The Being of Man and His Future Evolution
GA 107
12 January 1909, Berlin
V. Rhythms in the Being of Man
It has already been mentioned here that in the group meetings this winter we want to gather together all the threads as it were that will eventually link up to form a deeper understanding of the being of man and various other things connected with man's whole life and evolution that will lead us deeper and deeper into the secrets of the world. Today I would like to remind you of the group lecture the time before last (21st December 1908) and take our start from there. You will remember that we spoke of a certain rhythm existing in the four members of man's being. We want to start there today and find an answer to the question: How can a knowledge of these things help us understand in a deeper way both the necessity and the object of the anthroposophical movement?
Today we shall have to link up two things apparently very far removed from one another. You will remember that there are certain relationships between man's ego, astral body, etheric body and physical body. What there is to say about the fourth member, the ego, is best seen if we bear in mind the two alternating states of consciousness experienced by the ego in the course of the twenty-four hours of the day. One day with its twenty-four hours, during which the ego experiences day and night, sleeping and waking, will be seen as a kind of unity. So when we say that what the ego goes through in a day is based on the number one, we shall have to say that the number that corresponds in a similar way to our astral body is the number seven. Whereas the ego as it is today comes back as it were to its starting-point in twenty-four hours or a day, our astral body does the same thing in seven days. Let us go into this in greater detail.
Think of waking up in the morning; that is, you rise up out of the darkness of unconsciousness, as people say incorrectly in ordinary life, and the objects of the physical sense world appear round you again. You experience this in the morning and again twenty-four hours later, with the occasional exception. This is the regular course of events, and we can say that our ego returns to its starting-point after a day of twenty-four hours. If we look in the same way for the astral body's corresponding rhythm, we have to say that if the ordered regularity of the astral body is really there, then the astral body returns to the same point after seven days. So whilst the ego goes through its cycle in a day, the astral body goes considerably slower, and carries out its cycle in seven days. The cycle of the etheric body, on the other hand, takes four times seven days; after four times seven days it returns to the same point. And now please bear in mind what was said the time before last. With the physical body it is not as regular as with the astral and the etheric bodies. We can, however, establish a rough figure, and say that it goes through its cycle in about ten times twenty-eight days, and then returns to its starting-point. You know of course that a great difference exists and that the female etheric body is male and the male etheric body female. From this we can see that in a certain respect an irregularity is bound to occur in the rhythm of the etheric bodies. But on the whole the numbers 1:7:(4 x 7):(10 x 7 x 4) are the proportional figures that so to say specify the ‘speeds of rotation’ for the four members of man's being. This is of course speaking figuratively, for they are not really rotations but repetitions of the same conditions; rhythm ratios. A fortnight ago I had to point out that phenomena of daily life are comprehensible only when we know things like this that lie behind the sense perceptible world. And in a public lecture I also indicated a remarkable fact which cannot be denied by even the most materialistic scientist or doctor or be ranked among the ‘spectres of superstition’, because it is an indisputable fact. It is something that really ought to make people think, namely that in pneumonia a special phenomena occurs on the seventh day. A crisis arises, and the patient has to be pulled through this seventh day. The temperature suddenly falls, and if the patient cannot be brought through this crisis then in certain circumstances there is no recovery. This fact is known by most people, but as a rule the starting-point of the illness is not always correctly ascertained, and if you do not know which the first day is then as a rule you do not know which the seventh day is either. But the fact remains, so we have to ask why the temperature drops with pneumonia on the seventh day. Why does a special phenomenon occur at all on the seventh day?
Only a person who sees behind the scenes of existence, behind the physical sense phenomena into the spiritual world, knows of these rhythms, and why phenomena like a temperature arise. What actually is a temperature? Why does it occur? The temperature is not the illness. On the contrary, the temperature is something that the organism calls up to fight against the actual process of the illness. The temperature is the organism's defence against the illness. There is some damage in the organism, in the lungs, say. When the human being is healthy and all his inner activities are working harmoniously, these inner activities are bound to fall into disorder if one particular organ of the human body is upset. Then the whole organism attempts to pull itself together and develop the forces within itself to counterbalance the local upset. There is really a revolution going on in the whole organism, otherwise the organism would not need to gather its forces because there is no enemy to fight. The expressing of this massing of forces in the organism is the temperature.
Now the person who looks behind the scenes of existence knows that the various organs of the human body came into existence and developed at very different periods of human evolution. What from the spiritual scientific point of view is called ‘the study of the human body’ is the most complicated matter imaginable, for the human organism is extremely complex and its individual organs came into existence at quite different times. The rudimentary beginnings of these organs were developed further at a later stage of evolution. Everything in the physical organism is an expression or outcome of man's higher members, so that each physical organ expresses the higher Organisation of the higher members. What we call the lungs today have their origins in the astral body and are to a certain extent connected with it. We will eventually come to talk about what the lungs have to do with the astral body, how the very first, archetype basis of the lungs came into man on the predecessor of our Earth, ancient Moon, and how at that time the astral body was as it were planted into man by higher spiritual beings. But today I want you to look at the fact of the lungs being an expression of the astral body. The actual expression of the astral body is of course the nervous system. But man is complicated, and the development of the various parts always runs parallel. The construction of the lungs began at the same time as the development of the astral body and the incorporation of the present-day nervous system. This in a way includes the lungs in the rhythm of the astral body, that rhythm that is governed by the number seven. The phenomenon of a rising temperature is connected with certain functions of the etheric body. Something must be happening in the etheric body if a temperature runs a certain course. The temperature, then, is somehow within the rhythm of the etheric body. Whenever you have a temperature it has this rhythm, but in what way? We shall have to be clear about the following:
The etheric body, which completes its cycle in four times seven days, moves considerably slower than the astral body with its seven day rhythm. So if we relate the rhythmic course of the etheric body to that of the astral body, we can compare them with the hands of a clock. The clock's hour hand goes round once whilst the minute hand, in the same span of time, goes round twelve times. There you have the relationship of 1:12. Now suppose you look at the clock at noon, when the minute hand lies on top of the hour hand. The two hands coincide. Then the minute hand goes round one, and when it returns to the twelve it can no longer coincide with the hour hand, for this has meanwhile moved on to one. It will be roughly another five minutes before the two hands can coincide, so the minute hand does not point to the same place as the hour hand an hour later but after an hour and just over five minutes later. Now you have a similar relationship between the movement of the astral body and the movement of the etheric body. Imagine that your astral body, that is connected the whole time with the etheric body, were to be in a certain position in relation to the etheric body. Now the astral body begins to rotate. When after seven days it returns to its original position, it does not coincide again with the etheric body, for, after seven days, the etheric body has moved round a quarter of its cycle. So seven days later the position of the astral body does not coincide with the same position of the etheric body but with a position that is a quarter of the cycle behind the original one. Now imagine you have a case of the illness in question. A definite position of the astral body is connected with a definite position of the etheric body. And at this moment, with the co-operation of these two positions working together, the temperature appears, as a summons to fight the enemy. Seven days later the astral body covers an entirely different part of the etheric body. Now in the etheric body there must be not only the power to produce a temperature, for in that case, once it had really got going, it would never drop again; so seven days later this point of the etheric body that is now covered by the part of the astral body that produced the temperature seven days previously has the tendency to counteract the temperature and bring it down. If the patient's disorder has been overcome in seven days, then all is well. But if the disorder has not been overcome, and the astral body has not got the tendency now to push the illness out, the patient comes into the unfortunate position in which the etheric body has the tendency to bring the temperature down. It is important to pay good heed to these two points of coincidence. We could discover points like this for all kinds of phenomena in human life. And just through these rhythms, these mysterious inner workings, man's whole being could be understood. The etheric body really has a tendency that expresses itself in four times seven. In the case of other illnesses you will notice that the fourteenth day is of special importance; that is, two times seven. And we can definitely say that with certain phenomena the paroxysm has to be especially strong after four times seven; The point being that if the trouble decreases then, you can definitely hope for recovery. All these things are connected with rhythms of the kind we touched on three weeks ago and have dealt with in greater detail today. With such things as these, which appear difficult but which can nevertheless be understood, we can begin to penetrate a little way beneath the surface of the physical sense world. And we must penetrate further and further. Now let us enquire into the origin of such rhythms.
We have to look once again to the great cosmic relationships to find the origin of such rhythms. We have often drawn your attention to the fact that what we call the four members of man, physical body, etheric body, astral body and ego have evolved through Saturn, Sun, Moon and Earth existence. If we look back to our old Moon we find that it also separated itself from the sun for a certain length of time, though a large part of what is the moon today was then part of the earth. But outside there was a sun, and when such heavenly bodies belong together then their forces, which are the expression of their beings, always have an influence on regulating the life of their creatures. The orbiting of a planet around its sun or of a satellite around its planet is by no means mere chance, nor is it unconnected with life, on the contrary it is regulated by those beings we have learnt about in the hierarchies of spirits. We have seen that it is absolutely untrue that the heavenly bodies rotate by themselves through mere lifeless forces. We have pointed out how grotesquely the modern physicist explains the Kant-Laplace theory by means of his experiment with the blob of fat. A cardboard disc is inserted through the floating blob of farm the direction of the equator and a needle stuck through it from above, and then the whole thing is rotated, whereupon small droplets break off from the large drop and rotate as well. Thus the experimenter shows how a planetary system in miniature arises, and physicists generally draw the conclusion that this is how the large planetary system must have arisen. Although it is usually good to forget yourself, in this particular case it is not. For the good man usually forgets that the miniature planetary system could not arise if he did not turn the handle. It is perfectly permissible to do such experiments, and they are very useful, but you should not forget the most important part. What an infinite number of people fall victim to such suggestions! They overlook the fact that the professor was doing it. There is no gigantic professor out yonder of course, it is the hierarchies of spiritual beings who regulate the rhythms of the heavenly bodies and actually bring about all the ordering of matter in the cosmos, so that the individual planetary bodies revolve around one another. And if we could go into the movements of the planetary spheres that form a correlated system—and a time will come for this—we should recognise the rhythms of our own human members. For the time being, however, we need only point to one thing.
Modern man, with his materialistic mode of thought, laughs at the idea that in earlier times certain conditions in man's life were organised in connection with the four quarters of the moon. Now just with the moon in particular there is in a wonderful way a cosmic reflection of the relationship existing between the astral and the etheric body. The moon moves round its cycle in four times seven days. Those are the positions of the etheric body, and these four times seven positions of the etheric body are exactly mirrored in the four quarters of the moon. It is by no means nonsense to look for a connection between the phenomenon of the rising temperature we described and just these quarters of the moon. Just think, there really is a different quarter of the moon at the end of seven days, just as there is another quarter of the etheric body and the astral body covers a different quarter of the etheric body. Originally the relationship of the human astral body to the etheric body was indeed regulated by spiritual beings bringing the moon into a corresponding orbiting of the earth. And you can see how the things are to a certain extent connected, in that even modern medicine reckons with an ancient heritage of rhythmic knowledge. As the rhythm of the body is ten times twenty-eight and the physical body is as it were back at the same point ten times twenty-eight days later, there are about ten times twenty-eight days between the conception of a human being and his birth, ten lunar months. All these things are connected with the regulating of the great cosmic relationships. Man as microcosm is a true image of the great world relationships, for he is created out of them.
