Man—Hieroglyph of the Universe
GA 201
16 April 1920, Dornach
Lecture Four
The fundamental nature and construction of the Universe cannot be conceived in its reality without continual reference to Man. Again and again we must try to find in the Universe outside, what exists in one way or another in Man. We will use these next three lectures for the purpose of obtaining, from just this point of view, a kind of plastically formed picture of the world, which can then lead on to the answer of the question: What is the relation between morality and natural law in Man?
When we study Man (I am here only repeating things that have already been spoken and written of from various standpoints) we find him first of all organised into what we may call higher Man and lower Man; and then we have what forms the connection between the two—the rhythmic Man, equalising or balancing the other two parts.
We have to observe first of all that a complete difference exists in the laws governing the upper and lower parts of man. We can realise this difference when we consider the fact that the ‘upper man’, who is regulated by the head, is in its origin the outcome of entirely different laws, belonging as it does to a different world from the world of the senses.
That part of us which in our last incarnation was a result of forces of the sense world, namely the limb man, has become what it now is, the head man, through a metamorphosis which takes place between death and a new birth—not in relation, of course, to the outer form, but in regard to the forces of formation. What is now the limb man becomes entirely transformed in its forces—transmuted in its super-sensible constitution between death and a new birth, and appears in our new Earth-life incorporated out of the Universe into our constitution. On to this is suspended, as it were, the rest of man—formed out of the world of sense. This fact we can find already proved clearly from Embryology, if we would only think rationally about embryonic facts. And thereby we have in our head organisation a system of laws not belonging to this world at all, save only at its origin—that is, in so far as it was present in a previous incarnation. But all that which has caused the transformation of limb man to head man is active in an entirely different world—the world wherein we live, in the interval between death and a new birth. Here, then, another world penetrates the world of the senses. Another world is manifested in the head organism of Man. In a certain sense the external world is brought into correspondence with this other world, in that the head projects the principal sense-organs outwards. The world that is extended in space and that runs its course in time, is perceived by man through his senses; it penetrates into man through his senses, and so it too belongs in a certain sense to the head organism. In relation to our limb man on the other hand, we are in a state of sleep. I have often spoken of this sleep-state of man in relation to his Will nature, in relation to all that exists in the limb man. We do not know how we move our limbs, how the will causes the movement; we only examine the movement afterwards as an outer phenomenon through our senses. We are asleep in our limb organisation, in the same sense as we are asleep in the Universe between going to sleep and awaking.
So here we have before us an entirely different world. We can say: we have a world which outwardly manifests all that speaks to our senses—all that we perceive through eyes, ears, etc. To this world we belong through that portion of ourselves which we have called the head man. Our connection with the world that lies behind this one is brought about by the limb man, but in it we are unconscious; we sleep into this world, whether we do so in the domain of our Will, or whether we sleep into the Universe between our going to sleep and our waking.
These two worlds are actually so constituted that the one is turned towards us, and the other away from us, as it were; it lies behind the world of sense although we have our origin in it. Man felt in olden times—and the East still feels it—that a reconciliation between the two is possible. As you know, we in the West search for the reconciliation in a different way; but the Easterns, even today, a line (sketch) still attempt to find it in a relatively conscious way, although their methods are already antiquated for the present humanity. The act of eating is symbolised by a line (sketch), for when we take food, the process following takes place in the sphere of sleep (unconsciously). We are not aware of what is really happening when we eat an egg or a cabbage; it takes place in the unconscious like the happenings of sleep. The cabbage and the egg manifest their exterior to our sense-perception. But the eating really belongs to the completely different world. The reconciliation however, is to be found in our breathing.
Although the latter is to a certain extent unconscious, it is not so in so great a degree as our eating. In spite of the fact that our breathing is not so conscious as our hearing and seeing, it is more conscious than the process of digestion for example; and while in the East today, the attempt to make the digestive process a conscious one has, as a rule, ceased (this used to be done in olden times), the breathing process is still in a certain sense brought up into consciousness. (The snake raises the process of digestion into consciousness, but the consciousness of the snake is of course not to be compared with human consciousness). There is a certain training of the breathing, where the inhaling and exhaling are regulated in such a way that the process is transformed into a sense-perception. Thus we find respiration inserted, as it were, between conscious sense-perception and the complete unconsciousness of assimilation and transmutation of physical matter. Man in fact dwells in three worlds; the one sensible to his consciousness, the other of which he remains entirely unconscious, and the third (breathing) acting as a connecting link or mediator between the two.
