Donate books to help fund our work. Learn more→

The Rudolf Steiner Archive

a project of Steiner Online Library, a public charity

Karmic Relationships I
GA 235

16 February 1924, Dornach

Lecture I

I now wish to begin to speak to you of the laws and conditions of human destiny, which, as you know, it has become customary to describe as karma. Karma, however, cannot be seen clearly unless we are prepared to learn to know the different kinds of universal law and universal activity. Therefore let me begin by speaking to you in a rather more abstract way of the different kinds of universal law and working, and later crystallise out, as it were, that special kind of working which can be called human destiny or karma.

Both when we try to comprehend the World's phenomena and when we wish to understand the phenomena of human life, we are wont to speak of “causes and effects.” Especially in science nowadays, people are accustomed to speak quite generally of “causes and effects.” Yet it is precisely this habit which leads into the greatest difficulties, in face of the true reality. For if we speak in this way, we are leaving out of account the variety of forms in which “cause and effect” actually occur in the universe.

To begin with we may observe the so-called lifeless Nature, which confronts us most clearly of all in the mineral kingdom. There are the marvellous forms which often meet us in the rocks and stones of the earth. There too is all that appears as though it were ground down to powder and compressed again into amorphous stone.

Let us consider, to begin with, all that thus appears to us as the lifeless in the world. When we consider the lifeless purely as such, we find invariably that we can seek within the lifeless itself whatever causes are at work in the lifeless realm. Wherever there is anything lifeless as an effect, there too—within the realm of the lifeless—we may look for the causes. And indeed, we only proceed according to true science if we do this—if we seek within the lifeless kingdom the causes of all lifeless processes.

However beautifully formed the crystal which you have before you, you must investigate its forms within the lifeless realm. This means that the lifeless kingdom is really self-contained. We may not be able to say, to begin with, where we shall find its bounds. They may be very far away in cosmic distances. Nevertheless, whatever lifeless process or effect confronts us, if we are looking for its causes, we must seek them—once again—within the realm of the lifeless.

Therewith, however, we are already placing the lifeless side by side with something else, and at once a certain perspective is opened out to us. Consider man himself—how he passes through the gate of death. All that was working and living in him before he went through the gate of death, has vanished from the tangible and visible form which remains behind when the soul passes on. Indeed, we say of this human shape which is left behind, that it is lifeless. Just as we speak of the lifeless when we look out over the rocks and mountains with their crystal forms, so must we speak of the lifeless when we behold the corpse of man, bereft of soul and spirit. And it is only from this moment that we can apply to the human body what applies to the rest of lifeless Nature from the outset.

For those effects which happened in and about the human form during life—before the soul had passed through the gate of death—we could not seek the causes within the lifeless realm. Not only that when a human being lifts his arm we shall look in vain within the lifeless-physical principles of the human form for the causes of the lifting of the arm. Moreover, in the physical-chemical laws which are present in the human form, we shall look equally in vain for the causes—let us say—of the heart-beat, the circulation of the blood, or any other, even involuntary process.

The moment this human form has become a corpse however, the moment the soul has passed through the gate of death, we also observe an effect in the human body. The colour changes in the skin, the limbs become inert—in short, all the effects appear that we are accustomed to witness in the corpse. Where shall we seek the cause? Within the corpse itself—in the chemical and physical, lifeless laws of the corpse.

Think to the end, in all directions, what I am indicating (for I am doing no more than indicate it), and you will say to yourself: As to his corpse, man, when his soul has passed through the gate of death, has become equal to lifeless Nature. Henceforth we must seek the causes of the effects in the same realm in which the effects themselves are.

This is very important, but precisely when we envisage this characteristic of the human corpse, we find another very significant fact. At death, the human being, so to speak, lays aside his body. Observe with the necessary spiritual faculties what the real man—the man of soul and spirit—has now become, and you will say: The corpse has now been laid aside. For the real man of soul and spirit, having arrived beyond the gate of death, this corpse has no longer significance. It has been cast aside.

For outer lifeless Nature it is quite different. Observe even superficially, and you perceive the difference. Look at a human corpse. You can observe it best where it is buried—so to speak—in the air. Certain communities used to use underground caverns as burial-places, and we there find human corpses simply suspended in the air. They dry until they are completely rotten; you only need to touch them slightly, and they fall asunder into dust.

The “lifeless” which we thus obtain is different from what we find as lifeless Nature all around us. The latter contains a formative, configurative process, giving rise to crystal shapes. Moreover it is in constant change. Apart from the earthy element as such, if we observe the water and the air—which are also lifeless—we find it all in mobility and metamorphosis and transformation.

Nevertheless, let this be placed before our souls at the outset: the equivalence of the human body as to its lifeless nature, after the soul has laid it aside, with the lifeless world of Nature outside of man.

And now we may go farther. Study the plant kingdom. Here we come into the sphere of living things. Study the plant in a real way, and we shall find that we are never able to account for the effects merely from causes which lie within the plant kingdom—in the same kingdom where the effects occur. No doubt, there is a science nowadays which tries to do so, but it is in a blind-alley! It is at last obliged to say: “We can investigate the physical and also the chemical forces and laws at work in the plant. Something is then left over ...” And at this point they diverge, so to speak, into two parties. On the one hand are those who say: “What is left over is a mere synthesis—a kind of form. The physical and chemical laws are the sole effective principle.” “No,” say the others, “there is something more, which science has not yet discovered, but it will do so no doubt in time.”—They will go on speaking like this for a long while yet. For it is not so. If you wish to make research into the plant kingdom you cannot understand it without summoning the whole universe to your aid. You must perceive that the forces for the plant-activity lie in the wide universe. All that takes place in the plant is an effect of the great universe. Before any effects can take place in plant-life, the sun must come into a certain position in the universe. And other forces too must work from the wide universe, to give the plant its form, its inner forces of growth and so on.

Now, if we were able—not in a Jules Verne—fashion, but in reality—to travel say to the moon or to the sun, there too we should not be much wiser in our quest of causes than we are on earth, if we acquired no other faculties of knowledge than those we now possess. We should not reach our goal merely by saying, “Well and good: the causes of effects occurring in the plant kingdom of the earth are not to be found in this kingdom on the earth itself. Let us therefore go to the sun; there we shall find the causes.” No, not at all, there too we shall not find them with the ordinary faculties of knowledge. We find them however when we work our way up to Imaginative Cognition—i.e. when we possess quite a new faculty of knowledge. But then we do not need to travel to the sun; we find them in the earth-domain itself. Only we have to pass from “one world” into another; from the everyday physical into the etheric, the ether-world. In the wide universal spaces on every hand, the cosmic ether with its forces is working. It works inward from the wide spaces. The ether is working in on every hand, from the wide spaces.

Thus, if we wish to find the causes of the effects in the plant in this kingdom, we must actually pass into a second realm of the universe.

Now man also partakes in what the plant partakes in. The forces working into the plants out of the ether-world, work also into man. Man carries in himself the etheric forces, and we describe the sum-total of these etheric forces which he carries within him, as the human ether-body. I have already told you how the ether-body goes on expanding for a few days after man's death, and how at last it loses itself, so that the human being remains over only in his astral body and his Ego-being.

That which man carried with him etherically, becomes ever larger and larger and loses itself in world-wide distances.

And now once more: compare what we can see of man after his passage through the gate of death, with that which we see in the plant kingdom. Of the plant kingdom we must say: its causative forces come in to the earth from the widths of space. Of the human ether-body we must say: its forces go outward into the widths of space. That is, they go whence the forces of plant-growth come—as soon as man has passed through the gate of death.

Here it already becomes clearer. When we observe only the physical corpse, though we recognise that it becomes lifeless, we do not find it easy to relate it to the rest of lifeless Nature. When on the other hand we consider the living kingdom of plants, when we become aware how the causes, the forces for the plant-kingdom come inward from the ether of cosmic space, then—as we enter with spiritual imagination into the human being—we perceive that with man's passage through the gate of death the human ether-body goes thither, whence come the forces, the ether-forces, for the plant kingdom.

Now there is another characteristic. The causative forces that affect the plants, work comparatively quickly. The day before yesterday's sun has little influence upon the plant as it springs from the soil or receives blossom and fruit. The day before yesterday's sun can have little effect today with all its causes. To take effect today, it must shine today. This point is important; mark it well. You will presently see how important it is.

The plants with their etheric causes have, it is true, their actual fundamental forces within the earthly realm, but they have them in the universe simultaneously with the earth.

And when man as a soul-and-spirit being has passed through the gate of death, when the human ether-body dissolves, this again lasts but a short time—only a few days. Here again you have simultaneity. For the duration of the world-process, the few days are a mere trifle. Thus, when the human ether-body returns to where the forces for plant growth—the ether-forces—come from we, can say: As soon as man is living in the ether, his etheric activity is not restricted to the earth (for on the contrary, it leaves the earth), nevertheless, it develops simultaneously. Hence I may write you this scheme:

Mineral Kingdom; Simultaneity of causes and effects within the physical.

Yes, you will say, but surely the causes of some things that take place in the physical are antecedent in time. No, it is not so in reality. For any effects to arise in the physical, the causes must continue working. As soon as the causes cease working, no more effects will occur. Thus we can truly write:

Mineral Kingdom; Simultaneity of causes, within the physical.

And when we come into the plant kingdom (and the same will apply to the plant-nature which we can trace in man himself), there we have simultaneity in the physical and in the superphysical, so we may write:

Plant Kingdom; Simultaneity of causes in the physical and superphysical.

Now let us approach the animal kingdom. In the animal kingdom we shall investigate in vain within the animal itself the effects that occur during the creature's life. If it no more than crawls along in search of food—in the physical and chemical processes to be found within its body we shall seek in vain for the causes of these effects. We shall also seek in vain in the wide ether-spaces, where we find the causes for plant-nature. There too we shall look in vain for the causes of animal movement and animal sensation. For all that is plant-like in the animal and in its processes, we shall find the causes in the etheric spaces. And when it dies, the ether-body of the animal too goes outward into the wide universal ether. But for sensation we shall never find the causes within the realms of the earthly-physical, nor of the superphysical and etheric. We shall not find them there.

Here, even more, we come to a point where the modern idea is following up a blind alley. Indeed to some extent it has to admit it. For many a phenomenon that occurs in the animal—all the phenomena of sensation, movement, etc.,—we must admit: If we investigate the physical and chemical forces within the animal, we cannot find the causes. And in the cosmic spaces—in the ether-spaces of the universe—there too we cannot find the causes. If I would explain a flower I must go out into the widths of the ether-cosmos. Out of the ether-universe I shall be able to explain the flower. Likewise I shall be able to explain many things that are plant-like in the animal. But I shall never be able to explain, even from the ether-universe, that which occurs in the animal as movement and sensation.

Suppose I observe an animal on the 20th June. For its sensation processes, I shall not find the causes on the 20th of June—not if I seek through all the realms of space within the earthly realm and beyond. And if I go farther back, there too I shall not find them—neither in May, nor in April ...

