Man in the Past, Present, and Future
GA 228
14 September 1923, Stuttgart
Lecture I
For the subject of these lectures, I have chosen an account of man's development during a particular period of the past, of his situation today, and of the outlook for his future evolution on this Earth-planet. No world-conception which has had any influence upon Western civilization, or its American off-shoot, has been content to deal only with present-day man and to show how the individual fits into the pattern of world-population. The world-conceptions acceptable to Western civilization have always emphasized the place of man in the whole course of human history on Earth. They have always shown the relationship between man of the present and of the past, no matter whether they go back only to a certain point—as the Old Testament does in describing the history of the Earth—or whether they trace man right through the stages of cosmic evolution.
The philosophies of the East, and even the early philosophies of Europe, if they did not belong to our modern civilization, were less concerned with this outlook. They were content to envisage man in terms of space only. The feeling we all have as a result of living within Western evolution makes it quite impossible for us to be satisfied with this spatial picture. There is a sort of psychological instinct in us to see ourselves in a brotherly association not only with men living today but also with men of the past; and unless we include both past and present we do not feel that we have a real notion of mankind.
But we can never have any satisfying idea of the historical development of man, whether in a wider or in a narrower sense, if we are limited to the results of ordinary anthropology. Man is a being whose evolution we cannot comprehend with the aid of nothing but external documents, however brilliantly they may be interpreted. Man is a being of body, soul and spirit; he is a being who has been penetrated, to a lesser or greater extent, by the spirit, in such a way that consciousness has been alive within him. The whole nature and being of man can be seen in the development of his consciousness, just as the being of a plant is finally revealed to the senses in the flower.
Let us therefore go a little more deeply into this most vital aspect of human evolution—the evolution of consciousness. When we consider man's consciousness as it is today we can make certain distinctions. In our ordinary waking condition, as we know it from waking in the morning to the time of falling asleep, we develop a more or less clear and luminous life of ideas which grow out of our life of feeling as the flower grows out of the plant. Over against this clear and luminous life of ideas there is a further condition which never really becomes quite clear, but is more or less unconscious, dark, inwardly surging and weaving. Even deeper than the feelings, which do, after all, quite directly stimulate our life of thought and ideas—much deeper within our being there is our surging will. And I have often described to anthroposophists how in his willing man is strictly speaking, asleep, even during his waking state. We never experience, in the waking conditions of our present-day consciousness, what lives within our willing. We have an idea that we are going to do this or that, but in this there is as yet no willing—only the intention to will clothed in the idea. Then the intention plunges into the depths of the human being, of which his consciousness has no clearer idea than it has of dreamless sleep. It then emerges as the will seen in the action of our arms and hands, legs and feet; in the activity we exercise on objects in the external world.
Whenever we act thus through the will on our own body, or in order to effect some change in the external world, we become aware of it through our ideas—ideas which also have some quality of feeling. Our ordinary consciousness perceives only the beginning and the end of willing, the intention in the form of an idea, and then again, also in the form of an idea, the consciousness observes our own movements or those in the external world which arise out of these intentions. All that lies between—how our intentions transfer themselves, via the soul, into our organism, how the soul arouses the physical warmth, the movement of the blood and muscles which then produce an act of will—of all this we are as unaware as we are of the events in dreamless sleep.
If we really manage to observe what happens, we must say that we are actually awake only in our ideas (our conceptual life); we dream in our feelings and sleep in our willing. Our knowledge of this willing is just like the experience of waking in the morning and noticing that our organism has somehow recuperated and refreshed itself. We perceive the effects of sleep when we wake. Similarly, we have the intention to perform some act of will; we transmit it unconsciously into our organism where, as though in sleep, it passes over into activity and deed; and we wake up again only with our action and see the result of what has been going on within us, of which we have been quite unconscious.
Such in broad outline is man's experience of his own being in waking, dreaming and sleeping. After all, the dreams we have when we are sleeping have very little relation to our ideas. They obey quite other laws than the logical laws of our conceptual life. But if we observe things closely we shall see that the course of our dreaming, with its marvelous dramatic quality that is so often typical of dreams, bears an extra-ordinarily close resemblance to our life of feeling. If in our waking life, we were capable only of feeling, those feelings would not, it is true, be very like the pictures of our dreams. But the dramatic quality, tensions, impulsive wishes and crises of the inner life, with their turmoil of emotion, are displayed in our feelings just as vaguely—or if you like, just as indefinitely—as they are in our dreams.; with this difference, that the basis of a dream lies in its pictures, whereas our feelings live in those peculiar experiences which we describe in terms of our inner life. Thus in the present state of human consciousness we may include our feelings and actual dreaming as part of the dream-state, and in the same way include our willing and actual dreamless sleep as part of the sleeping state.
We must, however, realize that what we are now describing as the basic quality of our present-day consciousness has passed through a process of evolution in a comparatively recent period, though we do not like taking much notice of this in our materialistic age. But you will not understand the surviving documents of human thought, even of the early Christian centuries, unless you realize that the inner activity of men in those days was quite different from what lives within our souls today as the activity of thought. In particular it would be a complete psychological error to seek to understand Scotus Erigena's work, “On the Parts of Nature” (De Divisione Naturae) written in the ninth century, for example, or the older writings on alchemy, with the conceptual intellect which has become normal today. We simply cannot understand what they were driving at if our modern type of thinking is employed. We can read the words, but we shall not grasp the meaning.
Human thinking since the fifteenth century has acquired a particular character which may have developed only slowly but has more or less already reached is culminating point. Yet this way of thinking, which represents the actual waking condition for modern man, is not really capable of giving him any satisfaction. A man can think, and that is the only luminous experience of his waking life. He can think, and that is the only means by which he can draw on his inner powers and establish the marvelous results of the sciences. Yet basically this modern thinking can give man no satisfaction for his inner yearnings. The fact is that he loses his own self in this modern thought. He does of course experience this thinking as the one clear element in his consciousness—much clearer, for instance, than his breathing or blood circulation, which remain obscure in the deeper regions of his consciousness. He feels that these also may contain some reality, but he sleeps through this reality, and it is only in his ideas and thinking that he is awake. But then, especially if he is disposed to a certain amount of self-observation, he comes to feel that although it is only in his thinking that he fulfils his inner being, yet his true self is lost. And I can give you two examples which will enable you—spiritually of course—to lay hands on this loss of self in thought.
There is a famous philosopher of modern times, Descartes, who is the originator of the famous saying, cogito ergo sum—I think, therefore I am. So this philosopher says. But today men do not and cannot say it. For when we merely think something or experience it in thinking, it does not follow that it “is,” nor that I “am” merely because I myself am thinking. For us these thoughts are at most pictures; they may be the most certain thing in us, but we do not grasp any “being” through our thinking. Again, we often say that if we think something, that is “nothing but thinking.” So also in Descartes' case: he wants to “be” and cannot find any other point at which to grasp this “being” of man, and so he seeks it where the common man certainly does not feel it to be—in thought. We do not think in sleep, but does it follow then that we are not? Do we die in the evening and are we reborn each morning? Or do we exist between falling asleep and waking? The simplest truths are in fact not taken into account by present-day views of the world. Descartes' “I think, therefore I am” is not based on something inwardly experienced, but is only a convulsive effort to attach oneself to reality. That is the first point.
The second point I want to make is this. Besides his thinking, of which modern man is very proud, we have the results of natural science, results of observation or experiment. In point of fact these do not help us to see the real being of things, but only the changes that occur in them—that which is transitory. And nowadays people consider a thought to be justified only if it derives from this external actuality, which after all reveals only a manifestation of itself. So we have ceased completely to grasp our real “being” in ourselves; our thought is too much in the air. We have no way of finding anything else in us except by methods that science applies to Nature; and then we seek our real being in that. In consequence, man today believes only in that part of himself which is part of Nature. Nature and the form of existence associated with it thus becomes a sort of Moloch which robs modern man of any real feeling of his own being.
Many people will perhaps retort that they don't notice anything of the sort, and will contradict what I have said. But that is only their opinion. The feelings which modern men have, at least if they have even the elements of self-awareness, are the outcome of the mood I have just described. They are encased, as it were, within this experience of their own being and their relation to the external world, and they then transfer the consequence of this condition to their consciousness of the world. For instance, they may observe the stars with their telescopes, spectroscopes and other instruments. They record what these instruments show and then build up a purely spatial astronomy and astrophysics. They do not notice that they are merely transferring to the heavens what they have observed and calculated about things on the Earth.
Thus, suppose that I have here some source of light. We all admit that if I move thousands of miles away from it, the light will become weaker and perhaps no longer visible. We all know that the strength of the light decreases with distance. Ordinary physics states the law that gravitation, too, decreases with the square of the distance. But people don't pursue this thought further. They can demonstrate that here on Earth, gravity has a particular magnitude and diminishes with the square of the distance, for they live on the Earth and establish laws of Nature and truths valid for the Earth, and build them into a system. Where gravity has a definite magnitude, these laws are true. The force of gravity decreases, but so does truth. What was true for the Earth ceases to be true if we pursue it further outwards into the Universe. We have no more right to regard the findings of physics and chemistry as applicable to the whole Universe than we have to assume that earthly gravity holds good throughout the Cosmos. The truths that rule in the heavenly spheres cannot be dealt with in the same way as those that hold on Earth. Of course to say this sort of thing nowadays is considered highly paradoxical—even crazy. But our general consciousness is so solidly encased nowadays that even the slightest remark which might pierce through the case immediately appears strange. Modern men are so wholly tied to the Earth that their knowledge, even sometimes their reflections, never pass beyond what they experience on Earth. And they deal with cosmic time exactly as they deal with cosmic space.
I was particularly impressed with all this recently. (I have often discussed this sort of truth among anthroposophists and what I am saying now is only a repetition based on a particular example.) This struck me with particular force when I was invited by our English anthroposophical friends to give a course of lectures at Penmaenmawr in the second half of August.1The Evolution of the World and of Humanity. 13 lectures, 19th – 31st August, 1923. (Revised edition in preparation, 1966.) The title of the German text in the Complete Centenary Edition is: Initiations-Erkenntnis. Die geistig und physische Welt- und Menschheitsentwicklung in der Vergangenheit, Gegenwart und Zukunft vom Gesichtspunkte der Anthroposophie Penmaenmawr is in Wales, where the island of Anglesey lies over against the West coast of Britain. It is really an extraordinary region which shows that there are quite different geographies over the Earth's surface from those you will find discussed in textbooks, even for the most advanced students. Ordinarily we think it more than enough if a geographical description includes the character of the vegetation, flora and fauna, and I in addition we base it on the geological and palaeontological nature of the region. But the Earth displays differentiations of a much more inward nature than any you will ordinarily find in geographical works. Thus in Penmaenmawr, where these lectures were held, you have only to go a short distance, a mile or so into the mountains, and all over the place you can find the remains of the old Druid cults, fallen stone circles of a simple sort. For instance, stones are put together to enclose a small space and covered with another stone so as to form a little chamber, where the light of the sun could be cut off, leaving the chamber in darkness. I do not dispute that such cromlechs had also to serve as burial places, for at all times the most important centers of worship have been set up over the graves of fellow-men. But here, even with these simple cromlechs, we have something further, as indeed indicated by the so-called Druid circles.
It was a wonderful experience when I went with a friend one day to one of these mountains at Penmaenmawr, on which the scanty remains of two such circles are still to be seen lying very close to each other. Even today it can be seen from the position of the stones that there were once twelve of them, and if one wants to discover their purpose they must be observed closely. Now while the sun follows his course through the Cosmos, whether during a day or during a year, a quite specific shadow is cast beneath each stone; and the path of the sun could be traced by following the shadow as it changed in the course of a day or year. We are still sensitive to light today, especially if light is associated with warmth or warmth with light. Present-day consciousness can naturally also notice the difference between the light of the summer and winter sun, since we are warm in summer and cold in winter; and we may note finer differences too. But, you see the same differences we can notice in so obvious a fashion in the light, when we are either warm or freezing, can be perceived in the shadow as well. There is a difference between the October sun and the July or August sun, not only in the direction but in the quality of the shadow. One of the duties of the Druids was to develop a special faculty for perceiving the quality of the shadow—for perceiving, let us say, the peculiar intermingling of a red tone in the August shadow or a blue one in that of November or December. Thus the Druids were able, by the training they received, to read off the daily and yearly course of the sun in the shadows. We can still see from these remains that one of the tasks they undertook was something of this sort. There were many other things that belonged to this cult: a Sun ritual, which, however, was not a mere abstraction, not even the abstraction we see in devotion and reverence. Without undervaluing devotion and reverence, it would be a complete error to believe that. But devotion and reverence were not in this case the essentials, for the cult included something quite different.