Now it is a fact that the process of breathing is also a kind of assimilation; at all events, it is a material process, though taking place in a more rarefied manner; it is an intermediate state between actual transmutation of matter assimilation and the process of sense-perception, the completely conscious experience of the external world.
In the state in which we find ourselves between falling asleep and awaking, we experience in the environment which then surrounds us, events which only enter into our every-day consciousness as dreams. Here man steps across into the world which is marked in our sketch, and the dreams reveal through their very nature how Man steps across. Consider for a moment how nearly related are dreams to the process of respiration—the rhythm of breathing—how often you can trace this rhythm in its after-workings when you dream. Man steps across the border, as it were, of the world of consciousness, when he dips ever so slightly into this other world in which he is when he sleeps or when he dreams. There lies also the world of ‘Imaginations’. In ‘Imaginations’ it is for us a fully conscious world, we have conscious perception in that world, which we merely sip, as it were, in our dreams.
We shall now have to consider a correspondence that is found to exist, an absolute correspondence, in respect of Number. I have already often drawn your attention to this correspondence between Man and the world in which he evolves. I have pointed to the fact that Man, in his rhythm of breathing—18 per minute—manifests something that is in remarkable accord with other processes of the Universe. We make 18 respirations per minute, which gives when calculated for the day, 25,920 respirations. And we arrive at the same number when we calculate how many days are contained in a normal life term of 72 years. That also gives about 25,920 days; so that something may be said to exhale our astral body and Ego, on falling asleep and inhale them again upon waking—always in conformity with the same number rhythm.
And again, when we consider how the Sun moves—whether apparently or really, does not matter—advancing a little each year in what we call the precession of the equinoxes, when we consider the number of years it takes the Sun to make this journey round the whole Zodiac, once more we get 25,920 years—the Platonic year.
The fact is, this human life of ours, within the boundaries set by birth and death, is indeed fashioned, down to its most infinitesimal processes—as we have seen in the breathing—in accordance with the laws of the Universe. But in the correspondence we have observed up to now between the Macrocosm and Man the Microcosm, we have made our observations in a realm where the correspondence is obvious and evident. There are however, other very important correspondences. For example, consider the following. I want to lead you through Number to something else I have to bring before you. Take the 18 respirations per minute, making 1,080 per hour and in 24 hours 25,920 respirations; that is, we must multiply: 18 X 60 X 24 in order to arrive at 25,920.
Taking this as the cycle of the precession of the equinoxes, and dividing it by 6o and again by 24, we would naturally get 18 years. And what do these 18 years really mean? Consider—these 25,920 respirations correspond to a human day of 24 hours; in other words, this 24 hour day is the day of the Microcosm. 18 respirations may serve as the unit of rhythm.
And now take the complete circle described by the precession of the equinoxes, and call it, not a Platonic year, but a great Day of the Heavens, a Macrocosmic day. How long would one respiration on this scale have to occupy to correspond with the human respiration? Its duration would have to be 18 years—a respiration made by the Being corresponding to the Macrocosm.
If we take the statements of modern astronomy—we need not interpret them here, we shall speak of their meaning later—we shall find that it is a matter of indifference whether we assume that the motion of the Sun is apparent, or the motion of the Earth; that does not concern us—but let us now take that which the Astronomer of today calls Nutation of the Earth's Axis.
