentlich etwas wie Instrumente vorhanden sind, durch welche die äußeren physischen Sonnenwirkungen ausgeschlossen sind, so daß der mit der Sehergabe begabte Initiat dasjenige, was dann von Sonnenwirkungen im dunklen Raume bleibt, eben beobachten kann. Die inneren Qualitäten des Sonnenhaften, wie sie die Erde durchdringen, und wie sie wiederum von der Erde rückstrahlen in den Weltenraum, das hat der Druidenpriester beobachtet durch die einzelnen Kromlechs. Also, ich möchte sagen: Das physische Wesen des Sonnenlichtes war abgehalten. Ein dunkler Raum, sagte ich Ihnen gestern, war geschaffen durch die in die Erde gefügten Steine, die oben von einem Deckstein gedeckt waren, und in diesem dunklen Raum, durch die Kraft des Durchschauens der Steine, war es eben möglich, das Geistig-Wesenhafte des Sonnenlichtes zu beobachten.
So daß sich also eigentlich der Druidenpriester, vor seinem Kultaltare stehend, mit den inneren Qualitäten des Sonnenhaften beschäftigte, sofern er das brauchte, was da in ihn weisheitsvoll einströmte — aber so einströmte, daß die Weisheit noch wie eine Naturkraft war -, sofern er das brauchte, um seine Gemeinde zu regieren.
Sie müssen sich ja nur darüber klar sein, daß wir von einer Zeit reden, in der man nicht im Kalender nachschauen konnte, wann man in der richtigen Weise auszusäen hat, wann man dieses oder jenes Samenkorn der Erde anzuvertrauen hat. Der Kalender war dasjenige, was der Priester von den Sonnenwirkungen absah. Man nahm kein Buch in die Hand, um sich über die Zeit aufzuklären. Das einzige Buch, das es gab, war das Weltenall selbst. Und die Buchstaben, die sich zu Worten formten, ergaben sich aus den Beobachtungen, wie die Sonne auf dieses oder jenes wirkte, was als Vorrichtung aufgestellt war. Sie lesen heute nach, wenn Sie irgend etwas wissen wollen über das oder jenes; der Druidenpriester sah dasjenige an, was die Sonne an seinen Kromlechs tat. Da las er die Geheimnisse des Weltenalls. Da las er an dem, was sich ihm ergab, wann Weizen, wann Roggen und so weiter auszusäen ist. Das sind nur Beispiele. Für alles, was getan wurde, wurden die Impulse aus dem Weltenall abgelesen. Die größeren Impulse, die man brauchte, um den Jahreskalender vollständig zu machen, die ergaben sich aus der Beobachtung im Schatten des Druidenzirkels. So daß in dieser Zeit, in der es nichts gab von dem, was aus menschlichem Intellekt entspringt, eben als Einziges das Weltenall selbst da war. Und statt der Druckerpressen hatte man die Kromlechs, um aus dem Weltenall die Geheimnisse, die in ihm enthalten waren, herauszulocken.
So hatte man es, indem man sozusagen in dieser Weise das kosmische Buch las, mit dem Sonnenhaften zu tun. Und dem Sonnenhaften entgegengestellt empfand man das Mondenhafte. Die Kräfte, die dann im Monde konzentriert waren, waren einstmals mit der Erde verbunden.
Aber sie sind nicht restlos fortgezogen, sie haben etwas zurückgelassen in der Erde. Wenn es bloß Sonnenkräfte gäbe, so würden allein wuchernde, wachsende Zellen zum Beispiel entstehen, Lebendiges immer mit dem kleinen oder großen Zellencharakter entstehen. Das Mannigfaltige, das Gestaltete, das rührt nicht von den Sonnenkräften, sondern von den mit den Sonnenkräften zusammenwirkenden Mondenkräften her.
Und nun war es so, daß, indem der Druidenpriester sich dem exponierte, was ihm seine Zirkel, seine Kromlechs ergaben, er nicht etwa jenen abstrakten Eindruck nur bekam, den wir heute mit Recht bekommen, wenn wir uns in unserer Weise eben auf intellektuellem Wege in das Geistige einlassen, sondern es sprachen ja unmittelbar die Kräfte der Sonne zu ihm. Im Schatten der Sonne wirkte das Geistig-Sonnenhafte unmittelbar ein, und es wirkte viel intensiver in ihn ein, als eine Sinnesempfindung heute auf uns wirkt, denn es stand mit viel tieferen Kräften in Beziehung. Indem der Priester vor seiner Kultstätte stand, dieses Sonnenhafte beobachtete, veränderte sich im Beobachten sein Atem: er wurde unlebendig, er stumpfte sich ab, er wellte sich, so daß der eine Atemzug in den anderen Atemzug hineinging. Er lebte mit dem, was er als Mensch durch sein Atmen war, in dem, was sich da als Sonnenwirkung ergab. Es ergab sich für ihn nicht ein abstraktes Wissen, es ergab sich für ihn etwas, was so in ihm wirkte, wie die Blutzirkulation wirkt, was ihn innerlich durchpulste, was sein Menschliches bis ins Physische hinein erregte. Aber dieses bis ins Physische Hineinwirken war eben mit geistig. Und diese inneren Erregungen, die er erlebte, die waren eigentlich sein Wissen.