Take the grain of wheat or rye. It must be planted within the Earth at a particular moment of the year, and it is a bad thing for it to be planted at an inappropriate moment. Anyone who has exact knowledge of these things is well aware that it makes a difference whether a seed is planted a few days earlier or later. There are other things of this sort in human life. The people who lived about three thousand years ago in the region where the Druid cult flourished led an extremely simple life. Agriculture and cattle-raising were the chief occupations. But we may ask how they were to know when to sow and harvest in the best way, or when they were to attend to the many other jobs which Nature requires in the course of a year. Nowadays of course we have farmers' calendars which tell the farmer that on such and such a day such and such a job needs to be done, and tell him very intelligently. In our day, with our type of consciousness, this information can be catalogued and read off from the printed page. We think nothing of it, but the fact remains that there was none of that, not even the most primitive form of reading and writing, in the days when the Druid religion was in its prime. On the other hand, the Druids could stand in one of these stone circles and by observing the shadow they could proclaim, for instance, that during the next week farmers must undertake this or that work, or the bulls be introduced to the herd since the moment was right for the mating of the cows. The druids were equipped to read in the Cosmos; they used the signs produced by those monuments of which we have today only such scanty remains, and could read from them the information the sun gave them of what was to be done on Earth.
The constitution of the soul was in fact quite different, and it would be a serious conceit on our part if, just because we are capable of this little bit of reading and writing, we were to undervalue the art which made it possible to lay down the work and activities required on Earth through these revelations of the heavens. In places like Penmaenmawr we are impelled to recollect many other things, too, which Spiritual Science is peculiarly qualified to investigate.
I have often pointed out in anthroposophical circles how ordinary thoughts are inadequate to grasp what Spiritual Science can investigate and how we have to conceive it in Imaginations. I assume you all know what I have said about Imaginations in my book Knowledge of the Higher Worlds and its Attainment. It is these Imaginations and not our ordinary ideas which we must have in our souls when we are describing things on the basis of some immediate spiritual observation and not of external sense-perception. The genuinely spiritual-scientific accounts which are given you in our anthroposophical lectures have their origin in Imaginations of that kind.
Now these Imaginations are much more alive than ordinary abstract thoughts, which can give us no inkling of what reality is, but only pictures of it. Imaginations on the other hand, can be laid hold of by active thinking, in the same way that we can grasp tables and chairs. We are much more vigorously permeated by reality when our knowledge comes from Imaginations and not from abstract concepts. Anyone who speaks on the basis of Imaginations always has them before him as though he were writing something down—writing, however, not with those terribly abstract signs which constitute our writing, but with cosmic pictures.
Now what is the position with regard to these Imaginations in our district here? Anyone who knows them knows also that it is pretty easy to attain them, pretty easy to form them. If he has a sense of responsibility when describing anything through Spiritual Science, he will allow these Imaginations to take effect—that is, to inscribe them in the spirit—only when he has pondered them a good deal and tested them thoroughly. Nobody who speaks out of the spiritual world with a full sense of responsibility has a facile tongue. Nevertheless we can say that in districts like ours here it is relatively easy to inscribe these Imaginations, but they are obliterated equally easy. If in districts like this we create a spiritual content in Imaginations—I cannot put it any other way—we find it is like writing something down and immediately afterwards rubbing it out. But there in Wales, where land and sea meet and the tides ebb and flow each day, where the wind blows through and through you—for instance in the hotel where we were staying you could not only feel the wind blowing in the windows, but when one walked on the carpet it was like walking on a rough sea because of the wind blowing under the carpet—where moreover Nature is so full of life and so joyful in its life that you may get almost hourly alternations of rain and sunshine, then you do really come to see how Nature revealed herself to the Druid priests—or I might say the learned Druids, for it would be the same thing—when they gazed upon her from their mountain height. How then did the Earth appear to the Druid's spiritual eye when the heavens had the character I have just described?
This is very interesting to observe, though you will only realize it fully if you can grasp the particular geographical quality of the place. There you have to exert yourself much more vigorously if you want to construct Imaginations than you do, for instance, here. There, they are much more difficult to inscribe in the astral atmosphere. On the other hand they are more permanent and are not so easily extinguished. You come to realize how these old Druids chose for their most important cult-centers, just such places in which the spiritual as it approaches mankind, expresses itself to some extent in the quality of the place. Those Druid circles we visited—well, if we had gone up on a balloon and looked down from above on the larger and the smaller circles, for though they are some distance apart you would not notice that when you are a certain height above them—the circles would have appeared like the ground-plan of the Goetheanum which has been destroyed by fire. It is a wonderfully situated spot! As you climb the heights, you have wide views over land and sea. Then you reach the top and the Druid circles lie before you—there where the hill is hollowed out, so that you find yourself in a ring of hills, and within this ring of hills are the Druid circles. It was there that the Druid sought his science, his knowledge, his wisdom; there that he sought his Sun-wisdom but also his Nature-wisdom.
As the Druid penetrated into the relationship between what he saw on Earth and what streamed down from the heavens, he saw the whole processes of plant-growth and vegetation quite differently from the way in which they appear to our abstract thought of later days. If we can properly grasp the true quality of the sun, on the one hand the physical rays which enter our eyes, on the other the shadow with its various gradations, we come to realize that the spiritual essence of the sun lives on in the various grades of shadow. The shadow prevents only the physical rays of the sun from reaching other bodies, whereas the spiritual penetrates further. In the cromlechs which I have described to you, a small dark place is separated off. But it is only the physical sunlight which cannot penetrate there; its activity penetrates, and the Druid, as gradually through this activity he came to be permeated by the secret forces of cosmic existence, entered into the secrets of the world. Thus, for instance, the actions of the sun on plants was revealed to him; he could see that a particular kind of plant-life flourishes at a particular time when the sun is active in a particular way. He could trace the spiritual activity of the sun and see how it pours and streams into flower, leaf and root; and it was the same with animals. And while he was thus able inwardly to recognize the activity of the sun he also began to see how other activities from the Cosmos, for example, those of the moon, pour into it. He could see that the effect of the sun was to promote sprouting growth, with an upward tendency, and so he knew that if a plant as it grows out from the soil were exposed only to the sun, it would grow unendingly. The sun brings forth burgeoning, luxuriant life. If this life is checked and reduced to form, if leaves, blossom, seed and fruit assume a specific shape, if what strives towards the infinite is variously limited—all this has its origin in the activities of the moon. And these are to be found not only in the reflected light of the sun, for the moon reflects all influences, and these in their turn can be seen in the growth of the plant out of its root and also in what lives in the propagation of animals, and so on.
Let us take a particular instance. The Druid observed the growing plant; he observed in a more living way what, later on, Goethe observed more abstractly in his idea of metamorphosis. The Druid saw the downward streaming sun-forces, but he saw also the reflected sun-forces in everything that gives the plant its form. In his natural science he saw the combined activity of sun and moon on the root, which is wholly within the Earth and has the function of absorbing the salts of the Earth in a particular way. He could see that the action of sun and moon was quite different on the leaf, which, wrests itself out of the Earth and presses forward into the air. Again, he saw a different action on the flower, which pushes onwards to the light of the sun. He could see as a unity the activity of the Earth; to him, plant-growth and the being of the animal were also a unity.
Of course his life there was just what we experienced, with the winds raging around, which can reveal so much about the structure of the region, with the peculiar weather conditions which manifest themselves so vividly in that district. Thus, for example, at the beginning of one of our Eurythmy performances, which took place in a wooden hall, the audience sat with their umbrellas up, because just before the performance there had been a heavy downpour which was still going on when the performance began. The curtains were quite wet! This intimate association with Nature which can still be experienced today was of course also experienced by the Druids. Nature there is not so hard; she almost embraces one. It really is a delightful experience. I might almost say that one is drawn on and accompanied by the activity of Nature; one seems to be part of it. I even met people who maintained that one need not really eat there, that one can be fed by this very activity of Nature.
The Druid, then, lived with his Sun-Initiation within this activity of Nature, and he saw as the unity I have described the sun and moon mediated through the activity of the Earth, the growth of the plant, the growth of root, leaf and flower; and all this not in the form of abstract laws as today, but of living elemental beings. Different elemental beings of sun and moon were active in the root, in the leaf and in the flower. He could also pursue in the wider realms of Nature what is so beneficially differentiated in root, leaf and flower. Through his imaginative gifts he could see the small elemental beings restricted to narrow limits in the root, and he knew that what lives in beneficial form in the root can free itself and expand to the gigantic. Thus he saw the large-scale activities of Nature as the small activities of the plant raise dot a gigantic power. Just as he had spoken of the elemental beings in the root of the plant, he could also speak of these root-beings as having expanded in a cosmically irregular way and manifesting in the formation of frost, dew and hail. On the one hand he spoke of the root-beings who were beneficially active, and of the giants of frost and ice which are these root-beings grown to gigantic size.
Again, he spoke of the elemental activities in the leaf of the plant, which permeate themselves with the forces of the air; he traced them into the distant spaces of Nature, and he then saw that, if what lives in the leaf frees itself and strives beyond its proper limits into the distances of Nature, it manifests in the surging of winds. The giants of wind and storm are the elemental beings of the plant grown beyond their size. And the element which is distilled in the flower the etheric oils with their phosphoric quality—if that is freed, it manifests itself as the giants of fire, among whom, for instance, Loki belongs. In this science of sun and moon, therefore, the Druid saw as a unity both that which lives in the narrowly restricted space of the plant and that which frees itself and lives in wind and weather.
But he went further. He said to himself: When that which lives in root, leaf and flower is contained within the desirable limits set by the good gods, normal plant-growth results. If it appears in hoar frost, that is the work of opposing beings: for the elemental beings growing into powers of opposition, create the harmful, devastating aspects of Nature. Now as a human being I can make use of the devastating activities of the beings who are the opponents of the gods; I can gather the hoar frost in appropriate ways, and the products of the storm and whatever is caught up in the surging of wind and rain. I can make use of the giant forces for my own purposes by burning the plant, for instance, and reducing it to ashes, to charcoal and so on. I can take these forces, and by using frost, hail and rain and other such things, or what the giants of fire control—things which are the expression of forces that have grown to harmful vastness—I can protect the normal growth of the plant. I can rob these giants of all this and can treat normal plants with it, and by applying these forces of the opposing powers I can make healing medicines out of the good elemental forces which have remained within their proper limits. And this was in fact one of the ways of making medicines out of plants, by employing frost and snow and ice and by the use of burning and calcinations. The Druid felt it to be his work to take whatever was harmful from the opposing giant powers and restore it to the service of the good gods. We can trace these things in many different ways.
Now why am I spending time on this? I want to use it as an example—and I quote this particular one because I do indeed think that the Penmaenmawr lecture-course was a very important event in the history for the Anthroposophical Movement—to show how man's consciousness and his whole constitution of soul were quite different at a time not so very far removed from the present. With his present-day consciousness man cannot realize what lived in the consciousness of this ancient humanity. And what I have said of that ancient humanity could also be said of other peoples. There we catch glimpses of a quite different constitution of soul. Men in those days had no idea of what we experience as abstract thoughts. All their thinking was more dreamlike, and they did not live within such sharply outlined ideas and concepts as we do today. They lived in dreams which were much more vivid and alive, more full of substance; and indeed their waking life was really a sort of continuation of their dreaming. Just as nowadays we live in an alternation of dreaming or dreamless sleep and the abstract ideas of our waking life, so they alternated between this dreamlike everyday life and a dreamless sleep which was not wholly like ours. When they woke they felt that there was still something remaining over from sleep—something which afforded a sort of nourishment for the soul, which they had absorbed during sleep and which could still be felt the after-taste of sleep in their whole organism. There was a third condition which no longer occurs in human consciousness, a feeling of being surrounded by the Earth, and when a man woke up he felt not only that he had been asleep—of which he retained an aftertaste—but that he had been received into a kind of grave by the forces of gravity, that gravity had closed him in, and he was, as it were, within the embrace of the Earth.
