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Man as Symphony of the Creative Word
Part Four. The Secrets of the Human Organism
GA 230

11 November 1923, Dornach

Physical natural laws, etheric natural laws, are the characters of a script which depicts the spiritual world. We only understand these things when we are able to conceive them as written characters from spiritual worlds.

Lecture XII

When we realize that everything of external nature is transformed inside the human organism, and this in so radical a way that the mineral must be brought to the warmth-etheric condition, we will also find that all that lives in man, in the human organization, flows out into the spiritual. If—according to the ideas so frequently deduced in current text-books on anatomy and physiology—we imagine man to be a firmly built form taking into itself the products of external nature and returning them almost unchanged, then we will always labour under the absence of the bridge which must be thrown from what man is as a natural being to what is present in him as his essential soul-nature.

At first we shall be unable to find any link to join the bony system and system of muscles, composing the solid body which man believes himself to be, with, let us say, the moral world-order. It will be said that the one is simply nature and that the other is something radically different from nature. But when we are clear about the fact that in man all types of substantiality are present and that they must all pass through a condition more volatile than that of muscles and bones, we shall find that this volatile etheric substance can enter into connection with the impulses of the moral world-order.

These are the modes of thought we must use if we are to develop our present considerations into something which will lead man upwards to the spiritual of the cosmos, to the beings whom we have called the beings of the higher hierarchies. Today, therefore, let us do what was not done in the foregoing lectures—for those were more occupied with the natural world—and take our start from the spiritual moral impulses active in man.

The spiritual-moral impulses—well, for modern civilization these have more or less become mere abstract concepts. To an ever greater degree the primal feeling for the moral-spiritual has receded in human nature. Through the whole manner of his education modern civilization leads man to ask: what is customary? what has convention ordained? what is the code? what is the law?—and so on. Less account is taken of what comes forth as impulses, rooted in that part of man which is often relegated in a vague way to conscience. This inner directing of oneself, this determining of one's own goal, is something which has retreated to an ever greater degree in modern civilization. Hence the spiritual-moral has finally become a more or less conventional tradition.

Earlier world-conceptions, particularly those which were sustained by instinctive clairvoyance, brought forth moral impulses from man's inner nature; they induced moral impulses. Moral impulses exist, but today they have become traditional. Of course nothing whatever is implied here against the traditional in morality—but only think of the ten commandments, how old they are. They are taught as commands recorded in ancient times. Is it to be expected today that something might spring forth from the primary, elementary sources of human nature which could be compared to what once arose as the Decalogue, the Ten Commandments? Now from what source does the moral-spiritual arise, which binds men together in a social way, which knits the threads uniting man to man? There exists only one true source of the moral-spiritual in mankind, and this is what we may call human understanding, mutual human understanding, and, based upon this human understanding, human love. Wheresoever we may look for the arising of moral-spiritual impulses in mankind, in so far as these play a role in social life, it will invariably prove to be the case that, whenever such impulses spring forth with elemental power, they arise from human understanding based upon human love. These are the actual driving force of the social moral-spiritual impulses in mankind. And fundamentally speaking, in so far as he is a spiritual being, man only lives with other men to the degree that he develops human understanding and human love.

Here one can put a deeply significant question, a question which is indeed not always voiced, but which, in regard to what has just been said, must be on the tip of every tongue: If human understanding and human love are the real impulses upon which communal life depends, how does it come about that the very reverse of human understanding and human love appears in our social order?

This is a question with which initiates more than anyone else have always concerned themselves. In every age in which initiation science was the primal impulse, this very question was regarded as one of their most vital concerns. When this initiation science was still a primary impulse, however, it possessed certain means whereby to get behind this problem. But if one looks at conventional science today, one is forced to ask: As the god-created soul is naturally predisposed to human understanding and human love, why are these qualities not active as a matter of course in the social order? Whence come human hatred and lack of human understanding? Now, if we are unable to look for this lack of human understanding, this human hatred, in the sphere of the spiritual, of the soul, it follows that we must look for them in the sphere of the physical.

Yes—but now modern conventional science gives us its answer as to what the physical-bodily nature of man is: blood, nerves, muscles, bones. No matter how long one studies a bone, if one only does so with the eye of present-day natural science, one will never be able to say: It is this bone which leads man astray into hatred. Nor yet, to whatever degree one is able to investigate the blood according to the principles by which it is investigated today, will one ever be able to establish the conviction: It is this blood which leads man astray into lack of human understanding.

In times when initiation science was a primal impulse matters were certainly quite otherwise. Then one turned one's gaze to the physical-bodily nature of man and perceived it to be the counter-image of what one possessed of the spiritual through instinctive clairvoyance.

When man speaks of the spiritual today he refers at most to abstract thoughts; this for him is the spiritual. If he finds these thoughts too tenuous, all that remains to him is words, and then, as Fritz Mauthner did, he writes a “Critique of Language”. Through such a “Critique of Language” he manages to dilute the spirit—already tenuous enough—until it becomes utterly devoid of substance. The initiation-science which was irradiated with instinctive clairvoyance did not see the spiritual in abstract thoughts. It saw the spiritual in forms, in what produced pictures, in what could speak and resound, in what could produce tones. For this initiation science the spiritual lived and moved. And because the spiritual was seen in its living activity, what is physical—the bones, the blood—could also be perceived in its spirituality. These thoughts, these notions, which we have today about the skeleton, did not exist in initiation science. Today the skeleton is really regarded as something constructed by the calculations of an architect for the purposes of physiology and anatomy. But it is not this. The skeleton, as you have seen, is formed by mineral substance which has been driven upwards to the state of warmth-ether, so that in the warmth-ether the forces of the higher hierarchies are laid hold of, and then the bone formations are built up.

To one who is able to behold it rightly, the skeleton reveals its spiritual origin. But one who looks at the skeleton in its present form—I mean in its form as present-day science regards it—is like a person who says: there I have a printed page with the forms of letters upon it. He describes the form of these letters, but does not read their meaning because he is unable to read. He does not relate what is expressed in the forms of the letters to what exists as their real basis; he only describes their shapes. In the same way the present-day anatomist, the present-day natural scientist, describes the bones as if they were entirely without meaning. What they really reveal, however, is their origin in the spiritual.

And so it is with everything that exists as physical natural laws, as etheric natural laws. They are written characters from the spiritual world. And we only understand these things rightly when we can comprehend them as written characters proceeding from spiritual worlds.

Now, when we are able to regard the human organism in this way, we become aware of something which belongs to the domain of which the true initiates of all epochs have said: When one crosses the threshold into the spiritual world, the first thing one becomes aware of is something terrible, something which at first it is by no means easy to sustain. Most people wish to be pleasantly affected by what seems to them worthy of attainment. But the fact remains that only by passing through the experience of horror can one learn to know spiritual reality, that is to say true reality. For in regard to the human form, as this is placed before us by anatomy and physiology, one can only perceive that it is built up out of two elements from the spiritual world: moral coldness and hatred.

In our souls we actually possess the predisposition to human love, and to that warmth which understands the other man. In the solid components of our organism, however, we bear moral cold. This is the force which, from the spiritual worlds, welds, as it were, our physical organism together. Thus we bear in ourselves the impulse of hatred. This it is which, from the spiritual world, brings about the circulation of the blood. And whereas we may perhaps go through the world with a very loving soul, with a soul which thirsts for human understanding, we must nevertheless be aware that below in the unconsciousness, there where the soul streams down, sends its impulses down into the bodily nature, for the very purpose that we may be clothed in a body—coldness has its seat. Though I shall always speak just of coldness, what I mean is moral coldness, though this can certainly pass over into physical coldness, traversing the warmth-ether on its way. There below, in the unconsciousness within us, moral coldness and hatred are entrenched, and it is easy for man to bring into his soul what is present in his body, so that his soul can, as it were, be infected with the lack of human understanding. This is, however, the result of moral coldness and human hatred. Because this is so, man must gradually cultivate in himself moral warmth, that is to say human understanding and love, for these must vanquish what comes from the bodily nature.

Now it cannot be denied—this presents itself in all clarity to spiritual vision—that in our age, which began with the fifteenth century and has developed in an intellectualistic way on the one hand and in a materialistic way on the other, much human misunderstanding and human hatred has become imbedded in men's souls. This is so to a greater degree than is supposed. For only when man passes through the gate of death does he become aware of how much failure to understand, how much hatred, is present in our unconsciousness. There man detaches his soul-spiritual from his physic bodily nature. He lays his physical-bodily nature aside. The impulses of coldness, the impulses of hatred, then reveal themselves simply as natural forces, as mere forces of nature.

Let us look at a corpse. Let us look with the spiritual eye at the actual etheric corpse. Here we are looking at something which no longer evokes moral judgment any more than does a plant or a stone. The moral forces which have previously been contained in what is now the corpse have been changed into natural forces. During his lifetime, however, the human being absorbed very much from them; this he takes with him through the gate of death. The ego and astral body withdraw, taking with them as they go what remained unnoticed during life because it was always entirely submerged in the physical and etheric bodies. The ego and astral body take with them into the spiritual world all the impulses connected with the human body, all the impulses of human hatred and coldness towards other men which had gained access to their souls. I mentioned that it is only when one sees the human being pass through the gate of death that one perceives how much failure to understand, how much human hatred have been implanted into mankind just in our civilization by various things about which I shall still have to speak. For the man of today carries much of these two impulses through the gate of death, immensely much.

But what man thus carries with him is in fact the spiritual residue of what should be in the physical, of what the physical and etheric bodies should deal with themselves. In the lack of human understanding and in human hatred which man carries into the spiritual world we have the residue of what really belongs in the physical world. He carries it thither in a spiritual way, but it would never profit him to carry it onward through the time between death and a new birth, for then he would be quite unable to progress. At every step in his further evolution between death and a new birth he would stumble if he were obliged to carry further this failure to understand the other man, this human hatred. Into the spiritual world, which is entered by the so-called dead, people today continually draw with them definite currents which would halt them in their development if they had to remain as they actually are. From whence do these currents proceed?

To discover this we need only look at present-day life. People pass one another by; they pay little heed to the individual characteristics of others. Are not people today mostly so constituted that each one regards himself as the standard of what is right and proper? And when someone differs from this standard we do not take kindly to him, but rather think: This man should be different. And this usually implies: He should be like me. This is not always brought into the consciousness, but it lies concealed in human social intercourse.

In the way things are put forward today—I mean in the whole manner and form of people's speech—there lies very little understanding of the other man. People bellow out their ideas about what man should be like, but this usually means: Everyone should be like me. If someone different comes along, then, even if this is not consciously realized, he is immediately regarded as an enemy, an object for antipathy. This is lack of human moral understanding, lack of love. And to the degree in which these qualities are lacking, moral coldness and human hatred go with man through the gate of death, obstructing his path. Now, however—because man's further development is not his own concern alone, but is the concern of the whole world-order, the wisdom-filled world-order—he finds the beings of the third hierarchy, Angels, Archangels, Archai. In the first period after man has passed through the gate of death into the world lying between death and a new birth these beings stoop downward and mercifully take from man the coldness which comes from lack of human understanding. And we see how the beings of the third hierarchy assume the burden of what man carries up to them into the spiritual world in the way I have described, in that he passes through the gate of death.

It is for a longer period that man must carry with him the remains of human hatred; for this can only be taken from him by grace of the spirits of the second hierarchy, Exusiai, Kyriotetes, Dynamis. They take from him all that remains of human hatred.

Now, however, the human being has arrived about midway in the region between death and a new birth, to the abiding place of the first hierarchy, Seraphim, Cherubim, Thrones, which I described in my Mystery Play as the midnight hour of existence. Man would be quite unable to pass through this region of the Seraphim, Cherubim, and Thrones without being inwardly annihilated, utterly destroyed, had not the beings of the second and third hierarchies already taken from him in their mercy human misunderstanding, that is to say moral coldness, and human hatred. And so we see how man, in order that he may find access to those impulses which can contribute to his further development, must at first burden the beings of the higher hierarchies with what he carries up into the spiritual world from his physical and etheric bodies, where it really belongs.