Today we want to turn our thoughts to evolution in the middle of Atlantean times. That was a very important point for earth evolution. Before that time we can distinguish three races in human evolution; the Polarian, the Hyperborean and the Lemurian race. Then comes the Atlantean race. We are now in the fifth race and two races will follow us, so the Atlantean epoch lies right in the middle. The middle of Atlantean times is the most important point in earth evolution. If we were to go back before this time, even then we should have found an exact reflection of cosmic relationships in the relationships of external human life. It would have had a very bad effect on man if he had done the kind of things then that he does now. Nowadays man does not adjust himself very much to the cosmic situation. In town life things often have to be arranged in such a way that people are awake when they would otherwise be asleep and asleep when they ought to be awake. If anything like being awake at night or sleeping in the daytime had occurred in Lemurian times, and man had paid so little attention to the external phenomena that belong to certain inner processes, he would not have survived. Of course such a thing was quite impossible then, because it was a matter of course that man in his inner rhythm conformed with outer rhythm. Man lived as it were with the cycles of the sun and the moon and modeled the rhythm of his astral and etheric bodies on the cycle of sun and moon.
Let us come back to the clock. In a certain respect this also conforms to the great cosmic cycle, when the hour and minute hands coincide at twelve o'clock, that is because there is a certain constellation of the sun and stars. We set our clocks according to this and a clock is unreliable if the two hands do not coincide the following day as soon as this constellation of stars occurs again. In Berlin the clocks are set daily by electricity from the Enckeplatz observatory. So we may say that the movements or rhythms of the clock hands are set every day according to the rhythm of the cosmos. Our clock is correct if it synchronises with the central clock which, in its turn, synchronises with the cosmos. In ancient times man had no need of a clock, for he himself was a clock. His life's course, which he could clearly feel, absolutely conformed to cosmic relationships. Man really was a clock. And if he had not conformed to the cosmic situation, exactly the same thing would have happened to him as happens to a clock if its movement does not correspond to the outer situation: it goes wrong, and he would have gone wrong too. The inner rhythm had to correspond to the outer. And the essential part of man's evolution on earth is that since the middle of Atlantean times the outer situation does not absolutely coincide with the inner one. Something else has come about. Just imagine someone fancying that he could not bear the two hands of his watch coinciding at noon. Supposing he alters them to three o'clock, then when it is one o'clock for other people he makes it four p.m., at two o'clock he makes it 5 p.m., and so on. The inner working of his clock will not have changed, it will only have become displaced compared with the outer situation. Twenty-four hours later he will make it three o'clock again; that it, his clock's movement will not coincide with the cosmic situation but its inner rhythm will still agree with it, for it has only been displaced. Man's rhythm has also been displaced. Man would never have become an independent being if all his activity had remained in cosmic leading strings. The basis of his freedom lies in his having preserved his inner rhythm while severing himself from external rhythm. He has become like a clock that at the nodal points no longer coincides with cosmic occurrences yet is inwardly in harmony with them. Thus in the far distant past a human being could be conceived in one particular stellar constellation only and be born ten lunar months later. This coinciding of conception with a cosmic situation has ceased but the rhythm has remained, just as a clock keeps to its rhythm even though at midday you set it at three o'clock. Of course it is not man's circumstances only though, that have become displaced, the times have become displaced as well. Even if we disregard the last-mentioned cosmic displacement, something very special has occurred in man's inner life, in that he has lifted himself as it were out of the cosmic situation and is no longer a ‘clock’ in the proper sense of the word. He is more or less like a man who has put his clock forward three hours and then, forgetting how much he has put it forward, cannot sort himself out any more. This is what happened to man in earthly evolution once he was free of the situation in which he was like a clock in the cosmos. In certain respects he brought his astral body into disorder. The more the conditions of human life were regulated by the physical, the more the old rhythm was preserved; but the more his life conditions became influenced by thought, the greater the disorder that came into them. I would like to clarify this from another angle.
Men are not the only beings we know of, we also know of beings that are superior to present-day earth man. We know of the sons of life or the angels, and we know that they went through their human stage on ancient Moon. We know of the spirits of fire or the archangels, that went through their human stage on the old Sun condition of the earth, and we also know of the primeval forces, who went through their human stage on ancient Saturn. These beings are in advance of man in their cosmic evolution. If we were to study them today we would find that they are beings of a much more spiritual nature than man. Therefore they live in higher-worlds. But in regard to the particular things we have been mentioning today, their situation is totally different from man's. In spiritual matters they conform absolutely to the cosmic rhythm. An angel would not think in such a disordered way as man, for the simple reason that his thought process is regulated by the cosmic powers which guide him. It is right out of the question for a being like an angel not to think in harmony with the great spiritual processes of the cosmos. The laws of logic for the angels are written in the universal harmony. They need no textbooks. Man needs textbooks because he has brought his inner thought processes into disorder. He no longer knows how to take guidance from the great script of the stars. Angels know the course of the cosmos, and the course of their thought corresponds with the ordered rhythm. When man came on to the earth in his present form he fell out of this rhythm, hence the lack of order in his life of thought and feeling. Regularity still holds sway in the things man has less influence on in his astral and etheric bodies, but in the parts that have been given into man's hands, that is, his sentient soul, intellectual soul and consciousness soul disorder and lack of rhythm have entered in. It is one of the least important matters that in our cities man turns night into day. It is of far greater significance that in his inner life of thought man has torn himself away from the great universal rhythm. The way man thinks all day long is in a certain respect in contradiction to the life of the great universe.
Do not imagine though, that all this is being said to encourage a world conception that will bring man back into this kind of rhythm again. Man had to get away from the old rhythm; his progress depends on this: When certain prophets go around today preaching ‘Back to Nature’, they want to bring life into reverse instead of helping it forward. All this chatter about returning to nature contains no understanding of real evolution. When a movement today recommends people to eat certain foods only at certain times of the year because nature herself indicates this by making foods grow only at certain times, this is the abstract talk of the amateur. The essential thing about evolution is that man grows more and more independent of outer rhythm. But we must not lose the ground from under our feet. It is not the best thing for man's progress and salvation to return to the old rhythm and ask himself how he should live in harmony with the four quarters of the moon. For it was essential in olden times for man to be like an impress of the cosmos. But it is important too that man should not believe he can live without rhythm. Just as his inner life was formed from outside inwards he must now create rhythm from inside outwards. That is the essential thing. His inner life must become rhythmic. Just as rhythm created the cosmos, man has to permeate himself with a new rhythm if he wants to share in the creating of a new cosmos. It is characteristic of our age that it has lost the old, external rhythm and has not yet attained a new inner one. Man has outgrown nature—if we call the outer expression of spirit ‘nature’—but has not yet grown into the spirit. He is still floundering today between nature and spirit. This is just what is characteristic of our time. This floundering between nature and spirit reached its climax in the second third of the nineteenth century. Consequently the beings who know and interpret the signs of the times had to ask themselves at that time: What can be done so that man does not lose all trace of rhythm but acquires an inner rhythm?
What you can see today as the characteristic of mental life is its chaotic nature. Today, when you see something that has been thought out, the first thing that is bound to strike you is its chaotic nature, its inner lack of order. This is the case in almost every sphere. Only the spheres that still possess good old traditions have something of the old order left. In new spheres man has first of all to create a new order. That is why men can see facts today, like the fall in temperature on the seventh day of pneumonia, but their explanation of them is an absolute chaos of thoughts. When the human being thinks about it, then—because he does not think in an ordered way—he piles up a medley of thoughts around the fact. All our sciences take an external fact of the world and stir up a mass of thoughts about it with no inner order, because man has gone astray in a kind of mental abyss. He has no guiding principles of thought today, no inner thought rhythm, and humanity would become completely decadent were they not to acquire an inner rhythm. Look at spiritual science from this point of view.
You will see the element you are in when you begin to study spiritual science. To begin with you hear—and gradually understand—that man has four members of his being: physical body, etheric body, astral body and ego. And then you hear that work is done by the ego, and the astral body is changed into manas or spirit-self, the etheric body into buddhi or life-spirit and the principle of physical man into spirit-man or atma. Now just think how much ground we have covered with this basic formula of spiritual science. Think of the many themes that were really fundamental themes, and how we had to build up our whole thought structure time and again out of this basic scheme: physical body, etheric body, astral body and ego. You know, some people actually get tired of hearing these basic facts over and over again in certain public lectures. But this is and remains a reliable thread on which to string our thoughts: these four members of man's being and their inter-working; and then on a higher level, the transformation of the three lower members: the third into the fifth, the second into the sixth and the first into the seventh member of our being. If you count all the members of man's being that we know of physical body, etheric body, astral body, ego, spirit-self, life-spirit and spirit-man, you have seven. And if you count those that form the foundation of these, namely the physical body, etheric body, astral body and ego, you have four. And you are reproducing in thought the macrocosmic rhythm of 7:4 and 4:7 when you follow this train of thought. You are producing the outer, macrocosmic rhythm again from out of yourself You are repeating the rhythm that was once there macrocosmically in the universe and bringing it to birth again. You are laying down the plan or basis for your system of thought, as once the gods laid down the plan for the wisdom of the world. When we bring the inner rhythm of number to life in us again in this way, then out of the chaos of thought life a cosmos of thought is developed out of the innermost being of the soul. Men have freed themselves from external rhythm. By means of what is truly a science of the spirit we return to rhythm again, creating a cosmic structure from within outwards that is inwardly rhythmic. And if we turn to the cosmos and look at the earth's past, at Saturn, Sun, Moon and Earth, we find four, then the Moon in spiritualised form at the fifth stage as Jupiter, the Sun at the sixth stage as Venus, and ancient Saturn at the seventh stage as Vulcan. Thus in Saturn, Sun, Moon, Earth, Jupiter, Venus, Vulcan our evolutionary phases add up to seven. Our physical body as it is today, has developed through the number four, through Saturn, Sun, Moon and Earth. In the future it will gradually become completely transformed and spiritualised. So that here too, when we look at the past we have the number four, and when we look to the future the number three: again there is 4:3, or if we include the past in the whole of evolution, 4:7.
We are still only at the beginning of our spiritual scientific activity, even if we have been working at it for many years. Today we could only point out what men meant by the ‘inner number’ at the root of all phenomena. And we see that in order to gain freedom man had to fall away from the original rhythm. But he has to rediscover within himself the laws with which to regulate the ‘clock’, his astral body. And the great regulator is spiritual science, because it is in harmony with the great laws of the cosmos beheld by the seer. The future as created by man will have the same great numerical relationships as the cosmos had in the past, but on a higher level. Therefore men have to bring the future to birth out of number, like the gods created the cosmos out of number.
We can see how spiritual science is connected with the course of the macrocosm. When we grasp what is there in the spiritual world behind man, the number four and the number seven, we shall understand why we must look to the spiritual world to find the impulse to carry forward what we know to be the evolutionary course of humanity. And we shall understand why just in an age when men have reached the greatest chaos in their inner life of thought, feeling and will those individualities who have to interpret the signs of the times had to draw attention to the kind of wisdom that enables man to create his soul life in a regulated way from within outwards. We shall learn to think with inner rhythm in a way that is necessary for the future, when we think in accordance with these basic relationships. And man will take into himself more and more from the world of his origins. At present he is acquiring what we can see to be the ground plan of the cosmos. He will go further and feel himself filled with certain fundamental forces and ultimately with fundamental beings.