Now just as we can describe our present-day states of consciousness as waking, dreaming, and sleeping so we should have to say that at a certain stage of the past there were the three states of dreaming, sleeping and being surrounded by the Earth. Since everything which evolves in the course of history has some sort of relation to the present, we find human souls in whom, during a later earth-life something peculiar appears like a genuine memory of earlier times, something connected with their earlier earth-life. Men like this display what for their own age is abnormal, but which is a living memory of their souls. Examples of this were Jacob Boehme and Swedenborg, and in such spirits something connected with human evolution lights up into contemporary humanity from a very distant past.
Tomorrow I will say more about the special qualities of vision of Boehme and Swedenborg; this will help us to understand the past of humanity and also the three future states of consciousness.
Der Mensch In Vergangenheit, Gegenwart Und Zukunft Vom Gesichtspunkt Der Bewusstseinsentwickelung I
Für das Thema der Vorträge, die ich im Verlaufe dieser Tagung halten werde, habe ich eine Darstellung des menschlichen Wesens gewählt, wie es sich entfaltet, entwickelt hat in einer gewissen Vergangenheit, wie es dasteht in der unmittelbaren Gegenwart, und wie sich seine Perspektiven ergeben für die Zukunft der menschlichen Entwickelung auf unserem Erdenplaneten. Es ist ja jeder Weltanschauung, die aussichtsvoll eingeströmt ist in die abendländische Zivilisation mit ihrem amerikanischen Anhang, darum zu tun gewesen, den Menschen nicht nur in seine menschliche Gegenwart hineinzustellen und darauf hinzuweisen, wie sich der einzelne Mensch im Schoße der ganzen menschlichen Erdenbevölkerung räumlich ausnimmt, sondern gerade solchen Weltanschauungen, die Aussicht hatten, in die abendländische Zivilisation aufgenommen zu werden, war es eigen, daß sie den Menschen immer auch hineingestellt haben in den Verlauf des geschichtlichen Werdens der Erdenbevölkerung, daß sie zusammengeschlossen haben den Gegenwartsmenschen mit dem Menschen der Vorzeit, entweder bis zu einem gewissen Punkte hinauf, wie es das Alte Testament machte, mehr als Erdengeschichte, oder auch weiter hinauf bis zum Verfolgen planetarischer kosmischer Entwickelungen. Den orientalischen Weltanschauungen und auch den älteren Weltanschauungen Europas, insofern diese noch nicht zur modernen Zivilisation gehören, war dies weniger eigen. Die begnügten sich mehr damit, den Menschen sozusagen in den Raum hineinzustellen. Unser Empfinden, unser Fühlen könnte sich aus alledem, was uns anerzogen ist aus der abendländischen Entwickelung heraus, mit einem solchen räumlichen Hineinstellen des Menschen in die Welt nicht begnügen. Es verlangt aus einem gewissen seelischen Instinkt heraus, gewissermaßen im brüderlichen Zusammenschluß zu stehen nicht nur mit den Menschen der Gegenwart im Raume, sondern auch mit den Menschen der Vorzeit, die ja eigentlich erst mit denen der Gegenwart und der Zukunft das ganze Menschengeschlecht ausmachen. Nun kommen wir nicht zu einer befriedigenden Anschauung über diese geschichtliche Entwickelung des Menschen im engeren oder weiteren Sinn, wenn wir nur auf die äußeren anthropologischen Ergebnisse hinschauen. Denn der Mensch ist nun einmal ein Wesen, dessen Entwickelung durch äußere Dokumente, und wären sie noch so geistreich gedeutet, nicht erfaßt werden kann. Der Mensch ist ein körperlich-seelisch-geistiges Wesen, der Mensch ist ein Wesen, welches in einem höheren oder niederen Grad immerzu der Geist so durchglänzt hat, daß Bewußtsein in ihm gelebt hat. Und wie das Bewußtsein des Menschen sich entwickelt, das stellt sich eigentlich für die Betrachtung so hin, daß man die ganze Natur und Wesenheit des Menschen in dieser Bewußtseinsentfaltung erblicken kann, wie man schließlich das Wesen der Pflanze in der Blüte sinnlich erfassen kann.
Und so sei denn vor allen Dingen heute auf dieses wichtigste Moment in der Menschheitsentwickelung, auf die Bewußtseinsentwikkelung, etwas eingegangen. Wenn wir das Bewußtsein des Menschen heute ins Auge fassen, so zeigt sich uns, daß wir folgendes unterscheiden können: Im gewöhnlichen Wachzustand, in welchem wir vom Aufwachen bis zum Einschlafen sind, entwickeln wir ein mehr oder minder klares und helles Vorstellen, ein Vorstellen, das herauswächst — wie die Blüte aus der Pflanze - aus dem Untergrund des Gefühlslebens. Dieses stellt sich gegenüber dem klaren hellen Vorstellungsleben dar wie etwas mehr oder minder halb Unbewußtes, Dunkles, innerlich Wogendes und Webendes, das niemals eigentlich ganz deutlich wird. Gewissermaßen noch tiefer als die Gefühle, die immerhin auch unser Vorstellungsleben impulsieren in einer sehr unmittelbaren Weise, viel weiter unten in unserem Wesen wogt dann das Wollen. Und ich habe es ja den Anthroposophen öfter dargestellt, wie für das Wollen der Mensch auch während des wachen Zustandes im Grunde genommen schläft. Denn was im Wollen lebt innerhalb des Menschen selbst, kommt eigentlich gar nicht in dem heutigen Wachzustande zum Bewußtsein. Wir haben eine Vorstellung, daß wir dieses oder jenes ausführen werden; darinnen liegt noch kein Wollen, darinnen liegt die in die Vorstellung gekleidete Absicht des Wollens. Dann taucht dasjenige, was in dieser Absicht liegt, in Untergründe des menschlichen Wesens hinunter, die vor dem Bewußtsein eigentlich nicht klarer stehen als der traumlose Schlaf. Und es taucht wieder herauf als Wollen, taucht auf in dem, was unsere Arme und Hände, unsere Beine, unsere Füße vollführen, was wir an den Gegenständen der Außenwelt vollbringen. Dasjenige, was wir so an unserem eigenen Leib wollend ausführen, was wir in der Außenwelt verändern durch unser Wollen, das kommt wiederum durch unser Vorstellen uns zum Bewußtsein, durch unser Vorstellen, an das sich Gefühle knüpfen. Aber wir haben für das gewöhnliche Bewußtsein nur den Anfang und das Ende des Wollens, die Absicht in dem Vorstellen, die vorstellungsgemäße Beobachtung unserer eigenen Bewegungen oder Bewegungen in der Außenwelt, die aus diesen Absichten hervorgehen. Was dazwischen liegt, wie unsere Absichten seelisch sich ergiefßen in unseren Organismus, wie die Seele anregt Körperwärme, Blutbewegung, Muskelbewegung und so weiter, um zum Wollen überzugehen, das bleibt so unbewußt wie die Dinge des traumlosen Schlafes. Denn es ist schon einmal so, daß derjenige, der wirklich beobachten kann die Erlebnisse, sich sagen muß: Ich wache eigentlich nur im Vorstellen, ich träume im Fühlen, ich schlafe im Wollen. — Und eigentlich ist es nicht anders mit diesem Wollen, als es ist, wenn wir des Morgens aufwachen und merken, daß unser Organismus sich in einer gewissen Weise erholt und erfrischt hat. Wir nehmen wahr die Erlebnisse des Schlafes, indem wir aufwachen, wir haben Absichten, dieses oder jenes zu wollen, wir schicken sie auch unbewußt hinunter in unseren Organismus, sie führen ein schlafendes Leben, indem sie übergehen in das Handeln, in die Tat, und wir wachen erst an der Tat wiederum auf und sehen die Ergebnisse desjenigen, was in uns verlaufen ist, was sich aber dem Bewußt sein entzieht.
Das sind gewissermaßen die großen Züge des inneren menschlichen Wesens-Erlebens im Wachen, im Träumen, im Schlafen. Denn auch die Träume der Nacht, die Träume des Schlafens, sie hängen ja wenig zusammen mit unserem Vorstellen. Sie folgen ganz anderen Gesetzen, als die logischen Gesetze unseres Vorstellungslebens sind. Kann man aber beobachten, geht man ein auf die Dinge, vermag man das, dann wird man finden, daß der Ablauf der Träume, diese wunderbare Dramatik, die die Träume oftmals durchmachen, eine außerordentlich starke Ähnlichkeit haben mit dem Gefühlsleben. Würden wir im wachenden Zustande gewissermaßen nur fühlen können, so würden zwar die Gefühle den Traumbildern nicht ähnlich sein, aber ihre innere Dramatik, Spannungen, Lösungen, Wunschimpulse, Katastrophen des inneren Erlebens, wie sie in Gefühlen wogen können, die stellen sich dem Gefühle mit all jener sogenannten Unbestimmtheit oder meinetwillen Bestimmtheit dar, wie sie auch im Träumen auftreten, nur daß der 'Traum in Bildern lebt und das Gefühlsleben in jenen eigentümlichen Erlebnissen, die wir mit den Ausdrücken der inneren Empfindung des Gefühls benennen. So daß wir Fühlen und das eigentliche Träumen zum Traumzustand rechnen können im gegenwärtigen Bewußtsein der Menschheit, und daß wir rechnen können die Vorgänge des Wollens und die Vorgänge des eigentlichen traumlosen Schlafes zu dem Schlafbewußtsein der gegenwärtigen Menschheit.
Wir müssen uns nun klar sein, wie auch dasjenige, was wir in dieser Weise als die Grundzüge des gegenwärtigen Bewußtseins des Menschen beschreiben, in einer verhältnismäßig gar nicht so langen Zeit eine Entwickelung durchgemacht hat, eine Entwickelung, auf die man in der heutigen materialistischen Gegenwart nur nicht gerne hinweist. Aber man versteht Dinge, die sich erhalten haben als Urkunden des menschlichen Denkens schon aus den ersten christlichen Jahrhunderten, nicht mehr, wenn man nicht gewahr wird, daß dasjenige, was beim Denken in der damaligen Zeit im Innern des Menschen gelebt hat, etwas ganz anderes war, als was heute im Innern der Seele als Denken lebt. Und insbesondere darf hingewiesen werden darauf, daß es geradezu eine seelische Unwissenheit bedeutet, mit dem, was man heute anerzogen hat als sein Vorstellungsleben, heranzugehen, sagen wir, an ein solches Buch wie «Die Einteilung der Natur» von Scotus Eriugena aus dem 9. Jahrhundert, oder heranzugehen an die alten alchimistisch-chemischen Darstellungen. Mit dem Denken der heutigen Zeit versteht man gar nicht, was damals gemeint war. Man liest Worte, man versteht nicht, was damals gemeint war. Denn das menschliche Denken hat seit dem 15. Jahrhundert eben ein ganz bestimmtes Gepräge erhalten, und dieses Gepräge, trotzdem es sich langsam und allmählich entwickelt hat, ist verhältnismäßig gerade heute schon auf dem Höhepunkte angelangt. Dieses Denken, das den eigentlichen Wachzustand, wie ich auseinandergesetzt habe, im Leben des Menschen der Gegenwart darstellt, ist eigentlich ein solches, bei dem der Mensch der Gegenwart im Grunde genommen nicht froh werden kann. Der Mensch denkt, es ist das einzige von lichtvoller Klarheit das, was er wachend erlebt; der Mensch denkt, es ist das einzige, durch das er, aus seinem Innern heraus schöpfend, auch die wunderbarsten Resultate der Wissenschaften zusammensetzt. Aber der Mensch wird im Grunde genommen für sein inneres Sehnsuchtserleben an diesem gegenwärtigen Denken gar nicht froh. Denn eigentlich verliert sich der Mensch in diesem gegenwärtigen Denken. Er verliert sich so, daß er zwar dieses Denken als den einzigen klaren Inhalt erlebt, viel klarer als zum Beispiel die Blutzirkulation oder das Atmen. Die bleiben dunkel und unklar in unteren Regionen des Bewußstseins. Man fühlt, in ihnen lebt eine Realität, aber man verschläft eigentlich diese Realität und wacht nur im Vorstellen, im Denken. Aber dann kommt man darauf, gerade wenn man meinetwillen etwas veranlagt ist dazu, Selbstbesinnung zu üben: In dem Denken, das eigentlich das einzige ist, das dein inneres Leben erfüllt, verlierst du dich eigentlich. Und dieses Verlieren im Denken, man kann es an zwei Beziehungen, ich möchte sagen — natürlich ist das als geistiges Bild gemeint — mit Händen greifen.