When one has insight into all this, when one sees how this moral coldness holds sway in the spiritual world, one will also know how to judge the relation between this spiritual cold and the physical cold here below. The physical cold which we find in snow and ice is only the physical image of that moral-spiritual cold which is there above. If we have them both before us, we can compare them. While man is being relieved in this way from human misunderstanding and human hatred, one can follow with the spiritual eye how he begins to lose his form, how this form more or less melts away.

When someone first passes through the gate of death, for the spiritual vision of imagination his appearance is still somewhat similar to what it was here on earth. For what a man bears within him here on earth is in fact just substances in more or less granular form, let us say, in atomistic form; but the human figure itself—that is spiritual. We must really be clear about this. It is sheer nonsense to regard man's form as physical; we must represent it to ourselves as spiritual. The physical in it is everywhere present as minute particles. The form, which is only a force-body, holds together what would otherwise fall apart into a heap of atoms. If someone were to take any of you by the forelock and could draw out your form, the physical and also the etheric would collapse like a heap of sand. That these are not just a sand heap, that they are distributed and take on form, this stems from nothing physical; it stems from the spiritual. Here in the physical world man goes about as something spiritual. It is senseless to think that man is only a physical being; his form is purely spiritual. The physical in him may almost be likened to a heap of crumbs.

Man, however, still possesses his form when he goes through the gate of death. One sees it shimmering, glittering, radiant with colours. But now he loses first the form of his head; then the rest of his form gradually melts away. Man becomes completely metamorphosed, as though transformed into an image of the cosmos. This occurs during the time between death and a new birth in which he comes into the region of the Seraphim, Cherubim and Thrones.

Thus, when one follows man between death and a new birth, one at first still sees him hovering, as it were, while he gradually loses his form from above downwards. But while the last vestige of him is vanishing away below, something else has taken shape, a wonderful spirit-form, which is in itself an image of the whole world-sphere and at the same time a model of the future head which man will bear on his shoulders. Here the human being is woven into an activity wherein not only the beings of the lower hierarchies participate, but also the beings of the highest hierarchy, the Seraphim, Cherubim and Thrones.

What actually takes place? It is the most wonderful thing which, as man, one can possibly conceive. For all that was lower man here in life now passes over into the formation of the future head. As we go about here on earth we only make use of our poverty-stricken head as the organ of our mental images and our thoughts. But thoughts also accompany our breast, thoughts also accompany our limb-system. And in the moment that we cease to think only with the head, but begin to think with our limb-system, in that moment the whole reality of Karma is opened up to us. We know nothing of our Karma because we always think only with that most superficial of organs, our brain. The moment we begin to think with our fingers—and just with our fingers and toes we can think much more clearly than with the nerves of the head—once we have soared up to the possibility of doing so—the moment we begin to think with what has not become entirely material, when we begin to think with the lower man, our thoughts are the thoughts of our Karma. When we do not merely grasp with our hand but think with it, then, thinking with our hand we follow our Karma. And even more so with the feet; when we do not only walk but think with our feet, we follow the course of our Karma with special clarity. That man is such a dullard on earth—excuse me, but no other word occurs to me—comes from the fact that all his thinking is enclosed in the region of his head. But man can think with his entire being. Whenever we think with our entire being, then for our middle region a whole cosmology, a marvelous cosmic wisdom, becomes our own. And for the lower region and the limb-system especially Karma becomes our own.

It already means a great deal when we look at the way a person walks, not in a dull way, but marking the beauty of his step, and what is characteristic in it; or when we allow his hands to make an impression upon us, so that we interpret these hands and find that in every movement of the fingers there lie wonderful revelations of man's inner nature. Yet that is only the smallest part of what moves in unison with t he walking man, the grasping man, man as he moves his fingers. For it is man's whole moral nature which moves; his destiny moves with him; everything that he is as a spiritual being. And if, after man has passed through the gate of death, we are able to follow how his form dissolves—the first to melt away being what is reminiscent of his physical form—there then appears what does indeed resemble his physical structure, but which is now produced by his inner nature, his inner being, thus announcing that this is his moral form. Thus does man appear when he approaches the midnight hour of existence, when he comes into the sphere of the Seraphim, Cherubim and Thrones. Then we see how these wonderful metamorphoses proceed, how there his form melts away. But this is not really the essential point. It looks as though the form would dissolve away, but the truth is that the spiritual beings of the higher worlds are there working together with man. They work with those human beings who are working upon themselves, but also upon those with whom they are karmically linked. One man works upon the other. These spiritual beings, then, together with man himself, develop out of his previous bodily form in his previous earth-life, what, at first spiritually, will become the bodily form of his next earth-life.

This spirit-form first connects itself with physical life when it meets the given embryo. But in the spiritual world feet and legs are transformed into the jaw bones, while arms and hands are transformed into the cheek-bones. There the whole lower man is transformed into the spiritual prototype of what will later become the head. The way in which this metamorphosis is accomplished is, I do assure you, of everything that the world offers to conscious experience the most wonderful. We see at first how an image of the whole cosmos is created, and how this is then differentiated into the structure which is the seat of the whole moral element—but only after all that I have mentioned has been taken from it. We see how what was, transforms itself into what will be. Now one sees the human being as spirit-form journeying back once more to the region of the second hierarchy and then to that of the third hierarchy. Here this reversed spirit-form—it is in fact only the basis for the future head—must, as it were, be welded to what will become the future breast-organism, to what will become the future limb-organization and the metabolic system. These must be added. Whence come the spiritual impulses to add them?

It is by grace of the beings of the second and third hierarchies, who gathered these impulses together when the man was on the first half of his journey. These beings took them from his moral nature; now they bring them back again and form from them the basis of the rhythmic system and metabolic-limb-system. In this later period between death and a new birth man receives the ingredients, the spiritual ingredients, for his physical organism. This spiritual form finds its way into the embryonic life, and bears within it what will now become physical forces and etheric forces. These are, however, only the physical image of what we bear in us from our previous life as lack of human understanding and human hatred, from which our limb-organization is spiritually formed.

If we wish to have such conceptions as these, we must acquire a manner of feeling and perceiving quite other than that needed in the physical world. For we must be able to behold what arises out of the spiritual becoming physical in the way I have described; we must be able to sustain the knowledge that coldness, moral coldness, lives as physical image in the bones and that moral hatred lives as physical image in the blood. We must learn to look at these matters quite objectively. It is only when we look into things in this way that we become aware of the fundamental difference between man's inner being and external nature.

Just consider for a moment the fact I mentioned, namely that in the blossoms of the plant-kingdom we see, as it were, human conscience laid out before us. What we see outside us may be considered as the picture of our soul-being. The forces within ourselves may appear to have no relation to outer nature. But the truth is, bone can only be bone because it hates the carbonic acid and calcium phosphate in their mineral state, because it withdraws from them, contracting into itself, whereby it becomes something different from what these substances are in external nature. And one must face up to the conception that for man to have a physical form, hatred and coldness must be present in his physical nature.

Through this, you see, our words gain inner significance. If our bones have a certain hardness, it is to their advantage to possess this physical image of spiritual coldness. But if our soul has this hardness it is not a good thing for the social life. The physical nature of man must be different from his soul-nature. Man can be man precisely because his physical being differs from his being of soul and spirit. Man's physical nature also differs from physical nature around him. Upon this fact rests the necessity for that transformation about which I have spoken to you.

All this forms an important supplement to what I once said in the course on Cosmology, Philosophy and Religion [* Ten lectures at the Goetheanum, September, 1922. Translation in preparation by the Anthroposophic Press, New York.] about man's connection with the hierarchies. It could only be added, however, on such initial considerations as those in our present lectures. For spiritual vision gives insight alike into what the separate members of the mineral, animal and plant kingdoms really are here on earth, and into the acts of the hierarchies—those acts, which continue from age to age, as do also the happenings of nature and the works of man.

When man's life between death and a new birth—his life in the spiritual world—is beheld in this way, one can describe his experiences in that world in just as much detail as his biography here on earth. So we may live in the hope that when we pass through the gate of death, everything of misunderstanding and hatred between man and man will be carried up into the spiritual world, so that it may be given anew to us, and that from its ennobled state human forms may be created.

In the course of long centuries something very strange has come to pass for earthly humanity. No longer is it possible for all the forces of human misunderstanding and human hatred to be used up in new human forms, in the structure of new human bodies. Something has become left over. During the course of the last centuries this residue has streamed down on to the earth, so that in the spiritual atmosphere of the earth, in what I may call the earth's astral light, there is to be found an infiltration of the impulses of human hatred and human misunderstanding which exist exterior to man. These impulses have not been incorporated into human forms; they stream around the earth in the astral light. They work into man, but not into what makes up the single person but into the relationships which people form with one another on the earth. They work into civilization. And within civilization they have brought about what compelled me to say, in the spring of 1914 in Vienna, [* The Inner Nature of Man and Life between Death and Rebirth (Rudolf Steiner Press).] that our present-day civilization is invaded by spiritual carcinoma, by a spiritual cancerous disease, by spiritual tumours. At that time the fact that this was spoken about in Vienna—in the lecture-course dealing with the phenomena between death and a new birth—was somewhat unwelcome. Since then, however, people have actually experienced something of the truth of what was said at that time. Then people had no thought of what streams through civilization. They did not perceive that actual cancerous formations of civilization were present, for it was only from 1914 onwards that they manifested openly. Today they are revealed as utterly diseased tissues of civilization. Yes, now it becomes evident to what a degree our modern civilization has been infiltrated by these currents of human hatred and human coldness which have not been used up in the forms of the human structure, to what a degree these infiltrations are active as the parasites of modern civilization.

Civilization today is deeply afflicted with parasites; it is like a part of an organism that is invaded by parasites, by bacilli. What people have amassed in the way of thoughts exists, but it has no living connection with man. Only consider how this shows itself in the most ordinary phenomena of daily life. How many people have to learn without bringing enthusiasm to the learning; they simply have to get down to it and learn in order to pass an examination, so as to qualify for some particular post, or the like—well, for them there is no vital connection between what they have to take in and what lives in their soul as an inborn craving for the spiritual. It is exactly as though a person who is not predisposed to hunger were to be continually stuffed with food! The digestive processes about which I have spoken cannot be carried through. What has been taken in remains as ballast in the organism, finally becoming something which definitely induces parasites.

Much in our modern civilization has no connection with man. Like the mistletoe—spiritually speaking—it sucks its life from what man brings forth from the original impulses of his mind, of his heart. Much of this manifests in our civilization as parasitic existence. To anyone who has the power of seeing our civilization with spiritual vision in the astral, the year 1914 already presented an advanced stage of cancer, a carcinoma formation; for him the whole of civilization was already invaded by parasites. But to this parasitic condition something further is now added.

I have described to you in what may be called a spiritual-physiological way how, out of the nature of the gnomes and undines who work from below upwards, the possibility arises of parasitic impulses in man. Then, however, as I explained, the opposite picture presents itself; for then poison is carried downwards by the sylphs and the elemental beings of warmth. And so in a civilization like ours, which bears a parasitic character, what comes down from above—spiritual truth, though not poison in itself, is transformed into poison in man, so that our civilization rejects it in fear and invents all kinds of reasons for this rejection. The two things belong together: a parasitic culture below, which does not proceed from elemental laws and which therefore contains parasites within itself, and a spirituality which sinks down from above and which—in that it enters into this civilization—is taken up by man in such a way that it becomes poison. When you bear this in mind you have the key to the most important symptoms of our present-day civilization. And when one has insight into these things, just out of itself the fact is revealed that a truly cultural education must make its appearance as the antidote or opposing remedy. Just as a rational therapy, is deduced from a true diagnosis of the individual, so a diagnosis of the sickness of a civilization reveals the remedy; the one calls forth the other.

It is very evident that mankind today again needs something from civilization which stands close to the human heart and the human soul, which springs directly from the human heart and the human soul. If a child, on entering primary school, is introduced to a highly sophisticated system of letter-forms which he has to learn as a ... b ... c etc., this has nothing whatever to do with his heart and soul. It has no relation to them at all. What the child develops in his head, in his soul, in that he has to learn a ... b ... c, is—speaking spiritually—a parasite in human nature.