Modern science even feels that it is so. Hence it explains some at least of what is thus unexplainable, by referring it to “heredity,” that is, by a word. It is “inherited.” It comes down from the ancestors. Not of course everything (that would be too grotesque), but much of it-it is simply “inherited.”

What is the meaning of this phrase? In the last resort, the concept of heredity amounts to this: All that confronts us in the animal, with all its manifold configurations, was potentially contained in the germ-cell of the mother-animal. Such is the effort of modern science: to study the ox externally, in the untold variety of its forms, and then to say: The ox comes from the germ-cell. There were already the forces which in their full growth and development have given rise to the ox. Accordingly, the germ-cell is an extremely complex body ... It would indeed have to be appallingly complex, this germ-cell of the ox. For it would have to contain all that presses and moulds and twists and turns and works so that the tiny germ-cell may become the ox with its manifold forms.

However you may twist and turn it (and there are many theories—evolution, epigenesis, and so on ...) however you may twist it, it comes to this. In the last resort you must conceive the germ-cell, the minute ovum, as appallingly complicated. And where all things are referred to molecules, supposed to be built up in great complication from the atoms, some scientists are prone to represent the first rudiment of the germ-cell as a complex molecule. But this, my dear friends, does not even accord with physical observation.

Is the germ-cell really a molecule or an organism so complicated? Its peculiar quality lies not at all in complication, but on the contrary: it throws all the matter back into chaos. The germ-cell of all things, in the mother-body, is not a complicated structure, but a material utterly pulverised—chaoticised. It is not organised at all. It is something that falls back into an utterly unorganised, pulverised condition. Never could reproduction take place if it were not for this. Precisely in the egg, unorganised, lifeless matter—which tends to crystalline formation—falls back into complete chaos. Albumen is not the most complicated body, but the very simplest, entirely void of inherent determination. Out of this tiny chaos which the germ-cell is to begin with, no ox could ever arise—no, not in all eternity. For it is really chaos.

Why then does it become the ox? Because at this stage the whole universe proceeds to work upon the germ-cell in the mother organism. Precisely inasmuch as it has become chaos—void of determination in itself—the entire universe can work upon it. Fertilisation has no other object in the world than to reduce matter again to chaos, to the indeterminate void, so that no other entity is working but the pure universe.

But now if we look within the mother-body—there are not the causes. If we look outside into the universal ether—there too, in what takes place simultaneously, are not the causes. We must go back, before the animal came into being, if we would find the causes of what is germinating there as the beginning of a creature capable of sensation and movement. We must go back, before the creature's life began. For all that is capable of sensation and movement, the world of causes lies not in the simultaneous, but before the creature's origin.

If it is a plant which I observe, I must go out into the simultaneous, although in the far and wide universe. There I shall find the cause. But if I want to find the cause of all that works as sensation or capacity of movement in the animal, I can no longer go into the simultaneous universe. I must go into that which precedes the creature's life. In other words, the constellation of the stars must have become different. What influences the specifically animal nature is not the constellation in the universe simultaneous with the animal, but the constellation of the stars preceding the animal's life.

Here again, let us turn our thoughts to man after his passage through the gate of death. When he has passed the gate of death, when he has laid aside his ether-body which goes into the wide cosmic spaces—to every place whence come the ether-forces of plant-growth—man must go backward, as I have told you, until his birth. When he has done so, then he has undergone, in backward progress in his astral body, all that he underwent during his life. Thus, with his astral body after death, he has not to enter what is simultaneous, but he must wend his way back to the pre-natal. He must go thither, whence come the forces which provide the animal with faculties of movement and sensation. They do not come from the realm of space, but from the constellations which are simultaneous; they come from the antecedent constellations of the stars. If therefore we are speaking of the animal kingdom, we can no longer speak of simultaneity of causes in the physical and super-physical; we must refer the present effects of the physical to past superphysical causes. Thus, for the Animal kingdom: Past super-physical causes—present effects.

Once again, we enter the concept of time. To put it trivially, we must go for a walk in time. In the physical world, when we are looking for the causes of things that happen there, we move about in the physical. We do not need to leave the physical. And if we are seeking the causes of anything that is brought about in the living kingdom of plants, we must go very far away. We must sweep through the ether-world, and only where the ether-world is at an end—where, as in fairy-tale language, we come to the end of the world—there do we find the causes of plant-growth. But we can wander there as we will; we shall not find there the causes of the faculties of sensation or of movement. To do so, we must set out on a pilgrimage in time. We must go backward in time. We must go out of space, and into time.

As to causation, therefore, we can place the human physical body in its lifeless condition side by side with external lifeless Nature. And we can place-the human ether-body—both in its life and in its outward passage after death into the ether-spaces—side by side with the etheric life of the plants; for this too comes in from the ether-spaces, though from the simultaneous constellations, of that which is beyond the physical, above the earth. Moreover, we can relate the human astral body to the outer animal world.

Now, when in further progress from mineral nature to plant and animal, we come at length to the human kingdom proper, perhaps you will say, “We have already considered it.” Yes, but not altogether. We have considered it inasmuch as the human being has a physical body; then inasmuch as he has an ether-body; and thirdly, inasmuch as he has an astral body. But you will recognise: if man merely had his physical body, he would be a crystal—even it perhaps a very complicated one. And if in addition he only had his ether-body, he would be a mere plant—no matter, perhaps, how beautiful. And if he even had the astral body added, then he would go on all fours; he would have horns, or the like; in a word, he would be an animal. All this, he is not. He has the form and figure he possesses as an upright-walking being, because he also possesses the Ego-organisation, over and above the physical, etheric and astral. To this being alone, who also has the organisation of the Ego, we can apply the name: human kingdom.

Let us observe once more what we have already seen. If we are seeking the causes for the physical, we can remain within the physical. If we are seeking the causes for plant-nature, we must go out into the wide ether-realms. We can still remain within space—though, as I said, this “space” becomes a little hypothetical, so that we have recourse to fairy-like conceptions, as when we say “the end of the world—where the world is boarded up.” Yet it is so. Why, even they who only think along the lines of present-day research are now beginning to divine that in some sense there is such a thing as the end of the world—“where the world is boarded up.” It is of course a childlike and crude expression. But we need only remember the childlike way in which people are wont to think: There is the sun, it sends out its rays, on and ever on. The rays grow-weaker and weaker, it is true, yet the light goes on and on, ever away, into the infinite.

To those who have been at these lectures for years past, I have long ago explained what nonsense it is to imagine that the light goes on and on in this way, into the endless void. Often and often I have said, the expansion of light is subject to a kind of elasticity. If you have an india-rubber ball and you indent it here—you can continue pressing up to a certain point; then it springs back again. There is an end to the elastic pressure; then it recoils. It is the same for the light: it does not go on and out into the endless void. When it has reached a certain limit, it comes back again.

This very idea—that the light does not go on indefinitely, but to a certain limit, whence it returns—has recently been upheld, for example, in England, by the physicist Oliver Lodge. Thus, even outer science has come to the point of maintaining in this instance what is declared by spiritual science; as indeed, in time to come, it will arrive in every detail at the things which spiritual science expounds.

So likewise we may say: Out there, if we think our way far enough outward, sooner or later we must think back again. We must not assume a mere endless space which is a fantasy and moreover, one which we cannot grasp. Some of you may recall what I related in my autobiography of the deep impression it made on me, when I attended classes on modern Synthetic Geometry, and when for the first time it was shown me through Geometry itself that a straight line should not be conceived as though it went out into the endless void and never ceased. The line that goes outward in this direction, actually returns from the opposite side. Geometry expresses it by saying that the infinitely distant point to the right is identical with the infinitely distant point to the left. This can be found by exact calculation—not by the mere analogy of a circle, where, if you set out from here, you will eventually get back again to the same point, and if you then imagine the diameter infinitely long the circle will become a straight line. That would be a mere analogy, of little or no value to one who can think exactly. I was impressed, not by this trivial analogy, but by the possibility of real arithmetical proof, that the infinitely distant point on the one side—to the left—is the same as the infinitely distant point to the right. So that one who begins to run from here and runs on and on along the line will not run out into the endless void; if he only runs on for long enough, he will come back to meet us from the other side. To physical thinking it may seem grotesque. The moment we set aside physical thinking it is a reality. The world is not endless. As physical world, such as it lies before us here, it is limited.

Once more then, we may say: To deal with the plant-nature and with the etheric nature in man, we must go to the very limits of the ether. But if we wish to explain the animal nature, and the astral in man, we must go right outside all that there is in space. We must go for a walk, in time—beyond all that is contemporaneous; we must move forward in time. And now we come to the human kingdom.

When we thus come into time, you see, we are already transcending the physical in a twofold way. In order to describe the animal you must move on in time. But at this stage you must not abstractly pursue the line of thought; you must continue concretely. I beg you now observe, how we continue the line of thought concretely.

People think, when the sun sends out its light, that the light goes endlessly on and on. Oliver Lodge, however, shows that this kind of thought is already beginning to be left behind. They are beginning to realise that you get to a certain limit and thence come back again. The sun receives its light sent back to it again from all directions—though in another form, in a transmuted form, still it receives it back again.

Now let us apply the same kind of thought to the progression we have just followed. We stayed, to begin with, in space. Then, earthly space remained there within, while we must go out into the universe. But even that was not enough, for at the next stage we go out into time. Now, someone might say, we must go on still further—on and on. No, on the contrary; now we come back again. Just as it is when we go on and on into space: we get to a limit and thence return; so do we here come back again. Having looked in the distances of time for the past super-physical causes we must return again into the physical.

What does this mean in reality? It signifies that out of time we must come down again on to the earth. If we would seek the causes that apply to man as such, we must seek them once more on earth. Only we have gone backward in time, and I need hardly say: when, going backward in time, we come again on to the earth, we come into a former life of man. We come into a former life. For the animal we have to go on and on. It dissolves away in time, just as our ether-body dissolves away to the utmost limits ... Man, at this point does not dissolve away; we must come back again, even into his former life on earth. Therefore, in man's case, we can say: Past physical causes, for present effects within the physical.

Mineral kingdom: Simultaneity of causes, within the physical.

Plant kingdom: Simultaneity of causes, in the physical and super-physical.

Animal kingdom: Past super-physical causes, corresponding to present effects.

Human kingdom: Past physical causes, corresponding to present effects in the physical.

You see, it has cost us some pains today, by way of preparation, to enter into these abstractions. But that was necessary. I wanted to show you that there is also a logic for these realms—the really spiritual realms of life. This logic is only not coincident with the crude logic which is merely abstracted from physical phenomena, and in which alone people will commonly believe.

Proceeding purely logically, investigating all the series of causes, even in the pure course of thought we came to the repeated lives of man on earth. We need to be attentive to this fact: our thought itself must become different if we would apprehend the spiritual.

People imagine that one cannot understand what is revealed out of the spiritual world. One can indeed, but one must extend one's logic. After all, even to understand a piece of music or any other work of art, you must have in you the conditions to go out to meet it. If you have not the conditions, you will pass by it without appreciation—as a mere noise, if it is music; or if it is plastic art, you will “see nothing in it” but the crude obvious forms. And so for the communications from the spiritual world: you must meet them with a thinking adequate to the spiritual world. And this can already be found in pure logical thinking. Seek out the possible varieties of causes, and you can actually come to understand repeated earthly lives, even in logical consequence.