Man muß sich dieses Wissen in einer viel lebendigeren, intensiveren Weise als ein Erleben denken. Dieses Wissen bekam er auch nur zu gewissen Zeiten. Mit einer minderen Stärke regsam konnte dieses Wissen jeden Mittag erregt werden, aber wenn die großen Geheimnisse sich enthüllen sollten, dann mußte der Priester in der Zeit, die wir heute die Johannizeit nennen, sich diesen Wirkungen aussetzen. Dann stellte sich zu den sich täglich einstellenden kleinen Wellen seines Wissens die große Welle ein. Und indem er in dieser Weise durch die auf besondere Art, auf künstliche Art auf der Erde aufgefangenen Sonnenwirkungen etwas erlebte, was er als seine Initiation, als die Sonneninitiation empfand, wurde er fähig, nun die beim Mondenhinausgang in der Erde als Mondenkräfte zurückgebliebenen Kräfte zu studieren, zu verstehen. Das war dann sein Naturwissen, das er sich erwarb unter dem Einflusse der Sonneninitiation. Was sich an der Oberfläche der Dinge enthüllte, das war für ihn nicht wichtig. Was von unten heraufwogte als die Mondenkräfte der Erde, das war für ihn wichtig. So wie er durch das Initiationsprinzip, dessen Spuren eben heute noch in diesen Denkmälern erhalten sind, sich in die Fähigkeit versetzte, zu erkennen, so erkannte er dann, namentlich wenn der nächtliche Himmel die Sterne über der Erde hervortreten ließ und der Mond über die Himmelsfläche ging, was in der Natur wirkt.
Die Sonneninitiation gab ihm den geistigen Einschlag, den geistigen Impuls, und er hatte dann seine Naturwissenschaft. Unsere Naturwissenschaft ist eine Erdenwissenschaft, seine Naturwissenschaft war eine Mondenwissenschaft. Die zugrunde liegenden Mondenkräfte, die heraufstrahlten in den Pflanzen aus den Tiefen der Erde, die da wirkten in Wind und Wetter und den andern Elementen, die empfand er. Er empfand sie nicht in der abstrakten Weise, wie wir heute, wo wir eine Erdenwissenschaft haben, die Naturkräfte empfinden, er empfand sie in ihrer Lebendigkeit, in ihrem Weben und Wesen.
Und dieses, was sich ihm da in Lebendigkeit darbot, das empfand er als die Elementarwesenheiten, die in den Pflanzen, die in den Steinen, die in allem lebten. Es waren diese Elementarwesenheiten, indem ihr Wohnsitz in den Bäumen, in den Pflanzen und so weiter war, in Grenzen eingeschlossen. Aber es waren ihnen nicht jene engen Grenzen gesetzt, die zum Beispiel heute den Menschen gesetzt sind, sondern es waren weitere Grenzen. Und so durchschaute der Druidenpriester, indem seine Naturwissenschaft eine Mondenwissenschaft war, wie diese Elementarwesenheiten sich auswachsen können, riesenhaft auswachsen können.
Daraus bildete sich dann die Erkenntnis von den Riesen, den Jötunns, den Riesenwesen. Sah man in das Wurzelhafte einer Pflanze unter der Erde, in dem das Mondenhafte lebte, so hatte .man das Elementarwesen in seinen rechten Grenzen [es wird gezeichnet]. Aber diese Elementarwesen hatten das Bestreben, herauszugehen und sich äußerlich auszuwachsen, riesenhaft auszuwachsen. Wenn diese Art der Elementarwesen, die im Wurzelhaften ihr segensreiches Dasein trieben, sich zu Riesen auswuchsen, dann wurden sie zu den Frostriesen, die im Froste ihr äußeres physisches Symbolum hatten, die in all dem lebten, was zum Beispiel als verheerender Reif oder als sonstige verheerende Frostkräfte über die Erde hinstrich. Gewissermaßen die losgelassenen Wurzelkräfte der Pflanzen lebten im Frost, lebten in alledem, was eben riesenhaft über die Erde hinströmte und dann verheerend wirkte, während es sein Segensreiches in dem Wurzelhaften entfaltete. Dasjenige, was im Blattwachstum war, auch das konnte sich ins Riesenhafte auswachsen. Es lebte dann als riesenhaft vergrößertes Elementarwesen in den Nebelstürmen, die über die Erde mit all ihrem Inhalt in gewissen Jahreszeiten hinstrichen mit dem Blütenstaub der Pflanzen und so weiter. Und wenn das, was auf eine leise, bescheidene Art in der Blütenkraft der Pflanze lebt [siehe Zeichnung, rot], wenn das ins Riesenhafte auswächst, dann wird es zum verheerenden Feuer.
So daß da gesehen wurde in den meteorologischen Vorgängen die ins Riesenhafte vergrößerten Kräfte, wesenhaften Kräfte, die in den Naturwesen in ihren rechten Grenzen lebten. Und schon die Orte, an denen diese alten heidnischen Kultstätten gestellt sind, zeigen, daß dasjenige, was auf der einen Seite durch Sonnenzirkel und Dolmen gegeben war, nun ausgebildet wurde in der dadurch möglich gewordenen Erdenerkenntnis: so ausgebildet wurde, daß man das geheimnisvolle Wirken und Weben, Streichen und Leben von Wind und Wetter, dieses Zusammenwirken des Wasserhaften, des Lufthaften, des aus der Erde herausquillenden Reifs, des Tauhaften, daß man das in der richtigen Weise beobachten konnte. So kam durch Sonneninitiation und Mondenwesenerkenntnis diese älteste Vorstellung zustande, die wir, ich möchte sagen auf der Grundlage der europäischen Zivilisation finden.
Es las also der Druidenpriester dasjenige, was er durch seine Vorrichtungen an kosmischen Geschehnissen durch seine Sonneniinitiation dem Kosmos abgewinnen konnte, und was er dann unter der Anregung dieser Sonneninitiation an Kenntnissen gewinnen konnte aus seiner Mondennaturwissenschaft. Mit alledem stand aber das soziale, das ganze religiöse Leben im Zusammenhange. Denn was der Priester da den Leuten sagen konnte, war ja ein Inhalt, der sich auf die geistige Grundlage desjenigen erstreckte, worin die Leute drinnenstanden. Man merkt das am besten, wenn man auf das hinweist, was als eine Art von Heilwissenschaft bei diesen Druidenpriestern vorhanden war. Sie sahen auf der einen Seite die in ihre Grenzen gebannten Elementarwesen in den verschiedenen Hervorbringungen des Mineralischen, namentlich des pflanzlichen Reiches und so weiter. Nun beobachteten sie, was an den Pflanzen geschieht, wenn diese, sagen wir, dem Frost ausgesetzt sind, wenn sie den Wirkungen, welche die Sturmriesen, die Windesriesen durch den Luftraum tragen, ausgesetzt sind, wenn sie dem Kochen der Feuerriesen ausgesetzt sind. Und indem sie nun studierten, was die Reifriesen, die Frostriesen, die Sturmriesen, die Feuerriesen, wenn sie gewissermaßen losgelassen wären, mit den Pflanzen täten, kamen sie dazu, in ihrer Art Pflanzen zu nehmen und dasjenige, was in der Natur als Riesenwirkungen angedeutet ist, in bestimmten Grenzen nachzuahmen: die Pflanzen einem bestimmten Prozeß zu unterwerfen, dem Prozesse des Verfrostens, dem Erkaltungsprozesse, dem Prozesse des Verbrennens, dem Prozesse des Lösens und Bindens.