During his years of education a great deal is brought to the child of this parasitic nature. We must, therefore, develop an art of education which works creatively from his soul. We must let the child bring colour into form; and the colour-forms, which have arisen out of joy, out of enthusiasm, out of sadness, out of every possible feeling, these he can paint on to the paper. When a child puts on to the paper what arises out of his soul, this develops his humanity. This produces nothing parasitic. This is something which grows out of man like his fingers or his nose!—whereas, when the child has forced on him the conventional forms of the letters, which are the result of a high degree of civilization, this does engender what is parasitic.

Immediately the art of education lies close to the human heart, to the human soul, the spiritual approaches man without becoming poison. First you have the diagnosis, which finds that our age is infested with carcinomas, and then you have the therapy—yes, it is Waldorf School education.

Waldorf School education is founded upon nothing other than this, my dear friends. Its way of thinking in the cultural sphere is the same as that in the field of therapy. Here you see, applied in a special case, what I spoke about a few days ago, namely that the being of man proceeds from below upwards, from nutrition, through healing, upwards to the development of the spiritual, and that one must regard education as medicine transposed into the spiritual. This strikes us with particular clarity when we wish to find a therapy for civilization, for we can only conceive this therapy as being Waldorf School education.

You will readily be able to imagine the feelings of one who not only has insight into this situation, but who is also trying to implant Waldorf School education into the world in a practical way, when he sees in the cumulative effect of this carcinoma of civilization something which may seriously endanger this Waldorf School education, or even make it altogether impossible. We should not reject such thoughts as these, but rather make them the impulse within ourselves to work together wherever we still can in the therapy of our civilization.

There are many things today such as the following. During my Helsingfors lecture-course in 1913, I indicated from a certain aspect of spiritual knowledge a view as to the inferior nature of Woodrow Wilson, who was at that time a veritable object of veneration for much of civilized mankind and in respect of whom people are only now—because to do otherwise is impossible—gaining some measure of perception. As things went then, so have things also gone in regard to the civilization-carcinoma about which I have been speaking. Well, at that time things went in a certain way; today those things which hold good for our time are proceeding in a similar manner. People are asleep. It devolves upon us to bring about the awakening. And Anthroposophy bears within it all the impulses for a right awakening of civilization, for a right awakening of human culture.

This is what I wished to say to you in the last of these lectures.

Zwölfter Vortrag

Wenn man sieht, wie im menschlichen Organismus das Außerlich-Natürliche umgewandelt wird, zum Beispiel so radikal wie das Mineralische, das bis zum Wärmeätherischen hin kommen muß, dann wird man auch finden, wie dasjenige, was im natürlichen, im organisierten Menschen lebt, sich anschließt an das Geistige. Wenn man, wie man es so häufig im Sinne hat nach den Abbildungen, die etwa in den gebräuchlichen Handbüchern über Anatomie und Physiologie sind, sich vorstellt: der Mensch ist ein festes Gebilde und nimmt dann die äußeren Naturbestandteile auf, hält sie in sich fast unverwandelt, dann wird man natürlich immer unter dem Mangel einer Brücke leiden, die geschlagen werden muß hinüber von dem, was im natürlichen Menschen ist, zu dem, womit der Mensch verbunden ist seinem eigentlich Seelischen nach.

Zunächst wird man die Verbindung des Knochensystems, des Muskelsystems, die man sich so als feste Körper vorstellt, zum Beispiel mit der moralischen Weltordnung nicht finden können. Man wird sagen: das eine ist eben Natur, das andere ist etwas, was radikal verschieden ist von der Natur. Aber wenn man sich klar darüber ist, daß im Menschen alle Arten von Substantialität vorhanden sind, und daß alles durchgehen muß durch auch flüchtigere Arten von Substantialität, als die Muskeln und die Knochen sind, dann wird man finden, daß allerdings dasjenige, was flüchtiger, ätherischer ist, eine Verbindung eingehen kann mit dem, was die Impulse der moralischen Weltordnung sind.

An diesen Gedanken muß man anknüpfen, wenn man die Betrachtungen, die wir bereits angestellt haben, zu derjenigen Verbindung hinführen will, die der Mensch nach oben, nach dem Geistigen des Kosmos hat, nach denjenigen Wesenheiten, die wir als die Wesenheiten der höheren Hierarchien bezeichnet haben. Und so wollen wir denn, wie wir bei den verflossenen Vorträgen mehr ausgegangen sind von dem Natürlichen, heute ausgehen, sagen wir von dem, was geistig-moralisch unter den Menschen wirkt.

Geistig, moralisch: das sind eigentlich für die moderne Zivilisation schon mehr oder weniger Begriffe geworden, die ein Konventionelles darstellen. Immer mehr und mehr ist zurückgegangen das ursprüngliche elementarische Fühlen des Moralisch-Geistigen in der menschlichen Wesenheit. Die moderne Zivilisation weist den Menschen zum Beispiel schon seiner ganzen Erziehung nach immer mehr und mehr darauf hin, zu fragen: Was ist üblich? Was hat sich konventionell festgesetzt? Was ist Gebot? Was ist Gesetz? und so weiter. — Sie geht weniger auf das, was aus dem Menschen eben herauskommt als Impulse, die da wurzeln an derjenigen Stelle, an die man sehr häufig in unbestimmter Art das Gewissen zum Beispiel verlegt. Dieses innerliche Sich-selber-Richtung-und-Ziel-Setzen, das ist etwas, was immer mehr und mehr in der modernen Zivilisation zurückgegangen ist. Daher ist schließlich das Geistig-Moralische etwas geworden, was heute mehr oder weniger im Konventionell-Traditionellen lebt.

Ältere Weltanschauungen, namentlich diejenigen, welche noch von instinktivem Hellsehen getragen waren, die brachten aus dem Inneren des Menschen die moralischen Impulse hervor, die zeitigten moralische Impulse. Diese moralischen Impulse sind da; aber sie sind heute traditionell geworden. Man muß sich nur klar darüber sein, wie stark das Moralische zum Beispiel traditionell geworden ist. Es soll damit selbstverständlich gar nichts gesagt werden gegen das Traditionelle im Moralischen — aber bedenken Sie nur, wie alt sind denn die Zehn Gebote? Sie werden gelehrt als etwas, das verzeichnet ist aus alten Zeiten her. Können wir sagen, daß heute es etwas Gewöhnliches ist, daß aus der ursprünglichen elementarischen Menschennatur etwas dergleichen hervorquillt, wie es einmal mit dem Dekalog, mit den Zehn Geboten war? Und aus was quillt denn das Moralisch-Geistige, das die Menschen sozial verbindet, das die sozialen Fäden schlägt von Person zu Person, hervor unter den Menschen?

Es gibt als die eigentlichen Quellen des Moralisch-Geistigen in der Menschheit nur dasjenige, was man Menschenverständnis nennen kann, gegenseitiges Menschenverständnis, und die auf dieses Verständnis der Menschen gebaute Menschenliebe. Wir mögen noch so sehr uns umsehen in der Entstehung der moralisch-geistigen Impulse der Menschen, insofern diese im sozialen Leben eine Rolle spielen, wir werden überall finden, daß da, wo elementar diese moralischen Impulse aus der Menschheit entsprungen sind, sie hervorkamen aus Menschenverständnis und aus Menschenliebe. Diese letzteren sind das eigentlich Treibende des sozial Geistig-Moralischen innerhalb der Menschheit. Und im Grunde genommen lebt der Mensch, insofern er ein geistiges Wesen ist, unter anderen Menschen nur davon, daß er Menschenverständnis und Menschenliebe entwickelt.

Nun können Sie eine bedeutungsvolle Frage aufwerfen, eine Frage, die zwar nicht immer aufgeworfen wird, die aber gerade dem Gesagten gegenüber eigentlich jedem auf der Zunge liegen müßte: Wenn Menschenliebe und Menschenverständnis die eigentlichen Impulse des menschlichen Zusammenlebens sind, woher kommt es denn, daß das Gegenteil, Menschenunverständnis und Menschenhaß, innerhalb unserer sozialen Ordnung auftreten?

Das ist eine Frage, welche am meisten von allen Menschen gerade die Initiierten beschäftigt hat. Die Initiationswissenschaft hat zu allen Zeiten, wo sie ursprünglich war, dies gerade als eine ihrer wichtigsten Fragen betrachtet. Aber diese Initiationswissenschaft hatte, als sie ursprünglich war, auch noch gewisse Mittel, hinter die Lösung dieser Frage zu kommen. Wenn man heute die gebräuchliche Wissenschaft anschaut, so kommt man eigentlich dazu, wenn man den Menschen betrachtet - die Gott-geschaffene Seele ist ja eigentlich veranlagt zu Menschenverständnis und Menschenliebe -, zu fragen: Warum wirken denn diese nicht als Selbstverständliches innerhalb der sozialen Ordnung? Woher kommt denn Menschenhaß und Menschenunverständnis? Und wenn wir sie nicht im Geistigen, im Seelischen suchen können, diesen Menschenunverstand und diesen Menschenhaß, müssen wir sie natürlich im Physisch-Leiblichen suchen.

Ja, aber nun antwortet uns die heutige gebräuchliche Wissenschaft, was das Physisch-Leibliche des Menschen ist: Blut, Nerven, Muskeln, Knochen. Man kann einen Knochen noch so lange anschauen, wenn man nur mit dem Auge der heutigen Naturwissenschaft blickt, man wird nicht sagen können: Dieser Knochen, der ist der Verführer des Menschen zum Haß. - Oder man wird das Blut noch so sehr nach den Prinzipien untersuchen können, nach denen heute untersucht wird, man wird nicht feststellen können auf diese Weise: Dieses Blut ist der Verführer des Menschen zum Menschenunverstand.

Das war allerdings in den Zeiten, in denen die Initiationswissenschaft ursprünglich war, ganz anders. Da sah man hin auf das Physisch-Leibliche des Menschen, und man hatte da das Gegenbild dessen, was man durch instinktives Hellsehen im Geistigen hatte. Wenn heute der Mensch vom Geistigen spricht, so redet er ja höchstens von abstrakten Gedanken; die sind ihm das Geistige. Und wenn ihm diese Gedanken zu dünn sind, dann bleiben ihm nur die Worte noch übrig, und er schreibt eine «Kritik der Sprache», wie es Fritz Mauthner getan hat. Durch eine solche Kritik der Sprache kommt man in die Möglichkeit, den Geist, der ohnedies schon dünn genug geworden ist, völlig verdunsten zu lassen in den bloß abstrakten Gedanken. Die mit instinktivem Hellsehen durchsetzte Initiationswissenschaft sah das Geistige nicht in abstrakten Gedanken. Sie sah das Geistige in Gestalten, in dem, was bildhaft war, was selber sprechen, tönen konnte. Sie sah das Geistige in Lebendigkeit. Dadurch, daß das Geistige in Lebendigkeit gesehen wurde, konnte auch noch das Physische, der Knochen, das Blut in Geistigkeit gesehen werden. Es gab in dieser Initiationswissenschaft nicht diese Gedanken, diese Vorstellung des Skelettes, die man heute hat. Dieses Skelett ist heute etwas, das betrachtet wird wie von einem rechnenden Architekten aufgebaut für den Anatomen oder für den Physiologen. Aber das ist es ja nicht. Dieses Skelett ist, wie Sie gesehen haben, dadurch gestaltet, daß das Mineralische bis hinauf zum Wärmeäther getrieben wird, daß in den Wärmeäther die Kräfte der geistigen Hierarchien eingreifen, und dann daraus die Knochenformen gebildet werden.

Wer also das Skelett richtig anschauen kann, dem verrät es den geistigen Ursprung. Und es ist wirklich so, daß derjenige, der das Skelett in der heutigen Form anschaut, ich meine in der Form, wie es die heutige Wissenschaft anschaut, einem Menschen gleicht, der da sagt: Hier habe ich eine bedruckte Seite, da sind Buchstabenformen. — Er beschreibt diese Buchstabenformen, aber er liest nicht, weil er nicht lesen kann. Er bezieht nicht das, was da in den Buchstabenformen sich ausdrückt, auf das ihnen Zugrundeliegende; er beschreibt nur die Buchstabenformen. So beschreibt der heutige Anatom, der heutige Naturforscher die Knochen, als wenn sie auf gar nichts hindeuteten; sie deuten aber auf ihren Ursprung aus dem Geistigen hin.