Es gab einen Denker der neueren Zeit: Descartes (Cartesius). Von dem rührt der moderne Satz her: «Cogito ergo sum, Ich denke, also bin ich». — Ja, das sagt ein Philosoph. Aber die neuere Menschheit sagt es nicht mit, und kann es nicht mitsagen. Denn die sagt: Wenn ich etwas bloß denke, denkend erlebe, so ist es doch nicht, und wenn ich mich selber denke, bin ich doch nicht: diese Gedanken sind doch höchstens Bilder, es ist das Sicherste in mir, aber ich ergreife in dem Denken kein Sein. — Man sagt ja auch: Etwas, was man bloß denkt, ist nur ein Gedanke. Und so ist es bei Descartes ein krampfhaftes Konstatieren: Man möchte sein und hat nirgends anders Anhaltspunkte, um dieses Sein des Menschen im neueren Denken zu ergreifen, deshalb sucht man es gerade da, wo es ganz gewiß der allgemeinen Empfindung gemäß nicht ist: im Denken. Denn jeder Schlaf widerlegt diesen Ausspruch des Descartes. Im Schlafe denkt man nicht. Ist man dann nicht? Stirbt man abends und wird man morgens neu geboren? Oder ist man vom Einschlafen bis zum Aufwachen? Die einfachsten Wahrheiten, die berücksichtigen eben die gegenwärtigen Anschauungen der Welt nicht. Es ist ein krampfhaftes SichAnklammern mit dem Sein an etwas in dem Satz gegeben: Ich denke, also bin ich, - nicht irgend etwas innerlich Erlebtes. Das ist das eine.
Die andere Beziehung, auf die man hinweisen kann, ist diese: Man hat außer dem Denken, auf das ja der moderne Mensch recht stolz ist, auch die Ergebnisse der modernen Naturwissenschaft, Beobachtungsresultate, Experimentierresultate. Nun ja, aber die sind doch gerade so, daß man durch sie nicht in das eigentliche Sein der Dinge hineinschaut, nur in die Veränderungen der Dinge, in das Vorübergehende. Und dennoch, dieser Mensch der Gegenwart findet einen Gedanken nur dann berechtigt, wenn er diesem äußeren Sein, das sich aber nur in seiner Offenbarung zeigt, entnommen ist. Und so hat der moderne Mensch überhaupt aufgehört, sein Dasein in sich selbst zu ergreifen. Das Denken ist etwas viel zu Luftiges dazu. Aber was sonst in ihm ist, findet er ja höchstens so, wie die Naturwissenschaften die äußeren Reiche der Natur finden. Da aber sucht der moderne Mensch dann das Sein. Und so glaubt er an sich selber nur, insofern er Natur ist. Und so wird die Natur mit ihrem Dasein der Moloch, der eigentlich dem Menschen der modernen Zeit sein Seinsgefühl raubt. Gewiß werden viele Menschen der Gegenwart sagen, davon spüre ich ja nichts, es sei nicht so. Aber das ist eben nur eine Meinung. Die Gefühle der Menschen der Gegenwart, die nur anfangen, ein bißchen Selbstbesinnung zu üben, sind eigentlich ganz das Ergebnis der Stimmung, die ich jetzt geschildert habe. Und eingekapselt in dieses Erleben seines eigenen Wesens und seines Verhältnisses zur Umgebung der Welt ist dieser moderne Mensch. Und dasjenige, was sich ihm in dieser Einkapselung ergibt, das überträgt er dann auf sein Weltenbewußtsein. Er schaut zum Beispiel mit seinen Instrumenten, dem Spektroskop, dem Teleskop nach den Sternen. Dasjenige, was sich ihm da zeigt, das verzeichnet er, daraus bildet er eine rein räumliche Astronomie, Astrophysik und so weiter. Er merkt nicht, daß er eigentlich bloß zum Himmel hinaufgetragen hat dasjenige, was er an den Erdendingen beobachtet und errechnet hat.
Wenn ich hier eine Lichtquelle habe, so gibt jeder zu, daß, wenn ich soundso viele tausend Meilen von der Lichtquelle weg bin, in dem Raum das Licht dort schon schwach geworden, vielleicht gar nicht mehr sichtbar ist. Jeder weiß, daß die Stärke des Lichtes abnimmt mit der Entfernung. Und es ist ein Gesetz der äußeren Physik, daß auch die Schwere, die Gravitation, wie man in der Physik sagt, mit dem Quadrat der Entfernung abnimmt. Nur denken die Menschen dann nicht weiter. Daß die Stärke der Schwere hier auf der Erde eine gewisse Größe hat und abnimmt mit dem Quadrat der Entfernung, das machen sich die Menschen klar, da wir hier auf der Erde leben, Naturgesetze aufstellen, Erdenwahrheiten ergründen, sie zusammenfassen. Wo die Schwere eine bestimmte Stärke hat, da sind sie wahr. Die Schwere nimmt ab und die Wahrheiten auch. Dasjenige, was auf der Erde wahr ist, hört auf, wahr zu sein, indem wir seine Ausbreitung in der Welt verfolgen. Dasjenige, was wir daher hier ergründen an Physik und Chemie, haben wir ebensowenig ein Recht, dem Kosmos einfach analogisch zu übertragen, wie wir die Stärke der Erdenschwere, der unmittelbaren Erdenumgebung in den Kosmos hinaus übertragen können. Wir dürfen nicht die Wahrheit, die in Himmelssphären herrscht, so sehen wie wir die Wahrheit hier auf der Erde sehen. Man weiß, daß man mit einer solchen Sache für den Menschen der Gegenwart etwas ungeheuer Paradoxes, ja Phantastisches sagt. Aber so ist es eben in der Gegenwart: die Einkapselung ist so stark geworden für das allgemeine Bewußtsein, daß, wenn man nur irgendwo mit der geringsten Bemerkung diese Kapsel ein wenig durchsticht, sogleich ein Paradoxon herauskommen muß. Mit alledem hängt es dann zusammen, daß der Mensch der Gegenwart eigentlich ganz auf die Erde gebannt ist, so daß sein Erkennen, ja oftmals nicht einmal sein Besinnen über dasjenige hinausgeht, was er auf der Erde erlebt. Und so wie er es macht mit dem kosmischen Raum, so macht er es auch mit der kosmischen Zeit.
Sehen Sie - ich habe die entsprechenden Wahrheiten oftmals in anthroposophischen Kreisen erörtert, was ich jetzt sage, ist eine Wiederholung an einem einzelnen Exempel -, besonders stark konnte einem das auffallen, als auf die Einladung unserer englischen anthroposophischen Freunde in der zweiten Augusthälfte von mir gehalten werden sollte ein Vortragszyklus in Penmaenmawr, in Wales, dort wo die Insel Anglesey der Westküste Englands vorgelagert ist. Das ist in der Tat eine ganz merkwürdige Gegend, eine Gegend, die zeigt, daß es eigentlich noch ganz andere Geographien gibt über die Erde hin, als man sie in den gewöhnlichen Schulbüchern, auch in den Schulbüchern, die für den höchsten Unterricht sind, findet. Man glaubt ja heute schon ziemlich weit gekommen zu sein, wenn man den Charakter der Vegetation, der Fauna und Flora hineinnimmt in die geographische Beschreibung, wenn man noch ausgeht von der geologischen, paläontologischen Beschaffenheit der Gesteine und so fort. Aber es gibt viel innerlichere Differenzierungen über den Erdboden hin, als diejenigen, die heute als Erdengeographie gebräuchlich sind. In diesem Penmaenmawr, wo dieser Vortragszyklus stattgefunden hat, da geht man sozusagen ein paar Schritte, ein bis eineinhalb Stunden in die Berge hinaus und findet überall die Reste des alten Druidenkultus: verfallene Gesteinsbildungen einfacher Art. Zum Beispiel: Steine sind so zusammengestellt, daß sie wie eine kleine Kammer einen Raum abschließen, mit einem Deckstein zugedeckt, so daß eine Art Kammer abgedeckt war, in der in einer notdürftigen Weise das Sonnenlicht abgeschlossen war, in der es also dunkel war. Nicht bestritten soll werden, daß solche Kromlechs auch bestimmt waren, als Grabstätten zu dienen, denn man hat zu allen Zeiten die wichtigsten Kultstätten über Gräbern der Mitmenschen aufgerichtet. Aber hier liegt doch noch etwas ganz anderes vor, auch bei diesen einfachen Kromlechs liegt etwas vor, das zeigen dann die sogenannten Druidenzirkel. Es war eigentlich ein sehr schöner Anblick, als ich eines Tages mit Dr. Guenther Wachsmuth zusammen in der Nähe von Penmaenmawr einen solchen Berg aufsuchte, in dem zwei einander ganz benachbarte Druidenzirkel heute noch in ihren letzten spärlichen Resten zu sehen sind. Die Steine sind so aufgestellt, daß man ihnen heute noch ansieht: sie waren einstmals ihrer zwölf im Kreise. Und derjenige, der dann sehen will, worauf es eigentlich angekommen ist, schaut hin und sieht, angekommen ist es darauf: Indem die Sonne ihren Weg im Kosmos zurücklegt, sei es im Laufe des Tages, sei es im Laufe des Jahres, warf sie immer in einer bestimmten Weise ihren Schatten. Von einem Stein so, von einem andern Stein anders. Und indem man den Schatten verfolgte, wie er sich änderte im Laufe des Tages, des Jahres, verfolgte man den Sonnenlauf.
Die Menschen sind heute empfindlich für das Licht, namentlich wenn das Licht auch noch der Träger der Wärme ist oder die Wärme der Träger des Lichtes. Auch das heutige Bewußtsein des Menschen merkt natürlich den Unterschied zwischen Sommersonnenlicht und Wintersonnenlicht, weil es einem im Sommer heiß ist und im Winter einen friert. Und auch noch feinere Unterschiede merkt man. Aber dieselben Unterschiede, die man im Lichte auf eine so grobe Weise merkt, daß man friert oder daß einem warm ist, die zeigen sich auch im Schatten. Es ist nicht einerlei, ob die Oktobersonne oder die Julioder Augustsonne den Schatten wirft, nicht nur der Richtung nach, sondern auch der inneren Qualität nach. Und zu der Aufgabe eines Druidenpriesters gehörte es, ein Schauvermögen zu haben für die Qualität des Schattens, für jene eigentümliche Beimischung, man möchte sagen, eines rötlichen Tones beim Augustschatten, eines bläulichen Tones beim November- oder Dezemberschatten. Und so konnte man mit der Schulung, die man als Druidenpriester hatte, den Tageslauf der Sonne im Schatten lesen. Man konnte den Jahreslauf der Sonne im Schatten lesen. Man sieht diesen Dingen heute noch an, daß eine der Verrichtungen, die bei ihnen vorgenommen wurden, in so etwas bestand. Es waren noch viele Dinge da, die zu diesem Kultus gehörten. Ein Sonnendienst, aber ein Sonnendienst, der nicht bloß irgendeine Abstraktion war, nicht einmal die Abstraktion der Andacht und der Demut bloß. Es wäre ein völliger Irrtum, wenn man das glaubte, trotzdem man durchaus nicht Andacht und Demut zu unterschätzen braucht. Aber abstrakte Andacht und abstrakte Demut allein waren hier nicht das Maßgebende, sondern der Kultus schloß noch etwas ganz anderes in sich.