Und so sagten sich diese Druidenpriester: Schauen wir hinaus in die Natur, so sehen wir die verheerenden Wirkungen der Frostriesen, der Sturmriesen, der Feuerriesen. Aber wir können diesen Riesen, diesen Jötunns, dasjenige abnehmen, was sie in ungelenker Weise über die Welt ausbreiten, wir können ihnen das entreißen. Wir können diese losgelassenen Mondenkräfte wiederum in engere Grenzen bannen.
Und indem sie das taten, indem sie das, was sich in der tauenden Erde, was sich im Sturm, im Winde, im Kochen der Sonnenhitze abspielt, indem sie das studierten und anwendeten auf das Sonnenhafte, das in den Pflanzen lebte und das sie in ihrer Initiation empfingen, erzeugten sie ihre Heilmittel, Heilkräuter und dergleichen, die darauf beruhten, daß die Riesen mit den Göttern versöhnt wurden.
Jedes Heilmittel war in jener Zeit ein Zeugnis für die Versöhnung der Götterfeinde mit den Göttern selber. Ein Nahrungsmittel war dasjenige, was aufgenommen wurde unmittelbar unter Sonnen- und Mondenwirkung, so wie es sich in der Natur darbot. Ein Heilmittel war dasjenige, was der Mensch erzeugte, indem er die Natur fortsetzte, indem er die Riesenkraft bändigte, um sie in den Dienst der Sonnenkraft zu stellen.
Sehen Sie, diese ganze Art zu leben ist ja nur denkbar, wenn es kein intellektualistisches inneres Wissen gibt, nicht eine Spur davon gibt, wenn alles, was man wissen will, äußerlich durch dasjenige erkannt wird, was als Geist in den Naturerscheinungen selber sich ausdrückt, oder in dem, was im Initiationsprinzip durch besondere Vorrichtungen den Naturerscheinungen abgewonnen werden kann, wenn alles aus dem Buche des Kosmos selber gelesen wird. Nur dann ist solch ein Leben, solch eine Art von Zivilisation möglich.
Diese Zivilisation müssen wir uns über große Teile von Nord- und Mitteleuropa etwa vor drei oder dreiundeinhalb Jahrtausenden ausgebreitet denken. Da gab es nichts, was der Schrift ähnlich war. Da gab es nur diese kosmische Schrift. Und da hinein verbreitete sich eben vom Osten herüber, zunächst von einem Mysterium aus der Gegend des Schwarzen Meeres, dasjenige, was nun so, daß es das gewöhnliche Bewußtsein nicht mehr enträtseln kann, in der nordiischen Mythologie enthalten ist, insofern diese an Wotan anknüpft.
Denn was ist Wotan? Das Mysterium, aus dem diese Wotankultur hervorgegangen ist, war ein Merkurmysterium, ein Mysterium, das zu den Impulsen von Sonne und Mond die Impulse des Merkur hinzubrachte. So daß, man möchte sagen, in einer sonnen- und mondenerglänzenden Unschuld und Naivität diese alte Kultur da war, unberührt von dem, was durch die Merkurimpulse der Menschheit gesagt werden konnte. Nur drüben im Osten waren sie schon “vorhanden, diese Merkurimpulse. Von dort aus verbreiteten sie sich nun kolonisierend nach dem Westen. Wotan-Merkur nahm seinen Einfluß nach dem Westen hin.
Und damit ist zu gleicher Zeit ein Licht darauf geworfen, daß Wotan als der Bringer der Runenkunst, der Runenschrift geschildert wird, also als der Bringer dessen, was der Mensch an Entzifferungskunst des Weltenalls auf die erste, ganz primitive intellektualistische Weise aus sich selbst heraus schöpft. Da ist der allererste intellektualistische Einschlag, der Wotaneinschlag. Und so konnte man sagen, war jetzt hinzugekommen zu dem Sonnen- und Mondenhaften das Merkurhafte, das Wotanhafte.
Bei demjenigen, was nun wirklich ganz von dem Wotanhaften seinen Einschlag erhielt, bei dem wurde alles, was an früheren Erlebnissen vorhanden war, von diesem Wotanhaften beeinflußt. Es bekam alles einen gewissen Einschlag, einen gewissen Impuls aus diesem Wotanhaften heraus. Denn eines war ein besonderes Geheimnis der Druidenkultur. Natürlich, überall gehen die Dinge auf, auch die nicht an einen betreffenden Ort hingehören, auf den Äckern geht “ Unkraut auf. Anerkannt sozusagen als gutes Kraut der Kultur war in der Druidenzivilisation nur das Sonnen- und Mondenhafte. Ging nun, ich möchte sagen vorauseilend einer späteren Zeit, schon das Intellektualistische auf, dann betrachtete man es als Unkraut. Und unter den mancherlei Heilmitteln, welche die Druiden hatten, war auch eines gegen die Grübelei, gegen das Merkurhafte. So paradox das den Menschen heute anmutet, es gab ein Heilmittel in der damaligen Zeit gegen die Grübelei, gegen dieses Sichvergraben in sein Inneres, in sein eigenes Seelenheil. Die Druiden wollten, daß der Mensch mit der Natur lebte, daß er sich nicht in sich vergrub, und sie betrachteten den als einen Kranken, der auch nur versuchte, anders als höchstens nachahmend in primitiver Kunst das Naturhafte irgendwie auszudrücken, der etwa Zeichen machte. Einer, der Zeichen machte, das war ein Kranker, den mußte man heilen. Und so einer galt dann als ein schwarzes Menschenwesen, er war kein weißes Menschenwesen. Ja, wenn wir mit unseren heutigen Kenntnissen in die Druidenkultur versetzt worden wären, so würden wir alle ins Spital kommen und geheilt werden!