You are aware that the Earth's axis lies obliquely upon the Ecliptic, and that the Astronomers speak of an oscillation of the Earth's axis around this point and they call this ‘Nutation’. The axis completes one revolution around this point in just about 18 years (it is really 18 years, 7 months, but we need not consider the fraction, although it is quite possible to calculate this too with exactitude.) But with these 18 years something else is intimately connected. For it is not merely on the fact of ‘Nutation’—this ‘trembling’, this rotation of the Earth's axis in a double cone around the Earth's centre, and the period of 18 years for its completion—it is not only on this fact that we have to fix our minds, but we find that simultaneously with it another process takes place. The Moon appears each year in a different position because, like the Sun, she ascends and descends from the ecliptic, proceeding in a kind of oscillating motion again and again towards the Equator ecliptic. And every 18 years she appears once more in the same position she occupied 18 years before. You see there is a connection between this Nutation and the path of the Moon. Nutation in truth indicates nothing else than the Moon's path. It is the projection of the motion of the Moon. So that we can in actual reality observe the “breathing” of the Macrocosm. We only need notice the path of the Moon in 18 years or, in other words, the Nutation of the Earth's axis. The Earth dances, and she dances in such a manner as to describe a cone, a double cone, in 18 years, and this dancing is a reflection of the macrocosmic breathing. This takes place just as many times in the macrocosmic year as the 18 human respirations during the microcosmic day of 24 hours.
So we really have one macrocosmic respiration per minute in this Nutation movement. In other words, we look into this breathing of the Macrocosm through this Nutation movement of the Moon, and we have before us what corresponds to respiration in man. And now, what is the purport of all this? The meaning of it is that as we pass from waking to sleep, or only from the wholly conscious to the dream state, we enter another world, and over against the ordinary laws of day, years, etc., and also the Platonic year, we find in this insertion of a Moon rhythm, something that has the same relationship in the Macrocosm, as breathing, the semiconscious process of respiration, has to our full consciousness. We have therefore not only to consider a world which is spread out before us, but another world which projects into, and permeates our own.
Just as we have before us a second part of the human organism, when observing the breathing process, namely the rhythmic man, as opposed to the perceptive or head man, so we have in what appears as the yearly Moon motion, or rather the 18-year motion of the Moon, the identity between one year and one human respiration; we have this second world interpenetrating our own.
There can therefore be no question of having only one world in our environment. We have that world that we can follow as the world of the senses; but then we have a world, whose foundations are laid within the laws of another, and which stands in exactly the same relationship to the world of the senses, as our breathing does to our consciousness; and this other world is revealed to us as soon as we interpret in the right way this Moon movement, this Nutation of the Earth's axis.
These considerations should enable you to realise the impossibility of investigating in a one-sided way the laws manifesting in the world. The modern materialistic thinker is in quest of a single system of natural laws. In this he deludes himself; what he should say is rather as follows. “The world of the senses is certainly a world in which I find myself embedded and to which I belong; it is that world which is explained by natural science in terms of Cause and Effect. But another world interpenetrates this one, and is regulated by different laws. Each world is subject to its own system of laws.” As long as we are of the opinion that one kind of system of laws could suffice for our world, and that all hangs upon the thread of Cause and Effect, so long shall we remain victims of complete illusions.
Only when we can perceive from facts such as the Moon's motion and nutation of the Earth's axis that another world extends into this one—only then are we upon the right path.
And now, you see, these are the things in which the spiritual and material (so-called) touch each other, or let us say the psychical and material. He who can faithfully observe what is contained within his own self will find the following. These things must gradually be brought to the attention of humanity. There are many among you, who have already passed the 18 years and about 7 months period in age. That was an important period. Others will have passed twice that number of years—37 years and 2 months—again an important time. After that we have a third very momentous period 18 years and seven months later, at the age of 55 years and 9 months. Few can notice as yet, not having been trained to do so, the effects and important changes taking place within the individual soul at these times. The nights passed during these periods are the most important nights in the life of the individual. It is here where the Macrocosm completes its 18 respirations, completes one minute—and Man as it were, opens a window facing quite another world. But as I said, man cannot yet watch for these points in his life. Everyone, however, could try to let his mental eye look back over the years he has passed, and if he is over 55 years old to recognise three such important epochs; others two, and most of you at any rate one! In these epochs events take place, which rush up into this world of ours out of quite a different one. Our world opens at these moments to another world.