So ist es mit allem, was physische Naturgesetze, was ätherische Naturgesetze sind. Alles ist wie das Schriftzeichen von dem, was geistige Welt ist. Und erst dann versteht man diese Dinge, wenn man sie auffassen kann als Schriftzeichen aus den geistigen Welten.

Dann aber, wenn man so hinschauen kann auf den menschlichen physischen Organismus, dann wird man etwas gewahr, was in jenes Gebiet gehört, von dem die Initiierten allerZeiten - das heißt diejenigen eben, die es wirklich waren - gesagt haben: Übertritt man die Schwelle in die geistige Welt, dann wird man zunächstgewahr etwas, wasschreckhaft ist, was gar nicht einmal leicht zunächst zu ertragen ist. Die Menschen wollen ja zumeist von dem, was ihnen erstrebenswert erscheint, wohlgefällig berührt werden. Allein es ist schon so, daß man durch den Schrecken durchgehen muß, wenn man die geistige Wirklichkeit, das heißt, überhaupt die wahre Wirklichkeit kennenlernen will. Denn mit Bezug auf die Menschengestalt, wie sie anatomisch-physiologisch sich uns vor Augen stellt, merkt man: sie ist aufgebaut aus der geistigen Welt heraus aus zwei Elementen, die da sind moralische Kälte und Haß.

Wir tragen wirklich in der Seele die Anlage zur Menschenliebe und zu jener Wärme, zu jener moralischen Wärme, die den anderen Menschen versteht. Wir tragen aber in unseren festen Bestandteilen des Organismus die moralische Kälte. Das ist jene Kraft, die gewissermaßen aus der geistigen Welt heraus unsere physische Organisation zusammenbackt. Und wir tragen in uns den Impuls des Hasses. Der ist dasjenige, was aus der geistigen Welt heraus die Zirkulation des Blutes bewirkt. Und während wir vielleicht mit einer sehr liebenden Seele, mit einer Seele, die nach Menschenverständnis dürstet, durch die Welt gehen, müssen wir gewahr werden, daß im Unterbewußten unten, da, wo die Seele hineinströmt und hineinimpulsiert in das Körperliche, damit wir überhaupt einen Körper an uns tragen können, die Kälte sitzt. Ich werde immer von Kälte sprechen, ich meine die moralische Kälte, die aber allerdings auf dem Umwege durch den Wärmeäther in die physische Kälte übergehen kann. Da unten in uns sitzt im Unterbewußten die moralische Kälte und der Haß, und der Mensch bringt in seine Seele leicht dasjenige herein, was in seinem Körper sitzt, so daß seine Seele gewissermaßen angesteckt werden kann von Menschenunverständnis; das ist aber das Ergebnis von der moralischen Kälte und vom Menschenhaß. Weil das so ist, muß der Mensch moralische Wärme, das heißt, Menschenverständnis und Liebe eigentlich erst in sich heranerziehen, denn diese müssen besiegen, was aus dem Körperlichen kommt.

Nun kann eben nicht geleugnet werden - das stellt sich dem geistigen Blicke mit aller Klarheit dar -, daß mit unserer Zeit, mit unserer Zivilisation, die mit dem 15. Jahrhundert begonnen hat, und auf der einen Seite intellektualistisch, auf der anderen Seite materialistisch geworden ist, verbunden ist, daß auf dem Grunde der Seelen vieles an Menschenunverständnis und Menschenhaß vorhanden ist. Mehr als man glaubt, ist das der Fall. Denn gewahr wird man eigentlich erst, wieviel im menschlichen Unbewußten Menschenunverständnis und Menschenhaß vorhanden ist, wenn der Mensch durch die Pforte des Todes geschritten ist. Da zieht er heraus sein Seelisch-Geistiges aus dem Physisch-Leiblichen. Das Physisch-Leibliche legt er ab. Die Impulse der Kälte, die Impulse des Hasses zeigen sich dann als bloße Naturkräfte; sie sind dann bloße Naturkräfte.

Sehen wir uns den Leichnam an. Sehen wir uns mit dem geistigen ‚Auge selbst den ätherischen Leichnam an. Wir haben da hinzuschauen auf etwas, was ein moralisches Urteil nicht mehr hervorruft, ebensowenig wie die Pflanze, wie der Stein. Was da an Moralischem darinnensteckte, das hat sich in Naturkräfte verwandelt. Aber der Mensch hat viel herausgesogen während seines Lebens; das nimmt er mit durch die Pforte des Todes. Und so ziehen sich das Ich und der astralische Leib zurück, und sie nehmen mit, indem sie es herausziehen, was während des Lebens unbemerkt geblieben ist, weil es immer wiederum ganz in den physischen und ätherischen Leib untertauchte. Sie nehmen mit, dieses Ich und der astralische Leib, in die geistige Welt hinein all die Impulse des Menschenhasses und der Kälte gegenüber den Menschen, die eben in der Seele Platz gegriffen haben. Ich sagte, man merkt erst, wieviel gerade in unserer Zivilisation durch verschiedene Dinge, von denen wir noch sprechen werden, eingepflanzt wird im Menschen an Menschenunverstand und Menschenhaß, wenn man den Menschen durch die Pforte des Todes gehen sieht. Denn der heutige Mensch trägt viel von diesen beiden Impulsen durch die Pforte des Todeshindurch, ungeheuer viel.

Aber das, was er da mitträgt, ist ja der geistige Rest desjenigen, was im Physischen sein soll, was den physischen und ätherischen Leib ausmachen soll. Der Mensch trägt in dem Menschenunverstande und im Menschenhasse die Reste dessen in die geistige Welt hinein, was eigentlich der physischen Welt angehört; und er trägt es auf eine geistige Weise hinein. Es könnte dem Menschen niemals frommen, das weiter durch den Zeitenlauf zu tragen zwischen dem Tode und einer neuen Geburt, denn er könnte gar nicht weiterkommen, er würde bei jedem weiteren Schritte in seiner Fortentwickelung zwischen dem Tode und einer neuen Geburt straucheln, wenn er diesen Menschenunverstand und diesen Menschenhaß weitertragen müßte. In der übersinnlichen Welt, in die die sogenannten Toten eintreten, sieht man eigentlich heute fortwährend lauter Ströme, die, wenn sie so wirken würden, wie sie unmittelbar sind, die Menschen aufhalten würden in ihrem Fortschritte. Diese Ströme, von was rühren sie denn her?

Will man wissen, wovon sie herrühren, so braucht man sich nur das heutige Leben anzuschauen. Die Menschen gehen aneinander vorbei, sie sehen wenig hin, welche Eigentümlichkeiten der andere hat. Sind denn die Menschen heute nicht meistens so geartet, daß ein jeder richtig und gut findet, wie er selber ist? Und wenn der andere anders ist, so geht er nicht liebevoll auf diesen anderen ein, sondern er kommt nur zu dem Urteil, der sollte anders sein, wobei zuletzt meistens das dahinter ist, daß er sich sagt: Der sollte so sein wie ich. - Man bringt sich das nicht immer zum Bewußtsein, aber es steckt gerade im gesellschaftlichen Verkehre, im sozialen Verkehre der Menschen darinnen. In demjenigen, was heute zutage gefördert wird, ich möchte sagen in der Form der Menschensprache, lebt ja so wenig von dem, was Verständnis des anderen Menschen ist. Die Menschen brüllen in die Welt hinaus, wie sie sich vorstellen, daß der Mensch sein soll, wobei meistens nichts anderes dahinter ist, als das: wie man selber ist, so sollen alle Menschen sein. Wenn dann irgend jemand kommt, der ganz anders ist, so ist er nun gleich, wenn man sich das auch nicht voll zum Bewußtsein bringt, ein Feind, ein Mensch, gegen den man Antipathie entwickelt. Da fehlt es an Menschenverständnis, an der moralischen Wärme, da fehlt es an Liebe. Und im selben Maße, in dem es an diesem fehlt, geht moralische Kälte, geht Menschenhaß mit dem Menschen durch die Pforte des Todes, hält ihn dort auf.

Aber da findet der Mensch zunächst, da seine Weiterentwickelung nicht nur sein Eigenziel ist, sondern seine Weiterentwickelung das Ziel der ganzen Weltenordnung ist, der weisheitsvollen Weltenordnung, da findet er dort zunächst die Wesenheiten der dritten Hierarchie, die Angeloi, Archangeloi, Archai. In der ersten Zeit, nachdem der Mensch durchgegangen ist durch die Pforte des Todes in die Welt, die zwischen dem Tod und einer neuen Geburt liegt, neigen sie sich dem Menschen zu und nehmen ihm gnadenvoll die Kälte, die vom Menschenunverstand kommt, ab. Und wir sehen, wie die Wesenheiten der dritten Hierarchie sich belasten mit dem, was ihnen der Mensch auf die geschilderte Weise hineinträgt in die geistige Welt, indem er durch die Pforte des Todes geht.

Länger muß er die Reste des Menschenhasses forttragen, denn die können ihm nur abgenommen werden durch die Gnade der zweiten Hierarchie, der Exusiai, der Kyriotetes, der Dynamis. Die nehmen ihm dann ab alles das, was geblieben ist von Menschenhaß.

Dann aber ist der Mensch mittlerweile ungefähr bis in diejenige Region gekommen zwischen dem Tod und einer neuen Geburt, in der ihren Aufenthaltsort haben die Wesenheiten der ersten Hierarchie, die SeraPphim, Cherubim, Throne: das, was ich in meinen Mysterien die Mitternachtsstunde des geistigen Daseins genannt habe. Der Mensch könnte gar nicht durch diese Region der Seraphim, Cherubim und Throne durchgehen, ohne innerlich völlig vernichtet zu werden, das heißt, ausgelöscht zu werden, wenn er nicht vorher gnadevoll abgenommen erhalten hätte durch die Wesen der dritten und der zweiten Hierarchie Menschenunverständnis, das heißt moralische Kälte und Menschenhaß. So sehen wir denn, wie der Mensch, damit er den Anschluß findet an diejenigen Impulse, die zu seiner Weiterentwickelung beitragen können, zunächst beladen muß die Wesenheiten der höheren Hierarchien mit dem, was er aus seiner physischen und ätherischen Natur, wo es hingehört, hinaufträgt in die geistigen Welten.

Allerdings, wenn man dies alles durchschaut, wenn man da nun sieht, wie diese moralische Kälte in der geistigen Welt waltet, dann weiß man auch zu beurteilen die Verwandtschaft dieser geistigen Kälte mit dem, was physische Kälte hier unten ist. Diese physische Kälte, die in Schnee und Eis ist, ist ja nur das physische Abbild dieser moralisch-geistigen Kälte, die da oben ist. Hat man beide vor sich, so kann man sie vergleichen. Während der Mensch in dieser Weise abgenommen erhält Menschenunverstand und Menschenhaß, kann man ihn mit dem geistigen Auge verfolgen, wie er allmählich seine Gestalt sozusagen zunächst wie verliert, wie diese Gestalt mehr oder weniger abschmilzt, möchte man sagen.

Für den geistigen Blick der Imagination sieht der Mensch, wenn er durch die Pforte des Todes geschritten ist, eigentlich noch ähnlich aus, wie er hier auf Erden war. Denn das, was der Mensch hier auf Erden in sich trägt, das sind die Substanzen, die mehr oder weniger in körniger Form, sagen wir, in atomistischer Form in ihm sitzen; aber die Gestalt des Menschen, die ist ja geistig. Wir müssen uns klar sein darüber: es ist einfach Unsinn, sich die Gestalt des Menschen physisch vorzustellen; wir müssen uns die Gestalt des Menschen geistig vorstellen. Das Physische darinnen, das ist gewissermaßen überall in kleinen Partikelchen drinnen. Die Gestalt, die nur ein Kraftkörper ist, hält dies, was sonst in einen Haufen auseinanderfallen würde, gestaltmäßig zusammen. Wenn man einen jeden von Ihnen beim Schopfe fassen und ihm die Gestalt wegziehen könnte, dann fiele das Physische und auch das Ätherische wie ein Sandhaufen hinunter. Daß das kein Sandhaufen ist, daß das verteilt ist und Gestalt annimmt, das rührt von nichts Physischem her, das rührt von Geistigem her. Der Mensch geht ja als Geistiges hier in der physischen Welt herum. Es ist Unsinn, daß der Mensch bloß ein physisches Wesen ist; seine Gestalt ist rein geistig. Das Physische ist, annähernd ausgedrückt, ein Haufen von Bröselchen.