Und nun brachte die Wotanzivilisation vom Osten herüber diese Krankheit. Das wurde als eine Krankheit empfunden, diese Wotanzivilisation. Sie brachte aber mit einer nun selbst ins Große, ins Riesenhafte ausgewachsenen Kraft dasjenige, was früher eben nur wie eine abnorme Grübelei aufgetreten war. Das brachte sie. Sie brachte die Rune herein in das, was früher nur der kosmischen Schrift entnommen worden war. Sie brachte herein, daß der Mensch sein Intellektualistisches in das Zeichen legte, sie brachte alles dasjenige herein, was als Merkurkultur empfunden wurde. Und so war es kein Wunder, daß nun das, was aus dieser Wotankultur hervorging, was wie eine Absonderung der besten Kräfte noch, die in der Wotankultur waren, empfunden wurde, daß das Baldurwesen, das nachgeborene Sonnenwesen, nicht mit dem Leben, sondern nur mit dem Tode vereinigt gedacht werden konnte. Baldur mußte zur Hel in die dunklen Todeskräfte, in die Todeswohnung wandern.
Und wiederum, worüber zuerst am meisten nachgedacht worden war — es geht das noch aus den Edda-Überlieferungen hervor -, das war nicht, wie man diesen Sohn der Wotanskräfte, den Baldur, von der Hel befreit — das ist eigentlich erst eine spätere Vorstellung -, sondern wie man ihn heilt. Und das tritt so hervor, daß man sagte, man habe viele Heilmittel, aber für Baldur, das heißt für die Intelligenz, die aus der Wotanschen Runenkraft hervorgeht, für die gibt es keine Heilmittel, die kann nur zum Tode führen.
Und so sehen wir denn das, worauf ich Sie von verschiedenen Gesichtspunkten aus aufmerksam gemacht habe bei der Betrachtung der Menschheitsentwickelung, indem ich Ihnen sagte: In älteren Zeiten hat das instinktive Erkennen der Menschen nichts gewußt von der Bedeutung des Todes, weil man sich an das vorirdische Leben erinnert hat und wußte, der Tod ist nur eine Umwandlung. Man empfand den Tod nicht als irgendeinen tiefergehenden Einschnitt. Vor allen Dingen gab es keine Tragik des Todes in älteren Zeiten. Die brach erst herein, als das Mysterium von Golgatha herannahte, das eben eine Erlösung von der Todesfurcht wurde. In der Baldursage sehen Sie die anschaulichste Darstellung dessen, was durch das Hereinbrechen des Intellektualismus diejenige Seelenverfassung bringt, die mit dem Tode rechnet, was also dadurch in die Menschheitsentwickelung gekommen ist. Und so wurde dasjenige, was man in dem Tode des Baldur, der nicht auferstehen konnte, gesehen hatte, erst wiederum auf seelisch-geistige Weise geheilt, als ihm entgegengestellt wurde die Christus-Gestalt, die auferstehen konnte,
Es ist nun wunderbar, wie sich da im Norden durch den Einfluß der Merkurkräfte auf die Sonnen- und Mondenkräfte die Anschauung von dem Christus-Impuls vorbereitet. In Baldur, dem Gotte, der dem Tode verfällt und nicht auferstehen kann, sehen wir für den Norden den Vorläufer des Christus, der auch dem Tode verfällt, aber auferstehen kann, weil er nun wiederum unmittelbar von der Sonne kommt, während das, was von Wotan kommt als die Sonnenkraft, Baldur, die von Merkur zurückreflektierte Sonnenkraft ist, die aus den Runen erstrahlende Sonnenkraft, die aus den Zeichen, die der Mensch aus seinem Intellekt heraus macht, erstrahlende Sonnenkraft ist.
Und so sieht man, wie da alles in diesen nordischen Gegenden sich entwickelt, gerade recht anschaulich entwickelt, indem der Mensch sich uns da noch zeigt in seinem Leben, in seinem Lesen im Kosmos, in seinem Suchen der religiösen, der sozialen, der Heilmittelvorstellungen aus dem Kosmos heraus, während später der Mensch übergeht zum Wohnen mit den Erdenkräften. Der Druidenpriester schaut hin von seinem Opferstein auf die Art und Weise, wie sich da der Schatten der Sonne konfiguriert und wie das, was im Schatten erscheint, sich als das Geistige der Sonne darstellt, er liest das. Dann nähert man sich später der Zeit, wo die Sonnenwesenhaftigkeit, die gewissermaßen aufgefangen wird in den Dolmen, in den Kromlechs, wo diese Sonnenwesenheit - horribile dictu für eine höhere Anschauung - mit abstrakten Linien gezeichnet wird, die man Strahlen nennt. Und man nähert sich jener Zeit, wo die Verwandtschaft desjenigen, was in Wurzeln und Blatt und Blüte lebt, mit dem, was im Frost, im Winde, im Feuer lebt, nur mehr auf chemische Weise erkannt wird. Die Riesen und die Elementarwesen verwandeln sich in Naturkräfte. In den Naturkräften ist heute trotzdem nichts anderes enthalten, als die Riesen von ehedem, nur merkt man es nicht, fühlt sich ungeheuer erhaben. In gerader Linie haben sich die Naturkräfte aus den Riesen heraus entwickelt: es sind die spätgeborenen Kinder. Weil sozusagen der Mensch heute in einer ganz abgeleiteten Kultur lebt, muß er, wenn er nun mit dem Blicke auf diese ganz verkommenen Überreste der Druidenzeit hingewiesen wird, eigentlich tief ergriffen werden. Es ist so, wie wenn man auf die Urahnen dessen hinschauen würde, was in der Gegenwart lebt.