Sehen Sie, das Samenkorn des Weizens, das Samenkorn des Roggens, sie wollen zu einer bestimmten Zeit des Jahres in die Erde versenkt sein. Es ist nicht gut, wenn sie zur Unzeit in die Erde versenkt werden. Derjenige, der diese Dinge genau kennt, der weiß, daß etwas davon abhängt, ob der Same ein paar Tage früher oder später in die Erde gesenkt wird. Und noch andere Dinge gibt es im menschlichen Leben. Das menschliche Leben derjenigen Bevölkerung, die da einmal in jenem geographischen Gebiete wohnte, wo der Druidenkultus war, vielleicht vor drei Jahrtausenden, das Leben war gewiß außerordentlich einfach: Ackerbau und Viehzucht waren die wesentlichsten Lebensbetätigungen. Aber fragen wir uns nun, woher sollten denn diese Leute wissen, wann sie säen und ernten sollten in richtiger Weise, wann sie manches andere besorgen sollten, was mit der Entwickelung der Natur im Jahreslaufe zusammenhängt? Man wird sagen: Heute gibt es auf dem Lande die Bauernkalender, aus denen der Bauer herausliest, an diesem Tage ist dieses, an diesem jenes zu tun. — Sehr geistvoll sind diese Dinge. Ja, wir leben heute in einer Zeit, wo das Menschheitsbewußtsein so ist, daß diese Dinge registriert sind, daß man sie aus dem Gedruckten ablesen kann. Man denkt gar nicht daran, daß man sie aus dem Gedruckten abliest, aber es ist so. Aber das gab es doch alles nicht, nicht einmal die primitivsten Anfänge von Lesen und Schreiben gab es in der Zeit, wo der Druidendienst in der Blüte war. Aber das gab es, daß der Priester stehen konnte in einem solchen Druidenzirkel und seinen [des Zirkels] Schatten beobachtete und angab nach dem Schatten: In den nächsten acht Tagen hat der Landmann dies oder jenes zu tun, in den nächsten acht Tagen hat der Zuchtstier durch die Herde geführt zu werden, denn da ist die richtige Zeit für die Begattung des Rindes. Man las im Kosmos und hatte die Vorrichtung, im Kosmos zu lesen. Man stand auf der Erde, und um dasjenige zu tun, was auf der Erde zu tun war, las man dasjenige, was die Sonne selbst einem sagte durch ihre Zeichen, die hervorgerufen wurden durch jene Denkmäler, die heute in diesen spärlichen Resten enthalten sind.
Ja, das war eine ganz andere menschliche Seelenverfassung, und es wäre ein bedenklicher Hochmut der gegenwärtigen Menschen, weil sie das bißchen Lesen und Schreiben können, wenn sie unterschätzen würden die Kunst, die darin bestand, die notwendige Erdentat und Erdenverrichtung durch solche himmlische Offenbarung sich festsetzen zu lassen. Ich möchte sagen, man wird an jenen Stellen dazu gedrängt, auch noch manches andere in Erinnerung zu bringen von dem, was gerade geisteswissenschaftlich erforscht werden kann.
Ich habe ja öfter gesprochen im Kreise unserer Anthroposophen, wie eigentlich alles das, was geisteswissenschaftlich erforscht werden muß, nicht in gewöhnlichen Gedanken gedacht werden kann, sondern wie es gedacht werden muß in Imaginationen. Sie kennen ja hoffentlich alle - heute morgen ist es zwar bestritten worden, aber ich glaube, daß die Anwesenden ausgenommen waren -, was ich in meinem Buche «Wie erlangt man Erkenntnisse der höheren Welten?» über Imaginationen gesagt habe. Diese Imaginationen, nicht die gewöhnlichen Vorstellungen, muß man ja immer in der Seele haben, wenn man aus der unmittelbar geistigen Beobachtung, nicht aus der äußeren sinnlichen Beobachtung heraus, etwas schildert. So daß die eigentlichen geisteswissenschaftlichen Schilderungen, die hier von diesem Orte aus gemacht worden sind oder drüben in der Landhausstraße in Stuttgart, eben aus solchen Imaginationen heraus gesprochen sind. Aber diese Imaginationen sind eben viel lebendiger als die bloß abstrakten Gedanken. Die abstrakten Gedanken sind schon einmal so, daß man eigentlich keine Spur des Seienden, sondern nur Bilder vom Seienden in diesen Gedanken ergreift. Die Imaginationen, die befühlt man gewissermaßen mit dem aktiven Denken, so wie man Tische und Stühle befühlt. Man wird in viel derberer Weise vom Dasein durchdrungen, wenn man nicht in abstrakten Begriffen, wenn man in Imaginationen erkennt. Diese Imaginationen hat derjenige, der aus ihnen heraus spricht, immer so vor sich, wie wenn er schriebe. Er schreibt nur nicht jene grausam abstrakten Schriftzeichen, die unsere Schrift ausmachen, sondern er schreibt in kosmischen Bildern. Nun, in unseren Gegenden hier, wie ist es mit diesen Imaginationen? Derjenige, der sie kennt, weiß, daß es verhältnismäßig leicht ist, hier zu diesen Imaginationen zu kommen, daß sie verhältnismäßig leicht zu bilden sind. Ist man gewissenhaft, ist man sich seiner Verantwortung bewußt, die man hat, wenn man überhaupt etwas aus Geisteswissenschaft heraus schildert, dann wird man natürlich auch eine solche Imagination nur gelten lassen, das heißt im Geiste hinschreiben — denn das Aussprechen ist nur ein Aussprechen des Geschriebenen -, wenn man sie reichlich oft umgedreht hat, die Sache reichlich oft geprüft hat. Eine leichte Zunge hat der wahrhaftig nicht, der mit vollem Verantwortungsgefühl aus der geistigen Welt heraus spricht. Aber trotzdem kann man sagen: In solchen Gegenden, wie die unsrigen, schreiben sich solche Imaginationen verhältnismäßig leicht hin, aber sie löschen sich ebenso leicht aus. Und derjenige, der geistigen Inhalt in Imaginationen schafft - anders kann man ihn Ja nicht beschreiben -, dem geht es so in unseren Gegenden, wie wenn man schreibt und gleich nachher das Geschriebene wieder auslöschen würde: es löscht sich rasch aus. Dort in jener Gegend, wo Meer und Land zusammenstoßen, jeden Tag die Ebbe und Flut herankommen, wo man ordentlich durchblasen wird vom Winde - in dem Hotel, in dessen Parterre wir wohnten, spürte man den Wind nicht nur beim Fenster hereinblasen, sondern man ging auf dem Teppich wie auf Meereswogen, weil unter dem Teppich der Wind durchging -, man wurde schon ordentlich durchblasen, außerdem hat man dort eine so regsame, freudig erregte Natur, daß stündlich oftmals Wolkenbrüche mit Sonnenschein wechseln, man lebt also schon innerhalb einer recht freudig bewegten Natur, da stößt man förmlich darauf, nun auch sich wieder zu erinnern, wie denjenigen diese Natur sich offenbarte, die da einstmals als die Druidenpriester - ich könnte auch sagen Druidengelehrte, es ist Ja dasselbe - von ihrem erhabenen Sitz auf diese Natur herunterschauten. Wie nahm sich dann die Erde aus vor dem seelischen Auge dieser Druidenpriester, da sich der Himmel so ausnahm, wie ich es eben beschrieben habe?
Es ist hochinteressant zu beobachten. Aber man kommt zu der vollen Erinnerung nur, wenn man jetzt die besondere geographische Differenzierung an jenem Orte begreift. Man muß sich dort, wenn man die Imaginationen bilden will, viel mehr anstrengen als zum Beispiel hier. Sie schreiben sich gewissermaßen in die Astralatmosphäre schwer ein. Aber sie bleiben lange da bestehen, sie sitzen fest, löschen nicht so schnell aus. Nun kommt man darauf, wie gerade solche Orte, in denen das Geistige, das an den Menschen herantritt, gewissermaßen schon durch die Beschaffenheit des Ortes stark sich ausprägt, wie gerade solche Orte für ihre Kultstätten, für die wichtigeren Kultstätten, von diesen alten Druidenpriestern aufgesucht worden sind. Gerade diese Druidenzirkel, die wir damals besucht haben: Hätte man sich mit einem Luftballon in die Luft erhoben und hätte man von oben heruntergeschaut auf den kleineren und auf den größeren Kreis — sie waren ja in einem Abstand, aber diesen würde man von oben aus einer gewissen Entfernung nicht so gesehen haben -, so würde man die beiden Zirkel so wahrgenommen haben wie den Grundriß des abgebrannten Goetheanum. — Wunderbar gelegen ist das! Wenn man den Berg hinangeht, hat man von den mannigfaltigsten Stellen aus weite Ausblicke über Berg und See. Dann kommt man hinauf. Diese Druidenzirkel liegen da, wo sich der Berg muldenartig vertieft, so daß man wiederum in einem Bergring darinnensteht, und innerhalb dieses Bergringes sind dann die Druidenkreise. Da suchte der Druidenpriester dasjenige, was ihm Weisheit war, was ihm Wissenschaft, was ihm Erkenntnis war. Da suchte er seine Sonnenweisheit, da suchte er aber auch seine Naturweisheit. Denn, indem der Druidenpriester sich so hineinfand in den Zusammenhang desjenigen, was auf der Erde war, mit dem, was vom Himmel herunterströmte, wurde ihm überhaupt das ganze Wachstum der Pflanzen, das ganze Wachstum der Vegetation etwas ganz anderes, als es späteren, abstrakt denkenden Menschen werden konnte. Hat. man das Sonnenhafte ergriffen, indem man auf der einen Seite die sinnlichen Sonnenstrahlen hat, die in unser Auge hereindringen, auf der andern Seite den Schatten mit all seinen differenzierten Abgestuftheiten, hat man das in der Betrachtung, dann weiß man: In der Differenzierung des Schattens lebt das Geistige der Sonne weiter. Es wird ja durch den Schatten auf andere Körper nur das Physische der Sonnenstrahlen abgehalten, das Geistige dringt durch. In den Kromlechs, wie ich sie beschrieben habe, da ist ein notdürftig abgesperrter dunkler Raum. Da dringt nur das äußere physische Sonnenlicht nicht hinein, aber die Wirkungen dringen hinein, und durch diese Wirkungen wächst der Druidenpriester hinein in ein inneres Durchdrungensein mit den geheimen Kräften des kosmischen Daseins, er wächst hinein in die Geheimnisse der Welt. Und so wurde ihm zum Beispiel offenbar, was die Sonne tut an der Pflanze. Er sah, diese Pflanze gedeiht in dieser Jahreszeit, da ist die Sonnenwirkung in einer bestimmten Art. Er verfolgte die Sonne in ihrer Geistigkeit, wie sie hineinströmt, sich hineinergießt in Blüte, Blatt, Wurzel und so weiter. Er verfolgte, was Sonnenwirkung im Tiere war oder ist. Indem er auf dieser einen Seite die Sonnenwirksamkeit innerlich erkennen konnte, wurde ihm auch klar, wie sich in diese Sonnenwirkungen andere Wirkungen des Kosmos, zum Beispiel die Mondenwirkungen hineinergießen. Jetzt sagte er sich: Die Sonne tut dasjenige an der Pflanze, was das heraussprossende, wachsende Leben ist, was immer weiter und weiter will. Und der Druidenpriester wußte, wenn eine Pflanze, die aus dem Boden dringt, nur der Sonne ausgesetzt wäre, sie ins Unendliche wachsen würde. Die Sonne will sprossendes, sprießendes Leben. Daß das aufgehalten, gestaltet wird, daß Blätter, Blüte, Frucht, Keim eine bestimmte Gestalt annehmen, daß das ins Unbegrenzte Strebende mannigfaltig begrenzt wird, das rührt von jenen Mondenwirkungen her, die nicht nur in dem vom Monde zurückgestrahlten Sonnenlichte liegen; denn der Mond strahlt alle Wirkungen zurück, und sie werden abgegeben in dem, was von der Wurzel in den Pflanzen aufwärts wächst, was in der Fortpflanzung des Tierreiches lebt und so weiter. |
Nehmen wir einen speziellen Fall. Der Druidenpriester schaute auf die wachsende Pflanze. Er schaute, wie die Pflanze heraufwächst, er schaute lebendig dasjenige, was Goethe später in seiner «Metamorphose» in einer mehr abstrakten Art verfolgt hat. Er sah die herunterströmenden Sonnenkräfte, er sah aber auch die reflektierten Sonnenkräfte in demjenigen, was die Pflanze gestaltet, er sah in seiner Naturwissenschaft zusammenwirken Sonne und Mond in jeder einzelnen Pflanze, in jedem einzelnen Tier. Da wußte er dasjenige, was Sonne und Mond tun an der Wurzel, die noch in die Erde hineingesenkt ist und darauf angewiesen ist, die Salze der Erde in einer gewissen Weise aufzusaugen. Sonne und Mond tun an dieser Wurzel etwas ganz anderes als an dem Blatte, das der Erde sich entringt und in die Luft hinausdringt. Und wieder ein anderes sah er an der Blüte, die sich entringt der Erde, die dem Lichte, dem Lichte der Sonne entgegenstrebt. Das sah er in Eins zusammen, Sonnenwirkung und Mondenwirkung, vermittelt durch die Erdenwirkung. Pflanzenwachstum, Tierwesenheit, das sah er in Eins zusammen. Dann lebte er natürlich auch schon so, wie wir da gelebt haben, von den so oft stürmenden Winden umgeben, die einem so viel erzählen von der Konfiguration der Gegend, von jenen eigentümlichen schönen Wettergaben, die sich so munter ausleben. Zum Beispiel beim Beginne einer Eurythmieaufführung in einem aus Holz zusammengefügten Saale war es so, daß die Leute mit Regenschirmen dasaßen, weil unmittelbar der Vorstellung ein Wolkenbruch vorausgegangen war, der noch andauerte, als die Eurythmie begann. Die Vorhänge wurden ganz naß. Dieses enge Zusammensein mit der Natur, das man heute noch immer ganz gut dort erleben kann, das erlebte natürlich auch der Druidenpriester. Die Natur war nicht so spröde, sie umfing und umfängt einen dort noch heute. Man wird, ich möchte sagen tatsächlich, es ist das etwas außerordentlich Schönes — da fast angezogen von den Naturwirkungen, begleitet von Naturwirkungen, man fühlt sich in den Naturwirkungen drin. Ich habe sogar Leute kennengelernt, die meinten, man braucht dort gar nicht richtig zu essen, es ißt sich auch innerhalb dieser Naturwirkungen wie von selbst. Ja, innerhalb dieser Naturwirkungen - aber jetzt mit seiner ganzen Sonneninitiation — stand also der Druidenpriester, sah, wie ich es geschildert habe, sah zusammen: Sonne, Mond, vermittelt durch die Erdenwirkung, Pflanzenwachstum, Wurzel-, Blätter-, Blütenwachstum; das alles nicht in abstrakten Naturgesetzen, wie wir heute, sondern in lebendigen Elementarwesen. In der Wurzel wirken andere Elementarwesen, andere Sonnen-Elementarwesen, andere Monden-Elementarwesen, als im Blatte, als in der Blüte.