Diese Gestalt aber, die hat der Mensch noch, wenn er durch die Pforte des Todes gegangen ist. Man sieht sie schimmernd, schillernd, in Farben glänzend. Nur daß der Mensch zuerst dasjenige verliert, was die Gestalt seines Hauptes ist; dann schmilzt allmählich das andere ab. Und es ist der Mensch vollständig metamorphosiert, wie zu einer Art ‚Abbild des Kosmos geworden in der Zeit, in der er zwischen dem Tod und einer neuen Geburt in die Region der Seraphim, Cherubim und Throne kommt.

So sieht man also, wenn man den Menschen verfolgt zwischen dem Tod und einer neuen Geburt, ihn zunächst, ich möchte sagen, weiter weben, indem er seine Gestalt nach und nach verliert von oben nach unten. Aber indem sozusagen das Letzte von unten verlorengeht, hat sich schon etwas gebildet, was eine wunderbare Geistgestalt ist, die in sich wie ein Abbild ist der ganzen Weltensphäre und die zu gleicher Zeit das Vorbild ist des künftigen Kopfes, den der Mensch an sich tragen wird. Da ist der Mensch eingewoben in eine Tätigkeit, an der sich nicht nur die Wesen der unteren Hierarchien, sondern die Wesen der höchsten Hierarchien, der Seraphim; Cherubim und Throne beteiligen.

Was geschieht da? Da geschieht eigentlich das Wunderbarste, was man sich überhaupt vorstellen kann als Mensch. Denn da geht dasjenige, was der Mensch als unterer Mensch hier im Leben gewesen ist, in die Kopfbildung über. Wenn wir hier auf Erden herumgehen, da haben wir nur unseren armen Kopf alsdasOrgan des Vorstellens, alsdasOrgan, dasGedanken trägt. Aber Gedanken sind auch die Begleiter unserer Brust, Gedanken sind die Begleiter namentlich unserer Gliedmaßen. Aber in dem Augenblicke, wo wir nun nicht bloß mit dem Kopf denken, sondern mit den Gliedmaßen zum Beispiel anfangen zu denken, in diesem Augenblicke geht uns die ganze Realität des Karma auf. Wir wissen nichts von unserem Karma, weil wir immer nur mit diesem eigentlich oberflächlichsten Organ, mit dem Gehirn denken. In dem Augenblicke, wo wir mit den Fingern zu denken beginnen - und man kann gerade mit den Fingern, mit den Zehen viel heller denken, wenn man sich dazu aufgeschwungen hat, als mit den Nerven des Kopfes -, in dem Augenblicke, wo wir mit dem, was nicht ganz Materie geworden ist, mit dem unteren Menschen anfangen zu denken, sind unsere Gedanken die Gedanken unseres Karma. Wenn wir mit der Hand nicht bloß greifen, sondern denken, dann verfolgen wir mit der Hand denkend unser Karma. Und insbesondere mit den Füßen, wenn wir nicht bloß gehen, sondern wenn wir mit den Füßen denken, verfolgen wir mit besonderer Klarheit unser Karma. Daß der Mensch auf Erden so borniert ist - verzeihen Sie, es fällt mir halt kein anderes Wort ein -, das rührt davon her, daß er all sein Denken in diese Region des Kopfes einschließt. Aber man kann mit dem ganzen Menschen denken. Und wenn man mit dem ganzen Menschen denkt, so ist hier für die mittlere Partie eine ganze Kosmologie, eine wunderbare Weltenweisheit unser eigen. Und für die unteren Partien und für die Gliedmaßen überhaupt ist das Karma unser eigen.

Wir tun ja schon viel, wenn wir hier auf Erden einen gehenden Menschen betrachten und nicht ganz stumpf sind, sondern die Schönheit des Schrittes, das Charakteristische des Schrittes verfolgen, und wenn wir zum Beispiel seine Hände auf uns wirken lassen und diese Hände interpretieren und finden, daß die wunderbarsten Zeugnisse für das Menscheninnere in jeder Fingerbewegung liegen. Aber das ist nur der kleinste Teil dessen, was mit dem gehenden, mit dem greifenden, mit dem fingerbewegenden Menschen sich mitbewegt. Da bewegt sich ja sein ganzer moralischer Mensch, da bewegt sich sein Schicksal mit, da bewegt sich alles dasjenige mit, was er geistig ist. Und wenn wir, nachdem der Mensch durch die Pforte des Todes geschritten ist, verfolgen können, wie die Gestalt da abschmilzt - es schmilzt zuerst das ab, was an die physische Gestalt erinnert -, dann kommt dasjenige zur Erscheinung, was allerdings mehr der physischen Gestaltung ähnlich ist, aber durch seine innere Natur, durch seine innere Wesenheit ankündigt, daß es eigentlich die Gestalt des Moralischen ist. Und so wird der Mensch, indem er sich der Mitternachtsstunde des Daseins nähert, indem er in die Sphäre der Seraphim, Cherubim und Throne kommt. Dann sehen wir, wie da die wunderbare Metamorphose vor sich geht, wie da, ich kann sagen, abschmilzt die Gestalt. Aber das ist nicht das eigentlich Wichtige. Es sieht aus, wie wenn sie abschmelzen würde, aber in Wahrheit arbeiten da die geistigen Wesenheiten der höheren Welten mit dem Menschen zusammen, mit denjenigen Menschen, die selber an sich arbeiten, aber auch mit denen, die karmisch verbunden sind - ein Mensch arbeitet an dem anderen - aus der früheren Gestalt des Menschen, aus der Gestalt des vorhergehenden Erdenlebens dasjenige aus, was dann die Gestalt:.der nächsten Inkarnation, zunächst geistig, wird,

Diese Geistgestalt, die verbindet sich dann erst mit dem, was im physischen Leben als Embryo dem Menschen gegeben wird. Aber da oben in der geistigen Welt, da wandelt sich Fuß und Bein um zum Kiefer des Kopfes. Da wandelt sich der Arm und die Hand um zu dem Jochknochen des Kopfes. Da wandelt sich der ganze untere Mensch um in das, was jetzt Geistanlage für den späteren Kopf wird. Das ist, sage ich, das Wunderbarste, das man aus der Welt heraus erkennend erleben kann, wie da diese Metamorphose geschieht: wie gewissermaßen zuerst ein Abbild der ganzen Welt geschaffen wird, und wie das hineindifferenziert wird in die Gestalt, an der alles Moralische haftet - nachdem aber alles das abgenommen worden ist, was ich gesagt habe -, wie sich das, was da war, umwandelt in das, was da wird. Und dann sieht man den Menschen als Geistgestalt weiterwandeln, wiederum zurück in die Region der zweiten Hierarchie, in die Region der dritten Hierarchie. Jetzt muß dieser umgewandelten Geistgestalt gewissermaßen das angesetzt werden - denn sie ist im Grunde nur die Anlage für den künftigen Kopf -, was Brustorgane werden, was Gliedmaßenorgane, Stoffwechselorgane werden. Das muß angesetzt werden. Woher kommen die geistigen Impulse zu diesem Ansetzen?

Ja, die haben die Wesenheiten der zweiten und der dritten Hierarchie gnadevoll aufgesammelt, als der Mensch auf der ersten Hälfte des Weges war. Sie haben sie seinem Moralischen abgenommen; sie bringen sie jetzt wiederum herab und formen daraus die Anlage für den rhythmischen und für den Stoffwechsel-Gliedmaßenmenschen. Dann erhält der Mensch in dieser späteren Zeit des Daseins zwischen dem Tod und einer neuen Geburt die Ingredienzien, die geistigen Ingredienzien für den physischen Organismus. In das Embryonale fährt hinein diese Geistgestalt und trägt hinein das, was nun physische Kräfte, ätherische Kräfte werden, die aber nur das physische Abbild sind von dem, was wir aus dem früheren Leben mittragen als Menschenunverständnis und Menschenhaß, aus dem unsere Gliedmaßen geistig gebildet worden sind.

Wenn man solche Anschauungen haben will, muß man sich eigentlich eine ganz andere Art des Empfindens aneignen, als man sie für die physische Welt braucht. Denn man muß hinschauen können auf das, was am Menschen in der angedeuteten Weise aus dem Geiste heraus physisch wird, und man muß ertragen können, daß in den Knochen Kälte, moralische Kälte im physischen Abbild lebt, daß im Blute moralischer Haß im physischen Abbild lebt. Man muß gewissermaßen wiederum lernen, ganz objektiv auf diese Dinge hinzuschauen.

Allerdings, wenn man in diese Dinge so hineinblickt, dann merkt man im Grunde genommen erst den Unterschied zwischen dem Menscheninneren und dem, was äußere Natur ist.

Gedenken Sie doch der Tatsache, die ich erwähnte, daß wir in den Blüten des Pflanzenreiches etwas erblicken wie das auseinandergelegte Gewissen des Menschen. Das, was da draußen ist, ist gewissermaßen dasBild unseres Seelischen. Was wir zunächst in unserem Inneren haben, das sind Kräfte, die nur der äußeren Natur nicht verwandt ausschauen. Der Knochen kann nur dadurch Knochen sein, daß er den kohlensauren und den phosphorsauren Kalk, wenn sie mineralisch auftreten, haßt, sich vor ihnen zurückzieht, sich in sich selber zusammenzieht und etwas anderes wird, als was kohlensaurer und phosphorsaurer Kalk draußen in der Natur sind. Man muß sich zu der Anschauung aufschwingen können, daß, damit der Mensch eine physische Gestalt haben kann, in seinem Physischen Haß und Kälte sein müssen.

Da gewinnen unsere Worte, ich möchte sagen eine innere Bedeutung. Wenn unsere Knochen eine bestimmte Härte haben, ist es gut für sie; sie haben diese Härte als ein physisches Abbild der geistigen Kälte. Wenn unsere Seele eine gewisse Härte hat, ist es für das soziale Leben nicht gut. Das physische Wesen des Menschen muß eben anders sein als sein Seelisches. Darin besteht gerade die Möglichkeit, daß der Mensch Mensch ist, daß sein physisches Wesen anders ist als sein Seelisch-Geistiges. Dieses physische Wesen des Menschen ist auch anders als die umliegende physische Natur. Darauf beruht die Notwendigkeit der Umwandelung, von der ich Ihnen gesprochen habe.

Aber Sie sehen, diese wichtige Ergänzung zu dem, was ich einstmals in dem Kursus, der über Kosmologie, Philosophie und Religion handelte, gesagt habe, diese notwendige Ergänzung für die Verbindung des Menschen mit den Hierarchien, die mußten wir einmal anbringen. Wir konnten sie aber nur anbringen, wenn wir gerade solche Ausgangspunkte gewonnen hatten, wie diejenigen der letzten Vorträge sind. Geradeso wie man mit dem geistigen Blick durchschaut, was die einzelnen Wesen des mineralischen, tierischen, pflanzlichen Reiches hier auf der Erde sind, so schaut man hinein in die Arbeit der Hierarchien, die von Zeit zu Zeit ebenso verläuft, wie von Zeit zu Zeit hier unten das physische Naturgeschehen und die Menschenarbeit verlaufen.

Wenn man so das Leben zwischen dem Tod und einer neuen Geburt, das heißt, das Leben in der geistigen Welt anschaut, dann kann man in einer ebensolchen Weise in Einzelheiten beschreiben, was der Mensch durchmacht zwischen dem Tod und einer neuen Geburt, wie man biographisch beschreiben kann, was er hier auf der Erde zwischen Geburt und Tod durchmacht. Und so müßte eigentlich, ich möchte sagen, gehofft werden, daß alles das, was an Menschenunverstand und Menschenhaß durch die Menschen, wenn sie durch die Pforte des Todes gehen, hinaufgetragen wird in die geistige Welt, daß das auch wiederum dem Menschen mitgegeben wird, das heißt, daß daraus, es veredelnd, Menschengestalten geschaffen werden.