Now we remain with the great question which is opened up when we consider the corpse. The corpse has become lifeless. External lifeless Nature stands there before us in its crystals and manifold formations. Here the great question arises: How is lifeless Nature related to the corpse of Man?

Perhaps you will find that it will lead you on a little in a direction tending towards the answer, if you first seize the matter at the second stage. Say to yourselves: I look at the world of plants around me. Out of the wide spaces of the ether-universe, it bears within it the forces to which my own ether-body returns. Away up yonder in the ether-spaces, is the causative principle which gives the plants their origin. There is the realm to which my ether-body goes when it has served my life. Thither I go, whence—from the ether-spaces—all the life of plants wells forth. Thither I go: that is, I am akin to it. In fact, I can even say: something is there, up yonder. Thither my ether-body goes. Thence comes the greening, springing, sprouting world of plants. Yet there is a difference. I give up my ether-body; the plants on the other hand receive the ether for their life and growth. I, after my death, give my ether-body away; give it away as a thing that is left behind. They on the other hand—the plants-receive this ether-body, as that which gives them life. They have their beginning from yonder realm whither I go with my ending. The plants' beginning joins together with the human ether-body's ending.

This will bring near to you the question: Might it not also be so for the mineral, for all the manifold crystal formations? Might I not ask: perhaps this too is a beginning, in contrast to the ending which, of myself, I leave behind as the physical corpse? Perhaps here too, beginning and ending are joined together?

With this question we will close for today, my dear friends. Tomorrow we shall begin to enter quite thoroughly the question of human destiny-so-called karma. I shall continue about karma. You will no longer have to find your way through such a jungle of abstractions; but you will also perceive that for a certain unfolding of thought this was a necessary preparation.

Erster Vortrag

Ich möchte nun beginnen, zu Ihnen über die Bedingungen und Gesetze des menschlichen Schicksals zu sprechen, das man ja gewohnt worden ist, das Karma zu nennen. Dieses Karma ist aber nur zu verstehen, zu durchschauen, wenn man sich darauf einläßt zunächst, die verschiedenen Arten der Weltgesetzmäßigkeit überhaupt erkennen zu lernen. Und so möchte ich denn heute vielleicht — es ist das notwendig - in einer etwas abstrakteren Form über die verschiedenen Arten der Weltgesetzmäßigkeit zu Ihnen sprechen, um dann die besondere Form, die als menschliches Schicksal, als Karma angesprochen werden kann, gewissermaßen herauszukristallisieren.

Wir sprechen, wenn wir sowohl die Erscheinungen der Welt umfassen wollen, wie auch, wenn wir die Erscheinungen im Menschenleben selber ins Auge fassen wollen, von Ursachen und Wirkungen. Und heute ist man ja gewöhnt, besonders in der Wissenschaft, ganz im allgemeinen zu sprechen von Ursachen und Wirkungen. Aber gerade dadurch kommt man der wahren Wirklichkeit gegenüber in die größten Schwierigkeiten hinein. Denn die verschiedenen Arten, in denen Ursachen und Wirkungen in der Welt auftreten, werden dabei nicht berücksichtigt.

Zunächst können wir uns die sogenannte leblose Natur ansehen, die uns ja am deutlichsten im mineralischen Reiche entgegentritt, in allem dem, was im Gestein in oft so wunderbaren Gestalten uns entgegentritt, aber auch in allem dem, was, man möchte sagen, zu Pulver zerrieben, dann wiederum zusammengebacken im formlosen Gestein uns entgegentritt. Das sehen wir uns zuerst an, meine lieben Freunde, was in dieser Art als Lebloses in der Welt auftritt.

Wenn wir das Leblose, ausnahmslos das Leblose betrachten, dann finden wir nämlich, daß wir die Ursachen, von denen in dem Reiche dieses Leblosen geredet werden kann, überall innerhalb dieses Leblosen selber suchen können. Wo Lebloses ist als Wirkung, da können wir in demselben Reiche des Leblosen auch die Ursachen suchen. Und man verfährt wirklich nur erkenntnisgemäß, wenn man das tut; wenn man also für die Vorgänge des Leblosen auch die Ursachen innerhalb des leblosen Reiches sucht.

Wenn Sie einen noch so schön geformten Kristall vor sich haben, so sollen Sie die [Ursachen der] Formen dieses Kristalls im leblosen Reiche selber suchen. Und damit erweist sich dieses leblose Reich als etwas in sich Abgeschlossenes. Wir können zunächst nicht sagen, wo wir die Grenzen dieses Leblosen finden. Die können unter Umständen sehr entfernt in den Weltenweiten sein. Aber auch wenn für irgendein Lebloses, das vor uns steht, wenn es sich um seine Wirkungen handelt, Ursachen gesucht sein sollen, werden wir diese Ursachen wiederum im Reiche des Leblosen selber suchen. Damit aber stellen wir das Leblose schon neben etwas anderes hin. Und damit eröffnet sich uns zugleich eine gewisse Perspektive.

Betrachten Sie den Menschen selber. Betrachten Sie ihn, wie er durchgeht durch die Pforte des Todes. Alles, was gewirkt und gewest hat in ihm, bevor er durch diese Pforte des Todes gegangen ist, das ist aus der sichtbar greiflichen Gestalt, die übrigbleibt, wenn des Menschen Seele durch die Pforte des Todes geschritten ist, das ist aus dieser nunmehr übriggebliebenen Gestalt weg, und wir sagen auch gegenüber dieser Gestalt: sie ist leblos. Und geradeso wie wir von dem Leblosen sprechen, wenn wir hinschauen auf das Gestein des Gebirges mit seinen Kristallgestalten, so müssen wir vom Leblosen sprechen, wenn wir hinschauen auf den entseelten, entgeistigten Leichnam des Menschen. Und jetzt erst tritt für den Leichnam des Menschen ganz dasselbe ein, was von vornherein da war für die übrige leblose Natur.

Wir konnten nicht für das, was an der menschlichen Gestalt geschieht als Wirkung während des Lebens, bevor die Seele durch das Tor des Todes gegangen ist, die Ursache suchen in dem Leblosen selber. Nicht nur, daß, wenn sich ein Arm hebt, wir vergeblich suchen werden in den leblosen physikalischen Gesetzen der menschlichen Gestalt nach den Ursachen dieses Armhebens, wir werden auch vergeblich suchen in den chemischen, in den physikalischen Kräften, die in der menschlichen Gestalt vorhanden sind, nach den Ursachen, sagen wir, des Herzschlages, der Blutzirkulation, irgendeines Vorganges, der auch gar nicht dem Willen unterliegt.

In dem Augenblicke aber, wo die menschliche Gestalt Leichnam geworden ist, wo die Seele durchgeschritten ist durch die Pforte des Todes, beobachten wir auch eine Wirkung an dem menschlichen Organismus. Wir sehen meinetwillen: Es verändert sich die Hautfarbe, es werden die Glieder welk, kurz, es tritt alles das ein, was man gewöhnt ist, am Leichnam zu sehen. Wo suchen wir die Ursache? Im Leichnam selber, in den chemischen, physikalischen, in den leblosen Kräften des Leichnams selber.

Nun, wenn Sie sich das, was ich da andeute - ich brauche es nur anzudeuten -, wenn Sie das nach allen Seiten und Richtungen zu Ende denken, so werden Sie sich sagen: Der Mensch ist in bezug auf seinen Leichnam, nachdem seine Seele durch die Pforte des Todes geschritten ist, der leblosen Natur gleich geworden. Das heißt, wir müssen die Ursachen für Wirkungen nunmehr in demselben Gebiete suchen, wo die Wirkungen selber liegen. Das ist sehr wichtig.

Aber gerade wenn wir auf diese besondere Artung des menschlichen Leichnams hinschauen, dann finden wir etwas anderes, was außerordentlich bedeutsam ist. Sehen Sie, der Mensch wirft gewissermaßen mit dem Tode seinen Leichnam ab. Und wenn man mit jener Beobachtungsgabe, die dazu fähig ist, beobachtet, was nunmehr der eigentliche Mensch, das geistig-seelische Menschenwesen geworden ist, nachdem es durch die Pforte des Todes geschritten ist, dann muß man eben sagen, die Sache ist doch so, daß der Leichnam abgeworfen ist, und daß nunmehr für dieses eigentliche geistig-seelische Menschenwesen, das angekommen ist jenseits des Tores des Todes, dieser Leichnam keine Bedeutung mehr hat. Er ist etwas Abgeworfenes.

Anders ist das mit der leblosen äußeren Natur. Und schon wenn man, ich möchte sagen, oberflächlich betrachtet, tritt einem dieses andere entgegen. Betrachten Sie einen menschlichen Leichnam. Sie können ihn ja am besten betrachten da, wo er gewissermaßen luftbeerdigt wird. Man findet in unterirdischen Gewölben, die namentlich gewisse Gemeinschaften früher als Begräbnisstätten gehabt haben, die Leichname von Menschen zum Beispiel einfach aufgehängt. Sie vertrocknen, und sie kommen in diesem Vertrocknen so weit, daß sie vollständig mürbe geworden sind, daß man dann eigentlich nur etwas anzutippen braucht, und sie zerfallen in Staub auseinander.

Das ist anders, was wir da als Lebloses erhalten haben, als dasjenige, was wir draußen in unserer Umgebung als leblose Natur finden. Diese leblose Natur, sie gestaltet sich, sie bildet Kristallgestalten. Sie ist überhaupt in einer merkwürdigen Veränderung befindlich. Wenn wir absehen von dem eigentlichen Erdigen und sehen auf das, was ja auch leblos ist, auf Wasser, Luft, so finden wir, daß eine regsame Verwandlung und Metamorphose in diesem Leblosen vorhanden ist.

Nun wollen wir uns das zunächst einmal vor die Seele stellen, wir wollen die Gleichheit des menschlichen Leibes, wenn ihn die Seele abgelegt hat, in seiner Leblosigkeit, mit der außermenschlichen leblosen Natur einmal vor unsere Seele gestellt sein lassen.