Und wenn wir ins einzelne gehen: Wir reden heute, sagen wir, auch von Heilmitteln in einer merkwürdig abstrakten Weise, ganz intellektualistisch, beschreiben die Fabrikationsweise auf ganz abstrakte Weise. Das muß man sich in ganz Lebendiges verwandelt denken, wenn man zurückblicken will auf die Art und Weise, wie der Druidenpriester auf seine Heilmittel schaute. Da empfand er die Sonnenkräfte, die er kannte, die er behandelte in Pflanzen, in anderen Naturprodukten mit den Riesenkräften. Das war für ihn etwas ganz Lebendiges. Er entlockte den Riesen die Fabrikationskräfte für die Umwandlung der Pflanze in ein Heilmittel. Er wußte, daß er damit etwas für den ganzen Kosmos tat. Und dann schaute er auf den Menschen hin. Und durch seine besondere Art der Menschenerkenntnis sah er, wie aus den Intimitäten der natürlichen Menschen - namentlich durch das, was als Traumesvorstellung kam, als unbestimmtes, unbewußtes Heraufflackern der tieferen Menschennatur in das Bewußtsein -, unter dem Einflusse dieser in das Innere der Menschen hineingegebenen Bezähmungsmittel der Riesenkräfte, die Dinge im Menschen wirken. Und so hatte er auf der einen Seite seinen Loki draußen in den wilden Feuerwirkungen, auf der anderen Seite dasjenige, was er dem Loki genommen hatte, um diese oder jene Pflanze in einem Verbrennungsprozesse zum Heilmittel umzuwandeln. Und da sah er dann in der Art und Weise, wie das im menschlichen Innern wirkte, die Lokikraft im Innern des Menschen. Da war sie entwaffnet. Und da sagte er sich: Was draußen in der Welt der Riesen verderbenbringend, gefahrdrohend wirken kann, das wirkt, wenn es in der richtigen Weise in das Innere des Menschen gebracht wird, eben heilsam. Giftkräfte gleichsam im Großen werden heilende Kräfte, wenn sie an die richtige Stelle gebracht werden.
Und so durchschaute er in seiner Art die verschiedenen Kräfte und Wirkungsweisen der Natur. Und so war er in dem Geistigen drinnen, wodurch er die religiösen, sozialen, medizinischen und anderen Impulse in seine Gemeinde hinaussandte. So war in jener Zeit die alte Urweisheit, welche die Mondenwesen auf der Erde gepflegt hatten, solange sie selber noch da waren, und die nun nicht mehr unmittelbar da war, weil diese Mondenwesen mit dem Monde ausgezogen waren, durch solche Initiierte bewahrt worden, die erkundet und ergründet wurde mit Hilfe einer Art von Sonneninitiation, in der Weise, wie ich sie Ihnen heute geschildert habe.
The Druid Priest's Initiation of the Sun and His Recognition of the Moon
First of all, I would like to remind you of some things I mentioned before my journey here in the lectures that dealt with the spiritual essence of our planetary system, in order to be able to bring the considerations already indicated yesterday more precisely. In a more spiritual sense, reference was made to something that has long been known to you from the descriptions in my “Secret Science in Outline”. Yes, we know how the earth's development on the one hand and the development of the sun and moon on the other are internally connected. From the most diverse points of view - only one of which is the one discussed in the “Secret Science in Outline” - I have pointed out how in a certain very early state of our planetary system the sun, moon and earth, indeed also the other planets - but we will not touch on that now - were a whole, how we must speak, as it were, of an exodus, of a going out first of the sun from the whole - sun, moon, earth -, and then at a much later time of a going out of the moon.
All these things naturally have an external aspect, taken, as it were, from the ideas of the senses. But they also have an inner aspect, namely that certain entities are bound to each such existence, sun existence, moon existence, entities which, let us say, with the separation of the sun from the earth, now also separate themselves from this whole and gain a quite different kind of existence in the cosmos. So that for the later earth development one cannot only speak of a detached sun, which exerts its physical effects, its etheric effects on earth, but that one, when one considers the spiritual of the cosmos, must speak of a sun population, of sun beings, which, while they were earlier connected with the earthly development, now lead a far more sublime existence outside of this earthly development, going far beyond the earth existence.
So it is with what one could call the lunar population. And we also had to point out, by discussing the spiritual side of such cosmic processes, how there was once a primordial wisdom within the earthly development itself. But this primordial wisdom was of course not just concepts floating around in the air, but came from beings who did not take on a physical body in the sense of a human being, but who nevertheless lived in human beings because of the instinctive clairvoyant powers that people had developed at that time; it came from those beings who then continued their existence on the moon after the moon as an outer world body had separated from the earth. So that one must, as I already said at that time in that lecture, speak of the fact that within the lunar being not in the light which the moon radiates back as reflected sunlight, and also not in that which the moon otherwise radiates back from the universe, but that in the interior of this lunar being live beings who are the same as those who were once the founders of primordial wisdom among earth-men. These are beings that then passed over into myths, legends, into mythology in general, and took on a pictorial form that is no longer transparent to the ordinary consciousness: Primordial wisdoms to which we look back in amazement when we discover them, even outwardly, as the real basis of myths, legends and so on, primordial wisdoms to which the intellectual forces of contemporary humanity can only penetrate with great effort by developing imagination, inspiration and intuition. But of all that was once connected with the earth, something remains at least within humanity itself, like an unconscious memory. And then, in various epochs of the development of human civilization, whereby I include the older epochs of civilization, these unconscious memories appear in human feeling, in the whole constitution of the human soul, so that when we look at civilization we can speak of a sun-like and a moon-like civilization.
These are, so to speak, conscious memories of something that once worked in man in a broader sense like natural forces. And that which man has felt from them is only like an appendage, reminiscent of forces of growth, of inner organizational forces.