Nun hat sich aber im Laufe von langen Jahrhunderten für die gegenwärtige Entwickelung der Erdenmenschheit etwas sehr Sonderbares ergeben. Es konnten in der geistigen Welt nicht alle Menschenunverständnis- und Menschenhasseskräfte für neue Menschenbildungen, für neue Menschengestalten aufgebraucht werden. Es blieb ein Rest. Dieser Rest ist im Laufe der letzten Jahrhunderte auf die Erde heruntergeströmt, so daß in der geistigen Erdenatmosphäre, ich möchte sagen im Astrallicht der Erde, sich als Einschlag befindet eine Summe von Impulsen von außer dem Menschen vorhandenen Menschenhaß und Menschenverachtung. Die sind nicht menschliche Gestalten geworden; die strömen im Astrallicht um die Erde herum. Die wirken in die Menschen herein, aber jetzt nicht in dasjenige, was der einzelne Mensch ist; sie wirken in das herein, was die Menschen miteinander auf der Erde formen. Sie wirken in die Zivilisation herein. Und innerhalb der Zivilisation haben sie das angerichtet, was mich in die Notwendigkeit versetzt hat, im Frühling 1914 in Wien davon zu sprechen, daß unsere gegenwärtige Zivilisation durchsetzt ist von einem geistigen Karzinom, von einer geistigen Krebskrankheit, von geistigen Geschwüren.

Dazumal hat man nicht gern hingehorcht darauf, daß dies ausgesprochen wurde in Wien in dem Zyklus, der gehandelt hat über die Erscheinungen zwischen dem Tod und einer neuen Geburt. Aber seither haben die Menschen schon einiges von dem erfahren, was die Wahrheit des damals getanen Ausspruches war. Dazumal lebten nur die Menschen in Gedankenlosigkeit über dasjenige, was durch die Zivilisation strömt. Sie sahen nicht, daß wirkliche Geschwürbildungen der Zivilisation da waren: sie sind nur von 1914 an aufgebrochen. Sie zeigen sich heute als ganz verdorbene geistige Zivilisationssubstanzen. Man kann allerdings das, was in der Zivilisation lebt, auch als ein einheitliches geistiges Gebilde anschauen. Ja, dann stellt sich gerade für diese moderne Zivilisation heraus, in die eingeströmt sind die Strömungen von Menschenhaß und von Menschenkälte, die nicht verwendet worden sind bei Menschenbildungen: das, was da eingeströmt ist, lebt sich aus als das Parasitäre der modernen Zivilisation.

Die moderne Zivilisation hat etwas tief Parasitäres; sie ist wie das Stück eines Organismus, das von Parasiten, von Bazillen durchzogen ist. Was an Gedanken die Menschen angehäuft haben, das ist da, ohne in lebendiger Verbindung mit den Menschen zu sein. Denken Sie nur einmal, wie es in den allertäglichsten Erscheinungen zutage tritt. Ein Mensch, der etwas lernen muß, weil der Inhalt des zu Lernenden nun schon einmal da ist, der aber nicht mit, Enthusiasmus lernt, sondern der sich hinsetzen muß und eben lernen muß, um durch ein Examen zu gehen, oder um einen richtigen Beamten vorzustellen oder dergleichen mehr: ja, für den ist keine elementare Verbindung da zwischen dem, was er aufnimmt, und dem, was in seiner Seele eigentlich an Begehrungsvermögen nach Aufnehmen des Geistigen lebt. Es ist gerade so, wie wenn ein Mensch, der nicht eingerichtet ist darauf, Hunger zu haben, fortwährend Nahrungsmittel in sich hineinstopft. Sie machen die Verwandlungen nicht durch, von denen ich gesprochen habe, sie werden Ballast in seinem Wesen, sie werden zuletzt etwas, was gerade die Parasiten herbeiruft.

Vieles in unserer modernen Zivilisation, das wie abgesondert vom Menschen bleibt, das wie, ich möchte sagen, lauter Mistelpflanzen geistig gedacht - auf dem lebt, was der Mensch aus den ursprünglichen Impulsen seines Herzens, seines Gemütes hervorbringt, vieles von dem lebt so, daß es sich als parasitäres Dasein unserer Zivilisation auslebt. Und wer das mit geistigem Blicke anschaut, wer unsere Zivilisation sozusagen im Astrallichte schaut, für den war eben schon 1914 eine hochgradige Krebs-, eine Karzinombildung vorhanden, für den war die ganze Zivilisation von etwas Parasitärem durchzogen. Aber nun tritt zu dem Parasitären etwas anderes hinzu.

Ich habe Ihnen sozusagen geistig-physiologisch dargestellt, wie aus der Natur der Gnomen und Undinen, die von unten heraufwirken, im Menschen organisch die Möglichkeit entsteht, parasitäre Impulse zu haben. Dann aber, sagte ich, entsteht das Gegenbild. Dann wird von oben heruntergetragen durch Sylphen und Wärme-Elementarwesen das Giftige. Und so wird in einer Zivilisation, die den parasitären Charakter trägt, wie die unsrige, das, was von oben, das heißt, was als spirituelle Wahrheit hineinströmt, nicht durch sich zum Gift, aber in Gift verwandelt im Menschen, so daß er es, wie ich es beschrieben habe im «Goetheanum», in Angst zurück weist und sich allerlei Gründe erfindet, um es zurückzuweisen. Die zwei Dinge gehören zusammen: parasitäre Kultur unten, nicht aus dem elementarischen Gesetze hervorspringend, daher Parasiten in sich enthaltend, und sich senkendes Gift, sich senkende Spiritualität von oben, die, indem sie in die Zivilisation eindringt, von den Menschen so aufgenommen wird, daß sie zum Gifte wird. Dann haben Sie, wenn Sie dies bedenken, das wichtigste Symptomatische für unsere gegenwärtige Zivilisation. Und es ergibt sich, wenn man die Dinge durchschaut, einfach ganz von selbst das Kulturpädagogische, das dagegen als Heilmittel auftreten muß. Wie sich aus der wirklichen Diagnose, der wirklichen Pathologie ergibt die rationelle Therapie, so ergibt sich aus der Diagnose der Kulturkrankheit die Therapie, indem das eine das andere herbeizieht. (Tafel 20, rechts oben.)

Es ist ganz klar, daß die Menschheit heute wiederum etwas von einer Zivilisation braucht, die ganz nahe an das Menschengemüt und Menschenherz herankommt, die unmittelbar aus Menschengemüt und Menschenherz hervorkommt. Wenn man das Kind heute, wenn es in die Volksschule hereinkommt, heranbringt an diese ja einer Hochzivilisation angehörigen Buchstabenformen, die es jetzt lernen soll als A, B,C, da hat es ja gar nichts in seinem Herzen, in seinem Gemüt damit zu tun. Es hat gar keine Beziehung dazu. Das, was es da in seinem Kopf, in seinem Gemüt entwickelt, indem es A, B, C lernen muß, das ist Parasit in der menschlichen Natur, geistig-seelisch gedacht.

So ist ja durch unsere ganze Bildungszeit hindurch vieles, was parasitisch heute aus der Zivilisation an den Menschen herandringt. Daher müssen wir, wenn das Kind in die Schule kommt, solche pädagogische Kunst entwickeln, welche aus dem kindlichen Gemüte heraus schafft. Wir müssen das Kind Farben formen lassen, und dann diese Farbenformen, die aus Freude, aus Enttäuschung, aus allen möglichen Gefühlen entstehen, zu Papier bringen lassen: Freude - Schmerz! Was da das Kind, indem es einfach sein Gemüt entfalten läßt, zu Papier bringt, das steht mit dem Menschen in Verbindung; das gibt kein Parasitäres. Das gibt etwas, was aus dem Menschen herauswächst wie seine Finger, wie seine Nase, während das, was der Mensch annimmt, indem er geführt wird an die Ergebnisse einer Hochzivilisation in den Buchstaben, zu Parasitärem führt.

Und in dem Augenblicke, wo wir dieses Anknüpfen der pädagogischen Kunst an das haben, was dem Menschengemüte und Menschenherzen ganz nahe liegt, bringen wir auch das Spirituelle an den Menschen heran, ohne daß es in ihm zum Gift wird. Und Sie haben da zuerst die Diagnose, die da findet: unsere Zivilisation ist von Karzinomen durchzogen, und dann die Therapie - nun, die Waldorfschul-Pädagogik!

Die Waldorfschul-Pädagogik ist nicht anders aufgebaut, meine lieben Freunde. Aus ganz derselben Denkweise heraus, aus der man medizinisch denkt, ist da über die Kultur gedacht. Und so sehen Sie hier im speziellen Falle angewendet, was ich vor ein paar Tagen gesagt habe: daß eigentlich das Menschenwesen von unten, von der Ernährung an durch die Heilung nach oben in die geistige Entwickelung geht, und daß man die Pädagogik als eine ins Geistige übersetzte Medizin anzusehen hat. Das aber tritt uns mit besonderer Schärfe hervor, wenn wir die Kulturtherapie finden wollen. Denn diese Kulturtherapie können wir nur denken als die Waldorfschul-Pädagogik.

Natürlich können Sie sich denken, wie es einem zumute ist, wenn man diesen Zusammenhang nicht nur durchschaut, sondern in diesem Zusammenhang diese Waldorfschul-Pädagogik praktisch auszubauen versuchte, und jetzt unter dem allgemeinen Ergebnis des Zivilisationskarzinoms in Mitteleuropa Zustände eintreten, die ja, wie Sie selbst heute wohl schon begreifen werden, wahrscheinlich das, was praktische Waldorfschul-Pädagogik ist, recht sehr gefährden, wenn nicht gar unmöglich machen werden.

Solche Gedanken sollten wir nicht von uns weisen. Wir sollten sie in uns gerade als Impulse sein lassen, überall da, wo wir noch können, mitzuwirken an der Therapie unserer Kultur. Vielfach ist es ja heute aber wirklich so: Wie aus einer gewissen geistigen Erkenntnis heraus von mir während meines Helsingforser Zyklus 1913 die Inferiorität des Woodrow Wilson ausgesprochen wurde, der dann eine Art weltlicher Herrgott geworden ist für viele Zivilisationsmenschen und über den die Menschen erst jetzt, weil sie nicht mehr anders können, sich einige Klarheit machen -, wie es da gegangen ist, so ist es auch mit demjenigen gegangen, was dazumal über das Zivilisationskarzinom gesagt worden ist. Nun, dazumal ist es halt mit diesen Dingen so gegangen; heute geht es mit den Dingen, die für unsere Zeit gelten, ebenso: Es wird geschlafen. Uns geziemt aber denn doch das Erwachen. Und Anthroposophie hat alle Impulse für ein richtiges Kulturerwachen in sich, für ein richtiges Kulturerwachen des Menschen!

Das ist es, was ich Ihnen nun in dem letzten dieser Vorträge sagen wollte.

Twelfth Lecture

When one sees how the extra-natural is transformed in the human organism, for example, as radically as the mineral, which must come to the warmth-etheric, then one will also find how that which lives in the natural, in the organized human being, connects itself to the spiritual. If one imagines, as is so often the case according to the illustrations in the usual handbooks on anatomy and physiology, that the human being is a solid structure and then absorbs the external components of nature, keeping them almost unchanged within himself, then of course one will always suffer from the lack of a bridge that must be built from what is in the natural human being to that with which the human being is connected according to his actual soul.

First of all, one will not be able to find the connection of the bone system, the muscle system, which one imagines as solid bodies, for example, with the moral world order. One will say: the one is nature, the other is something radically different from nature. But if one is clear about the fact that all kinds of substantiality are present in man, and that everything must pass through even more fleeting kinds of substantiality than muscles and bones, then one will find that what is more fleeting, more ethereal, can enter into a connection with what are the impulses of the moral world order.

This thought must be taken up if we want to lead the considerations we have already made to that connection which the human being has upwards, to the spiritual of the cosmos, to those entities which we have described as the entities of the higher hierarchies. And so, just as in the previous lectures we started from the natural, today we want to start from what works spiritually and morally among human beings.