All this is just in its beginnings today. And we appreciate the importance and world significance of the anthroposophical mission when we regard it not as an arbitrary act of this or that individual, but rather set about understanding it with all the inner force of our very existence. Then we can reach the point of being able to say that it is not a matter of choice whether we take up the anthroposophical mission or not, for if we want to understand our times we must recognise and fill ourselves with the thoughts of the divine-spiritual worlds which are the basis of anthroposophy. And then we must let them flow out of us again into the world, so that our actions and our being acquire, in place of chaos, the stature of a cosmos, like the cosmos out of which we were born.
Dreizehnter Vortrag
Es ist hier in diesen Stunden schon gesagt worden, daß wir im Laufe dieses Winters gewissermaßen das Material, die Bausteine zusammentragen wollen in den einzelnen Zweigstunden, die zuletzt sich zusammenfügen sollen zu einer tieferen Erkenntnis des Wesens des Menschen und verschiedener anderer Dinge, welche mit dem Leben und der ganzen Entwicklung des Menschen zusammenhängen und die uns immer tiefer hineinführen werden in die Weltengeheimnisse. Heute möchte ich Sie erinnern an den vorletzten unserer Zweigvorträge und von diesem ausgehen. Sie erinnern sich, daß wir gesprochen haben von einem gewissen Rhythmus, der vorhanden ist in bezug auf die vier Glieder der menschlichen Wesenheit. Davon wollen wir heute ausgehen und uns die Frage beantworten: Wie können wir mit einem solchen Wissen aus tieferen Gründen heraus die Notwendigkeit und das Ziel der anthroposophischen Geistesbewegung einsehen?
Zwei scheinbar sehr weit voneinander abliegende Dinge werden wir heute zusammenzuknüpfen haben. Sie erinnern sich daran, daß gewisse Verhältnisse bestehen zwischen dem Ich, dem astralischen Leib, dem Ätherleib und dem physischen Leib des Menschen. Das, was in bezug auf das vierte Glied, auf das Ich zu sagen ist, tritt uns ja, man möchte sagen, am handgreiflichsten vor Augen, wenn wir uns erinnern an die beiden Wechselzustände des Bewußtseins, die das Ich im Laufe eines vierundzwanzigstündigen Zeitraumes, also eines Tages, durchmacht. Diesen einen Tag mit seinen vierundzwanzig Stunden, innerhalb dessen das Ich Tag und Nacht, Schlafen und Wachen erlebt, setzen wir in gewisser Beziehung als Einheit. Wenn wir also sagen: Das, was das Ich an einem Tage durchmacht, das unterliegt der Zahl eins, dann müssen wir sagen, die Zahl, welche in einer ähnlichen Weise dem Rhythmus unseres astralischen Leibes entspricht, ist die Zahl sieben. Während das Ich, wie es heute ist, in vierundzwanzig Stunden, in einem Tag, sozusagen auf seinen Aus gangspunkt zurückkommt, wiederum da anlangt, wo es war, macht dasselbe unser astralischer Leib in sieben Tagen durch. Wir wollen uns darüber noch etwas genauer verständigen.
Denken Sie einmal an Ihr Erwachen am Morgen, das darin besteht, daß Sie sich, wie man - freilich unrichtigerweise - im gewöhnlichen Leben sagt, aus dem Dunkel der Bewußtlosigkeit erheben und daß die Gegenstände der physisch-sinnlichen Welt wiederum um Sie herum auftreten. Sie erleben das am Morgen, und Sie erleben das nach vierundzwanzig Stunden wiederum, Ausnahmefälle selbstverständlich abgerechnet. Das ist der regelmäßige Gang der Sache, und wir können sagen: Nach einem Tag von vierundzwanzig Stunden kehrt unser Ich zu seinem Ausgangspunkt zurück. Wenn wir für den astralischen Leib in derselben Weise seine entsprechenden Verhältnisse aufsuchen, so müssen wir sagen: Wenn die Regelmäßigkeit, die dem menschlichen astralischen Leib zukommt, wirklich in ihm auftritt, so kehrt er nach sieben Tagen wiederum an denselben Punkt zurück. Während also das Ich einen Kreislauf in einem Tage durchmacht, geht der astralische Leib wesentlich langsamer, er macht seinen Kreislauf in sieben Tagen durch. Der Ätherleib macht nun seinen Kreislauf in viermal sieben Tagen durch; er kommt nach viermal sieben Tagen wiederum an denselben Punkt zurück. Und nun bitte ich das zu beachten, was das vorletzte Mal schon gesagt worden ist: Für den physischen Leib geht das nicht so regelmäßig wie für den astralischen Leib und für den Ätherleib. Eine annähernde Zahl können wir aber auch da festsetzen: Er macht in ungefähr zehnmal achtundzwanzig Tagen seinen Kreislauf durch, so daß er da an seinen Ausgangspunkt zurückkehrt. Sie wissen ja, daß für den Menschen die große Verschiedenheit vorliegt, daß der weibliche Ätherleib männlichen Charakter hat und umgekehrt der männliche Ätherleib weiblichen Charakter. Daraus wird es schon verständlich sein, daß in gewisser Beziehung eine Unregelmäßigkeit im Rhythmus für den Ätherleib und physischen Leib eintreten muß. Aber im allgemeinen sind die Zahlen 1 : 7 : (4 x 7) : (10 x 7 x 4) die Verhältniszahlen, die uns für die vier Glieder der Menschennatur sozusagen die «Geschwindigkeiten der Umdrehung» angeben. Das ist natürlich nur im Bilde gesprochen, denn es handelt sich nicht um Umdrehungen, sondern um Wiederholungen derselben Zustände; um Rhythmenzahlen handelt es sich. Ich habe schon vor zwei Wochen darauf hinweisen müssen, wie sich Erscheinungen unseres alltäglichen Lebens erst verständlich machen, wenn wir solche Dinge, die hinter der sinnlich-physischen Welt stehen, wissen. Und auch in einem öffentlichen Vortrage habe ich auf eine merkwürdige Tatsache hingewiesen, welche selbst der materialistischste Naturforscher und Mediziner nicht leugnen kann, nicht einreihen kann in die «Gespenster des Aberglaubens», weil sie eben als eine Tatsache vorhanden ist. Das ist die Tatsache, die doch eigentlich den Menschen zum Denken veranlassen sollte, daß bei der Lungenentzündung am siebenten Tage eine besondere Erscheinung eintritt, daß da eine Krisis eintritt und daß man dem Kranken über diesen siebenten Tag hinüberhelfen muß. Das Fieber läßt plötzlich nach, und wenn man den Kranken über diese Krisis nicht hinüberbringen kann, so tritt unter Umständen keine Heilung ein. Es ist das ja eine im allgemeinen bekannte Tatsache, aber in der Regel wird der Ausgangspunkt der Krankheit nicht immer richtig erkannt, und wenn man den ersten Tag nicht weiß, so kennt man in der Regel auch den siebenten Tag nicht. Aber die Tatsache besteht. Warum, so muß die Frage entstehen, läßt bei der Lungenentzündung am siebenten Tage das Fieber nach? Warum tritt da überhaupt eine besondere Erscheinung am siebenten Tage auf?
Nur derjenige, der hinter die Kulissen des Daseins sieht, der hinter die physisch-sinnlichen Erscheinungen in die geistige Welt hineinsieht, der weiß von diesen Rhythmen und der weiß zu gleicher Zeit, wodurch solche Erscheinungen - wie zum Beispiel Fiebererscheinungen - entstehen. Was ist eigentlich das Fieber? Warum tritt Fieber auf? Das Fieber ist nicht die Krankheit. Das Fieber ist im Gegenteil etwas, was der Organismus hervorruft, um gegen den eigentlichen Krankheitsprozeß zu kämpfen. Das Fieber ist die Abwehr des Organismus gegenüber der Krankheit. Es ist irgendeine Schädigung im Organismus vorhanden, also sagen wir eine Schädigung in der Lunge. Wenn der Mensch gesund ist und alle seine inneren Tätigkeiten entsprechend zusammenstimmen, so müssen selbstverständlich diese inneren Tätigkeiten in Unordnung kommen, wenn irgendein Organ, irgendein Glied des menschlichen Leibes eine Störung hat. Dann versucht der ganze Organismus sich zusammenzunehmen und aus sich heraus die Kräfte zu entwickeln, die diese vereinzelte Störung wiederum ausgleichen können. Also es ist eine Revolution im ganzen Organismus, die da vorgeht. Sonst braucht der Organismus nicht seine Kräfte zusammenzuraffen, weil kein Feind da ist, den er zu bekämpfen hat. Der Ausdruck nun dieses Zusammenraffens der Kräfte im Organismus ist das Fieber.
Nun weiß derjenige, welcher hinter die Kulissen des Daseins schaut, daß die verschiedenen Organe des menschlichen Leibes in sehr verschiedenen Zeiten der Entwicklung des Menschen sich veranlagt und dann ausgebildet haben. Dasjenige, was man vom geisteswissenschaftlichen Standpunkt aus das «Studium des menschlichen Leibes» nennt, ist das denkbar Komplizierteste, das man sich vorstellen kann, denn dieser menschliche Organismus ist etwas sehr Mannigfaltiges und seine einzelnen Organe sind zu ganz verschiedenen Zeiten veranlagt worden. Später ist dann wieder diese Anlage aufgenommen und weiter ausgebildet worden. Alles, was im physischen Organismus ist, ist ein Ausdruck, ein Ergebnis der höheren Glieder des Menschen, so daß also immer die betreffenden physischen Glieder die höheren Ordnungen in den höheren Gliedern ausdrücken. Das, was wir heute als Lunge bezeichnen, das hängt seiner Anlage nach zusammen mit dem menschlichen Astralleib und hat mit diesem etwas zu tun. Was nun die Lunge mit dem astralischen Leib zu tun hat, wie die allererste, ursprüngliche Lungenanlage auf dem Vorgänger unserer Erde, auf dem alten Monde, in den Menschen hineingekommen ist, wie da dem Menschen von höheren geistigen Wesenheiten der astralische Leib sozusagen «eingeimpft» worden ist, von all dem werden wir noch zu sprechen haben. Heute wollen wir uns nur vor Augen stellen, daß auch in der Lunge ein Ausdruck des astralischen Leibes liegt. Der eigentliche Ausdruck des astralischen Leibes ist ja das Nervensystem. Aber der Mensch ist eben kompliziert und die Entwicklungen gehen immer parallel. Mit der Entwicklung des astralischen Leibes und mit der Eingliederung des heutigen Nervensystems war auch die Anlage der Lunge gegeben. Dadurch kommt schon die Lunge in einer gewissen Weise hinein in den Rhythmus des astralischen Leibes, in jenen Rhythmus, der der Siebenzahl unterliegt. Das, was man als Fiebererscheinung kennt, hängt zusammen mit gewissen Funktionen des Ätherleibes. Es muß im Ätherleib etwas vorgehen, wenn ein gewisser Ablauf von Fieber da ist. Das Fieber steht daher in irgendeiner Weise in dem Rhythmus drinnen, in dem der Ätherleib steht. Jedes Fieber steht in diesem Rhythmus drinnen, aber wie? Wir müssen uns nun einmal folgendes klarmachen.