Und gehen wir jetzt weiter. Betrachten wir das Pflanzenreich. Da kommen wir in die Sphäre des Lebendigen. Wenn wir eine Pflanze so richtig studieren, dann werden wir niemals finden, daß wir imstande sind, die Wirkungen, die in der Pflanze auftreten, bloß aus den Ursachen heraus zu suchen, die im Pflanzenreiche, also in demselben Reiche, wo die Wirkungen auftreten, selber liegen. Gewiß, es gibt heute eine Wissenschaft, die das versucht. Aber diese Wissenschaft ist eben auf dem Holzwege, denn sie kommt zuletzt darauf, zu sagen: Ja, man kann die physischen, in der Pflanze wirkenden Kräfte und Gesetze untersuchen, man kann die chemisch wirksamen Kräfte und Gesetze untersuchen; und es bleibt etwas übrig. - Da scheiden sich dann die Leute in zwei Parteien. Die einen sagen: Das, was da übrigbleibt, ist überhaupt nur eine Zusammenstellung, so eine Art Form, Gestalt; das Wirksame sind nur die physischen und chemischen Gesetze. — Die anderen sagen: Nein, es ist noch etwas anderes darinnen, das hat nur die Wissenschaft noch nicht erforscht; sie wird schon darauf kommen. — Sie wird das noch lange sagen. So ist die Sache eben nicht, sondern wenn man das Pflanzliche untersuchen will, so kann man es nicht verstehen, wenn man nicht das ganze Weltenall zu Hilfe nimmt, wenn man nicht auf die Pflanzen so hinsieht, daß man sich sagt: Die Kräfte der Pflanzenwirksamkeit liegen im weiten Weltenall. Alles, was da in der Pflanze geschieht, ist Wirkung des weiten Weltenalls. Es muß erst die Sonne zu einer bestimmten Position kommen im weiten Weltenall, damit irgendwelche Wirkungen im Pflanzenreiche auftreten. Es müssen andere Kräfte aus dem weiten Weltenall wirken, damit die Pflanze ihre Form, damit die Pflanze ihre inneren Triebkräfte und so weiter bekommt.

Und die Sache ist ja so: Wenn wir in die Lage kämen, meine lieben Freunde, nun zu wandern, nicht bloß wie Jules Verne es gemacht hat, sondern wirklich zu wandern, sagen wir bis zum Monde, bis zur Sonne und so weiter, so würden wir gar nicht viel gescheiter werden in bezug auf dieses Ursache-Suchen, als wir auf der Erde selber sind, wenn wir uns keine anderen Erkenntniskräfte aneignen als diejenigen, die wir schon haben. Wir würden nirgends zurechtkommen, wenn wir etwa sagen wollten: Nun schön, im Pflanzenreiche der Erde selber sind nicht die Ursachen für die Wirkungen, die im Pflanzenleben auftreten, also wandern wir zur Sonne, da werden wir die Ursachen finden. — Da finden wir sie auch nicht. Dagegen finden wir sie, wenn wir uns zur imaginativen Erkenntnis aufschwingen, wenn wir eine ganz andere Erkenntnis haben. Dann brauchen wir aber nicht zur Sonne zu wandern, wir finden sie im Erdenbereiche selber. Nur finden wir, daß wir nötig haben, von einer gewöhnlichen physischen Welt in eine Ätherwelt überzugehen, und daß in den Weiten der Welt überall der Weltenäther mit seinen Kräften wirkt, und daß er eben aus den Weiten hereinwirkt. Überall aus den Weiten herein wirkt der Äther.

Wir müssen also tatsächlich zu einem zweiten Reiche der Welt übergehen, wenn wir für das Pflanzenreich zu den Wirkungen die Ursachen suchen wollen.

Nun, der Mensch nimmt teil an dem selben, an dem da die Pflanze teilnimmt. Diejenigen Kräfte, die aus der Ätherwelt hereinwirken in die Pflanzen, sie wirken auch im Menschen. Der Mensch trägt in sich die ätherischen Kräfte, und wir nennen die Summe dieser ätherischen Kräfte, die er in sich trägt, den Ätherleib. Und ich habe Ihnen bereits angeführt, wie dieser Ätherleib wenige Tage nach dem Tode immer größer und größer wird und sich zuletzt verliert, so daß der Mensch nur in seinem astralischen Leib und in seiner Ich-Wesenheit übrigbleibt. Das also, was der Mensch ätherisch in sich getragen hat, wird immer größer und größer und verliert sich in den Weltenweiten.

Vergleichen Sie jetzt wieder dasjenige, was wir vom Menschen sehen können, wenn er durch die Pforte des Todes geschritten ist, mit dem, was wir im Pflanzenreiche sehen. Wir müssen vom Pflanzenreiche sagen: seine Ursachenkräfte kommen aus den Raumesweiten auf die Erde herein. Wir müssen vom menschlichen Ätherleib sagen: die Kräfte dieses Ätherleibes gehen in die Raumesweiten hinaus, das heißt, sie gehen dorthin, woher die Pflanzenwachstumskräfte kommen, wenn der Mensch durch die Pforte des Todes geschritten ist. Hier wird die Sache schon, ich möchte sagen, deutlicher. Wenn wir bloß den physischen Leichnam anschauen und sagen, er wird ein Lebloses, dann wird es uns schwer, herüberzukommen zu der übrigen leblosen Natur. Aber wenn wir das Lebendige anschauen, das Pflanzenreich, und gewahr werden: Aus dem Äther der Weltenweiten kommen die Ursachen, kommen die Kräfte für das Pflanzenreich — dann sehen wir, indem wir uns imaginativ in das Menschenwesen vertiefen, daß dorthin, woher die Kräfte, die Ätherkräfte für das Pflanzenreich kommen, der menschliche Ätherleib hingeht, wenn der Mensch durch die Pforte des Todes geschritten ist.

Aber noch etwas ist charakteristisch. Ich möchte sagen: Dasjenige, was auf die Pflanzen als Ursachenkräfte wirkt, mit dem geht es verhältnismäßig schnell, denn auf die Pflanze, die aus dem Boden herauswächst, die Blüte bekommt, die Frucht bekommt, hat die Sonne von vorgestern nicht viel Einfluß. Da kann sie mit ihren Ursachen nicht viel wirken. Sie muß heute scheinen, sie muß wirklich heute scheinen. Das ist wichtig. Und Sie werden sehen in unseren folgenden Betrachtungen, daß es wichtig ist, daß wir uns das merken.

Die Pflanzen mit ihren Ätherursachen haben zwar innerhalb des Irdischen ihre eigentlichen Fundamentalkräfte, aber sie haben sie in dem, was gleichzeitig im Weltenall mit der Erde ist. Und wenn der menschliche Ätherleib, nachdem der Mensch als geistig-seelisches Wesen durch die Pforte des Todes geschritten ist, sich auflöst, so dauert das auch nur sehr kurze Zeit, tagelang nur. Wiederum ist Gleichzeitigkeit da, denn die Tage, die es dauert, sind eigentlich für die Zeit des Weltgeschehens eine Kleinigkeit.

Wiederum haben wir es, wenn der Ätherleib zurückkehrt zu dem, woraus die Pflanzenwachstumskräfte als Ätherkräfte kommen, damit zu tun, daß wir sagen können: Sobald der Mensch im Äther lebt, ist seine Ätherwirksamkeit zwar nicht auf die Erde beschränkt, sie geht ja von der Erde fort, aber sie entwickelt sich mit Gleichzeitigkeit.

Ich will Ihnen dafür ein Schema aufschreiben. Wir können sagen: Mineralreich: Gleichzeitigkeit des Physischen für Ursachen und Wirkungen. Also im wesentlichen haben wir es mit Gleichzeitigkeit zu tun der Ursachen im Physischen. Sie werden sagen: Ja, für manches, was im Physischen geschieht, sind ja die Ursachen der Zeit nach früher gelegen. — Das ist nicht in Wirklichkeit der Fall. Wenn Wirkungen entstehen sollen im Physischen, müssen die Ursachen andauern, müssen fortwirken. Wenn die Ursachen aufhören, treten keine Wirkungen mehr ein. Also wir können durchaus dieses Diktum hinschreiben: Mineralreich: Gleichzeitigkeit der Ursachen im Physischen.

Kommen wir aber in das Pflanzenreich - und damit stehen wir auch in dem, was im Menschen selber als Pflanzliches zu verfolgen ist —, dann haben wir es zu tun mit Gleichzeitigkeit im Physischen und Überphysischen. Pflanzenreich; Gleichzeitigkeit der Ursachen im Physischen und Überphysischen.

Nun treten wir an das Tierreich heran. Beim Tierreiche werden wir ganz vergeblich dasjenige, was als Wirkungen auftritt, solange das Tier lebt, im Tier selber suchen können. Wenn das Tier auch nur kriecht, um seine Nahrung aufzusuchen, in den chemischen, physischen Vorgängen, die sich innerhalb des tierischen Leibes finden, werden wir ganz vergeblich suchen nach den Ursachen. Wir werden auch ganz vergeblich suchen in den Weiten des Ätherraumes, wo wir die Ursachen für das Pflanzliche finden, wir werden da auch vergeblich suchen nach den Ursachen der tierischen Bewegung und der tierischen Empfindung. Für alles das, was im Tiere vorgeht mit Bezug auf das, was im Tiere pflanzlich ist, finden wir allerdings auch die Ursachen innerhalb des Ätherraumes, und wenn das Tier stirbt, geht ja auch der Ätherleib in die Weiten des Weltenäthers hinaus. Aber für das, was Empfindung ist, finden wir nimmermehr innerhalb dessen, was irdisch, was physisch oder was überphysisch-ätherisch ist, die Ursachen, können sie nicht finden.

Hier tritt allerdings etwas ein, wo die moderne Anschauung wiederum sehr stark auf dem Holzwege ist. Das muß sich ja diese moderne Anschauung auch für viele Erscheinungen, die an einem Tier auftreten — Empfindungserscheinungen, Bewegungserscheinungen -, sagen: Untersuche ich das Tier in seinem Inneren nach seinen physischen, chemischen Kräften, da finde ich nicht die Ursachen. Aber auch in den Weiten des Weltenalls, in den Ätherweiten des Weltenalls finde ich nicht die Ursachen. Wenn ich eine Blüte erklären will, muß ich in das weite Weltenall, in das Ätherweltenall gehen, und ich werde die Blüte aus dem Ätherweltenall erklären können. Ich werde manches auch im Tier, was pflanzengleich ist, aus dem Ätherweltenall erklären können, aber nimmermehr das, was in dem Tier als Bewegungen auftritt, und nimmermehr das, was auftritt in dem Tier als Empfindung.

Wenn ich am 20. Juni ein Tier betrachte in bezug auf seine Empfindungen, dann werde ich in allem dem, was irdisch ist und außerirdisch ist im Raume, die Ursachen für die Empfindungen nicht am 20, Juni finden. Gehe ich weiter zurück, werde ich sie auch nicht finden. Ich werde sie nicht im Mai, nicht im April und so weiter finden.

Das spürt auch die moderne Anschauung. Daher erklärt diese moderne Anschauung das, was sich so nicht erklären läßt, wenigstens vieles davon, durch Vererbung, das heißt durch ein Wort: Es ist «vererbt», es stammt von den Vorfahren. — Natürlich nicht alles, weil das doch zu grotesk wäre, aber vieles. Es ist vererbt.

Was heißt vererbt? Es führt der Begriff der Vererbung zuletzt darauf zurück, daß dasjenige, was einem als mannigfaltig gestaltetes Tier entgegentritt, im Eikeim des Muttertieres enthalten war. Und das ist ja das Bestreben der modernen Anschauung, einen Ochsen äußerlich in seiner mannigfaltigen Gestaltung zu betrachten und dann zu sagen: Nun ja, der Ochse kommt aus dem Eikeim; da waren die Kräfte drinnen, die dann ausgewachsen den Ochsen geben. Daher ist der Eikeim ein außerordentlich komplizierter Körper. Er müßte auch furchtbar kompliziert sein, dieser Eikeim des Ochsen, denn nicht wahr, da ist alles drinnen, was nach vielen Seiten drängt und gestaltet und bildet und wirkt, damit aus dem kleinen Eikeim der vielgestaltete Ochse wird.