Spiritual, moral: these have actually become more or less conventional terms for modern civilization. The original elementary feeling of the moral-spiritual in the human being has receded more and more. Modern civilization, for example, is already pointing people more and more towards asking: What is customary? What has become conventionally established? What is commandment? What is law? and so on. - It is less concerned with what comes out of a person than with impulses that are rooted in the place where conscience, for example, is very often placed in an indeterminate way. This inner self-direction and goal-setting is something that has declined more and more in modern civilization. This is why the spiritual and moral has ultimately become something that today lives more or less in the conventional-traditional.

Old world views, especially those that were still based on instinctive clairvoyance, brought forth moral impulses from within the human being, they gave rise to moral impulses. These moral impulses are there, but today they have become traditional. You just have to be clear about the extent to which morality, for example, has become traditional. Of course, this is not to say anything against the traditional in morality - but just think, how old are the Ten Commandments? They are taught as something that is recorded from ancient times. Can we say that today it is something ordinary that something of the kind springs forth from the original elementary human nature, as it once did with the Decalogue, with the Ten Commandments? And what is the source of the moral-spiritual that connects people socially, that weaves the social threads from person to person among people?

The only real sources of the moral-spiritual in humanity are what can be called human understanding, mutual human understanding, and human love based on this understanding. No matter how much we look around us at the origin of the moral-spiritual impulses of human beings, insofar as these play a role in social life, we will find everywhere that where these moral impulses have sprung elementarily from humanity, they have emerged from human understanding and human love. The latter are the actual driving force of the socially spiritual and moral within humanity. And basically, man, insofar as he is a spiritual being, lives among other men only by developing an understanding of man and love of man.

Now you can raise a meaningful question, a question that is not always raised, but which should actually be on the tip of everyone's tongue, especially in view of what has been said: If love of man and understanding of man are the very impulses of human coexistence, where does it come from that the opposite, misunderstanding of man and hatred of man, occur within our social order?

This is a question that has preoccupied the initiates the most of all people. The science of initiation has always regarded this as one of its most important questions. But this initiation science, when it was original, also had certain means of finding a solution to this question. If you look at the science in use today, you actually come to the question, when you look at man - the God-created soul is actually predisposed to an understanding of man and love of man - why do these not work as a matter of course within the social order? Where do hatred and misunderstanding of human nature come from? And if we cannot look for them in the spiritual, in the soul, this misunderstanding of human nature and this hatred of humanity, we must of course look for them in the physical-bodily realm.

Yes, but now today's conventional science tells us what the physical body of man is: blood, nerves, muscles, bones. No matter how long you look at a bone, if you only look at it with the eye of today's natural science, you will not be able to say: This bone is man's seducer to hatred. - Or no matter how much you examine the blood according to the principles of today's science, you will not be able to determine in this way: This blood is the tempter of man to man's ignorance.

However, this was quite different in the times when initiation science was originally practiced. At that time one looked at the physical-bodily of man, and one had the opposite image of what one had in the spiritual through instinctive clairvoyance. Today, when people speak of the spiritual, they speak at most of abstract thoughts; these are the spiritual for them. And if these thoughts are too thin for him, then all he has left are words, and he writes a “critique of language”, as Fritz Mauthner did. Such a critique of language makes it possible to allow the spirit, which has already become thin enough, to evaporate completely into mere abstract thoughts. The science of initiation, imbued with instinctive clairvoyance, did not see the spiritual in abstract thoughts. It saw the spiritual in forms, in what was pictorial, what could speak and sound. It saw the spiritual in vitality. Because the spiritual was seen in vitality, the physical, the bone, the blood, could also be seen in spirituality. In this science of initiation there were not these thoughts, this idea of the skeleton that we have today. Today this skeleton is something that is viewed as if it were built by a calculating architect for the anatomist or the physiologist. But that's not what it is. This skeleton, as you have seen, is formed by driving the mineral up to the heat ether, by the forces of the spiritual hierarchies intervening in the heat ether and then forming the bone shapes from it.

So if you can look at the skeleton properly, it reveals the spiritual origin. And it is really the case that the person who looks at the skeleton in its present form, I mean in the form in which modern science looks at it, is like a person who says: Here I have a printed page, there are letter forms. - He describes these letterforms, but he doesn't read because he can't read. He does not relate what is expressed in the letterforms to what underlies them; he only describes the letterforms. This is how today's anatomist, today's naturalist describes the bones as if they indicated nothing at all; but they indicate their origin from the spiritual.

So it is with everything that are physical laws of nature, what are etheric laws of nature. Everything is like the symbol of what the spiritual world is. And only then do we understand these things when we can grasp them as characters from the spiritual worlds.

But then, if you can look at the human physical organism in this way, you will become aware of something that belongs in that area of which the Initiates of all times - that is, those who really were - have said: When you cross the threshold into the spiritual world, you first become aware of something that is frightening, something that is not even easy to bear at first. For the most part, people want to be pleasantly touched by what seems desirable to them. But it is true that one must go through the horror if one wants to get to know spiritual reality, that is, true reality in general. For with reference to the human form, as it presents itself to us anatomically and physiologically, one realizes that it is built up from the spiritual world out of two elements, which are moral coldness and hatred.

We really do carry in our soul the disposition to love humanity and to that warmth, to that moral warmth that understands other people. But we carry moral coldness in the solid components of our organism. This is the force that, so to speak, cakes up our physical organization from the spiritual world. And we carry within us the impulse of hatred. This is what causes the circulation of blood from the spiritual world. And while we perhaps go through the world with a very loving soul, with a soul that thirsts for human understanding, we must realize that in the subconscious below, where the soul flows in and impulses into the physical, so that we can carry a body on us at all, there is coldness. I will always speak of cold, I mean the moral cold, which can, however, pass through the warmth ether into the physical cold. The moral coldness and the hatred sit down there in our subconscious, and man easily brings into his soul that which sits in his body, so that his soul can, as it were, be infected by misunderstanding of man; but that is the result of the moral coldness and hatred of man. Because this is the case, man must first develop moral warmth, that is, an understanding of human nature and love, for these must conquer what comes from the physical.

Now it cannot be denied - this presents itself to the spiritual eye with all clarity - that our time, our civilization, which began in the 15th century and has become intellectualistic on the one hand and materialistic on the other, is connected with the fact that there is much misunderstanding and hatred of man at the bottom of souls. This is the case more than one might think. For one only really becomes aware of how much misunderstanding and hatred of man exists in the human unconscious when man has passed through the gate of death. There he draws out his soul-spiritual from the physical-corporeal. He discards the physical-corporeal. The impulses of coldness, the impulses of hatred then show themselves as mere natural forces; they are then mere natural forces.

Let us look at the corpse. Let us look at the etheric corpse itself with the spiritual eye. We have to look at something that no longer evokes a moral judgment, just as little as the plant or the stone. Whatever moral substance was in it has been transformed into natural forces. But man has sucked out much during his life; he takes it with him through the gate of death. And so the ego and the astral body withdraw, and by drawing it out they take with them what has remained unnoticed during life, because it has always again been completely submerged in the physical and etheric body. They take with them, this ego and the astral body, into the spiritual world all the impulses of hatred and coldness towards people that have just taken hold in the soul. I said that one only realizes how much human ignorance and hatred of man is implanted in man in our civilization through various things, of which we shall speak later, when one sees man passing through the gate of death. For today's man carries much of these two impulses through the gate of death, a tremendous amount.

But what he carries there is the spiritual remainder of that which is supposed to be in the physical, which is supposed to make up the physical and etheric body. Man carries into the spiritual world the remnants of that which actually belongs to the physical world in his lack of understanding and hatred of man; and he carries it into the spiritual world in a spiritual way. It could never be of benefit to man to carry this further through the course of time between death and a new birth, for he could not progress at all, he would stumble at every further step in his further development between death and a new birth, if he had to carry this misunderstanding of man and this hatred of man further. In the supersensible world, into which the so-called dead enter, one can actually see a continuous stream of currents which, if they were to work as they do, would stop people in their progress. What do these currents come from?

If you want to know where they come from, you only have to look at life today. People pass each other by, they pay little attention to each other's peculiarities. Aren't people today mostly of such a nature that everyone thinks it is right and good to be the way they are? And if the other person is different, they do not respond lovingly to this other person, but only come to the conclusion that they should be different, whereby in the end they usually say to themselves: they should be like me. - One does not always realize this, but it is inherent in social intercourse, in the social intercourse of people. In what is brought to light today, I would like to say in the form of human language, there is so little of the understanding of the other person. People shout out into the world how they imagine a person should be, whereby there is usually nothing behind it other than: as one is, so should all people be. If someone comes along who is completely different, he is immediately, even if you don't fully realize it, an enemy, a person against whom you develop antipathy. There is a lack of understanding of human nature, a lack of moral warmth, a lack of love. And to the same extent that this is lacking, moral coldness, hatred of humanity goes with the person through the gate of death, stops him there.

But there man first finds, since his further development is not only his own goal, but his further development is the goal of the whole world order, the wisdom-filled world order, there he first finds the beings of the third hierarchy, the Angeloi, Archangeloi, Archai. In the first time, after man has passed through the gate of death into the world that lies between death and a new birth, they lean towards man and graciously take away the coldness that comes from man's lack of understanding. And we see how the Beings of the Third Hierarchy burden themselves with that which man carries into the spiritual world in the manner described, by passing through the gate of death.

For longer he must carry away the remnants of human hatred, for these can only be taken from him through the grace of the second Hierarchy, the Exusiai, the Kyriotetes, the Dynamis. They then take from him all that remains of hatred of man.

But in the meantime man has reached that region between death and a new birth in which the Beings of the first Hierarchy, the SeraPphim, Cherubim, Thrones, have their abode: that which I have called in my Mysteries the midnight hour of spiritual existence. Man could not pass through this region of seraphim, cherubim and thrones without being completely destroyed inwardly, that is to say, annihilated, if he had not first been graciously deprived by the beings of the third and second Hierarchies of human incomprehension, that is to say, moral coldness and hatred of man. Thus we see how man, in order to find the connection to those impulses which can contribute to his further development, must first load the Beings of the higher Hierarchies with that which he carries up from his physical and etheric nature, where it belongs, into the spiritual worlds.

However, when one sees through all this, when one sees how this moral coldness prevails in the spiritual world, then one also knows how to judge the relationship of this spiritual coldness with what is physical coldness down here. This physical cold, which is in snow and ice, is only the physical image of this moral-spiritual cold that is up there. If you have both in front of you, you can compare them. While man is thus stripped of human ignorance and human hatred, one can follow him with the spiritual eye as he gradually loses his form, as it were, at first, as this form more or less melts away, one might say.

For the spiritual gaze of the imagination the human being, when he has passed through the gate of death, actually still looks similar to how he was here on earth. For what man carries within him here on earth are the substances that are more or less in granular form, let us say in atomistic form; but the form of man is spiritual. We must be clear about this: it is simply nonsense to imagine the form of man physically; we must imagine the form of man spiritually. The physical in it is, so to speak, everywhere in small particles. The form, which is only a body of force, holds together in form what would otherwise fall apart into a heap. If you could take each of them by the scruff of the neck and pull their form away, then the physical and also the etheric would fall down like a heap of sand. The fact that it is not a heap of sand, that it is spread out and takes shape, does not come from anything physical, it comes from the spiritual. Man walks around here in the physical world as a spiritual being. It is nonsense that man is merely a physical being; his form is purely spiritual. The physical is, to put it roughly, a pile of crumbs.

But man still has this form when he has passed through the gate of death. One sees it shimmering, shimmering, shining in colors. Only that man first loses that which is the form of his head; then the other gradually melts away. And man is completely metamorphosed, as if he has become a kind of 'image of the cosmos in the time between death and a new birth in the region of the seraphim, cherubim and thrones.

So then, if one follows man between death and a new birth, one sees him at first, I might say, continuing to weave by gradually losing his form from top to bottom. But by losing the last part from below, so to speak, something has already formed that is a wonderful spiritual form, which in itself is like an image of the whole sphere of the world and which at the same time is the model of the future head that man will carry with him. There man is interwoven into an activity in which not only the beings of the lower hierarchies participate, but also the beings of the highest hierarchies, the seraphim, cherubim and thrones.