Der Ätherleib, da er in vier mal sieben Tagen seinen Kreislauf vollendet, bewegt sich wesentlich langsamer als der Astralleib, der seinen Rhythmus in sieben Tagen durchmacht. Wir dürfen also, wenn wir den rhythmischen Gang des Ätherleibes in ein Verhältnis setzen zu dem des astralischen Leibes, den Vergleich heranziehen mit den Zeigern einer Uhr. Nehmen Sie den Stundenzeiger einer Uhr: er geht einmal herum, während der Zeiger, der Ihnen die Minuten angibt, in derselben Zeit zwölfmal herumgeht. Da haben Sie das Verhältnis von 1:12. Nun denken Sie einmal, Sie würden achtgeben, wenn um zwölf Uhr mittags der Stundenzeiger über dem Minutenzeiger liegt. Da Decken sich die beiden Zeiger. Nun geht der Minutenzeiger einmal herum. Wenn er jetzt wieder auf der Zwölf ist, kann er sich mit dem Stundenzeiger nicht mehr decken, denn dieser ist inzwischen bis auf die Eins gegangen. Die beiden Zeiger können sich also erst nach etwa fünf Minuten decken, so daß nach einer Stunde der Minutenzeiger nicht wieder über dem Stundenzeiger steht, sondern erst nach einer Stunde und etwas mehr als fünf Minuten. Nun haben Sie ein ähnliches Verhältnis zwischen dem Umkreisen des astralischen Leibes und dem Umkreisen des Ätherleibes. Nehmen Sie an, Ihr Astralleib, der ja immer verbunden ist mit dem Ätherleib, befände sich in einem gewissen Zustande im Verhältnis zu dem Ätherleib. Jetzt fängt der Astralleib sich zu drehen an. Wenn er nach sieben Tagen wieder in seinem ursprünglichen Zustand ist, deckt er sich nicht wieder mit dem Ätherleib, denn der Ätherleib ist nach sieben Tagen um ein Viertel seines Umkreises fortgeschritten. Es deckt sich also nach sieben Tagen der Zustand des astralischen Leibes nicht wieder mit demselben Zustand des Ätherleibes, sondern er deckt sich mit einem Zustand, der um ein Viertel des Umkreises hinter dem ursprünglichen zurückgeblieben ist. Nun nehmen Sie an, es tritt die betreffende Krankheit auf. Da hängt ein ganz bestimmter Zustand des astralischen Leibes mit einem ganz bestimmten Zustand des Ätherleibes zusammen. In diesem Moment tritt unter der Mitwirkung dieser zwei Zustände, die da zusammenwirken, das Fieber auf als das Aufrufen gegen den Feind. Nach sieben Tagen kommt der astralische Leib über einen ganz anderen Punkt des Ätherleibes. Nun ist es so, daß im Ätherleibe nicht nur die Kraft sein muß, Fieber hervorzubringen, denn dann würde ja, wenn er einmal in Schwung gekommen ist, Fieber hervorzubringen, das Fieber gar nicht mehr nachlassen. So aber hat nun nach sieben Tagen dieser Punkt des Ätherleibes, der sich jetzt mit jenem Punkt des astralischen Leibes deckt, der vor sieben Tagen das Fieber hervorgerufen hat, die Tendenz, das Fieber wieder gutzumachen, das Fieber wieder abzuschwächen. Ist also der Kranke nach sieben Tagen so weit, daß auch die Störung überwunden ist, dann ist es gut. Ist die Störung nicht überwunden, hat der astralische Leib jetzt nicht die Tendenz, die Krankheit fortzuschaffen, so trifft er in den ungünstigen Zustand hinein, wo der Ätherleib die Tendenz hat, das Fieber abzuschwächen. Es handelt sich darum, daß man diese beiden übereinanderlagernden Punkte wohl beachtet, diese beiden Koinzidenzpunkte. Solche Punkte könnten wir für alle möglichen menschlichen Lebenserscheinungen herausfinden. Und gerade durch diese Rhythmen, durch die inneren geheimnisvollen Einrichtungen würde uns das ganze menschliche Wesen klar werden. Der Ätherleib hat wirklich eine Tendenz, die sich in vier mal sieben ausdrückt. Bei anderen Krankheitserscheinungen können Sie wieder beobachten, wie besonders der vierzehnte Tag von besonderer Wichtigkeit ist, also zwei mal sieben. Wir können geradezu angeben, wie bei gewissen Erscheinungen der Paroxysmus nach vier mal sieben besonders stark sein muß. Und da handelt es sich darum: Nimmt dann die Sache ab, so ist unter allen Umständen auf Heilung zu hoffen. Alle diese Dinge hängen zusammen mit Rhythmen, und zwar mit jenen Rhythmen, die wir vor drei Wochen berührten und die wir uns heute genauer vor die Seele geführt haben. Mit solchen Dingen, die zwar schwer erscheinen, die man aber doch begreifen kann, dringt man erst ein klein wenig hinter die Oberfläche der physisch-sinnlichen Welt. Das muß immer tiefer und tiefer hineingehen. Nun fragen wir uns nach gewissen Ursprüngen solcher Rhythmen.
Die Ursprünge solcher Rhythmen liegen nun wiederum in den großen kosmischen Verhältnissen. Wir haben ja immer und immer wieder darauf aufmerksam gemacht, wie gerade das, was wir die vier menschlichen Glieder nennen, physischer Leib, Ätherleib, astralischer Leib und Ich, eine Evolution durch Saturn-, Sonnen-, Monden- und Erdendasein hinter sich haben. Wenn wir zurückschauen auf unsern alten Mond, da finden wir schon, daß auch dieser alte Mond für eine gewisse Zeit sich von der Sonne losgelöst hatte. Dazumal war allerdings ein großer Teil dessen, was heute Mond ist, mit der Erde verbunden. Draußen war aber eine Sonne, und wenn solche Himmelskörper zusammengehörig sind, so haben ihre Kräfte, die ja wieder nur der Ausdruck sind für ihre Wesenheiten, immer Einfluß auf die Regelmäßigkeit des Lebens ihrer Wesen. Die Umlaufszeit eines Planeten um seine Sonne oder eines Nebenplaneten um seinen Planeten ist durchaus nicht zufällig oder unzusammenhängend mit dem Leben, sondern das ist geregelt von jenen Wesenheiten, die wir in den Hierarchien der Geister kennengelernt haben. Wir haben ja gesehen, daß es sich durchaus nicht so verhält, daß die Himmelskörper wie von selbst herumkreisen durch bloß unlebendige Kräfte. Wir haben einmal darauf hingewiesen, wie grotesk der heutige Physiker die Erklärung der Kant-Laplaceschen Theorie an dem Experiment mit dem Fett-Tropfen zeigt: Durch den schwimmenden Fett-Tropfen wird in der Äquatorrichtung eine Pappscheibe gelegt und von oben eine Nadel durchgesteckt, und nun wird das Ganze gedreht; da spalten sich dann von dem großen Tropfen kleine Tropfen ab und drehen sich mit herum. Da zeigt also der Experimentator, wie ein Planetensystem im kleinen entsteht, und daraus schließt nun im allgemeinen der Physiker, so müsse auch das Planetensystem im großen entstanden sein. Was sonst gut ist zu vergessen - sich selber nämlich -, das ist hier nicht gut. Denn der gute Mann vergißt dabei gewöhnlich, daß das kleine Planetensystem nicht zustande kommen könnte, wenn er die Kurbel nicht drehen würde. Man darf durchaus solche Experimente machen, das ist sehr nützlich, aber man darf dabei eben das Wichtigste nicht vergessen. Wie unendlich viele Menschen leiden unter solchen Suggestionen! Daß der «Herr Professor» das gemacht hat, daran denken sie nicht. Draußen ist es zwar kein riesengroßer «Herr Professor», aber da sind es die Hierarchien der geistigen Wesenheiten, die die Bewegungszeiten der Himmelskörper regeln, die tatsächlich alle Anordnung der Materie im Kosmos bewirken, so daß die einzelnen Himmelskörper sich umeinander herumdrehen. Und wir würden, wenn wir darauf eingehen könnten - einmal wird auch dazu die Zeit kommen -, in den Bewegungen der Himmelskörper, die ein zusammengehöriges System bilden, wiedererkennen den Rhythmus unserer menschlichen Glieder. Vorläufig brauchen wir nur auf eines hinzuweisen.
Der heutige Mensch in seiner materialistischen Denkweise lacht darüber, daß man gewisse Lebensverhältnisse des Menschen in früheren Zeiten in Zusammenhang gebracht hat mit den Mondenvierteln. Nun spiegelt sich gerade im Monde kosmisch dasjenige, was als Verhältnis besteht zwischen dem astralischen Leib und dem Ätherleib, in wunderbarer Weise. Der Mond macht in vier mal sieben Tagen seinen Kreislauf durch. Das sind die Zustände des Ätherleibes, und die vier mal sieben Zustände des Ätherleibes spiegeln sich ganz genau in den vier Vierteln des Mondes. Es ist durchaus kein Unsinn, den Zusammenhang in dem, was wir vorhin als Fiebererscheinung charakterisiert haben, gerade in den Mondesvierteln zu suchen. Denken Sie, daß in der Tat nach sieben Tagen ein anderes Mondesviertel da ist wie ein anderes Viertel des Ätherleibes und daß der astralische Leib über ein anderes Viertel des Ätherleibes fällt. In der Tat wurde ursprünglich dieses Verhältnis des menschlichen Astralleibes zum Ätherleib dadurch geregelt, daß jene geistigen Wesenheiten den Mond in ein entsprechendes Umkreisen um die Erde brachten. Und wie in einer gewissen Weise die Dinge zusammenhängen, das können Sie daraus entnehmen, daß selbst die heutige Medizin noch mit einem alten Rest rechnet, der ihr geblieben ist von rhythmischer Erkenntnis. Weil der Rhythmus des physischen Leibes 10x28 ausmacht und der physische Leib sozusagen nach 10x28 Tagen wieder an demselben Punkte ist, wo er früher war, deshalb verlaufen 10x28 Tage ungefähr zwischen der Empfängnis eines Menschen und seiner Geburt, zehn siderische Monate, Alle diese Dinge hängen zusammen mit der Regelung der großen Weltverhältnisse. Der Mensch ist als Mikrokosmos ein getreuer Spiegel der großen Weltverhältnisse, er ist herausgebaut aus diesen großen Weltverhältnissen.