It is precisely when we place this, what I described to you before my English journey, before our souls today, that we can tie in with what I told you here yesterday and, on the basis of the ideas we have thus obtained, now penetrate a little into what I described to you yesterday, more from the outside, as the Druid culture, traces of which are present in such a striking way in those areas in which the lecture cycle described yesterday took place.
With the means that an external science has, one will ask oneself in vain today what these Druid priests - I could just as well call them Druid scholars, for these are expressions that certainly fit the time, although of course these expressions did not exist at that time - what kind of soul constitution did these Druid priests actually have? What lived in the impulses through which they led their community?
That which is often told in history, which is often heard terribly often, always only means something that was lively in times of decadence, in times of decay. What I want to describe here always refers to that which precedes these times of decay and was active in the times of prosperity. For these Kromlechs, these various circles of the sun, of which I spoke yesterday, remind us in what they really are of what was present in the heyday of the Druid Mysteries. And we can already today, in a certain way, with the means that anthroposophical spiritual science gives us, penetrate into the whole way in which these Druid priests worked. In a certain sense they were everything to their peoples, or rather to their tribes. They were the ones who were responsible for the religious needs, as far as one can speak of such needs at that time. It was they who were decisive for the social impulses. But they were also the ones who were decisive for the healing methods of the time, for example. They were everything in one that was spread to many branches of human civilization in later times.
We only look at this - we can certainly call it that - Druid culture in the right way if we see the essence of it in an earlier epoch than the one from which those mythological ideas of the North, which are linked to the name of Wotan or Odin, resound to us. What is linked to the name of Wotan is basically later in time than this heyday of Druid culture. One must see in the circle of wisdom, one might say, which points to the name of the god Wotan or Odin, something that first came over from the East from a mystery circle that was near the Black Sea, and which then poured out its spiritual content from the East to the West, in that colonial mystery sites, so to speak, were founded from the Black Sea to the West in the most diverse ways.
But all this radiated into what in a deeper sense could be called a sublime culture, primordial wisdom, Druid wisdom. This Druid wisdom was in fact an unconscious echo, something like an unconscious memory of all that the earth had from the sun and moon before the sun and moon had separated from the earth. The initiation in the Druid Mysteries was essentially a solar initiation, connected with what could then become lunar wisdom through the solar initiation. What were these Kromlechs, these Druid circles, actually calculated for? From yesterday's account you will see that they were essentially calculated to contemplate the relationship between the earth and the sun in a spiritual way. If we look at the individual dolmens, we find that they actually contain something like instruments through which the outer physical effects of the sun are excluded, so that the initiate gifted with the gift of sight can observe what remains of the sun's effects in the dark space. The inner qualities of the solar, how they permeate the earth, and how they in turn radiate back from the earth into the world space, that is what the Druid priest has observed through the individual Kromlechs. So, I would like to say: the physical essence of the sunlight was held back. A dark space, I told you yesterday, was created by the stones set into the earth, which were covered at the top by a capstone, and in this dark space, through the power of seeing through the stones, it was possible to observe the spiritual essence of the sunlight.
So that the Druid priest, standing in front of his cult altar, actually occupied himself with the inner qualities of the solar, insofar as he needed that which flowed into him full of wisdom - but flowed in such a way that the wisdom was still like a natural force - insofar as he needed it to govern his community.
You only have to realize that we are talking about a time when you could not look at the calendar to see when to sow in the right way, when to entrust this or that seed to the earth. The calendar was that which the priest ignored the effects of the sun. They did not take a book in their hands to learn about time. The only book that existed was the universe itself. And the letters that were formed into words resulted from observations of how the sun affected this or that, which was set up as a device. If you want to know anything about this or that, read on today; the Druid priest looked at what the sun did on his Kromlechs. There he read the secrets of the universe. He read from what came to him when to sow wheat, when to sow rye and so on. These are just examples. The impulses from the universe were read for everything that was done. The larger impulses that were needed to complete the annual calendar resulted from observation in the shadow of the Druid circle. So that at this time, when there was nothing of what springs from human intellect, the only thing that existed was the universe itself. And instead of printing presses, they had the Kromlechs to draw out of the universe the secrets it contained.
So, by reading the cosmic book in this way, so to speak, one was dealing with the solar. And in contrast to the solar, the lunar was perceived. The forces that were then concentrated in the moon were once connected with the earth.
But they have not moved away completely, they have left something behind in the earth. If there were only solar forces, then only proliferating, growing cells, for example, would arise, living things would always arise with the small or large cell character. The manifold, the formed, does not come from the solar forces, but from the lunar forces interacting with the solar forces.
And now it was so that when the Druid priest exposed himself to what his circles, his Kromlechs gave him, he did not merely get the abstract impression that we rightly get today when we enter into the spiritual in our own way, intellectually, but the forces of the sun spoke to him directly. In the shadow of the sun, the spiritual-sunlike had a direct effect, and it had a much more intense effect on him than a sensory perception has on us today, because it was related to much deeper forces. As the priest stood in front of his place of worship, observing this solar aspect, his breathing changed: it became inanimate, it dulled, it undulated, so that one breath merged into the other. He lived with what he was as a human being through his breathing, in what emerged as the effect of the sun. It was not an abstract knowledge that arose for him, something arose for him that worked in him in the same way as blood circulation works, something that pulsed through him inwardly, something that excited his humanity into the physical. But this physical effect was also spiritual. And these inner excitations that he experienced were actually his knowledge.
This knowledge must be thought of in a much more vivid, more intense way than an experience. He only received this knowledge at certain times. This knowledge could be aroused to a lesser degree every noon, but if the great mysteries were to be revealed, then the priest had to expose himself to these effects during the time we now call St. John's Day. Then, in addition to the daily small waves of his knowledge, the great wave would arise. And by experiencing in this way, through the effects of the sun caught on the earth in a special, artificial way, what he felt to be his initiation, the initiation of the sun, he became able to study and understand the forces that remained in the earth as lunar forces after the moon's exit. This was his knowledge of nature, which he acquired under the influence of the sun's initiation. What was revealed on the surface of things was not important to him. What surged up from below as the lunar forces of the earth was important to him. Just as he was able to recognize through the initiation principle, traces of which are still preserved in these monuments today, he then recognized what was at work in nature, especially when the night sky made the stars stand out above the earth and the moon passed over the surface of the sky.