Aber nun wußte der Druidenpriester dasjenige, was in wohltätigen Grenzen in Wurzel, Blatt und Blüte der Pflanze lebt, auch in den weiten Horizonten der Natur zu verfolgen. Er sah vermöge seiner imaginativen Gabe in der Wurzel die kleinen Elementarwesen in enge Grenzen gebannt. Er wußte, was als Wohltätiges in der Wurzel lebt, kann sich emanzipieren, ins Riesenhafte auswachsen. Und so sah er die großen Naturwirkungen als die zu Riesen gewordenen kleinen Naturwirkungen der Pflanze. Und wie er gesprochen hat von Elementarwesen, die in der Wurzel leben, so sprach er von den, man möchte sagen, auf eine kosmisch unrichtige Weise ausgewachsenen Wurzelwesen, die sichtbar wurden in der Reif-, in der Tau-, in der Hagelbildung. Er sprach von den in wohltätiger Weise wirkenden Wurzelwesen und von den Reif- und Frostriesen, die dasselbe wie die in der Natur ins Riesenhafte ausgewachsenen Wurzelwesen sind. Und er sprach von den kleinen Elementarwirkungen im Pflanzenblatte, die sich durchdringen mit demjenigen, was in der Luft wirkt. Und wieder verfolgte er das in die weiten Horizonte der Natur, und er sprach davon, wie dasjenige, was im Pflanzenblatte lebt, wenn es sich emanzipiert und aus seinen wohltätigen Grenzen heraus in die Weiten der Natur strebt, dasjenige umfaßt, was auf den Wellen des Windes getragen wird. Die Wind- und Sturmriesen sind die ausgewachsenen Elementarwesen des Pflanzenblattes. Und dasjenige, was in der Blüte kocht dem Sonnenlichte entgegen, und was da in der Blüte die ätherischen Öle mit phosphorigem Charakter erzeugt, wenn sich das emanzipiert, wird es zu den Feuerriesen, aus deren Geschlecht zum Beispiel Loki war. Und so sah in Eins zusammen in dieser seiner Sonnen-Monden-Wissenschaft der Druidenpriester das, was im engbegrenzten Raum der Pflanze lebt, und was sich emanzipiert als dasjenige, was in Wind und Wetter lebt.
Aber er ging weiter, er sagte sich: Was in Wurzel, Blatt und Blüte lebt, wenn es in die wohltätigen Grenzen gebannt ist, in welche die guten Götter es bannen, da entfaltet es das normale Pflanzenwachstum. Wenn es in Reif und Frost erscheint, ist es ein Erzeugnis der Göttergegner. Die Elementarwesen, die zu den Göttergegnern ausgewachsen sind, sie gehen über in das Verheerende, Schädigende des Naturwirkens. Ich kann als Mensch die verheerenden Wirkungen der Göttergegner aufnehmen, ich kann in entsprechender Weise den Reif, den Frost sammeln, das, was der Sturm einherträgt, dasjenige, was auf den Wellen des Windes oder im Regen aufgefangen werden kann. Ich kann es benützen für dasjenige, was ich erzeuge, indem ich die Riesenkräfte verwende, indem ich die Pflanze verbrenne, zu Asche mache, zu Kohle mache und so weiter. Ich entnehme den Riesen ihre Kräfte, um dasjenige, was normales Pflanzenwachstum ist, durch Anwendung der oftmals zum Schaden auswachsenden Kräfte des Frostes, des Hagels, der Regentropfen, sonstiger Bildungen und dessen, was die Feuerriesen in ihren Gewalten tragen, zu schützen. Ich entreiße all das den Riesen, um damit die normale Pflanze zu behandeln, um aus den Pflanzen, die von den wohltätigen Elementarkräften in ihren normalen Grenzen gehalten werden, Heilmittel zu machen, indem ich sie mit diesen Göttergegnerkräften behandle. - Und das war eine der Methoden, Heilmittel aus Pflanzen zu machen durch Verwendung des Frostes, Verwendung desjenigen, was in Schnee- und Eisbildungen lebt, was durch die Verbrennung, durch die Kalzinierung und so weiter erzielt werden konnte. Und so empfand sich der Druidenpriester als derjenige, der den Göttergegnern, den Riesen abnahm dasjenige, was sein Schädigendes bei sich trägt, um es wieder zurückzubringen in den Dienst der guten Götter. Und so können wir in mannigfaltiger Weise verfolgen diese Dinge.
Warum verfolgen wir diese Dinge? Weil wir uns klarmachen wollen, indem wir dieses Beispiel verwenden - ich führe es als Beispiel an, weil ich den Kurs von Penmaenmawr in der Geschichte der anthroposophischen Bewegung nach meinem Gefühl tatsächlich zu einem wichtigsten Ereignis zählen muß -, wie das Bewußtsein, die ganze Seelenverfassung der Menschheit in einer verhältnismäßig gar nicht lang zurückliegenden Zeit ganz anders war als heute. Der heutige Mensch findet sich mit seinem Bewußtsein eben durchaus nicht hinein in dasjenige, was im Bewußtsein dieser älteren Menschheit lebte. Und was ich Ihnen von dieser älteren Menschheit erzählt habe, ich könnte es auch von anderen Menschen erzählen. Wir sehen da hinein in eine ganz andere Seelenverfassung. Was wir heute als unsere abstrakten Gedanken empfinden, empfand diese Menschheit noch nicht. All ihr Denken war noch mehr traumhaft. Nicht in solch scharf konturierten Begriffen und Ideen lebte diese Menschheit, wie wir heute. Sie lebte in eigentlich viel lebendigeren, inhaltsvolleren, gesättigteren 'Iräumen, aber eigentlich auch beim Tagwachen wie in einem fortgesetzten Träumen. Und dieses Träumen, das niemals ganz erwachte, wechselte ab - so wie unser heutiges Tagwachen mit unseren abstrakten Vorstellungen des Wachens abwechselt mit dem Träumen und Schlafen mit dem traumlosen Schlaf, der aber damals nicht so war wie heute, sondern so war, daß, wenn der Mensch erwachte zu seinem traumhaften Tagesleben, er dann fühlte: Vom Schlafe lebt etwas in mir, auch wenn ich wache. Es ist etwas, was mich wie eine innere Seelennahrung erfüllt, die ich während des Schlafes aufgenommen habe, das, was in mir sich fühlbar macht, ja sogar in mir sich schmeckbar macht. — In jenen Zeiten haben die Menschen noch den Nachgeschmack des Schlafes in ihrem ganzen Organismus gefühlt. Und ein dritter Zustand war da, tiefer als unser Schlaf ist, ein Zustand, der nicht mehr im menschlichen Bewußtsein auftritt. Ein dritter Zustand war da, der Zustand der Erdenumfangenheit, aus dem der Mensch, wenn er aufwachte, fühlte: Nicht nur geschlafen habe ich, ich war außerdem, daß ich geschlafen habe, was ich nachschmecke, wie von den Kräften der Erdenschwere in eine Art nächtliches Grab aufgenommen; die Erdenschwere deckte mich zu, ich war erdenumfangen.
Nun können wir sagen: Der Mensch erlebt heute die Bewußtseinszustände Wachen, Träumen, Schlafen. Und so müssen wir sagen: Der Mensch einer gewissen Vorzeit erlebte die Zustände Träumen, Schlafen, Erdenumfangenheit. Und wie alles, was im Laufe der Geschichte sich entwickelt, auch in der Gegenwart in einer gewissen Weise zusammenhängt, so zeigen manche Menschenseelen in späteren Zeiten, wie in ihrem Inneren in einem späteren Erdenleben etwas Besonderes auftritt, etwas wie eine reale Erinnerung an alte Zeiten aufleuchtet, das mit ihrem früheren Erdenleben zusammenhängt. Es zeigen dann solche Menschen in dem, was in ihnen heraufleuchtet, was in ihren Zeiten abnorm ist, etwas wie ein seelischlebendiges Denkmal. Solche Geister waren etwa Jakob Böhme, ein solcher Geist war Swedenborg. In solche Geister leuchtet herein aus einer sehr fernen Vergangenheit in die mehr gegenwärtige Menschheit dasjenige, was mit der Menschheitsentwickelung zusammenhängt.
Doch darüber, wie die besondere Geistesartung eines Jakob Böhme war, wie die eines Swedenborg war, so daß wir aus ihrer Geistesart menschliche Vergangenheit begreifen können, auf dieses und auf dasjenige dann, was die drei Bewußtseinszustände der Menschheit der Zukunft sein werden, auf das werde ich morgen in der Fortsetzung dieser Betrachtungen eingehen.
The Human Being in the Past, Present and Future from the Point of View of the Development of Consciousness I
For the subject of the lectures that I will give in the course of this conference, I have chosen a description of the human being as it has unfolded and developed in a certain past, as it stands in the immediate present, and as its perspectives arise for the future of human development on our earth planet. It has been the concern of every world-view that has flowed into Western civilization with its American following, not only to place man in his human present and to point out how the individual man appears spatially in the bosom of the whole human population of the earth, but precisely those world-views that had the prospect of being accepted into Western civilization, of Western civilization was that they always placed man in the course of the historical development of the earth's population, that they united the present man with the man of prehistoric times, either up to a certain point, as the Old Testament did, more than earth history, or further up to the pursuit of planetary cosmic developments. This was less characteristic of the Oriental world-views and also of the older world-views of Europe, in so far as these did not yet belong to modern civilization. They were more content to place man in space, so to speak. Our perception, our feeling could not be content with such a spatial placement of the human being in the world, because of everything that we have been brought up with from Western development. Out of a certain instinct of the soul, it demands to be in a certain fraternal union not only with the people of the present in space, but also with the people of the past, who actually make up the whole human race together with those of the present and the future. Now we do not arrive at a satisfactory view of this historical development of man in the narrower or broader sense if we only look at the external anthropological results. For man is, after all, a being whose development cannot be grasped by external documents, no matter how ingeniously they are interpreted. Man is a physical-soul-spiritual being, man is a being whose spirit has always shone through to a higher or lower degree in such a way that consciousness has lived in him. And how the consciousness of the human being develops actually presents itself for observation in such a way that one can see the whole nature and essence of the human being in this unfolding of consciousness, just as one can finally grasp the essence of the plant in the blossom sensually.