Wir wollen heute in der Entwicklung die Mitte der atlantischen Zeit ins Auge fassen. Das war für die Erdenentwicklung ein sehr wichtiger Punkt. Wir unterscheiden in der Menschheitsentwicklung drei Rassen vorher: die erste die polarische, die zweite die hyperboräische und die dritte die lemurische Rasse. Dann kommt die atlantische Rasse. Wir sind jetzt in der fünften Rasse, und nach uns werden folgen zwei weitere Rassen, so daß die atlantische Zeit gerade in der Mitte drinnen liegt. Die Mitte der atlantischen Zeit ist der wichtigste Punkt in der Erdenentwicklung. Wenn wir vor diese Zeit zurückgehen würden, so würden wir auch da in den Verhältnissen des äußeren menschlichen Lebens ein genaues Spiegelbild der kosmischen Verhältnisse finden. Damals wäre es dem Menschen sehr schlecht bekommen, wenn er das getan hätte, was er heute tut. Heute richtet sich der Mensch nicht mehr sehr viel nach den kosmischen Verhältnissen. In unseren Städten muß ja oft das Leben so eingerichtet werden, daß der Mensch wacht, wo er sonst schlafen sollte, und schläft, wo er wachen sollte. Wenn nun schon so etwas Ähnliches wie Wachen in der Nacht, Schlafen bei Tage in der lemurischen Zeit eingetreten wäre, wenn da der Mensch so wenig beachtet hätte, was für äußere Erscheinungen zu gewissen inneren Vorgängen gehören, dann hätte er gar nicht mehr leben können. So etwas war freilich damals gar nicht möglich, weil es ganz selbstverständlich war, daß der Mensch seinen inneren Rhythmus nach dem äußeren Rhythmus richtete. Der Mensch hat damals sozusagen mit Sonnen- und Mondenlauf gelebt, er hat ganz genau den Rhythmus seines astralischen Leibes und des Ätherleibes eingerichtet nach Sonnen- und Mondenlauf.
Nehmen wir wiederum die Uhr. Sie ist ja auch in einer gewissen Beziehung gerichtet nach dem großen Weltenlauf. Wenn der Stundenzeiger sich mit dem Minutenzeiger um zwölf Uhr deckt, so ist das ja deshalb der Fall, weil eine gewisse Sonnen- und Sternkonstellation vorhanden ist. Danach richtet man ja die Uhr, und eine Uhr geht schlecht, wenn sie am anderen Tage diese beiden Zeiger nicht wieder zur Deckung bringt, sobald dieselbe Sternkonstellation wieder eintritt. Von der Sternwarte am Enckeplatz aus werden täglich durch elektrische Verbindung die Berliner Uhren geregelt. Wir können also sagen: die Bewegungen, die Rhythmen der Uhrzeiger entsprechen und werden sogar täglich entsprechend gemacht dem Rhythmus im Kosmos. Richtig geht unsere Uhr, wenn sie mit der Normaluhr übereinstimmt, die ihrerseits wieder mit dem Kosmos zusammenstimmt. Eigentlich hat der Mensch in den alten Zeiten wirklich keine Uhr gebraucht; denn er war selber eine Uhr. Es richtete sich sein Lebensablauf, den er recht deutlich spüren konnte, durchaus nach den kosmischen Verhältnissen. Der Mensch war wirklich eine Uhr. Und wenn er sich nicht nach den kosmischen Verhältnissen gerichtet hätte, dann wäre mit ihm ganz genau dasselbe vor sich gegangen, was heute bei einer Uhr geschieht, wenn ihr Gang nicht den äußeren Verhältnissen entspricht: Dann geht sie eben schlecht, und dem Menschen wäre es dann auch schlecht gegangen. Der innere Rhythmus mußte dem äußeren entsprechen. Darinnen besteht nun gerade das Wesentliche des menschlichen Fortschrittes auf der Erde, daß seit der Mitte der atlantischen Zeit dieses absolute Sich-Decken der äußeren Verhältnisse mit den inneren nicht mehr der Fall ist. Es ist etwas anderes eingetreten. Denken Sie sich einmal, es würde jemand die Marotte haben, nicht zu leiden, daß sich um zwölf Uhr mittags seine Uhrzeiger decken. Nehmen wir an, er würde sie so stellen, daß es dann drei Uhr ist. Wenn die anderen Leute dann ein Uhr haben, hat er vier, um zwei Uhr wird er fünf haben und so weiter. Aber es wird sich dadurch das innere Getriebe seiner Uhr nicht ändern; nur gegen die äußeren Verhältnisse wird es verschoben sein. Nach vierundzwanzig Stunden wird es dann bei ihm wieder drei Uhr sein, seine Uhr wird also in ihrem Gang nicht zusammenfallen mit den kosmischen Verhältnissen, aber in ihrem Rhythmus wird sie dennoch innerlich mit ihnen übereinstimmen, denn die Dinge sind nur verschoben worden. So ist auch des Menschen Rhythmus verschoben worden. Der Mensch wäre nie ein selbständiges Wesen geworden, wenn seine ganze Tätigkeit am Gängelbande der kosmischen Verhältnisse verflossen wäre. Gerade dadurch hat er seine Freiheit bekommen, daß er unter Beibehaltung des innerlichen Rhythmus losgekommen ist von dem äußeren Rhythmus. Er ist wie eine Uhr geworden, die in den Knotenpunkten nicht mehr zusammenfällt mit den kosmischen Ereignissen, aber innerlich doch mit ihnen zusammenstimmt. So konnte in alten Zeiten urferner Vergangenheit der Mensch nur zu einer ganz bestimmten Sternkonstellation empfangen und zehn Mondmonate hinterher geboren werden. Dieses Zusammenfallen der Empfängnis mit einem kosmischen Verhältnis fiel weg, aber der Rhythmus blieb, geradeso wie der Rhythmus bei einer Uhr bleibt, wenn man sie auch um zwölf Uhr mittags auf drei stellt. Allerdings haben sich nicht nur die Verhältnisse beim Menschen so verschoben, sondern es haben sich auch die Zeiten selbst wiederum verschoben. Wenn wir von dem letztgenannten kosmischen Verschieben absehen, so ist ja auch innerlich für den Menschen dadurch etwas ganz Besonderes eingetreten, daß er sozusagen sich herausgehoben hat aus den kosmischen Verhältnissen, daß er keine «Uhr» mehr ist im richtigen Sinne des Wortes. Es ist ihm etwa so gegangen, wie es einem Menschen gehen würde, der seine Uhr um drei Stunden vorausgehen läßt, dann aber sich nicht mehr erinnert, um wie viel er sie vorgerückt hat, und nun eigentlich nicht mehr zurechtkommt. Ebenso ist es dem Menschen in der Erdenentwicklung ergangen, als er einmal heraus war aus dem Verhältnis, in dem er als Uhr zum Kosmos stand. Da brachte er für gewisse Dinge doch seinen astralischen Leib in Unordnung. Je mehr die menschlichen Lebensverhältnisse dem Körperlichen zugeordnet sind, desto mehr wurde der alte Rhythmus beibehalten; je mehr aber die Verhältnisse sich dem Geistigen zuwandten, desto mehr Unordnung wurde in sie hineingebracht. Ich möchte das auch noch von einer anderen Seite aus klarmachen.
Wir kennen ja nicht bloß den Menschen, sondern wir kennen auch Wesen, die dem Menschen der heutigen Erde übergeordnet sind. Wir kennen die Söhne des Lebens oder die Engel, und wir wissen, daß sie auf dem alten Mond ihr Menschentum durchgemacht haben. Wir kennen die Feuergeister oder Erzengel, die auf dem alten Sonnenzustand der Erde ihre Menschenstufen durchgemacht hatten, und ferner kennen wir die Urkräfte, die auf dem alten Saturn ihre Menschenstufe durchmachten. Diese Wesenheiten sind in der kosmischen Entwicklung dem Menschen vorausgeeilt. Wenn wir sie heute studieren würden, so würden wir finden, daß sie viel geistigere Wesenheiten sind als der Mensch. Sie leben daher auch in höheren Welten. Aber sie sind namentlich in bezug auf das, was wir heute angeführt haben, in einer ganz anderen Lage als der Mensch. Sie richten sich in den geistigen Dingen durchaus nach dem Rhythmus des Kosmos. Ein Engel würde nicht so ungeordnet denken wie der Mensch, aus dem einfachen Grunde, weil sein Gedankenablauf geregelt wird von den kosmischen Mächten und er sich danach richtet. Es ist ganz ausgeschlossen, daß ein Wesen wie ein Engel nicht im Einklange mit den großen geistigen, kosmischen Vorgängen dächte. In der Weltenharmonie stehen die Gesetze der Logik für die Engel geschrieben. Sie brauchen keine Lehrbücher. Der Mensch braucht Lehrbücher, weil er seine inneren Denkverhältnisse in Unordnung gebracht hat. Er erkennt nicht mehr, wie er sich nach der großen Sternenschrift richten soll. Diese Engel kennen den Ablauf im Kosmos, und ihr Denkablauf entspricht dem geregelten Rhythmus. Der Mensch ist, als er in seiner jetzigen Gestalt die Erde betreten hat, aus diesem Rhythmus herausgekommen, daher das Regellose seines Denkens, seiner Empfindungen und seines Gefühlslebens. Während in den Dingen, auf die der Mensch noch weniger Einfluß hat, im Astralleib und Ätherleib, die Regelmäßigkeit fortherrscht, ist in den Teilen, die der Mensch in die Hand bekommen hat, also in seiner Empfindungsseele, Verstandesseele, Bewußtseinsseele Regellosigkeit und Unrhythmus, Rhythmuslosigkeit hineingezogen. Es ist das noch das wenigste, daß der Mensch in unseren Großstädten die Nacht zum Tage macht. Viel mehr bedeutet es, daß der Mensch innerlich in seinem Gedankenablauf sich herausgerissen hat aus dem großen Weltenrhythmus. Wie der Mensch jede Stunde, jeden Augenblick denkt, das alles widerspricht in gewisser Beziehung dem großen Weltenablauf.
Nun denken Sie aber nicht, daß das alles gesagt wird, um einer Weltanschauung das Wort zu reden, die den Menschen wieder in einen solchen Rhythmus hineinbringen soll. Der Mensch mußte herauskommen aus dem alten Rhythmus; darauf beruht ja der Fortschritt. Wenn gewisse Propheten heute herumgehen und «Rückkehr zur Natur» predigen, so wollen diese eben das Leben zurückschrauben und nicht vorwärtsbringen. Alles jenes laienhafte Herumreden von einem Zurückkehren zur Natur versteht nichts von wirklicher Evolution. Wenn eine Bewegung heute den Menschen anweist, gewisse Nahrungsmittel nur zu bestimmten Jahreszeiten zu genießen, denn die Natur selbst zeige das schon dadurch an, daß die Nahrungsmittel nur zu besonderen Zeiten wachsen, so entspricht das einem ganz abstraktlaienhaften Gerede. Gerade darin besteht die Entwicklung, daß der Mensch sich immer unabhängiger macht von dem äußeren Rhythmus. Man darf nun aber auch wieder nicht den Boden unter den Füßen verlieren. Nicht darin besteht des Menschen wahrer Fortschritt und sein Heil, daß er zum alten Rhythmus wieder zurückkehrt, daß er sich sagt: Wie lebe ich im Einklang mit den vier Mondesvierteln? Denn es war notwendig in den alten Zeiten, daß der Mensch wie ein Siegelabdruck des Kosmos war. Aber wesentlich ist es auch, daß der Mensch nicht etwa glaubt, daß er ohne Rhythmus leben könne. Wie er sich von außen verinnerlicht hat, so muß er sich von innen heraus wiederum rhythmisch aufbauen. Das ist es, worauf es ankommt. Rhythmus muß das Innere durchziehen. Wie Rhythmus den Kosmos aufgebaut hat, so muß der Mensch, wenn er beteiligt sein will an dem Aufbau eines neuen Kosmos, sich wieder mit einem neuen Rhythmus durchdringen. Unser Zeitalter ist gerade darin charakteristisch, daß es den alten Rhythmus - den äußeren verloren und noch keinen neuen inneren Rhythmus gewonnen hat. Der Mensch ist der Natur - wenn wir den äußeren Ausdruck des Geistes Natur nennen - entwachsen und in den Geist selbst noch nicht hineingewachsen. Er zappelt heute noch zwischen Natur und Geist hin und her. Das ist für unsere Zeit eben das Charakteristische. Gerade dieses Hin- und Herzappeln zwischen Natur und Geist war an einem Höhepunkte angekommen in dem zweiten Drittel des 19. Jahrhunderts. Deshalb mußten da um diese Zeit die Wesenheiten, die die Zeichen der Zeit kennen und deuten, sich fragen: Was ist zu tun, damit der Mensch nicht aus jeglichem Rhythmus herauskomme, damit ein innerer Rhythmus in den Menschen einziehe?