What is happening there? Actually, the most wonderful thing imaginable for a human being is happening. For there that which man has been here in life as a lower man passes over into the formation of the head. When we walk around here on earth, we only have our poor head as the organ of imagination, as the organ that carries thoughts. But thoughts are also the companions of our chest, thoughts are the companions of our limbs in particular. But the moment we begin to think not only with our head, but with our limbs, for example, the whole reality of karma opens up to us. We know nothing of our karma because we only ever think with this most superficial organ, with the brain. The moment we begin to think with our fingers - and one can think much more brightly with the fingers, with the toes, if one has worked up to it, than with the nerves of the head - the moment we begin to think with that which has not quite become matter, with the lower human being, our thoughts are the thoughts of our karma. If we do not merely grasp with the hand, but think, then we pursue our karma by thinking with the hand. And especially with our feet, when we do not merely walk, but when we think with our feet, we pursue our karma with particular clarity. The fact that man on earth is so narrow-minded - forgive me, I can think of no other word - stems from the fact that he encloses all his thinking in this region of the head. But you can think with the whole person. And if one thinks with the whole human being, then for the middle part a whole cosmology, a wonderful wisdom of the world is ours. And for the lower parts and for the limbs in general, karma is our own.

We already do a lot when we look at a walking person here on earth and are not completely dull, but follow the beauty of the step, the characteristic of the step, and when, for example, we let his hands have an effect on us and interpret these hands and find that the most wonderful testimonies to the inner being of man lie in every finger movement. But that is only the smallest part of what moves with the walking, the grasping, the finger-moving human being. His whole moral man moves with it, his destiny moves with it, everything that he is spiritually moves with it. And when, after the human being has passed through the gate of death, we can observe how the form melts away - first that which is reminiscent of the physical form melts away - then that which is more similar to the physical form, but which announces through its inner nature, through its inner essence, that it is actually the form of the moral, appears. And so man, approaching the midnight hour of existence, enters the sphere of seraphim, cherubim and thrones. Then we see how the wonderful metamorphosis takes place, how, I can say, the form melts away. But that is not the really important thing. It looks as if it is melting away, but in truth the spiritual beings of the higher worlds work together with the human being, with those people who are working on themselves, but also with those who are karmically connected - one person works on the other - from the previous form of the human being, from the form of the previous earthly life, that which then becomes the form of the next incarnation, initially spiritually.

This spiritual form then only connects with that which is given to the human being as an embryo in physical life. But up there in the spiritual world, the foot and leg transform into the jaw of the head. There the arm and the hand transform into the zygomatic bone of the head. The whole of the lower human being is transformed into what will now become the spiritual anlage for the later head. That, I say, is the most wonderful thing that one can experience, recognizing out of the world, how this metamorphosis takes place: how first, as it were, an image of the whole world is created, and how this is differentiated into the form to which everything moral adheres - but after everything that I have said has been taken away - how what was there is transformed into what will be there. And then one sees the human being as a spirit-form transforming further, again back into the region of the second hierarchy, into the region of the third hierarchy. Now this transformed spirit-form must, so to speak, be given what will become chest organs, what will become limb organs, metabolic organs - for it is basically only the anlage for the future head. That is what must be set. Where do the spiritual impulses come from for this attachment?

Yes, the Beings of the Second and Third Hierarchies graciously gathered them up when man was on the first half of the path. They took them from his moral nature; now they bring them down again and form from them the disposition for the rhythmic and metabolic limb-man. Then, in this later time of existence between death and a new birth, the human being receives the ingredients, the spiritual ingredients for the physical organism. This spiritual form enters the embryonic and carries into it what now becomes physical forces, etheric forces, but which are only the physical image of that which we carry with us from the earlier life as misunderstanding and hatred of man, from which our limbs have been spiritually formed.

If one wants to have such views, one must actually acquire a completely different kind of feeling than one needs for the physical world. For one must be able to look at that which becomes physical in man in the manner indicated from the spirit, and one must be able to bear the fact that in the bones lives coldness, moral coldness in the physical image, that in the blood lives moral hatred in the physical image. In a sense, one must learn to look at these things objectively.

However, when one looks into these things in this way, then one basically only realizes the difference between the inner man and that which is external nature.

Remember the fact I mentioned that in the blossoms of the plant kingdom we see something like the dissected conscience of man. What is out there is, so to speak, the image of our soul. What we initially have within us are forces that only look unrelated to external nature. The bone can only be bone because it hates the carbonic acid and phosphoric acid lime when they appear in mineral form, withdraws from them, contracts into itself and becomes something other than what carbonic acid and phosphoric acid lime are outside in nature. One must be able to rise to the view that in order for man to have a physical form, there must be hatred and coldness in his physical being.

There our words gain, I would say, an inner meaning. If our bones have a certain hardness, it is good for them; they have this hardness as a physical image of spiritual coldness. If our soul has a certain hardness, it is not good for social life. The physical being of man must be different from his soul. This is precisely the possibility that man is man, that his physical being is different from his soul-spiritual being. This physical being of man is also different from the surrounding physical nature. This is the basis of the necessity of the transformation I have spoken to you about.

But you see, this important addition to what I once said in the course that dealt with cosmology, philosophy and religion, this necessary addition for the connection of man with the Hierarchies, we had to add it once. But we could only add it if we had just gained such starting points as those of the last lectures. Just as one sees through with the spiritual gaze what the individual beings of the mineral, animal and vegetable kingdoms are here on earth, so one looks into the work of the Hierarchies, which proceeds from time to time just as the physical events of nature and the work of man proceed from time to time down here.

If one thus looks at life between death and a new birth, that is, life in the spiritual world, then one can describe in just as much detail what man goes through between death and a new birth as one can describe biographically what he goes through here on earth between birth and death. And so it should actually, I would like to say, be hoped that everything that is carried up into the spiritual world by people in terms of human ignorance and human hatred when they pass through the gate of death, that this is also given to the human being in turn, that is, that human forms are created from it, ennobling it.

But in the course of long centuries something very peculiar has arisen for the present development of earthly mankind. Not all the forces of human misunderstanding and hatred could be used up in the spiritual world for new human formations, for new human forms. A remnant remained. This remainder has streamed down to earth in the course of the last centuries, so that in the spiritual atmosphere of the earth, I would like to say in the astral light of the earth, there is a sum of impulses of hatred and contempt for human beings that exist outside of man. They have not become human forms; they flow around the earth in the astral light. They have an effect on people, but not on what the individual person is; they have an effect on what people form together on earth. They have an effect on civilization. And within civilization they have caused that which made it necessary for me to speak in Vienna in the spring of 1914 that our present civilization is riddled with a spiritual carcinoma, a spiritual cancer, spiritual ulcers.

At that time, people did not like to listen to the fact that this was said in Vienna in the cycle that dealt with the phenomena between death and a new birth. But since then people have already learned some of the truth of what was said at that time. At that time, only people lived in thoughtlessness about that which flows through civilization. They did not see that there were real ulcerations of civilization: they only broke out after 1914. Today they show themselves as completely corrupted spiritual substances of civilization. However, one can also regard what lives in civilization as a unified spiritual entity. Yes, then it turns out, especially for this modern civilization, into which the currents of hatred of man and coldness of man have flowed, which have not been used in the formation of man: what has flowed in there lives itself out as the parasitism of modern civilization.

There is something deeply parasitic about modern civilization; it is like a piece of an organism that is riddled with parasites, with germs. The thoughts that people have accumulated are there without being in a living connection with people. Just think how it appears in the most everyday phenomena. A person who has to learn something because the content of what he has to learn is already there, but who does not learn with enthusiasm, but who has to sit down and learn in order to pass an examination, or to present a real official or something like that: yes, for him there is no elementary connection between what he absorbs and what actually lives in his soul in terms of the desire to absorb the spiritual. It is just as if a person who is not equipped to be hungry continually stuffs himself with food. They do not undergo the transformations of which I have spoken, they become ballast in his being, they end up becoming something that calls forth the parasites.

Much in our modern civilization that remains as if separated from man, that like, I would say, all mistletoe plants spiritually thought - lives on what man brings forth from the original impulses of his heart, his mind, much of it lives in such a way that it lives out as a parasitic existence of our civilization. And whoever looks at this with a spiritual eye, whoever looks at our civilization in the astral light, so to speak, will see that in 1914 there was already a high degree of cancer, a carcinoma formation, for him the whole civilization was permeated by something parasitic. But now something else has been added to the parasitic aspect.

I have shown you, so to speak, from a spiritual-physiological point of view, how the nature of the gnomes and undines, which work up from below, organically gives rise to the possibility of parasitic impulses in man. But then, I said, the opposite image arises. Then the poisonous is carried down from above by sylphs and warmth elementals. And so, in a civilization that has a parasitic character like ours, what flows in from above, that is, what flows in as spiritual truth, does not in itself become poison, but is transformed into poison in man, so that he rejects it in fear, as I described it in the Goetheanum, and invents all kinds of reasons to reject it. The two things belong together: parasitic culture below, not springing forth from the elementary law, therefore containing parasites within itself, and lowering poison, lowering spirituality from above, which, by penetrating into civilization, is absorbed by men in such a way that it becomes poison. Then, if you consider this, you have the most important symptom of our present civilization. And when you see things through, the cultural pedagogy that must act as a remedy against this simply arises quite naturally. Just as the rational therapy arises from the real diagnosis, the real pathology, so the therapy arises from the diagnosis of the cultural disease, in that the one leads to the other. (Plate 20, top right.)

It is quite clear that mankind today again needs something of a civilization that comes very close to the human mind and heart, that emerges directly from the human mind and heart. If a child today, when he enters elementary school, is introduced to these letter forms belonging to a high civilization, which he is now supposed to learn as A, B, C, he has nothing at all to do with them in his heart, in his mind. They have no relationship to it at all. What he develops in his head, in his mind, by having to learn A, B, C, is a parasite in human nature, mentally and emotionally conceived.

Throughout our entire period of education, there is much that is parasitic on people today from civilization. Therefore, when the child comes to school, we must develop such a pedagogical art that creates out of the child's mind. We must let the child form colors, and then put these color forms, which arise from joy, from disappointment, from all kinds of feelings, on paper: Joy - pain! What the child puts down on paper by simply allowing its mind to unfold is connected to the human being; there is nothing parasitic about it. It gives something that grows out of man like his fingers, like his nose, while what man accepts by being led to the results of a high civilization in letters leads to parasitic things.

And the moment we have this linking of the pedagogical art to that which is very close to the human mind and heart, we also bring the spiritual to the human being without it becoming poisonous in him. And first you have the diagnosis: our civilization is riddled with carcinomas, and then the therapy - well, Waldorf education!

Waldorf education is no different, my dear friends. It is based on the very same way of thinking from which one thinks medically, thinking about culture. And so you see applied here in this particular case what I said a few days ago: that actually the human being goes from the bottom, from nutrition upwards through healing into spiritual development, and that education must be seen as medicine translated into the spiritual. But this becomes particularly clear to us when we want to find cultural therapy. For we can only think of this cultural therapy as Waldorf school pedagogy.

Of course, you can imagine how one feels when one not only sees through this connection, but also tries to develop this Waldorf school pedagogy practically in this context, and now, under the general result of the civilization cancer in Central Europe, conditions arise which, as you yourself will probably already understand today, will probably endanger what practical Waldorf school pedagogy is, if not make it impossible.

We should not dismiss such thoughts. We should let them be impulses within us to contribute to the therapy of our culture wherever we can. In many cases today, however, it is really like this: just as I pronounced the inferiority of Woodrow Wilson during my 1913 Helsingfors cycle out of a certain spiritual insight, who then became a kind of worldly Lord God for many people of civilization and about whom people are only now, because they can no longer help themselves, gaining some clarity - just as it happened there, so it also happened with what was said back then about the carcinoma of civilization. Well, that's just the way it was with these things back then; today it's the same with the things that apply to our time: people are asleep. But it behoves us to awaken. And anthroposophy contains all the impulses for a true cultural awakening, for a true cultural awakening of the human being!

That is what I wanted to tell you in the last of these lectures.