Und wie man sich auch windet - es gibt ja da viele Theorien, Evolutionstheorien, Epigenesistheorien und so weiter —, es ist immer nichts anderes, als daß man doch sich vorstellen muß: Dieser Eikeim, das kleine Ei, ist etwas furchtbar Kompliziertes. Wie alles zurückgeführt wird auf Moleküle, die in komplizierter Weise sich aus Atomen aufbauen, so stellen manche die erste Anlage dieses Eikeimes als ein kompliziertes Molekül dar. Aber das stimmt nicht einmal mit den physischen Beobachtungen überein, meine lieben Freunde.

Die Frage entsteht: Ist denn dieser Eikeim wirklich ein so kompliziertes Molekül, ein so komplizierter Organismus schon? Das Eigentümliche des Eikeimes ist nämlich gar nicht, daß er kompliziert ist, sondern daß er die ganze Materie ins Chaos zurückwirft. Gerade der Eikeim ist etwas, was im Muttertiere nicht ein komplizierter Aufbau ist, sondern ein vollständig pulverisiertes, durcheinandergeschmissenes Materielles. Es ist gar nichts organisiert. Es ist gerade etwas, was ins absolut Unorganisierte, in sich Staubhafte zurückfällt. Und niemals würde eine Fortpflanzung entstehen, wenn nicht die unorganisierte, die leblose Materie, die ins Kristallinische, ins Gestaltige strebt, wenn nicht diese in sich ins Chaos gerade im Ei zurückfiele. Das Eiweiß ist nicht der komplizierteste Körper, sondern der allereinfachste, der gar keine Bestimmung in sich hat. Und aus diesem kleinen Chaos, das da als Eikeim besteht zunächst, könnte ewig kein Ochse werden, wirklich nicht, denn er ist eben ein Chaos, dieser Eikeim.

Warum wird dann dennoch ein Ochse daraus? Weil im mütterlichen Organismus die ganze Welt nun auf diesen Eikeim wirkt. Gerade weil er bestimmungslos geworden ist, weil er Chaos geworden ist, kann die ganze Welt auf ihn wirken. Und die Befruchtung hat kein anderes Ziel in der Welt, als die Materie ins Chaos, ins Unbestimmte, ins Bestimmungslose zurückzuführen. So daß nicht etwas anderes, sondern nur das Weltenall wirkt.

Aber nun, wenn wir in die Mutter schauen, da sind nicht die Ursachen; wenn wir außerhalb in den Äther schauen, da sind auch im gleichzeitigen Geschehen nicht die Ursachen. Wir müssen zurückgehen bis bevor das Tier entstanden ist, wenn wir die Ursachen finden wollen für das, was da keimt als die Anlage zum empfindungs- und bewegungsfähigen Wesen. Wir müssen zurückgehen bis bevor das Leben angefangen hat! Das heißt, für das Empfindungs- und Bewegungsfähige liegt nicht in der Gleichzeitigkeit, sondern vor der Entstehung dieses Wesens die Ursachenwelt.

Das ist das Eigentümliche: Wenn ich eine Pflanze anschaue, dann muß ich in dasjenige hinausgehen, was gleichzeitig ist, dann finde ich die Ursache - allerdings im weiten Weltenall. Wenn ich aber für das, was als Empfindung oder als Bewegungsfähigkeit im Tier wirkt, die Ursache finden will, so kann ich nicht ins Gleichzeitige gehen, sondern da muß ich in dasjenige gehen, was dem Leben vorangeht; die Sternkonstellation, mit anderen Worten, muß sich geändert haben, muß eine andere geworden sein. Nicht die Sternkonstellation im Weltenall, die mit dem Tiere gleichzeitig ist, hat ihren Einfluß auf das eigentlich Tierische, sondern die dem Leben vorangehende Konstellation der Sterne.

Und jetzt schauen wir auf den Menschen hin, wenn er durch die Pforte des Todes geschritten ist. Der Mensch muß, wenn er durch die Pforte des Todes geschritten ist, wenn er seinen Ätherleib abgelegt hat, der in die Weltenweiten an jene Stelle hingeht, von denen die Kräfte des Pflanzenwachstums, die ätherischen Kräfte kommen, der Mensch muß zurückgehen, wie ich Ihnen ausgeführt habe, bis zu seiner Geburt. Da hat er in seinem astralischen Leib alles das durchgemacht, rückwärtslaufend, was er während des Lebens im Hin-Gang durchgemacht hat. Mit anderen Worten: Der Mensch muß nicht in das Gleichzeitige hineingehen nach dem Tode mit seinem astralischen Leib, er muß zurückgehen zu dem Vorgeburtlichen, er muß dorthin gehen, wo heraus die Kräfte kommen, die die tierische Empfindungsfähigkeit und Bewegungsfähigkeit geben. Die kommen nicht aus dem Raumesreiche, nicht aus den Konstellationen der Sterne, die gleichzeitig sind, die kommen aus den Konstellationen, die vorangehend sind. — Sprechen wir also vom tierischen Reich (siehe Schema Seite 27), dann können wir nicht von der Gleichzeitigkeit der Ursachen im Physischen und Überphysischen sprechen, sondern dann müssen wir von vergangenen überphysischen Ursachen zu gegenwärtigen Wirkungen im Physischen sprechen. Tierreich: Vergangene überphysische Ursachen zu gegenwärtigen Wirkungen.

Und wir kommen auch da wiederum in den Zeitbegriff hinein. Wir müssen, wenn ich mich trivial ausdrücken darf, in der Zeit spazierengehen. Wenn wir die Ursachen suchen wollen für irgend etwas, was in der physischen Welt geschieht, gehen wir in der physischen Welt spazieren; wir brauchen nicht aus der physischen Welt herauszugehen. Wenn wir für irgend etwas, was im lebendigen Pflanzenreiche bewirkt ist, die Ursache suchen wollen, müssen wir ja recht weit gehen. Wir müssen die Ätherwelt absuchen, und erst da, wo die Ätherwelt am Ende ist, wo — märchenhaft gesprochen — «die Welt mit Brettern vernagelt ist», erst da finden wir die Ursache für das Pflanzenwachstum.

Aber wir können da herumgehen, soviel wir wollen, da finden wir nicht die Ursache der Empfindungsfähigkeit, auch nicht der Bewegungsfähigkeit. Da müssen wir anfangen, in der Zeit spazierenzugehen. Da müssen wir in der Zeit zurückschreiten. Da müssen wir aus dem Raum herauskommen und in die Zeit hineinspazieren.

Sie sehen, wir können nebeneinanderstellen in bezug auf dieses Verursachen den menschlichen physischen Leib in seiner Leblosigkeit mit der leblosen Natur; den menschlichen ÄÄtherleib in seinem Leben und in seinem Hinausgehen nach dem Tode in die Ätherweiten mit dem Ätherleben der Pflanzen, das auch aus den Ätherweiten hereinkommt, aber aus den gleichzeitigen Konstellationen des Überphysischen, des Überirdischen; und wir können zusammenstellen die menschliche astralische Organisation mit dem, was draußen im Tierischen ist.

Und wir schreiten dann fort von dem mineralischen zu dem pflanzlichen, zu dem tierischen Reiche, kommen herauf zu dem eigentlichen Menschenreiche. Sie werden sagen: Das haben wir ja schon immer berücksichtigt. Ja, aber nicht ganz. Wir haben das Menschenreich zunächst berücksichtigt, insofern der Mensch einen physischen Leib hat, dann insofern er einen Ätherleib hat, dann insofern er einen astralischen Leib hat. Aber sehen Sie, wenn der Mensch bloß seinen physischen Leib hätte, so wäre er - ein komplizierter, aber immerhin - ein Kristall. Wenn der Mensch bloß dazu noch seinen Ätherleib hätte, so wäre er vielleicht auch eine zwar schöne Pflanze, aber immerhin bloß eine Pflanze. Wenn der Mensch noch dazu einen astralischen Leib hätte, würde er auf allen vieren gehen, vielleicht Hörner haben und dergleichen, er wäre eben ein Tier. Das alles ist der Mensch nicht. Die Gestalt, die er hat als aufrechtgehendes Wesen, diese Gestalt hat er dadurch, daß er außer der physischen, ätherischen, astralischen Organisation eben noch die Ich-Organisation hat. Und erst von diesem Wesen, das auch noch die Ich-Organisation hat, können wir sprechen als dem Menschen, dem Menschenreich.

Betrachten wir jetzt noch einmal das, was wir schon angeschaut haben. Wenn wir die Ursachen suchen wollen für das Physische, können wir im Physischen bleiben. Wenn wir die Ursachen suchen sollen für das Pflanzliche, müssen wir in die Weiten des Ätherreiches hinausgehen, aber wir können noch im Raume bleiben, nur, wie gesagt, wird der Raum da etwas hypothetisch, denn man muß ja sogar zu Märchenbegriffen, «wo die Welt mit Brettern vernagelt ist», seine Zuflucht nehmen. Aber dennoch, die Sache ist so, daß ja wirklich sogar die rein im Sinne der gegenwärtigen Naturforschung denkenden Menschen schon darauf kommen, daß man wirklich von so etwas sprechen kann, wie «die Welt ist mit Brettern vernagelt». Es ist natürlich ein trivialer, grober Ausdruck. Aber man braucht nur daran zu denken, wie in kindlicher Weise die Menschen denken; Da ist die Sonne, die schickt ihre Strahlen fort und immer weiter fort; sie werden zwar immer schwächer und schwächer — das Licht geht da fort, fort, fort, immer weiter fort, eben ins Endlose.

Ich habe für diejenigen, die schon jahrelang die Vorträge hören, längst auseinandergesetzt, daß das ein Unding ist, sich vorzustellen, daß das Licht ins Endlose hinausgeht. Ich habe immer gesagt, die Ausbreitung des Lichtes unterliegt der Elastizität. Wenn man einen Kautschukball hat und in ihn hineindrückt, so kann man bis zu einer gewissen Stelle eindrücken, dann schnellt er wieder zurück, das heißt, der Druck für die Elastizität hat ein Ende, dann geht es zurück. So, sagte ich, ist es auch für das Licht: das geht nicht ins Endlose hinaus, sondern wenn es eine gewisse Grenze erreicht hat, kommt es wieder zurück.

Dieses, daß das Licht nicht bis ins Endlose geht, sondern nur bis zu einer gewissen Grenze und wieder zurückgeht, das wurde nun auch zum Beispiel in England von dem Physiker Oliver Lodge vertreten; so daß heute schon die physische Wissenschaft darauf gekommen ist, das, was die Geisteswissenschaft gibt, zu vertreten, wie sie in allen Einzelheiten eben einmal ankommen wird bei dem, was die Geisteswissenschaft sagt.