Alles, was Sie heute als das Charakteristische am Geistesleben beobachten können, das ist das Ungeordnete. Wo Sie heute ein Geistesprodukt sehen, da ist das erste, was Ihnen auffallen muß, das Ungeordnete, das innerlich Unregelmäßige. Fast auf allen Gebieten ist das der Fall. Nur die Gebiete, die noch gute alte Traditionen haben, die haben auch noch etwas von alter Regelmäßigkeit. Auf den neuen Gebieten muß der Mensch die neue Regelmäßigkeit erst schaffen. Daher sieht der Mensch heute, wie beim Abfall des Fiebers in der Lungenentzündung am siebenten Tage, die Tatsache. Die Erklärung dazu aber ist ein reines Chaos von Gedanken. Wenn der Mensch darüber denkt, dann häuft er -da er nicht regelmäßig denkt - in einer beliebigen Weise ein Sammelsurium von Gedanken um die Tatsache herum. Alle unsere Wissenschaften nehmen eine äußere Tatsache aus der Welt und rühren eine Summe von Gedanken da herum, alles ohne innere Regelmäßigkeit, weil der Mensch wie in einem Abgrund der Gedankenwelt umherirrt. Er hat heute keine inneren Gedankenlinien, keinen inneren Gedankenrhythmus, und die Menschheit würde vollständig in die Dekadenz kommen, wenn sie nicht einen inneren Rhythmus aufnehmen würde. Betrachten Sie von diesem Gesichtspunkt aus einmal die Geisteswissenschaft.
Sie sehen, in welches Fahrwasser Sie hineinkommen, wenn Sie anfangen, Geisteswissenschaft zu treiben. Da hören Sie zunächst - und machen es sich nach und nach klar -: Der Mensch besteht in seiner Wesenheit aus vier Gliedern, physischer Leib, Ätherleib, astralischer Leib und Ich. Und dann hören Sie, wie vom Ich aus gearbeitet wird, wie der Astralleib umgearbeitet wird zu Manas oder Geistselbst, wie der Ätherleib umgearbeitet wird zur Budhi oder dem Lebensgeist und wie der physische Mensch in seinem Prinzip umgearbeitet wird zum Geistesmenschen oder Atma. Nun denken Sie einmal darüber nach, wie vieles wir sozusagen mit dieser Grundformel unserer Geisteswissenschaft überhaupt betrachtet haben. Denken Sie an viele Themen, die eigentliche Grundthemen waren, wie wir immer wieder unseren ganzen Gedankenbau aufbauen mußten, indem wir ausgingen von diesem Grundschema: physischer Leib, Ätherleib, Astralleib, Ich. Sie wissen, daß es bei gewissen öffentlichen Vorträgen bei einzelnen sogar zur Ermüdung kommen kann, wenn immer wieder diese Grundtatsachen wiederholt werden müssen. Das aber ist und bleibt ein sicherer Faden, an dem wir unsere Gedanken aufreihen: diese vier Glieder der Menschennatur, das Zusammenwirken derselben, und dann im höheren Sinne wiederum die Umarbeitung der unteren drei Glieder, des dritten Gliedes in das fünfte, des zweiten in das sechste und des ersten Gliedes in das siebente Glied unserer Wesenheit. Nehmen Sie jetzt die gesamten Glieder der Menschennatur, wie wir sie kennen: Physischer Leib, Ätherleib, Astralleib, Ich, Geistselbst, Lebensgeist, Geistesmensch, so haben Sie sieben. Und nehmen Sie das, was dem zugrunde liegt, nämlich physischer Leib, Ätherleib, Astralleib und Ich, dann haben Sie vier. Und in Ihren Gedanken wiederholen Sie den großen Rhythmus von 7:4, von 4:7, indem Sie diese Gedankengänge betrachten. Sie bringen den äußeren großen Rhythmus aus sich wieder hervor. Sie wiederholen den Rhythmus, der einmal im Weltenkosmos im Großen war, Sie gebären ihn wieder. Sie legen also da den Plan, die Grundlage zu Ihrem Gedankensystem, wie einstmals die Götter den Plan zur Weisheit der Welt gelegt haben. Aus dem Chaos des Gedankenlebens entwickelt sich von dem Innern der Seele heraus ein Gedankenkosmos, wenn wir dies, was wir eben angeführt haben, den inneren Rhythmus der Zahl, wiederum in uns lebendig werden lassen. Die Menschen haben sich freigemacht von dem äußeren Rhythmus. Durch das, was im wahren Sinne Geisteswissenschaft ist, kehren wir wieder zurück zum Rhythmus, von innen heraus bauen wir uns ein Weltgebäude auf, das den Rhythmus in sich trägt. Und wenn wir zu dem Kosmos übergehen und auf die Vergangenheit der Erde blicken, auf Saturn, Sonne, Mond, Erde, so haben wir da eine Vierheit, sodann den Mond in vergeistigter Form in der fünften Stufe als Jupiter, die Sonne in der sechsten Stufe als Venus und den alten Saturn in der siebenten, der Vulkanstufe. So haben wir in Saturn, Sonne, Mond, Erde, Jupiter, Venus, Vulkan die Siebenzahl unserer Evolutionsphasen. Unser physischer Leib, wie er heute ist, hat sich durch die Vierzahl hindurch entwickelt, durch Saturn, Sonne, Mond und Erde. Er wird nach und nach völlig umgestaltet und vergeistigt sein in der Zukunft. So daß wir auch hier, wenn wir nach der Vergangenheit blicken, die Vierzahl, nach der Zukunft hin die Dreizahl vor uns haben: auch hier 4:3 oder, wenn wir die Vergangenheit mit der ganzen Entwicklung zusammenbringen, 4:7.
Wir stehen ja erst im Anfange unserer geisteswissenschaftlichen Betätigung, wenn wir auch schon jahrelang damit beschäftigt sind. Heute konnte erst darauf aufmerksam gemacht werden, was die Menschen gewollt haben, wenn sie auf die «innere Zahl» hinwiesen, die allen Erscheinungen zugrunde liegt. So sehen wir, wie der Mensch, um seine Freiheit sich zu erobern, aus dem ursprünglichen Rhythmus herauskommen mußte. Aber er muß in sich selber wieder die Gesetze finden, um die «Uhr», um seinen astralischen Leib zu regeln. Und der große Regulator, das ist die Geisteswissenschaft, weil sie mit den großen Gesetzen des Kosmos, die der Scher schaut, im Einklange steht. In bezug auf die großen Zahlenverhältnisse wird die Zukunft, wie sie durch den Menschen geschaffen wird, dasselbe zeigen, wie in der Vergangenheit der Kosmos, nur auf einer höheren Stufe. Deshalb müssen die Menschen die Zukunft aus sich herausgebären aus der Zahl, wie die Götter den Kosmos aus der Zahl gebildet haben.
So erkennen wir, wie die Geisteswissenschaft mit dem großen Weltenlauf zusammenhängt. Wenn es uns klar wird, was in der geistigen Welt hinter dem Menschen steckt, die Vierzahl und die Siebenzahl, dann begreifen wir, weshalb wir in dieser geistigen Welt auch den Impuls finden müssen, um dasjenige weiterzuführen, was wir als den ganzen Entwicklungsgang der Menschheit bis hierher kennen. Und wir verstehen, warum gerade in einem Zeitalter, wo die Menschen mit ihrem inneren Gedanken-, Empfindungs- und Willensleben am meisten in das innere Chaos hineingekommen sind, warum gerade da jene Individualitäten, die die Zeichen der Zeit zu deuten haben, auf eine Weisheit hinweisen mußten, welche es dem Menschen möglich macht, in einer geregelten Weise von innen heraus sein Seelenleben aufzubauen. Wir lernen innerlich rhythmisch denken, wie es für die Zukunft nötig ist, wenn wir so denken, wie es diese Grundverhältnisse uns geben. Und immer mehr wird der Mensch annehmen von dem, woraus er herausgeboren ist. Vorläufig nimmt er das heraus, was man als Grundbauplan des Kosmos zu betrachten hat. Er wird weitergehen und wird von gewissen Grundkräften und zuletzt von Grundwesenheiten sich durchdrungen fühlen.
Das alles steht heute an seinem Ausgangspunkt. Und wir empfinden die Wichtigkeit und die Weltbedeutung der anthroposophischen Mission, wenn wir sie nicht als einen Willkürakt dieses oder jenes einzelnen ansehen, sondern wenn wir uns anschicken, sie aus dem ganzen inneren Grundgetriebe unseres Daseins heraus zu begreifen. Dann können wir dahin gelangen, daß wir uns sagen: Es steht gar nicht bei uns, diese anthroposophische Mission anzunehmen oder nicht, sondern wenn wir unsere Zeit verstehen wollen, müssen wir erkennen und uns mit dem durchdringen, was der Anthroposophie als die Gedanken der göttlich-geistigen Welt zugrunde liegt. Und dann müssen wir es von uns wiederum hinausfließen lassen in die Welt, damit unser Tun und unser Sein nicht ein Chaos, sondern ein Kosmos werde, so wie es ein Kosmos war, aus dem wir herausgeboren sind.
Thirteenth Lecture
It has already been said here in recent hours that, in the course of this winter, we want to gather together, as it were, the material, the building blocks, in the individual branch lessons, which will ultimately come together to form a deeper understanding of the nature of the human being and various other things that are connected with life and the whole development of the human being and which will lead us ever deeper into the secrets of the world. Today I would like to remind you of the penultimate of our branch lectures and start from there. You will remember that we spoke of a certain rhythm that exists in relation to the four members of the human being. Let us start from there today and answer the question: How can we, with such knowledge from deeper sources, understand the necessity and goal of the anthroposophical spiritual movement?
Today we will have to connect two things that seem very far apart. You will remember that certain relationships exist between the ego, the astral body, the etheric body, and the physical body of the human being. What can be said about the fourth member, the I, becomes most tangible to us when we remember the two alternating states of consciousness that the I undergoes in the course of a twenty-four-hour period, that is, a day. We relate this one day with its twenty-four hours, during which the ego experiences day and night, sleeping and waking, as a unity in a certain sense. So when we say that what the ego goes through in one day is subject to the number one, we must say that the number which corresponds in a similar way to the rhythm of our astral body is the number seven. While the ego, as it is today, returns to its starting point in twenty-four hours, in one day, so to speak, arriving again where it was, our astral body does the same in seven days. Let us understand this a little more precisely.