The initiation of the sun gave him the spiritual impact, the spiritual impulse, and he then had his natural science. Our natural science is an earth science, his natural science was a lunar science. He felt the underlying lunar forces that radiated upwards in the plants from the depths of the earth, that worked in wind and weather and the other elements. He did not feel them in the abstract way in which we feel the forces of nature today, where we have an earth science, he felt them in their vitality, in their weaving and essence.
And this, which presented itself to him in vitality, he perceived as the elemental beings that lived in the plants, in the stones, in everything. These elemental beings were enclosed within boundaries, as their abode was in the trees, in the plants and so on. But they were not confined within the narrow boundaries that are set for humans today, for example, but within wider boundaries. And so the Druid priest, because his natural science was a lunar science, saw through how these elemental beings could grow, grow gigantic.
This gave rise to the knowledge of the giants, the jötunns, the giant beings. If one looked into the roots of a plant under the earth, in which the moonlike being lived, then one had the elemental being in its right limits [it is drawn]. But these elemental beings strove to grow outwardly, to become gigantic. When this type of elemental being, which lived its beneficial existence in the root, grew into giants, then they became the frost giants, who had their outer physical symbolism in frost, who lived in all that which, for example, swept over the earth as devastating frost or as other devastating frost forces. To a certain extent, the released root forces of the plants lived in the frost, lived in everything that flowed gigantically over the earth and then had a devastating effect, while it unfolded its blessings in the roots. That which was in the growth of leaves could also grow into something gigantic. It then lived as a hugely enlarged elemental being in the storms of mist that swept over the earth with all its contents in certain seasons with the pollen of the plants and so on. And when that which lives in a quiet, modest way in the flowering power of the plant [see drawing, red], when it grows into something gigantic, then it becomes a devastating fire.
So that there was seen in the meteorological processes the forces magnified into the gigantic, essential forces that lived in the natural beings in their right limits. And the very places where these ancient pagan places of worship are situated show that what was given on the one hand by solar circles and dolmens was now developed in the knowledge of the earth made possible by them: developed in such a way that one could observe in the right way the mysterious working and weaving, the strokes and life of wind and weather, this interaction of the watery, the airy, the frost springing out of the earth, the dewy. Thus, through solar initiation and lunar knowledge, this oldest conception came about, which we find, I would say, at the foundation of European civilization.
So the Druid priest read what he was able to extract from the cosmos through his devices of cosmic events through his solar initiation, and what knowledge he was then able to gain from his lunar natural science under the stimulus of this solar initiation. But the social, the whole religious life was connected with all this. For what the priest could say to the people there was, after all, a content that extended to the spiritual basis of that in which the people stood. The best way to realize this is to point out what was present in these Druid priests as a kind of healing science. On the one hand, they saw the elemental beings confined within their boundaries in the various manifestations of the mineral, especially the vegetable kingdom and so on. Now they observed what happens to the plants when they are exposed, let us say, to frost, when they are exposed to the effects which the storm giants, the wind giants carry through the air, when they are exposed to the boiling of the fire giants. And by studying what the frost giants, the frost giants, the storm giants, the fire giants would do to the plants if they were released, so to speak, they came to take plants in their way and to imitate, within certain limits, what is indicated in nature as giant effects: to subject the plants to a certain process, the process of freezing, the process of cooling, the process of burning, the process of loosening and binding.
And so these Druid priests said to themselves: "If we look out into nature, we see the devastating effects of the frost giants, the storm giants, the fire giants. But we can take from these giants, these Jötunns, that which they spread clumsily over the world, we can wrest it from them. We can, in turn, contain these unleashed lunar forces within tighter boundaries.
And by doing this, by studying what takes place in the thawing earth, what takes place in the storm, in the wind, in the boiling of the sun's heat, by studying and applying this to the solar nature that lived in the plants and which they received in their initiation, they created their remedies, healing herbs and the like, which were based on the fact that the giants were reconciled with the gods.
Every remedy in those days was a testimony to the reconciliation of the enemies of the gods with the gods themselves. Food was that which was ingested directly under the influence of the sun and moon, as it presented itself in nature. A remedy was that which man produced by continuing nature, by taming the giant power in order to place it at the service of the solar power.
You see, this whole way of life is only conceivable if there is no intellectualistic inner knowledge, if there is not a trace of it, if everything that one wants to know is recognized externally through that which expresses itself as spirit in the natural phenomena themselves, or in that which can be extracted from the natural phenomena through special devices in the initiation principle, if everything is read from the book of the cosmos itself. Only then is such a life, such a kind of civilization possible.
We have to imagine this civilization spread over large parts of northern and central Europe about three or three and a half millennia ago. There was nothing that resembled writing. There was only this cosmic writing. And into it spread from the East, initially from a mystery from the region of the Black Sea, that which is now contained in Northern mythology in such a way that ordinary consciousness can no longer decipher it, insofar as it is linked to Wotan.
For what is Wotan? The mystery from which this Wotan culture emerged was a mystery of Mercury, a mystery that added the impulses of Mercury to the impulses of the sun and moon. So that, one might say, in a sun- and moon-shining innocence and naivety, this ancient culture was there, untouched by what could be said to mankind through the Mercury impulses. Only over there in the East were they already "present, these Mercury impulses. From there they now spread to the West, colonizing it. Wotan-Mercury took its influence to the West.
And thus at the same time a light is thrown on the fact that Wotan is described as the bringer of the runic art, of runic writing, thus as the bringer of that which man creates out of himself in the first, quite primitive intellectualistic way in the art of deciphering the universe. There is the very first intellectualistic impact, the Wotan impact. And so one could say that the Mercurial, the Wotanic, had now been added to the solar and lunar.