Und so kann man schon auch sprechen davon, daß da draußen, wenn man genügend weit hinausdenkt, man wieder zurückdenken muß, nicht einfach den endlosen Raum annehmen darf, der eine Phantasterei ist, noch dazu eine Phantasterei, die man nicht fassen kann. Vielleicht werden sich einige von Ihnen erinnern, wie ich in der Beschreibung meines Lebensganges im letzten Kapitel, das vorige Woche erschienen ist, gesagt habe, daß es auf mich einen ganz besonders bedeutsamen Eindruck gemacht hat, wie ich beim Anhören der synthetischen neueren Geometrie zunächst von der Geometrie darauf hingewiesen worden bin, daß eine Gerade nicht so gedacht werden darf, daß sie da ins Endlose hinausgeht und niemals aufhört, sondern daß die Gerade, die da hinausgeht, von der anderen Seite wahrhaftig zurückkommt. Die Geometrie drückt das so aus: Die Synthese, der unendlich ferne Punkt nach rechts ist derselbe wie der unendlich ferne Punkt nach links. Das kann man ausrechnen. Das ist nicht etwa nach der bloßen Analogie, daß, wenn man einen Kreis hat und von hier ausgeht, man da wieder zurückkommt, daß, wenn der Halbbogen eine Unendlichkeit hat, er eine Gerade wäre. Das ist nicht so; das wäre eine Analogie, auf die derjenige, der exakt denken kann, nichts gibt. Das, was auf mich einen Eindruck machte, das war nicht diese triviale Analogie, sondern das wirklich rechnungsgemäße Nachweisenkönnen, daß der unendlich ferne Punkt von der einen Seite links derselbe ist wie der, der hier rechts eine Unendlichkeit ist, daß also wirklich jemand, der hier anfängt zu laufen und immerfort nach der Linie läuft, nicht ins Endlose läuft, sondern daß, wenn man nur die richtige Zeit abläuft, er einem von der anderen Seite wieder entgegenkommt. Das sieht für alles physische Denken grotesk aus. In dem Augenblicke, wo man das physische Denken ablegt, ist es eben auch eine Realität, weil die Welt nicht endlos ist, sondern so wie sie als physische Welt vorliegt, begrenzt ist. So daß man sagen kann: Man geht an die Grenze des Ätherischen, wenn man vom Pflanzlichen und von dem spricht, was im Menschen ätherisch ist. - Man muß aber herausgehen aus allem dem, was da im Raume überhaupt ist, wenn man das Tierische und im Menschen das Astralische erklären will. Da muß man in der Zeit spazierengehen, da muß man über das Gleichzeitige hinweggehen. Da muß man also vorschreiten in der Zeit.

Und nun kommt man an das Menschliche. Sehen Sie, wenn man in die Zeit hineinkommt, da überschreitet man eigentlich schon auf doppelte Art das Physische. Indem man das Tier begreift, muß man schon in der Zeit weitergehen. Nun muß man diese Denkweise nicht wiederum abstrakt fortsetzen, sondern konkret fortsetzen. Geben Sie jetzt einmal acht, wie man das konkret fortsetzt.

Nicht wahr, die Menschen denken: Wenn die Sonne Licht aussendet, so geht das Licht endlos fort. Oliver Lodge zeigt aber, daß man jetzt schon diese Denkweise verläßt, daß man weiß, das kommt an ein Ende und kommt wieder zurück. Die Sonne bekommt von allen Seiten ihr Licht wiederum zurück, wenn auch in anderer Form, in verwandelter Form; sie bekommt es aber zurück. Wenden wir nun diese Denkweise an auf das, was wir eben durchgedacht haben. Wir stehen zunächst im Raume. Der Erdenraum bleibt drinnen, wir schreiten hinaus zum Weltenraum. Das ist uns noch nicht genug, wir schreiten hinaus in die Zeit. Jetzt könnte einer sagen: Nun ja, jetzt schreiten wir immer weiter und weiter. — Nein, jetzt kommen wir wieder zurück! Wir müssen die Denkweise fortsetzen. Wir kommen wieder zurück. Wir kommen gerade so wieder zurück, wie wir, wenn wir im Raume immer weiterschreiten, an die Grenze kommen und dann wieder zurückkommen; so kommen wir auch hier wieder zurück. Das heißt, wenn wir die vergangenen überphysischen Ursachen gesucht haben in der Zeitenweite, müssen wir wieder ins Physische zurückkommen.

Was heißt denn aber das? Das heißt, wir müssen wieder aus der Zeit herunter, aus der Zeit wieder auf die Erde herunter. Wenn wir also für den Menschen die Ursachen suchen wollen, dann müssen wir sie wieder auf der Erde suchen. Nun sind wir zurückgeschritten in der Zeit. Wenn wir, indem wir in der Zeit zurückschreiten, wieder auf die Erde herunterkommen, dann kommen wir in ein voriges Menschenleben hinein, selbstverständlich. Wir kommen in ein voriges Menschenleben hinein. Beim Tiere schreiten wir weiter; das löst sich in bezug auf die Zeit geradeso auf, wie sich unser Ätherleib auflöst bis an die Grenze. Der Mensch löst sich da nicht auf, sondern wir kommen auf die Erde wieder zurück bis an sein voriges Erdenleben.

So daß wir für den Menschen sagen können: Vergangene physische Ursachen zu gegenwärtigen Wirkungen im Physischen.

Mineralreich: Gleichzeitigkeit der Ursachen im Physischen.
Pflanzenreich: Gleichzeitigkeit der Ursachen im Physischen und Überphysischen.
Tierreich: vergangene überphysische Ursachen zu gegenwärtigen Wirkungen.
Menschenreich: vergangene physische Ursachen zu gegenwärtigen Wirkungen im Physischen.

Sie sehen, es hat heute, ich möchte sagen, Mühe gekostet, sich vorbereitend einmal in Abstraktionen hineinzuversetzen. Aber das war notwendig, meine lieben Freunde. Es war notwendig, weil ich Ihnen einmal zeigen wollte, daß es auch für diejenigen Gebiete, die man als die geistigen betrachten muß, eine Logik gibt. Nur stimmt diese Logik nicht überein mit der groben Logik, die bloß von den physischen Erscheinungen abgezogen ist und an die die Menschen gewöhnlich einzig und allein glauben.

Wenn man rein logisch vorgeht und die Ursachenreihen absucht, dann kommt man auch im bloßen Gedankengang an die vergangenen Erdenleben. Und es ist notwendig, darauf aufmerksam zu machen, daß auch das Denken selber ein anderes werden muß, wenn man das Geistige begreifen will.

Nicht wahr, die Menschen meinen, man könne das nicht begreifen, was aus der geistigen Welt heraus sich offenbart. Man kann es begreifen, aber man muß seine Logik erweitern. Es ist ja auch notwendig, wenn man ein Musikstück oder ein anderes Kunstwerk begreifen will, daß man in sich die Bedingungen hat, die der Sache entgegenkommen. Wenn man diese Bedingungen nicht hat, so begreift man eben nichts davon. Dann geht die Sache als ein Geräusch vorbei. Oder man sieht in irgendeinem Kunstwerke nichts anderes als eben ein unverständliches Gebilde. So muß man auch dem, was aus der geistigen Welt heraus mitgeteilt wird, ein Denken entgegenbringen, das angemessen ist der geistigen Welt. Das aber stellt sich schon bei dem bloßen logischen Denken heraus. Man kommt, indem man die Verschiedenartigkeit der Ursachen untersucht, in der Tat dazu, die vergangenen Erdenleben auch in logischer Folge verstehen zu können.

Nun bleibt uns die große Frage, die da beginnt, wo wir den Leichnam betrachten. Er ist leblos geworden. Die leblose Natur draußen steht in ihren Kristallformen, in den verschiedenen Formen da. Die große Frage steht vor uns: Wie verhält sich die leblose Natur zum Leichnam des Menschen?

Vielleicht werden Sie schon finden, meine lieben Freunde, daß etwas beigetragen wird zu einem Sinn, der nach der Antwort dieser Frage hin liegt, wenn Sie die Sache in zweiter Etappe anfassen, wenn Sie sagen: Wenn ich die Pflanzenwelt anschaue, die um mich herum ist, so trägt diese in sich aus den Weiten des Ätherweltenalls die Kräfte, zu denen mein Ätherleib zurückkehrt. Da draußen in Ätherweiten, da ist dasjenige oben, was ursächlich den Pflanzen den Ursprung gibt, da ist dasjenige, wohin mein Ätherleib geht, wenn er meinem Leben ausgedient hat. Ich gehe dahin, woher aus den Ätherweiten das pflanzliche Leben quillt. Ich gehe dahin, das heißt, ich bin verwandt damit. Ja, ich kann geradezu sagen: Da oben ist etwas, mein Ätherleib geht dahin, die grünende, sprossende, quellende Pflanzenwelt kommt daher. — Aber es ist ein Unterschied: Ich gebe meinen Ätherleib ab, die Pflanzen empfangen den Äther zum Aufwachsen. Sie erhalten den Äther zum Leben, ich gebe den Ätherleib ab nach dem Tode. Ich gebe ihn als etwas ab, das übrigbleibt; sie, die Pflanzen, erhalten diesen Ätherleib als etwas, was ihnen das Leben gibt. Sie haben ihren Anfang von dem, wohin ich mit meinem Ende gelange. Der Pflanzenanfang gliedert sich zusammen mit des menschlichen Ätherleibes Ende.

Dies legt Ihnen die Frage nahe: Könnte es denn vielleicht auch so sein, daß ich beim Mineral, bei den mannigfaltigst gestalteten Kristallen fragen könnte: Ist vielleicht auch das ein Anfang gegenüber dem, was ich als physischen Leichnam, als Ende von mir, hinterlasse? Gliedert sich vielleicht da Anfang und Ende zusammen?

Mit dieser Frage wollen wir heute schließen, meine lieben Freunde, und morgen anfangen, um recht gründlich einmal in die Frage des menschlichen Schicksals, des sogenannten Karmas, hineinzukommen. Ich werde also in dem folgenden Vortrage über das Karma weitersprechen. Sie werden sich dann nicht mehr durch solches Gestrüpp von Abstraktionen durchzufinden haben, aber Sie werden auch einsehen, daß dies schon für eine gewisse Entwickelung des Denkens notwendig war.

First Lecture

I would now like to begin to speak to you about the conditions and laws of human destiny, which one has become accustomed to calling karma. This karma, however, can only be understood, can only be seen through, if one first engages in learning to recognize the various types of world lawfulness in general. And so perhaps I would like to speak to you today - it is necessary - in a somewhat more abstract form about the different types of world lawfulness in order to then crystallize, so to speak, the particular form that can be addressed as human destiny, as karma.

We speak of causes and effects when we want to encompass both the phenomena of the world and when we want to consider the phenomena in human life itself. And today we are accustomed, especially in science, to speak in general terms of causes and effects. But it is precisely in this way that one encounters the greatest difficulties in relation to true reality. For the various ways in which causes and effects occur in the world are not taken into account.

First of all, we can look at so-called inanimate nature, which we encounter most clearly in the mineral kingdom, in everything that confronts us in rock, often in such wonderful forms, but also in everything that, one might say, is ground into powder and then baked together again in formless rock. Let us look first, my dear friends, at what appears in this way as inanimate in the world.