Think of your awakening in the morning, which consists in your rising, as one says in ordinary life (though incorrectly), out of the darkness of unconsciousness, and the objects of the physical-sensory world reappearing around you. You experience this in the morning, and you experience it again after twenty-four hours, except in exceptional cases, of course. This is the regular course of events, and we can say that after a day of twenty-four hours, our ego returns to its starting point. If we look for the corresponding conditions for the astral body in the same way, we must say that if the regularity that belongs to the human astral body really occurs in it, then it returns to the same point after seven days. So while the ego goes through a cycle in one day, the astral body moves much more slowly, completing its cycle in seven days. The etheric body completes its cycle in four times seven days; it returns to the same point after four times seven days. And now I ask you to note what was said last time: this does not happen as regularly for the physical body as it does for the astral body and the etheric body. However, we can also determine an approximate number: it completes its cycle in approximately ten times twenty-eight days, so that it returns to its starting point. You know that there is a great difference between human beings, that the female etheric body has a masculine character and, conversely, the male etheric body has a feminine character. From this it will be understandable that, in a certain sense, there must be an irregularity in the rhythm of the etheric body and the physical body. But in general, the numbers 1 : 7 : (4 x 7) : (10 x 7 x 4) are the ratios that indicate, so to speak, the “speeds of rotation” for the four members of human nature. This is, of course, only figurative speech, for we are not dealing with rotations, but with repetitions of the same states; we are dealing with rhythmic numbers. Two weeks ago, I already had to point out how phenomena of our everyday life can only be understood when we know such things that lie behind the sensory-physical world. And in a public lecture, I also pointed out a remarkable fact that even the most materialistic natural scientist and physician cannot deny, cannot classify as a “ghost of superstition,” because it simply exists as a fact. This is the fact that should actually cause people to think: that with pneumonia, a special phenomenon occurs on the seventh day, that a crisis occurs and that the patient must be helped through this seventh day. The fever suddenly subsides, and if the patient cannot be brought through this crisis, healing may not occur under certain circumstances. This is a generally known fact, but as a rule the starting point of the illness is not always correctly recognized, and if one does not know the first day, one does not usually know the seventh day either. But the fact remains. The question must arise: Why does the fever subside on the seventh day of pneumonia? Why does a special phenomenon occur on the seventh day at all?
Only those who see behind the scenes of existence, who see beyond the physical and sensory phenomena into the spiritual world, know about these rhythms and at the same time know what causes such phenomena, such as fever. What is fever, actually? Why does fever occur? Fever is not the disease. On the contrary, fever is something that the organism produces to fight the actual disease process. Fever is the organism's defense against disease. There is some damage in the organism, let's say damage to the lungs. When a person is healthy and all their internal activities are working together properly, it goes without saying that these internal activities will be disrupted if any organ or limb of the human body malfunctions. The entire organism then tries to pull itself together and develop the forces within itself that can compensate for this isolated disruption. So what is happening is a revolution in the entire organism. Otherwise, the organism does not need to gather its forces because there is no enemy to fight. The expression of this gathering of forces in the organism is fever.
Now, those who look behind the scenes of existence know that the various organs of the human body were formed and then developed at very different stages of human development. What we call the “study of the human body” from a spiritual scientific point of view is the most complicated thing imaginable, because this human organism is something very diverse and its individual organs were predisposed at very different times. Later, this predisposition was taken up again and further developed. Everything in the physical organism is an expression, a result of the higher members of the human being, so that the physical members always express the higher orders in the higher members. What we today call the lungs are, according to their predisposition, connected with the human astral body and have something to do with it. What the lungs have to do with the astral body, how the very first, original lung structure came into human beings on the predecessor of our Earth, on the old Moon, how the astral body was, so to speak, “inoculated” into human beings by higher spiritual beings—we will have to talk about all of that later. Today we will simply consider that the lungs are also an expression of the astral body. The actual expression of the astral body is, of course, the nervous system. But human beings are complex, and developments always occur in parallel. With the development of the astral body and the integration of the present nervous system, the lungs were also formed. As a result, the lungs enter, in a certain sense, into the rhythm of the astral body, into the rhythm that is governed by the number seven. What we know as fever is connected with certain functions of the etheric body. Something must be happening in the etheric body when a certain feverish process occurs. Fever is therefore in some way connected with the rhythm of the etheric body. Every fever is connected with this rhythm, but how? We must now make the following clear to ourselves.
Since the etheric body completes its cycle in four times seven days, it moves much more slowly than the astral body, which completes its rhythm in seven days. So when we compare the rhythmic movement of the etheric body with that of the astral body, we can draw a comparison with the hands of a clock. Take the hour hand of a clock: it goes around once, while the hand that shows you the minutes goes around twelve times in the same time. There you have the ratio of 1:12. Now imagine you are paying attention when, at twelve o'clock noon, the hour hand is above the minute hand. The two hands overlap. Now the minute hand goes around once. When it is back at twelve, it can no longer coincide with the hour hand, because the latter has now moved to one. The two hands can therefore only coincide after about five minutes, so that after one hour the minute hand is not back above the hour hand, but only after one hour and a little more than five minutes. Now you have a similar relationship between the orbit of the astral body and the orbit of the etheric body. Suppose your astral body, which is always connected to the etheric body, is in a certain state in relation to the etheric body. Now the astral body begins to rotate. When it returns to its original state after seven days, it does not coincide with the etheric body again, because the etheric body has advanced by a quarter of its orbit after seven days. After seven days, therefore, the state of the astral body does not coincide again with the same state of the etheric body, but coincides with a state that has lagged behind the original by a quarter of the circumference. Now suppose that the illness in question occurs. A very specific state of the astral body is connected with a very specific state of the etheric body. At that moment, under the influence of these two states working together, fever arises as a call to arms against the enemy. After seven days, the astral body reaches a completely different point of the etheric body. Now, it is not only the power to produce fever that must be present in the etheric body, because then, once it has started to produce fever, the fever would never subside. But after seven days, this point of the etheric body, which now coincides with the point of the astral body that caused the fever seven days ago, has the tendency to remedy the fever, to weaken it again. So if, after seven days, the patient has progressed to the point where the disturbance has been overcome, then all is well. If the disturbance has not been overcome, the astral body does not now have the tendency to remove the illness, so it enters into an unfavorable state where the etheric body has the tendency to weaken the fever. It is important to pay close attention to these two superimposed points, these two points of coincidence. We could find such points for all possible human life phenomena. And it is precisely through these rhythms, through these inner mysterious mechanisms, that the whole human being would become clear to us. The etheric body really has a tendency that is expressed in four times seven. In other disease phenomena, you can again observe how the fourteenth day is of particular importance, that is, two times seven. We can even state that in certain phenomena the paroxysm must be particularly strong after four times seven. And this is the point: if the condition then subsides, there is hope for healing under all circumstances. All these things are connected with rhythms, namely with those rhythms that we touched upon three weeks ago and which we have brought more clearly before our souls today. With such things, which seem difficult but can nevertheless be understood, we penetrate a little beneath the surface of the physical-sensory world. This must go deeper and deeper. Now let us ask ourselves about the origins of such rhythms.
The origins of such rhythms lie in the great cosmic relationships. We have pointed out again and again how precisely what we call the four human members—the physical body, the etheric body, the astral body, and the I—have undergone an evolution through Saturn, Sun, Moon, and Earth. When we look back at our old Moon, we find that this old Moon had also detached itself from the Sun for a certain period of time. At that time, however, a large part of what is now the moon was connected to the earth. But there was a sun outside, and when such heavenly bodies belong together, their forces, which are only the expression of their beings, always influence the regularity of the life of their beings. The period of revolution of a planet around its sun, or of a secondary planet around its planet, is by no means accidental or unrelated to life, but is regulated by those entities we have come to know in the hierarchies of spirits. We have seen that it is not at all the case that the heavenly bodies revolve as if by themselves through mere inanimate forces. We have already pointed out how grotesque today's physicists are in their explanation of the Kant-Laplace theory using the experiment with the drop of fat: A cardboard disc is placed in the equatorial direction of the floating drop of fat, a needle is inserted through it from above, and then the whole thing is rotated; small drops then split off from the large drop and rotate with it. The experimenter thus shows how a planetary system arises on a small scale, and physicists generally conclude from this that the planetary system must also have arisen on a large scale. What is otherwise good to forget—namely, oneself—is not good here. For the good man usually forgets that the small planetary system could not come into being if he did not turn the crank. One may certainly perform such experiments; they are very useful, but one must not forget the most important thing. How many people suffer from such suggestions! They do not think about the fact that the “Professor” did this. Outside, there is no huge “Professor,” but there are hierarchies of spiritual beings who regulate the movements of the heavenly bodies, who actually bring about all the arrangements of matter in the cosmos, so that the individual heavenly bodies revolve around each other. And if we could respond to this — the time will come — we would recognize in the movements of the heavenly bodies, which form a coherent system, the rhythm of our human limbs. For now, we need only point out one thing.
People today, with their materialistic way of thinking, laugh at the idea that certain conditions of human life in earlier times were connected with the phases of the moon. Now, it is precisely in the moon that the relationship between the astral body and the etheric body is reflected in a wonderful way. The moon completes its cycle in four times seven days. These are the states of the etheric body, and the four times seven states of the etheric body are reflected exactly in the four quarters of the moon. It is by no means nonsense to seek the connection in what we have just characterized as feverish symptoms in the phases of the moon. Consider that after seven days there is indeed a different phase of the moon, just as there is a different phase of the etheric body, and that the astral body falls over a different phase of the etheric body. In fact, this relationship between the human astral body and the etheric body was originally regulated by those spiritual beings who brought the moon into a corresponding orbit around the earth. And you can see how things are connected in a certain way from the fact that even modern medicine still reckons with an old remnant that has remained from rhythmic knowledge. Because the rhythm of the physical body is 10x28 and the physical body is, so to speak, back at the same point after 10x28 days where it was before, 10x28 days elapse approximately between the conception of a human being and their birth, ten sidereal months. All these things are connected with the regulation of the great world conditions. As a microcosm, the human being is a faithful mirror of the great world conditions; he is built out of these great world conditions.
Today we want to focus on the middle of the Atlantic epoch in the evolution. This was a very important point in the development of the Earth. We distinguish three previous races in human development: the first, the Polar race; the second, the Hyperborean race; and the third, the Lemurian race. Then comes the Atlantean race. We are now in the fifth race, and two more races will follow us, so that the Atlantean epoch lies right in the middle. The middle of the Atlantean epoch is the most important point in the development of the earth. If we were to go back to that time, we would find there, in the conditions of outer human life, an exact mirror image of the cosmic conditions. At that time, it would have been very bad for human beings to do what they do today. Today, human beings no longer orient themselves very much to the cosmic conditions. In our cities, life often has to be organized in such a way that people are awake when they should be sleeping and sleep when they should be awake. If something similar to being awake at night and sleeping during the day had already occurred in the Lemurian era, if people had paid so little attention to the external phenomena associated with certain internal processes, then they would not have been able to live at all. Of course, something like that was not possible at that time, because it was quite natural for people to adjust their inner rhythm to the outer rhythm. At that time, people lived, so to speak, with the course of the sun and moon; they adjusted the rhythm of their astral body and etheric body precisely to the course of the sun and moon.