And so today, above all, let us look at this most important moment in the development of mankind, the development of consciousness. If we look at the consciousness of man today, we see that we can distinguish the following: In the ordinary waking state, in which we are from waking to falling asleep, we develop a more or less clear and bright imagination, an imagination that grows out - like the blossom from the plant - from the underground of emotional life. In contrast to the clear, bright imaginative life, this presents itself as something more or less half unconscious, dark, inwardly undulating and weaving, which never actually becomes completely clear. To a certain extent even deeper than the feelings, which after all also impulse our imaginative life in a very direct way, much further down in our being, the will surges. And I have often explained to anthroposophists how the human being is basically asleep even during the waking state. For what lives in the will within the human being himself does not actually come to consciousness in the present waking state. We have an idea that we are going to do this or that; there is no volition in it yet, there is the intention of volition clothed in the idea. Then that which lies in this intention dives down into the substratum of the human being, which is actually no clearer to consciousness than dreamless sleep. And it emerges again as volition, emerges in what our arms and hands, our legs, our feet accomplish, what we accomplish with the objects of the outer world. That which we thus carry out in our own body through volition, that which we change in the outer world through our volition, this in turn comes to our consciousness through our imagination, through our imagination to which feelings are attached. But for the ordinary consciousness we have only the beginning and the end of volition, the intention in the imagination, the imaginative observation of our own movements or movements in the external world, which arise from these intentions. What lies in between, how our intentions pour into our organism, how the soul stimulates body heat, blood movement, muscle movement and so on, in order to pass over to volition, that remains as unconscious as the things of dreamless sleep. For it is already the case that the person who can really observe the experiences must say to himself: I am actually only awake in imagining, I dream in feeling, I sleep in willing. - And it is actually no different with this willing than it is when we wake up in the morning and realize that our organism has recovered and refreshed itself in a certain way. We perceive the experiences of sleep by waking up, we have intentions to want this or that, we also send them unconsciously down into our organism, they lead a dormant life by passing over into action, into deed, and we only wake up again at the deed and see the results of that which has run its course in us, but which eludes consciousness.
These are, so to speak, the great traits of the inner human being-experience in waking, dreaming and sleeping. For even the dreams of the night, the dreams of sleep, have little to do with our imagination. They follow completely different laws than the logical laws of our imaginative life. But if one can observe, if one can enter into things, if one is able to do so, then one will find that the course of dreams, the wonderful drama that dreams often undergo, have an extraordinarily strong resemblance to our emotional life. If in the waking state we could only feel, so to speak, feelings would not be similar to dream pictures, but their inner drama, tensions, solutions, impulses of desire, catastrophes of inner experience, as they can undulate in feelings, present themselves to feeling with all that so-called indeterminacy or, for my sake, definiteness, as they also occur in dreams, only that the 'dream lives in pictures and the emotional life in those peculiar experiences which we call by the expressions of the inner sensation of feeling. So that we can reckon feeling and the actual dreaming to the dream state in the present consciousness of humanity, and that we can reckon the processes of volition and the processes of the actual dreamless sleep to the sleep consciousness of present humanity.
We must now be clear how that which we describe in this way as the basic features of man's present consciousness has also undergone a development in a relatively short time, a development that is not readily pointed out in today's materialistic present. But one no longer understands things that have been preserved as documents of human thought from the first Christian centuries if one does not realize that what lived in the inner being of man at that time was something quite different from what lives today in the inner being of the soul as thought. And in particular it may be pointed out that to approach, let us say, such a book as “The Classification of Nature” by Scotus Eriugena from the 9th century, or to approach the old alchemical-chemical representations, with that which one has been brought up with today as one's life of imagination, means a downright ignorance of the soul. With the way we think today, we don't understand what was meant back then. You read words, you don't understand what was meant back then. Since the 15th century, human thinking has acquired a very specific character, and this character, although it has developed slowly and gradually, has already reached its peak today. This thinking, which represents the actual waking state, as I have explained, in the life of man in the present day, is actually one in which man in the present day can basically not be happy. Man thinks that it is the only thing of luminous clarity that he experiences while awake; man thinks that it is the only thing through which, drawing from within himself, he composes even the most wonderful results of the sciences. But basically man is not at all happy with this present thinking for his inner experience of longing. For man actually loses himself in this present thinking. He loses himself in such a way that he experiences this thinking as the only clear content, much clearer than, for example, blood circulation or breathing. These remain dark and unclear in the lower regions of consciousness. One feels that a reality lives in them, but one actually sleeps through this reality and only wakes up in imagination, in thinking. But then one comes to it, just when one is somewhat predisposed, for my sake, to practise self-reflection: In thinking, which is actually the only thing that fills your inner life, you actually lose yourself. And this losing yourself in thinking is something you can grasp with your hands in two relationships, I would say - of course this is meant as a mental image.
There was a thinker of more recent times: Descartes (Cartesius). This is where the modern phrase comes from: “Cogito ergo sum, I think, therefore I am”. - Yes, a philosopher says that. But modern mankind does not say it, and cannot say it. For it says: If I merely think something, experience it by thinking, it is not, and if I think myself, I am not: these thoughts are at most images, it is the most certain thing in me, but I do not grasp being in thinking. - It is also said that something that one merely thinks is only a thought. And so, with Descartes, it is a convulsive constatement: One wants to be and has nowhere else to go in order to grasp this being of man in recent thought, therefore one looks for it precisely where it most certainly is not according to the general sensation: in thought. For every sleep disproves this saying of Descartes. In sleep one does not think. Are we not then? Does one die in the evening and is born again in the morning? Or are we from the moment we fall asleep until we wake up? The simplest truths do not take into account the present views of the world. There is a convulsive clinging with being to something in the sentence: I think, therefore I am, - not something experienced inwardly. That is one thing.
The other relationship that can be pointed out is this: In addition to thinking, of which modern man is quite proud, we also have the results of modern natural science, the results of observation, the results of experiments. Well, yes, but they are precisely such that they do not allow us to see into the actual being of things, only into the changes of things, into the temporary. And yet, this man of the present only finds a thought justified if it is taken from this external being, which only shows itself in its revelation. And so modern man has ceased to grasp his existence within himself at all. Thinking is something far too airy for that. But what else is in him, he finds at most in the same way that the natural sciences find the outer realms of nature. But that is where modern man searches for being. And so he only believes in himself insofar as he is nature. And so nature, with its existence, becomes the Moloch that actually robs modern man of his sense of being. Of course, many people of the present day will say that I don't feel anything about it, that it's not like that. But that is just an opinion. The feelings of people of the present, who are only beginning to practise a little self-reflection, are actually entirely the result of the mood I have just described. And this modern man is encapsulated in this experience of his own being and his relationship to the world around him. And that which arises for him in this encapsulation is then transferred to his consciousness of the world. For example, he looks at the stars with his instruments, the spectroscope, the telescope. He records what he sees there, and from this he forms a purely spatial astronomy, astrophysics and so on. He does not realize that he has actually only carried up to the heavens that which he has observed and calculated in earthly things.
If I have a light source here, everyone admits that when I am so many thousand miles away from the light source, the light there has already become weak in space, perhaps no longer visible at all. Everyone knows that the strength of light decreases with distance. And it is a law of external physics that gravity, as they say in physics, also decreases with the square of the distance. But then people don't think any further. People realize that the strength of gravity here on earth has a certain magnitude and decreases with the square of the distance, because we live here on earth, establish laws of nature, fathom earthly truths, summarize them. Where the gravity has a certain strength, they are true. The gravity decreases and so do the truths. That which is true on earth ceases to be true as we follow its spread in the world. We therefore have just as little right to simply transfer what we fathom here in physics and chemistry to the cosmos analogically as we can transfer the strength of the earth's gravity, the immediate earth environment, to the cosmos. We must not see the truth that prevails in heavenly spheres in the same way as we see the truth here on earth. We know that in saying such a thing we are saying something tremendously paradoxical, even fantastic, for the people of the present. But that is just the way it is in the present: the encapsulation has become so strong for the general consciousness that if one only pierces this capsule a little with the slightest remark somewhere, a paradox must immediately emerge. It is connected with all this that the man of the present day is actually completely banished to the earth, so that his cognition, indeed often not even his reflection, goes beyond that which he experiences on earth. And just as he does with cosmic space, so he also does with cosmic time.
You see - I have often discussed the corresponding truths in anthroposophical circles, what I am saying now is a repetition of a single example - this was particularly noticeable when, at the invitation of our English anthroposophical friends, I was to give a lecture cycle in Penmaenmawr, in Wales, where the island of Anglesey lies off the west coast of England, in the second half of August. This is indeed a very strange region, a region that shows that there are actually quite different geographies about the earth than those found in the usual school books, even in the school books that are for the highest level of education. Today we believe we have come quite far when we include the character of the vegetation, fauna and flora in the geographical description, when we start from the geological, paleontological composition of the rocks and so on. But there are much more internal differentiations about the earth than those that are commonly used today as earth geography. In this Penmaenmawr, where this lecture cycle took place, you take a few steps, so to speak, an hour or an hour and a half out into the mountains and find the remains of the old Druid cult everywhere: decayed rock formations of a simple kind. For example: stones are arranged in such a way that they close off a room like a small chamber, covered with a capstone, so that a kind of chamber was covered, in which the sunlight was shut off in a makeshift way, in which it was dark. It is not to be denied that such kromlechs were also intended to serve as burial places, for at all times the most important places of worship have been erected over the graves of fellow human beings. But there is something quite different here, even with these simple kromlechs, which is shown by the so-called Druid circles. It was actually a very beautiful sight when I visited such a mountain one day with Dr. Guenther Wachsmuth near Penmaenmawr, where two very close druid circles can still be seen today in their last sparse remains. The stones are positioned in such a way that you can still see that there were once twelve of them in a circle. And the one who wants to see what it actually came down to, looks at it and sees that it has come down to it: As the sun travels its path in the cosmos, be it in the course of the day, be it in the course of the year, it always cast its shadow in a certain way. From one stone one way, from another stone another. And by following the shadow as it changed over the course of the day, over the course of the year, you were following the course of the sun.
People today are sensitive to light, especially when light is also the carrier of heat or heat is the carrier of light. Today's human consciousness naturally notices the difference between summer sunlight and winter sunlight, because it is hot in summer and cold in winter. And one also notices even more subtle differences. But the same differences that one notices in the light in such a coarse way that one is cold or that one is warm, also show themselves in the shade. It is not the same whether the October sun or the July or August sun casts the shadow, not only according to the direction, but also according to the inner quality. And it was part of the task of a Druid priest to have an eye for the quality of the shadow, for that peculiar admixture, one might say, of a reddish hue in the shadow of August, a bluish hue in the shadow of November or December. And so, with the training one had as a Druid priest, one could read the daily course of the sun in the shadow. You could read the annual course of the sun in the shadow. You can still see today that this was one of the things they did. There were many other things that belonged to this cult. A sun service, but a sun service that was not just any abstraction, not even just the abstraction of devotion and humility. It would be a complete mistake to believe this, although there is no need to underestimate devotion and humility. But abstract devotion and abstract humility alone were not the decisive factor here; the cult included something else entirely.
You see, the seed of wheat, the seed of rye, they want to be sunk into the earth at a certain time of the year. It is not good if they are sunk into the earth at the wrong time. He who knows these things well knows that something depends on whether the seed is sown a few days earlier or later. And there are other things in human life. The human life of the people who once lived in the geographical area where the Druid cult existed, perhaps three millennia ago, was certainly extraordinarily simple: agriculture and animal husbandry were the most essential activities of life. But let us ask ourselves now, how were these people to know when to sow and harvest in the right way, when to take care of many other things connected with the development of nature in the course of the year? One will say: Today in the countryside there are farmers' calendars from which the farmer reads that this is to be done on this day and that on this day. - These things are very spiritual. Yes, we live today in a time when the consciousness of mankind is such that these things are registered, that one can read them from the printed word. You don't even think that you can read them from the printed word, but you can. But there was none of that, not even the most primitive beginnings of reading and writing existed at the time when the Druid service was in its heyday. But it did exist, that the priest could stand in such a Druidic circle and observe his [the circle's] shadow and indicate according to the shadow: In the next eight days the countryman has this or that to do, in the next eight days the breeding bull has to be led through the herd, for that is the right time for the mating of the ox. One read in the cosmos and had the device to read in the cosmos. One stood on the earth, and in order to do what had to be done on the earth, one read what the sun itself told one through its signs, which were evoked by those monuments that are contained today in these sparse remains.