If we look at the inanimate, without exception the inanimate, then we find that we can seek the causes that can be spoken of in the realm of this inanimate everywhere within this inanimate itself. Where there is the inanimate as an effect, we can also look for the causes in the same realm of the inanimate. And one really only proceeds according to knowledge if one does this; if one therefore also seeks the causes for the processes of the inanimate within the inanimate realm.

If you have a crystal before you, however beautifully formed, you should seek the [causes of the] forms of this crystal in the inanimate realm itself. And thus this lifeless realm proves to be something self-contained. At first we cannot say where we find the boundaries of this lifeless realm. They can possibly be very distant in the vastness of the world. But even if causes are to be sought for some inanimate thing that stands before us, if it is a matter of its effects, we will again seek these causes in the realm of the inanimate itself. In this way, however, we are already placing the inanimate next to something else. And this also opens up a certain perspective for us.

Consider the human being himself. Look at him as he passes through the gate of death. Everything that has worked and lived in him before he passed through this gate of death is gone from the visibly tangible form that remains when the human soul has passed through the gate of death, that is gone from this now remaining form, and we also say of this form: it is lifeless. And just as we speak of the lifeless when we look at the rock of the mountain with its crystal forms, so we must speak of the lifeless when we look at the despiritualized corpse of man. And only now does the same thing occur for the corpse of man that was there from the beginning for the rest of inanimate nature.

We could not look for the cause of what happens to the human form as an effect during life, before the soul has passed through the gate of death, in the inanimate itself. Not only will we search in vain in the inanimate physical laws of the human form for the causes of this arm lifting, we will also search in vain in the chemical, in the physical forces present in the human form for the causes of, say, the heartbeat, the blood circulation, any process that is not subject to the will at all.

But at the moment when the human form has become a corpse, when the soul has passed through the gate of death, we also observe an effect on the human organism. We see for my sake: The color of the skin changes, the limbs wither, in short, everything occurs that one is accustomed to seeing in the corpse. Where do we look for the cause? In the corpse itself, in the chemical, physical, in the lifeless forces of the corpse itself.

Now, if you think through what I am suggesting - I need only hint at it - if you think it through in all directions, you will say to yourself: in relation to his corpse, after his soul has passed through the gate of death, man has become like lifeless nature. This means that we must now look for the causes of effects in the same area where the effects themselves lie. This is very important.

But precisely when we look at this particular nature of the human corpse, we find something else that is extraordinarily significant. You see, when a person dies, he casts off his corpse, so to speak. And if one observes, with that gift of observation which is capable of it, what the actual human being, the spiritual-soul human being, has now become after it has passed through the gate of death, then one must say that the matter is such that the corpse has been thrown off and that now for this actual spiritual-soul human being, which has arrived beyond the gate of death, this corpse no longer has any meaning. It is something cast off.

It is different with the lifeless outer nature. And even if you look at it, I would say superficially, this other thing confronts you. Look at a human corpse. The best place to look at it is where it is buried in the air, so to speak. In subterranean vaults, which certain communities in particular used to have as burial places, you can find the corpses of people simply hung up, for example. They dry up, and they get so far in this drying up that they have become completely brittle, that one then actually only needs to touch them a little and they disintegrate into dust.

This is different from what we have preserved there as lifeless than what we find outside in our surroundings as lifeless nature. This lifeless nature shapes itself, it forms crystal shapes. In fact, it is undergoing a strange transformation. If we disregard the actual earthly and look at what is also lifeless, at water, air, we find that a lively transformation and metamorphosis is present in this lifelessness.

Now let us first place this before the soul, let us let the equality of the human body, when the soul has discarded it, in its lifelessness, with non-human lifeless nature be placed before our soul.

And now let us go further. Let us look at the plant kingdom. There we enter the sphere of the living. If we study a plant properly, we will never find that we are able to seek the effects that occur in the plant merely from the causes that lie in the plant kingdom, that is, in the same realm where the effects occur. Certainly, there is a science today that attempts to do this. But this science is on the wrong track, for in the end it comes to saying: Yes, one can investigate the physical forces and laws at work in the plant, one can investigate the chemically active forces and laws; and something remains. - Then people split into two parties. Some say that what remains is only a composition, a kind of form, a shape; what is effective is only the physical and chemical laws. - The others say: No, there is something else in it, but science has not yet investigated it; it will come to it. - It will say that for a long time to come. That is not the way it is, but if you want to investigate the plant, you cannot understand it unless you take the whole universe to help you, unless you look at the plants in such a way that you say to yourself: The forces of plant activity lie in the wide universe. Everything that happens in the plant is an effect of the vast universe. The sun must first reach a certain position in the vast universe for any effects to occur in the plant kingdom. Other forces from the vast universe must be at work in order for the plant to acquire its form, its inner driving forces and so on.

And here's the thing: If we were in a position, my dear friends, to wander now, not just as Jules Verne did, but to really wander, let's say to the moon, to the sun and so on, we would not become much smarter in terms of this search for causes than we are on earth itself, if we did not acquire any other powers of knowledge than those we already have. We would get nowhere if we wanted to say: Well, in the plant kingdom of the earth itself there are no causes for the effects that occur in plant life, so let us go to the sun, there we will find the causes. - We won't find them there either. On the other hand, we will find them if we rise to imaginative cognition, if we have a completely different kind of cognition. But then we do not need to wander to the sun, we find them in the earth realm itself. We only find that we need to pass from an ordinary physical world into an etheric world, and that in the vastness of the world the world ether works everywhere with its forces, and that it works in from the vastness. The ether works everywhere out of the vastness.

We must therefore actually move on to a second realm of the world if we want to search for the causes of the effects of the plant kingdom.

Now, the human being participates in the same thing that the plant participates in. Those forces that work from the etheric world into the plants also work in the human being. Man carries within him the etheric forces, and we call the sum of these etheric forces that he carries within him the etheric body. And I have already told you how this etheric body becomes larger and larger a few days after death and finally disappears, so that the human being remains only in his astral body and in his ego being. So that which the human being has carried etherically within himself becomes larger and larger and loses itself in the expanses of the world.

Now compare again what we can see of the human being when he has passed through the gate of death with what we see in the plant kingdom. We must say of the plant kingdom: its causal forces come into the earth from the expanses of space. We must say of the human etheric body: the forces of this etheric body go out into the expanses of space, that is, they go where the forces of plant growth come from when the human being has passed through the gate of death. Here the matter becomes, I might say, clearer. If we merely look at the physical corpse and say that it becomes lifeless, then it becomes difficult for us to come over to the rest of lifeless nature. But if we look at the living, the plant kingdom, and become aware: The causes, the forces for the plant kingdom come from the ether of the world realms - then we see, by immersing ourselves imaginatively in the human being, that the human etheric body goes there, where the forces, the etheric forces for the plant kingdom come from, when the human being has passed through the gate of death.

But something else is characteristic. I would like to say: That which acts on the plants as causal forces is relatively quick, because the sun of the day before yesterday does not have much influence on the plant that grows out of the ground, that blossoms, that bears fruit. It cannot do much with its causes. It must shine today, it must really shine today. That is important. And you will see in our following considerations that it is important that we remember this.

The plants with their etheric causes have their actual fundamental forces within the earthly, but they have them in that which is simultaneously in the universe with the earth. And when the human etheric body dissolves after the human being has passed through the gate of death as a spiritual-soul being, this also only lasts a very short time, only for days. Again, there is simultaneity, for the days it takes are actually a small matter for the time of world events.

Once again, when the etheric body returns to that from which the plant growth forces come as etheric forces, we have to do with the fact that we can say: As soon as the human being lives in the ether, his etheric activity is not limited to the earth, it goes away from the earth, but it develops with simultaneity.

I will write down a scheme for this. We can say: mineral kingdom: simultaneity of the physical for causes and effects. So essentially we are dealing with simultaneity of causes in the physical. You will say: Yes, for some things that happen in the physical, the causes of time are earlier. - This is not really the case. If effects are to arise in the physical, the causes must persist, must continue to work. When the causes cease, no more effects occur. So we can certainly write down this dictum: Mineral kingdom: simultaneity of causes in the physical.

But when we come to the plant kingdom - and thus we are also in what is to be pursued in man himself as the plant kingdom - then we are dealing with simultaneity in the physical and the superphysical. Plant kingdom; simultaneity of causes in the physical and the superphysical.

Now we approach the animal kingdom. In the animal kingdom we will be able to search in vain in the animal itself for that which appears as effects as long as the animal is alive. If the animal only crawls to find its food, in the chemical, physical processes that take place within the animal body, we will search in vain for the causes. We shall also search in vain in the vastness of etheric space, where we find the causes of the vegetable, we shall also search in vain for the causes of animal movement and animal sensation. For everything that takes place in the animal with reference to what is vegetable in the animal, we will, however, also find the causes within the etheric space, and when the animal dies, the etheric body also goes out into the vastness of the world ether. But for that which is sensation, we can never find the causes within what is earthly, what is physical or what is superphysical-etheric, we cannot find them.

Here, however, something occurs where the modern view is again very much on the wrong track. This modern view must say the same for many phenomena that occur in an animal - sensory phenomena, phenomena of movement -: If I examine the animal in its interior according to its physical, chemical forces, I cannot find the causes. But even in the vastness of the universe, in the etheric expanses of the universe, I cannot find the causes. If I want to explain a blossom, I must go into the vast universe, into the ether universe, and I will be able to explain the blossom from the ether universe. I will also be able to explain some things in the animal that are plant-like from the etheric universe, but never that which occurs in the animal as movements, and never that which occurs in the animal as sensations.

If I look at an animal on June 20 with regard to its sensations, then I will not find the causes for the sensations in everything that is earthly and extraterrestrial in space on June 20. If I go further back, I will not find them either. I will not find them in May, not in April and so on.

This is also sensed by the modern view. Therefore, this modern view explains what cannot be explained in this way, at least much of it, through heredity, that is, through one word: it is “inherited”, it comes from the ancestors. - Not everything, of course, because that would be too grotesque, but a lot. It is inherited.

What does inherited mean? The concept of inheritance ultimately leads back to the fact that what we encounter as a multifaceted animal was contained in the egg of the mother animal. And this is the endeavor of the modern view to look at an ox externally in its manifold form and then to say: Well, the ox comes from the egg germ; the forces were in there that then give the ox its full-grown form. Therefore, the eikeim is an extraordinarily complicated body. It would also have to be terribly complicated, this egg germ of the ox, because it contains everything that pushes and shapes and forms and acts in many directions so that the little egg germ becomes the many-formed ox.

And no matter how you look at it - there are many theories, evolutionary theories, epigenesis theories and so on - it is always nothing other than that you have to imagine: This egg, the little egg, is something terribly complicated. Just as everything is traced back to molecules that are built up in a complicated way from atoms, so some represent the first plant of this egg egg as a complicated molecule. But this does not even agree with physical observations, my dear friends.