Let us take the clock again. It is also, in a certain sense, aligned with the great course of the world. When the hour hand coincides with the minute hand at twelve o'clock, this is because a certain constellation of the sun and stars is present. This is what we use to set the clock, and a clock is not working properly if it does not bring these two hands back into alignment the next day when the same constellation of stars reappears. The clocks in Berlin are regulated daily by electric connection from the observatory on Enckeplatz. We can therefore say that the movements and rhythms of the clock hands correspond to and are even made daily according to the rhythm of the cosmos. Our clock is correct when it agrees with the standard clock, which in turn agrees with the cosmos. In ancient times, humans did not really need clocks because they themselves were clocks. The course of their lives, which they could feel quite clearly, was entirely governed by cosmic conditions. Man was truly a clock. And if he had not conformed to cosmic conditions, then exactly the same thing would have happened to him as happens today to a clock when its movement does not correspond to external conditions: it would simply run badly, and man would also have fared badly. The inner rhythm had to correspond to the outer. This is precisely the essence of human progress on Earth, that since the middle of the Atlantean epoch, this absolute correspondence between outer and inner conditions is no longer the case. Something else has happened. Imagine that someone had the quirk of not liking it when the hands of his clock were aligned at twelve noon. Let us assume that he would set it so that it is then three o'clock. When other people have one o'clock, he will have four, at two o'clock he will have five, and so on. But this will not change the inner workings of his clock; it will only be shifted in relation to external circumstances. After twenty-four hours, it will be three o'clock again for him; his clock will not collapse in its movement with the cosmic conditions, but in its rhythm it will still correspond internally with them, because things have only been shifted. In the same way, the rhythm of human beings has been shifted. Man would never have become an independent being if all his activity had been controlled by cosmic conditions. It is precisely because he has broken free from the external rhythm while maintaining his inner rhythm that he has gained his freedom. He has become like a clock that no longer coincides with cosmic events at the nodes, but still corresponds to them internally. Thus, in ancient times, humans could only be conceived under a very specific constellation and born ten lunar months later. This coincidence of conception with a cosmic relationship disappeared, but the rhythm remained, just as the rhythm of a clock remains when it is set to three o'clock at noon. However, it is not only the relationships within humans that have shifted, but the times themselves have also shifted. If we disregard the latter cosmic shift, something very special has also happened internally for humans in that they have, so to speak, removed themselves from cosmic relationships and are no longer a “clock” in the true sense of the word. It is similar to what would happen to a person who sets their clock three hours ahead but then cannot remember how much they have moved it forward and can no longer function properly. The same thing happened to humans in their development on Earth when they once left the relationship in which they stood as a clock to the cosmos. This caused his astral body to become disordered in certain respects. The more human living conditions were oriented toward the physical, the more the old rhythm was maintained; but the more conditions turned toward the spiritual, the more disorder was brought into them. I would like to clarify this from another angle.
We know not only human beings, but also beings that are superior to human beings on Earth today. We know the sons of life or the angels, and we know that they went through their humanity on the old moon. We know the fire spirits or archangels who went through their human stages on the old Sun, and we also know the primordial forces that went through their human stage on the old Saturn. These beings have preceded human beings in cosmic evolution. If we were to study them today, we would find that they are much more spiritual beings than human beings. They therefore also live in higher worlds. But they are in a completely different position from human beings, especially in relation to what we have mentioned today. In spiritual matters, they are entirely guided by the rhythm of the cosmos. An angel would not think in such a disorderly way as a human being, for the simple reason that its thought processes are regulated by the cosmic powers and it conforms to them. It is completely impossible for a being such as an angel not to think in harmony with the great spiritual, cosmic processes. In the harmony of the worlds, the laws of logic are written for the angels. They do not need textbooks. Human beings need textbooks because they have brought their inner thought processes into disorder. They no longer recognize how they should conform to the great script of the stars. These angels know the course of events in the cosmos, and their thought processes correspond to the regulated rhythm. When humans entered the earth in their present form, they left this rhythm behind, hence the disorder of their thinking, their sensations, and their emotional life. While regularity prevails in the things over which human beings have even less influence, in the astral body and etheric body, disorder and lack of rhythm have crept into the parts that human beings have come to control, namely their sentient soul, intellectual soul, and conscious soul. It is the least of it that people in our big cities turn night into day. It means much more that people have torn themselves away from the great world rhythm in their inner thought processes. The way people think every hour, every moment, contradicts in a certain sense the great world process.
But do not think that all this is said in order to advocate a worldview that is intended to bring people back into such a rhythm. Man had to break out of the old rhythm; that is the basis of progress. When certain prophets go around today preaching a “return to nature,” they want to turn life back and not move it forward. All this amateurish talk about returning to nature shows a lack of understanding of real evolution. When a movement today instructs people to eat certain foods only at certain times of the year because nature itself indicates this by allowing the foods to grow only at certain times, this is nothing but abstract, amateurish talk. Development consists precisely in man becoming increasingly independent of external rhythms. However, we must not lose our footing. True progress and salvation for humans do not lie in returning to the old rhythm, in saying to oneself: How can I live in harmony with the four quarters of the moon? For in ancient times it was necessary for humans to be like a seal imprint of the cosmos. But it is also essential that humans do not believe that they can live without rhythm. Just as he has internalized himself from the outside, so must he build himself up again rhythmically from within. That is what matters. Rhythm must permeate the inner being. Just as rhythm built up the cosmos, so must man, if he wants to participate in the building of a new cosmos, permeate himself again with a new rhythm. Our age is characterized precisely by the fact that it has lost the old rhythm—the external one—and has not yet gained a new inner rhythm. Man has outgrown nature—if we call the external expression of the spirit nature—and has not yet grown into the spirit itself. Today he still flounders back and forth between nature and spirit. This is precisely what characterizes our time. This very floundering between nature and spirit reached a peak in the second third of the 19th century. That is why, at that time, the beings who know and interpret the signs of the times had to ask themselves: What must be done so that human beings do not lose all rhythm, so that an inner rhythm can enter into them?
Everything you can observe today as characteristic of spiritual life is disorder. Wherever you see a product of the spirit today, the first thing you notice is disorder, inner irregularity. This is the case in almost all areas. Only those areas that still have good old traditions retain something of the old regularity. In the new areas, human beings must first create the new regularity. That is why human beings today see the fact, as when the fever subsides on the seventh day of pneumonia. The explanation for this, however, is pure chaos of thoughts. When human beings think about it, they accumulate a hodgepodge of thoughts around the fact in an arbitrary manner, because they do not think regularly. All our sciences take an external fact from the world and stir up a sum of thoughts around it, all without any inner regularity, because man wanders around as if in an abyss of the world of thoughts. Today he has no inner lines of thought, no inner rhythm of thought, and humanity would fall completely into decadence if it did not take up an inner rhythm. Consider spiritual science from this point of view.
You will see what waters you are entering when you begin to study spiritual science. First you hear—and gradually realize—that human beings consist of four members: the physical body, the etheric body, the astral body, and the I. And then you hear how the ego works, how the astral body is transformed into manas or the spirit self, how the etheric body is transformed into buddhi or the life spirit, and how the physical human being is transformed in its principle into the spiritual human being or atma. Now think about how much we have considered with this basic formula of our spiritual science. Think of the many topics that were actually fundamental topics, how we had to build up our entire structure of thought again and again, starting from this basic scheme: physical body, etheric body, astral body, I. You know that in certain public lectures, some people can even become tired when these basic facts have to be repeated over and over again. But this is and remains a secure thread on which we string our thoughts: these four members of human nature, their interaction, and then, in a higher sense, the transformation of the lower three members, the third member into the fifth, the second into the sixth, and the first member into the seventh member of our being. Now take all the elements of human nature as we know them: the physical body, the etheric body, the astral body, the ego, the spirit self, the life spirit, and the spirit man. That gives you seven. And take what underlies them, namely the physical body, the etheric body, the astral body, and the ego, and you have four. And in your thoughts, repeat the great rhythm of 7:4, of 4:7, by contemplating these trains of thought. You bring forth the outer great rhythm from within yourselves. You repeat the rhythm that once was in the world cosmos in the great, you give birth to it again. You thus lay down the plan, the foundation for your system of thought, as the gods once laid down the plan for the wisdom of the world. From the chaos of thought life, a thought cosmos develops from within the soul when we allow what we have just mentioned, the inner rhythm of numbers, to come alive within us again. Human beings have freed themselves from the external rhythm. Through what is spiritual science in the true sense, we return to rhythm; from within, we build a world structure that carries rhythm within itself. And when we turn to the cosmos and look at the past of the Earth, at Saturn, the Sun, the Moon, and the Earth, we see a fourfold structure, then the Moon in spiritualized form in the fifth stage as Jupiter, the Sun in the sixth stage as Venus, and the old Saturn in the seventh, the volcanic stage. Thus, in Saturn, Sun, Moon, Earth, Jupiter, Venus, and Vulcan, we have the number seven representing our evolutionary phases. Our physical body, as it is today, has developed through the number four, through Saturn, Sun, Moon, and Earth. It will gradually be completely transformed and spiritualized in the future. So that here too, when we look back to the past, we have the number four, and when we look toward the future, we have the number three: here too, 4:3, or, if we bring the past together with the whole development, 4:7.
We are only at the beginning of our spiritual scientific activity, even though we have been engaged in it for many years. Today, it has only been possible to draw attention to what people wanted when they pointed to the “inner number” that underlies all phenomena. Thus, we see how human beings had to break out of their original rhythm in order to gain their freedom. But he must find within himself the laws to regulate the “clock,” his astral body. And the great regulator is spiritual science, because it is in harmony with the great laws of the cosmos that the seer perceives. In relation to the great numerical ratios, the future, as created by human beings, will show the same thing as the cosmos in the past, only on a higher level. That is why human beings must give birth to the future from within themselves, from numbers, just as the gods formed the cosmos from numbers.
In this way we recognize how spiritual science is connected with the great course of the world. When we understand what lies behind human beings in the spiritual world, the numbers four and seven, then we understand why we must also find in this spiritual world the impulse to continue what we know as the entire course of human development up to this point. And we understand why, especially in an age when human beings have become most entangled in inner chaos with their inner life of thoughts, feelings, and will, why it is precisely then that those individuals who have to interpret the signs of the times had to point to a wisdom that enables human beings to build up their soul life in a regulated manner from within. We learn to think rhythmically within ourselves, as will be necessary in the future if we think in accordance with these fundamental conditions. And human beings will increasingly accept that from which they have been born. For the time being, they are taking what can be regarded as the basic blueprint of the cosmos. They will go further and feel themselves permeated by certain fundamental forces and ultimately by fundamental beings.
All of this is at its starting point today. And we feel the importance and global significance of the anthroposophical mission when we do not regard it as an arbitrary act of this or that individual, but when we set out to understand it from the whole inner workings of our existence. Then we can come to say to ourselves: it is not up to us to accept or reject this anthroposophical mission, but if we want to understand our time, we must recognize and permeate ourselves with what lies at the foundation of anthroposophy as the thoughts of the divine-spiritual world. And then we must let it flow out from us into the world again, so that our actions and our being do not become chaos, but a cosmos, just as it was a cosmos from which we were born.