Yes, that was a completely different human state of soul, and it would be an alarming arrogance of the present people, because they can read and write a little, if they would underestimate the art that consisted in letting the necessary earthly deed and earthly performance be established through such heavenly revelation. I would like to say that in those places one is urged to recall many other things of what can be researched in spiritual science.
I have often spoken in the circle of our anthroposophists about how actually everything that has to be researched in spiritual science cannot be thought in ordinary thoughts, but how it has to be thought in imaginations. I hope you all know - this morning it was disputed, but I believe that those present were excepted - what I said about imaginations in my book “How to Attain Knowledge of the Higher Worlds”. One must always have these imaginations, not the usual conceptions, in the soul when one describes something from direct spiritual observation, not from external sensory observation. So that the actual spiritual-scientific descriptions that have been made here from this place or over in the Landhausstrasse in Stuttgart are spoken precisely out of such imaginations. But these imaginations are much more vivid than merely abstract thoughts. Abstract thoughts are such that one does not actually grasp any trace of the existing, but only images of the existing in these thoughts. Imaginations are, so to speak, touched with active thinking, just as one touches tables and chairs. One is penetrated by existence in a much cruder way when one recognizes not in abstract concepts but in imaginations. The person who speaks out of these imaginations always has them in front of him as if he were writing. He only does not write in the cruelly abstract characters that make up our writing, but writes in cosmic images. Now, in our regions here, what about these imaginations? Those who know them know that it is relatively easy to arrive at these imaginations here, that they are relatively easy to form. If one is conscientious, if one is aware of the responsibility one has when one describes something out of spiritual science, then one will of course only accept such an imagination, that is, write it down in the spirit - for the utterance is only an utterance of what is written - if one has turned it over a great many times, has examined the matter a great many times. A person who speaks from the spiritual world with a full sense of responsibility truly does not have a light tongue. Nevertheless, one can say that in regions such as ours, such imaginations are relatively easy to write down, but they are just as easy to extinguish. And the person who creates spiritual content in imaginations - there is no other way to describe him - has the same fate in our regions as someone who writes and then immediately erases what he has written: it is quickly erased. There in that region where sea and land meet, where the tides come in every day, where you are blown through by the wind - in the hotel on the first floor of which we stayed, you felt the wind not only blowing in through the window, but you walked on the carpet as if on ocean waves, because the wind passed under the carpet - you were already blown through properly, and you also have such a lively, Moreover, the nature there is so lively, so joyfully excited, that cloudbursts often alternate with sunshine every hour, so that one lives within a nature that is already quite joyfully agitated, so that one literally comes upon remembering how this nature revealed itself to those who once looked down on it from their lofty seat as the Druid priests - I could also say Druid scholars, it is the same thing. How then did the earth appear to the spiritual eye of these Druid priests, since the sky was as I have just described it?
It is very interesting to observe. But one only comes to the full memory if one now understands the special geographical differentiation in that place. If you want to form imaginations there, you have to make much more effort than here, for example. They inscribe themselves heavily in the astral atmosphere, so to speak. But they remain there for a long time, they are firmly established and do not extinguish so quickly. Now one comes to realize how precisely such places, in which the spiritual that approaches the human being is, so to speak, already strongly expressed by the nature of the place, how precisely such places were sought out by these ancient Druid priests for their places of worship, for the more important places of worship. It was precisely these Druid circles that we visited back then: If you had lifted yourself into the air with a balloon and looked down from above at the smaller and the larger circle - they were at a distance, but you wouldn't have seen them from a certain distance - you would have perceived the two circles like the ground plan of the Goetheanum, which had burned down. - It is wonderfully situated! If you walk up the mountain, you have wide views over the mountain and the lake from the most varied places. Then you get to the top. These druid circles are located where the mountain deepens like a hollow, so that you find yourself in a mountain ring, and within this mountain ring are the druid circles. There the Druid priest sought that which was wisdom to him, that which was science to him, that which was knowledge to him. There he sought his solar wisdom, but there he also sought his natural wisdom. For as the Druid priest thus found his way into the connection between that which was on earth and that which streamed down from heaven, the whole growth of plants, the whole growth of vegetation, became something quite different to him than it could become to later, abstractly thinking people. Once you have grasped the solar aspect by having on the one hand the sensual rays of the sun that penetrate our eyes, and on the other hand the shadow with all its differentiated gradations, once you have observed this, then you know: The spirituality of the sun lives on in the differentiation of the shadow. After all, the shadow on other bodies only keeps out the physical side of the sun's rays, the spiritual side penetrates. In the Kromlechs, as I have described them, there is a makeshift dark space. Only the outer physical sunlight does not penetrate it, but the effects do, and through these effects the druid-priest grows into an inner penetration with the secret powers of cosmic existence, he grows into the secrets of the world. And so, for example, it became clear to him what the sun does to the plant. He saw that this plant thrives in this season, that the sun has a certain effect. He followed the sun in its spirituality, how it flows in, how it pours itself into the flower, leaf, root and so on. He pursued what the effect of the sun was or is in the animal. As he was able to recognize the sun's activity inwardly on this one side, it also became clear to him how other effects of the cosmos, for example the moon's effects, flow into these solar effects. Now he said to himself: The sun does that to the plant which is the sprouting, growing life, which always wants to go on and on. And the Druid priest knew that if a plant that emerged from the ground was only exposed to the sun, it would grow into infinity. The sun wants sprouting, sprouting life. That this is stopped, that it is shaped, that leaves, blossom, fruit, germ assume a definite form, that what strives towards the infinite is variously limited, derives from those lunar effects which lie not only in the sunlight reflected by the moon; for the moon radiates back all effects, and they are given off in what grows upwards from the root in the plants, what lives in the reproduction of the animal kingdom, and so on.
Let us take a special case. The druid priest looked at the growing plant. He saw how the plant grows upwards, he saw vividly that which Goethe later pursued in a more abstract way in his “Metamorphosis”. He saw the solar forces streaming down, but he also saw the reflected solar forces in that which forms the plant; in his natural science he saw the sun and moon working together in every single plant, in every single animal. Then he knew what the sun and moon do at the root, which is still sunk into the earth and is dependent on absorbing the salts of the earth in a certain way. The sun and moon do something quite different on this root than on the leaf that emerges from the earth and penetrates the air. And he saw something else again in the blossom, which escapes from the earth and strives towards the light, the light of the sun. He saw this together in one, the effect of the sun and the effect of the moon, mediated by the effect of the earth. He saw plant growth and animal nature as one. Then, of course, he already lived as we have lived, surrounded by the often stormy winds that tell us so much about the configuration of the region, about those peculiarly beautiful gifts of weather that live themselves out so vivaciously. For example, at the beginning of a eurythmy performance in a hall made of wood, the people were sitting there with umbrellas because a downpour had immediately preceded the performance and was still going on when the eurythmy began. The curtains got all wet. This close relationship with nature, which can still be experienced quite well there today, was of course also experienced by the Druid priest. Nature was not so brittle, it still surrounds and embraces you there today. You become, I would actually say it is something extraordinarily beautiful - you are almost attracted by the effects of nature, accompanied by the effects of nature, you feel part of the effects of nature. I've even met people who said that you don't really need to eat there, that it eats itself within these natural effects. Yes, within these natural effects - but now with his whole solar initiation - the Druid priest stood, saw, as I have described, saw together: Sun, moon, mediated by the earth's action, plant growth, root growth, leaf growth, flower growth; all this not in abstract laws of nature, as we do today, but in living elemental beings. Other elemental beings, other sun elemental beings, other moon elemental beings work in the root than in the leaf, than in the blossom.
But now the Druid priest knew how to follow that which lives within beneficial limits in the root, leaf and blossom of the plant, also in the wide horizons of nature. Thanks to his imaginative gift, he saw the small elemental beings in the root confined within narrow boundaries. He knew that what lives in the root as something beneficial can emancipate itself and grow into something gigantic. And so he saw the great natural effects as the small natural effects of the plant that had become giants. And just as he spoke of elemental beings living in the root, so he spoke of the root beings that had, one might say, grown out in a cosmically incorrect way, which became visible in the formation of frost, dew and hail. He spoke of the root beings working in a benevolent way and of the frost and frost giants, which are the same as the root beings that have grown into giants in nature. And he spoke of the small elemental effects in the plant leaf, which interpenetrate with that which works in the air. And again he pursued this into the wide horizons of nature, and he spoke of how that which lives in the plant leaf, when it emancipates itself and strives out of its beneficent boundaries into the vastness of nature, embraces that which is carried on the waves of the wind. The wind and storm giants are the full-grown elemental beings of the plant leaf. And that which boils in the blossom towards the sunlight, and that which produces the essential oils with a phosphorous character in the blossom, when this emancipates itself, it becomes the fire giants, from whose lineage Loki, for example, was. And so the Druid priest saw in one in this sun-moon science that which lives in the confined space of the plant and that which emancipates itself as that which lives in wind and weather.
But he went further, he said to himself: What lives in root, leaf and blossom, when it is banished into the beneficent boundaries into which the good gods banish it, there it unfolds the normal plant growth. When it appears in frost and frost, it is a product of the enemies of the gods. The elemental beings, which have grown into the opponents of the gods, pass over into the devastating, damaging effects of nature. As a human being I can absorb the devastating effects of the opponents of the gods, I can collect the frost, the frost, that which is carried by the storm, that which can be caught on the waves of the wind or in the rain. I can use it for what I produce by using the giant forces, by burning the plant, turning it into ashes, turning it into coal and so on. I take their powers from the giants in order to protect what is normal plant growth by using the often damaging powers of frost, hail, raindrops, other formations and what the fire giants carry in their powers. I snatch all this from the giants in order to treat the normal plant with it, to make remedies out of the plants that are kept within their normal limits by the beneficent elemental forces, by treating them with these powers of the gods. - And that was one of the methods of making remedies from plants by using the frost, using that which lives in snow and ice formations, which could be obtained by burning, by calcination and so on. And so the Druid priest saw himself as the one who took from the enemies of the gods, the giants, that which was harmful to them in order to bring it back into the service of the good gods. And so we can pursue these things in many different ways.
Why do we pursue these things? Because we want to make it clear to ourselves by using this example - I give it as an example because I feel that Penmaenmawr's course must really be counted as one of the most important events in the history of the anthroposophical movement - how the consciousness, the whole constitution of the soul of humanity was quite different in a relatively recent time from what it is today. Today's human being's consciousness does not at all fit into that which lived in the consciousness of this older humanity. And what I have told you about this older humanity, I could also tell you about other people. We see into a completely different state of soul. What we experience today as our abstract thoughts, this humanity did not yet experience. All their thinking was even more dreamlike. This humanity did not live in such sharply defined concepts and ideas as we do today. It actually lived in much livelier, more substantive, more saturated ‘dreams’, but actually also in day waking as in a continuous dreaming. And this dreaming, which never fully awoke, alternated - just as our present day waking with our abstract ideas of waking alternates with dreaming and sleeping with dreamless sleep, which then was not as it is today, but was such that when man awoke to his dreamlike day life, he then felt: Something of sleep lives in me, even when I am awake. It is something that fills me like an inner nourishment of the soul that I have absorbed during sleep, something that makes itself felt in me, even tasted in me. - In those times, people still felt the aftertaste of sleep in their whole organism. And there was a third state, deeper than our sleep, a state that no longer occurs in human consciousness. There was a third state, the state of being enveloped by the earth, from which man, when he woke up, felt: "Not only have I slept, I was also asleep, which I can taste, as if absorbed by the forces of the earth's gravity into a kind of nocturnal grave; the earth's gravity covered me, I was enveloped by the earth.
Now we can say: Man today experiences the states of consciousness of waking, dreaming and sleeping. And so we must say: Man of a certain prehistoric time experienced the states of dreaming, sleeping and being enveloped by the earth. And just as everything that develops in the course of history is also connected in a certain way in the present, so some human souls in later times show how something special appears within them in a later life on earth, something like a real memory of old times that is connected with their earlier life on earth. Such people then show in what shines forth in them, what is abnormal in their times, something like a soul-living monument. Such spirits were, for example, Jakob Böhme, such a spirit was Swedenborg. In such spirits there shines in from a very distant past into the more present humanity that which is connected with the development of humanity.
However, I will discuss tomorrow in the continuation of these considerations what the particular spiritual nature of Jakob Böhme was like, what that of Swedenborg was like, so that we can understand the human past from their spiritual nature, about this and then about that what the three states of consciousness of mankind of the future will be.