The question arises: Is this Eikeim really such a complicated molecule, such a complicated organism already? The peculiarity of the eikeim is not that it is complicated, but that it throws all matter back into chaos. The eikeim is something that is not a complicated structure in the mother animal, but a completely pulverized, jumbled up material. It is not organized at all. It is precisely something that falls back into the absolutely disorganized, dust-like. And reproduction would never occur if it were not for the unorganized, lifeless matter that strives towards the crystalline, towards the formative, if it did not fall back into chaos in the egg. The egg white is not the most complicated body, but the simplest, which has no purpose in itself. And this little chaos, which initially exists as an egg germ, could never become an ox, not really, because it is a chaos, this egg germ.

So why does it become an ox? Because in the maternal organism, the whole world now acts on this eikeim. Precisely because it has become indeterminate, because it has become chaos, the whole world can have an effect on it. And fertilization has no other aim in the world than to lead matter back into chaos, into the indeterminate, into the indeterminate. So that it is not something else, but only the universe that acts.

But now, when we look into the mother, there are not the causes; when we look outside into the ether, there are also not the causes in the simultaneous events. We must go back to before the animal came into being if we want to find the causes for what germinates there as the disposition to become a sentient and mobile being. We must go back to before life began! In other words, the world of causes for sentience and movement does not lie in simultaneity, but before the emergence of this being.

This is the peculiar thing: When I look at a plant, I have to go out into that which is simultaneous, then I find the cause - albeit in the vast universe. But if I want to find the cause of that which acts as sensation or as the ability to move in the animal, I cannot go into what is simultaneous, but must go into that which precedes life; in other words, the constellation of the stars must have changed, must have become different. It is not the constellation of the stars in the universe, which is simultaneous with the animal, that has its influence on the actual animal, but the constellation of the stars that precedes life.

And now we look at man when he has passed through the gate of death. When man has passed through the gate of death, when he has laid aside his etheric body, which goes into the realms of the world to that place from which the forces of plant growth, the etheric forces come, man must go back, as I have explained to you, to his birth. There he has gone through everything in his astral body, running backwards, which he has gone through during his life in the outward passage. In other words, man does not have to go into the simultaneous after death with his astral body, he has to go back to the pre-natal, he has to go to where the forces come out that give the animal ability to feel and move. They do not come from the realm of space, not from the constellations of the stars, which are simultaneous, they come from the constellations that precede them. - So if we speak of the animal kingdom (see diagram on page 27), then we cannot speak of the simultaneity of the causes in the physical and the superphysical, but then we must speak of past superphysical causes to present effects in the physical. Animal kingdom: past superphysical causes to present effects.

And here again we get into the concept of time. We must, if I may express myself trivially, take a walk in time. If we want to look for the causes of something that happens in the physical world, we go for a walk in the physical world; we don't need to go out of the physical world. If we want to look for the cause of something that is caused in the living plant kingdom, we have to go quite far. We must search the etheric world, and only there, where the etheric world is at its end, where - fabulously speaking - “the world is boarded up”, only there will we find the cause of plant growth.

But we can walk around there as much as we like, we will not find the cause of the ability to feel, nor of the ability to move. We have to start walking in time. We have to go back in time. We have to get out of space and walk into time.

You see, in relation to this causation we can juxtapose the human physical body in its lifelessness with lifeless nature; the human etheric body in its life and in its going out after death into the etheric realms with the etheric life of the plants, which also comes in from the etheric realms, but from the simultaneous constellations of the superphysical, the superearthly; and we can put together the human astral organization with what is outside in the animal.

And we then proceed from the mineral to the vegetable, to the animal kingdom, coming up to the actual human kingdom. You will say: We have always taken that into account. Yes, but not completely. We have considered the human kingdom first of all in so far as man has a physical body, then in so far as he has an etheric body, then in so far as he has an astral body. But you see, if man had only his physical body, he would be - a complicated one, but still - a crystal. If man had only his etheric body in addition, he would perhaps also be a beautiful plant, but still only a plant. If man also had an astral body, he would walk on all fours, perhaps have horns and the like, he would be an animal. Man is not all that. The form that he has as an upright being, this form he has through the fact that in addition to the physical, etheric, astral organization he also has the ego organization. And only of this being, which also has the ego organization, can we speak as the human being, the human kingdom.

Let us now look again at what we have already looked at. If we want to search for the causes of the physical, we can remain in the physical. If we are to search for the causes of the vegetable, we must go out into the vastness of the etheric realm, but we can still remain in space, only, as I said, space becomes somewhat hypothetical, because we even have to resort to fairy tale concepts, “where the world is boarded up”. But nevertheless, the matter is such that even people who think purely in terms of contemporary natural science really do come to the conclusion that one can really speak of something like “the world is boarded up”. It is, of course, a trivial, crude expression. But you only have to think about how people think in a childlike way; there is the sun, it sends its rays away and further and further away; they become weaker and weaker - the light goes away, away, away, further and further away, into the infinite.

I have long since explained to those who have been listening to the lectures for years that it is absurd to imagine that the light goes out into the infinite. I have always said that the propagation of light is subject to elasticity. If you have a rubber ball and press into it, you can press in up to a certain point, then it snaps back again, that is, the pressure for elasticity has an end, then it goes back. So, I said, it is also for light: it does not go out into the infinite, but when it has reached a certain limit, it comes back again.

This, that light does not go into the infinite, but only to a certain limit and then back again, was now also represented in England, for example, by the physicist Oliver Lodge; so that today physical science has already come to represent what spiritual science gives, as it will arrive in all details at what spiritual science says.

And so one can also speak of the fact that out there, if one thinks far enough out, one must think back again, one must not simply assume the endless space that is a fantasy, moreover a fantasy that one cannot grasp. Perhaps some of you will remember that in the description of the course of my life in the last chapter, which appeared last week, I said that it made a particularly significant impression on me how, when listening to the synthetic newer geometry, I was first pointed out by geometry that a straight line must not be thought of as going out into infinity and never ending, but that the straight line that goes out there really comes back from the other side. Geometry expresses this in this way: The synthesis, the infinitely distant point to the right is the same as the infinitely distant point to the left. This can be calculated. This is not, for example, according to the mere analogy that if you have a circle and start from here, you come back there, that if the half-arc has an infinity, it would be a straight line. That is not so; that would be an analogy to which those who can think exactly give nothing. What made an impression on me was not this trivial analogy, but the real ability to prove mathematically that the infinitely distant point from one side on the left is the same as the one on the right, which is an infinity, so that really someone who starts walking here and keeps walking along the line is not walking into infinity, but that if you only run the right time, he will meet you again from the other side. This looks grotesque to all physical thinking. The moment you discard physical thinking, it is also a reality, because the world is not endless, but is limited as it is in the physical world. So that one can say: One goes to the limit of the etheric when one speaks of the vegetable and of that which is etheric in man. - But you have to go beyond everything that is there in space in general if you want to explain the animal and the astral in man. You have to walk in time, you have to go beyond the simultaneous. So you have to advance in time.

And now you come to the human. You see, when you enter time, you actually transcend the physical in two ways. By understanding the animal, you have to go further in time. Now we must not continue this way of thinking abstractly, but concretely. Now pay attention to how you continue this concretely.

Not true, people think that when the sun emits light, the light goes on endlessly. Oliver Lodge, however, shows that we are already abandoning this way of thinking, that we know it comes to an end and comes back again. The sun gets its light back from all sides, albeit in a different form, in a transformed form; but it gets it back. Let us now apply this way of thinking to what we have just considered. First we stand in space. Earth space remains inside, we step out into world space. That is not yet enough for us, we step out into time. Now someone might say: Well, now we are going further and further. - No, now we're coming back again! We have to continue this way of thinking. We are coming back again. We come back just as we come to the limit when we go further and further in space and then come back again; we also come back here. This means that when we have searched for the past superphysical causes in the expanse of time, we must return to the physical.

But what does that mean? It means that we have to come back down out of time, out of time back down to earth. So if we want to look for the causes for man, then we have to look for them on earth again. Now we have gone back in time. If, by stepping back in time, we come down to earth again, then we enter a previous human life, of course. We enter a previous human life. With the animal we go on; it dissolves in relation to time just as our etheric body dissolves to the limit. The human being does not dissolve there, but we return to earth again to his previous life on earth.

So that we can say for the human being: Past physical causes to present effects in the physical.

Mineral kingdom: simultaneity of causes in the physical.
Plant kingdom: simultaneity of causes in the physical and superphysical.
Animal kingdom: past superphysical causes to present effects.
Human kingdom: past physical causes to present effects in the physical.

You see, it took effort today, I would say, to put ourselves into abstractions for once in preparation. But it was necessary, my dear friends. It was necessary because I wanted to show you that there is also a logic to those areas that must be regarded as spiritual. But this logic does not agree with the crude logic that is merely deduced from physical phenomena and in which people usually believe solely and exclusively.

If one proceeds purely logically and searches the series of causes, then one also comes to the past earth lives in the mere train of thought. And it is necessary to point out that thinking itself must also become different if one wants to understand the spiritual.

Not true, people think that one cannot understand what is revealed out of the spiritual world. You can understand it, but you have to expand your logic. It is also necessary, if you want to understand a piece of music or another work of art, that you have the conditions within yourself that are conducive to the matter. If you don't have these conditions, then you don't understand any of it. Then the thing passes by as a noise. Or one sees nothing in any work of art but an incomprehensible structure. In the same way, what is communicated from the spiritual world must be approached with a way of thinking that is appropriate to the spiritual world. This, however, is already apparent in mere logical thinking. By examining the diversity of causes, we can indeed come to understand past earthly lives in logical sequence.

Now we are left with the great question, which begins where we look at the corpse. It has become lifeless. The lifeless nature outside stands there in its crystal forms, in its various shapes. The great question stands before us: How does lifeless nature relate to the corpse of man? Perhaps you will find, my dear friends, that something will contribute to a meaning that lies beyond the answer to this question if you approach the matter in the second stage, if you say: When I look at the plant world that is around me, it carries within itself from the vastness of the etheric universe the forces to which my etheric body returns. Out there in the etheric expanses, there is that above which gives the plants their origin, there is that to which my etheric body goes when it has served its purpose in my life. I go to where the plant life springs from the etheric expanses. I go there, that is, I am related to it. Yes, I can almost say: there is something up there, my etheric body goes there, the greening, sprouting, springing plant world comes from there - but there is a difference: I give up my etheric body, the plants receive the ether to grow up. They receive the ether to live, I give up the etheric body after death. I give it away as something that remains; they, the plants, receive this etheric body as something that gives them life. They have their beginning from where I end up with my end. The beginning of the plant is structured together with the end of the human etheric body.

This suggests the question to you: Could it perhaps also be so that I could ask with the mineral, with the most manifoldly formed crystals? Is this perhaps also a beginning compared to what I leave behind as a physical corpse, as the end of myself? Is there perhaps a beginning and an end together?" Let us conclude with this question today, my dear friends, and begin tomorrow to delve quite thoroughly into the question of human destiny, the so-called karma. I will therefore continue to speak about karma in the following lecture. You will then no longer have to find your way through such a tangle of abstractions, but you will also realize that this was already necessary for a certain development of thought.