With that which now really received its impact entirely from the Wotanic, everything that was present in earlier experiences was influenced by this Wotanic. Everything was given a certain impact, a certain impulse from this Wotan-ness. Because one thing was a special secret of the Druid culture. Of course, things sprout everywhere, even those that don't belong in a particular place, “weeds sprout” in the fields. In the Druid civilization, only the sun and moon were recognized as good herbs of culture, so to speak. If, I would like to say in advance of a later time, the intellectual was already growing, then it was regarded as a weed. And among the various remedies that the Druids had was one against brooding, against the Mercurial. As paradoxical as it may seem to people today, there was a remedy in those days for brooding, for burying oneself in one's inner self, in one's own salvation. The Druids wanted man to live with nature, not to bury himself in himself, and they regarded anyone who even tried to express the natural in any way other than by imitating it in primitive art, who made signs, for example, as a sick person. Someone who made signs was a sick person who had to be cured. And such a person was then considered a black human being, not a white human being. Yes, if we had been transported to the Druid culture with our current knowledge, we would all come to the hospital and be healed!
And now the Wotan civilization brought this disease over from the East. It was perceived as a disease, this Wotan civilization. But with a power that had now grown into something great, something gigantic, it brought what had previously only appeared as an abnormal brooding. That is what it brought. It brought the rune into what had previously only been taken from the cosmic script. It brought in that man put his intellectualism into the sign, it brought in everything that was perceived as Mercury culture. And so it was no wonder that what emerged from this Wotan culture, what was perceived as a separation of the best forces that were still in the Wotan culture, was that the Baldur being, the after-born sun being, could not be thought of as united with life, but only with death. Baldur had to migrate to Hel in the dark forces of death, in the abode of death.
And again, what was first thought about the most - this is still evident from the Edda traditions - was not how to free this son of Wotan's forces, Baldur, from Hel - that is actually only a later idea - but how to heal him. And this emerges in such a way that it is said that there are many remedies, but for Baldur, that is, for the intelligence that emerges from Wotan's runic power, there are no remedies, it can only lead to death.
And so we see what I have drawn your attention to from various points of view when considering the development of mankind by telling you: In older times, people's instinctive cognition knew nothing of the significance of death because they remembered their pre-earthly life and knew that death is only a transformation. Death was not perceived as a profound turning point. Above all, there was no tragedy of death in older times. It only came when the Mystery of Golgotha approached, which became a redemption from the fear of death. In the Baldur saga you see the most vivid illustration of what the advent of intellectualism brought about in the constitution of the soul that reckons with death, that is, what came into human development as a result. And so that which had been seen in the death of Baldur, who could not resurrect, was only healed again in a soul-spiritual way when the Christ figure, who could resurrect, was set against him.
It is now wonderful how the view of the Christ impulse is prepared in the north through the influence of the Mercury forces on the solar and lunar forces. In Baldur, the god who falls to death and cannot rise again, we see for the North the forerunner of the Christ, who also falls to death but can rise again because he now comes directly from the sun, while that which comes from Wotan as the solar power, Baldur, is the solar power reflected back from Mercury, the solar power radiating from the runes, the solar power radiating from the signs that man makes out of his intellect.
And so we see how everything in these Nordic regions develops, develops quite vividly, in that man still shows himself to us in his life, in his reading of the cosmos, in his search for religious, social and healing concepts out of the cosmos, while later man passes over to dwelling with the forces of the earth. The Druid priest looks from his sacrificial stone at the way in which the shadow of the sun is configured and how that which appears in the shadow presents itself as the spiritual of the sun, he reads this. Then, later on, we approach the time when the sun's essence, which is captured, so to speak, in the dolmens, in the cromlechs, where this sun's essence - horribile dictu for a higher view - is drawn with abstract lines called rays. And we are approaching the time when the relationship between that which lives in roots and leaves and blossoms and that which lives in frost, wind and fire is only recognized in a chemical way. The giants and the elemental beings are transformed into natural forces. Nevertheless, the forces of nature today contain nothing other than the giants of old, only one does not realize it and feels tremendously exalted. The forces of nature have developed in a straight line from the giants: they are the late-born children. Because man today lives, so to speak, in a completely derived culture, he must actually be deeply moved when he looks at these completely degenerate remnants of the Druid era. It is like looking at the ancestors of what lives in the present day.
And if we go into detail: Today, let's say, we also talk about remedies in a strangely abstract way, quite intellectualistically, describing the way they are manufactured in a very abstract way. You have to think of this as being transformed into something quite living if you want to look back at the way the Druid priest looked at his remedies. He perceived the solar forces that he knew, that he treated in plants, in other natural products with gigantic powers. That was something very vivid for him. He elicited from the giants the manufacturing powers for transforming the plant into a remedy. He knew that he was doing something for the whole cosmos. And then he looked at man. And through his special kind of knowledge of man he saw how from the intimacies of natural man - namely through what came as a dream-imagination, as an indeterminate, unconscious flickering up of the deeper human nature into consciousness - under the influence of these means of taming the giant forces given into the inner being of man, things work in man. And so on the one hand he had his Loki outside in the wild effects of fire, and on the other hand he had that which he had taken from Loki in order to transform this or that plant into a remedy in a burning process. And then he saw the Loki power inside the human being in the way it worked. There it was disarmed. And then he said to himself: What can have a corrupting, dangerous effect outside in the world of giants, has a healing effect when it is brought into the inner being of man in the right way. Poisonous forces on a large scale, as it were, become healing forces when they are brought to the right place.
And so he saw through the various forces and modes of action of nature in his own way. And so he was in the spiritual realm, sending religious, social, medical and other impulses out into his community. Thus at that time the old primal wisdom, which the lunar beings had cultivated on earth as long as they themselves were still there, and which was now no longer directly there because these lunar beings had departed with the moon, was preserved by such initiates, which was explored and fathomed with the help of a kind of solar initiation, in the way I have described it to you today.