If we wish to describe this happening more clearly, we can say that our world is at these times penetrated anew by astral streams; they flow in and out. Of course this really happens every year, but we are here concerned with the 18 years, as they correspond to the 18 respirations per minute. In short, our attention is drawn through the cosmic clock to the breathing of the Macrocosm, in which we are embedded. This correspondence with another world, which is manifested through the motion of the Moon, is exceptionally important. Because, you see, the world which at these times projects into our own, is the very world into which we pass during our sleep, when the Ego and the astral body leave our physical and etheric bodies. It must not be thought that the world composing our every-day environment is merely permeated in an abstract way by the astral world; rather should we say, it breathes in the astral world, and we can observe the astral in this breathing process through the Moon's motion or nutation. You will realise that we have here come to something of great significance. If you remember what I said recently, we may put it in the following way. We have, on the one hand, our world as it is generally observed; and we have in addition, the materialistic superstition that, for instance, if we gaze upwards, we see the Sun, a ball of gas, as it is described in books. This is nonsense. The Sun is not a ball of gas; but in that place where the Sun is, there is something less than empty space—a sucking, absorbing body, in fact, while all around it is that which exerts pressure. Consequently in that which comes to us from the Sun we have not to do with anything constituting a product of combustion in the Sun; but all that has been transmitted to the Sun from the Universe is rayed back.
Where the Sun is, is emptier than empty space. This can be said of all parts of the Universe where we find Ether. For this reason it is so difficult for the physicist to speak of Ether, for he thinks that Ether is also matter, though more rarefied than ordinary matter. Materialism is still very busy with this perpetual ‘rarefying’, both the materialism of natural science as well as the materialism of Theosophy. It distinguishes first, dense matter; then etheric matter—more rarefied; then astral matter—still more rarefied; and then there is the ‘mental’ and I do not know what else—always more and more rarefied!
The only difference (in this theory of rarefying) between the two forms of materialism is that the one recognises more degrees of rarefaction than the other. But in the transition from ponderable matter to Ether we have nothing to do with rarefaction. Anyone who believes that in Ether we have to do merely with a ‘rarefying’ process is like a man who says: ‘I have here a purse full of money; I repeatedly take from it and the money becomes less and less. I take away still more till at last none remains.’ Nothing is left—but yet he can go on! The ‘nothing’ can become less still; for if he gets into debt, his money becomes less than nothing. In the same way not only does matter become empty space, but it becomes negative, less than nothing—emptier than emptiness; it assumes a ‘sucking’ nature. Ether is sucking, absorbing. Matter presses. Ether absorbs. The Sun is an absorbing, sucking ball, and wherever Ether is present we have this absorbent force.
Here we step over into the other side, the other aspect of three-dimensional space—we pass from pressure to suction. That which immediately surrounds us in this world, that of which we are constituted as physical man and ether man, is both pressing and sucking or absorbing. We are a combination of both; whereas the Sun possesses the power of suction only, being nothing but ether, nothing but suction. It is the undulating wave of pressure and suction, ponderable matter and ether, that forms in its alternation a living organisation. And the living organism continually breathes in the astral; the breathing expresses itself through the Moon's motion or nutation. And here we begin to divine a second member or principle of the world's construction; the one member—pressure and suction, physical and etheric; the other, the second—astral. The astral is neither physical nor etheric but is continually inhaled and exhaled; and the nutation demonstrates this process.
Now a certain astronomical fact was observed even in the most ancient times. Many thousands of years before the Christian era, the Egyptians knew that after a period of 72 years the fixed stars in their apparent course gain one day on the Sun. It seems to us, does it not, that the fixed stars revolve and the Sun too revolves, but that the latter revolves more slowly, so that after 72 years the stars are appreciably ahead. This is the reason of the movement of the Vernal Point (the Spring Equinoctial point); namely, that the stars go faster. The Spring Equinox moves further and further away, the fixed star has altered its place in relation to the Sun. Briefly, the facts are that if we notice the path of a fixed star and notice the point where the Sun stands over it, we find that at the end of 72 years the star occupies the same position on the 30th December, while the Sun only reaches that point again on the 31st December. The Sun has lost a day. After a lapse of 25,920 years this loss is so great, that the Sun has described a complete revolution and once again is back upon the place we noted. We see therefore that in 72 years the Sun is one day behind the fixed stars. Now these 72 years are approximately the normal life period of Man, and they are composed of 25,920 days.
Thus when we multiply 72 years by 360, and consider the human span of life as one day, we have the human life as one day of the Macrocosm. Man is breathed out, as it were, from the Macrocosm; his life is one day in the macrocosmic year.
So that this revolution, this circle described by the precession of the Equinoxes, indicating the macrocosmic year, as already known to the Egyptians thousands of years ago (for they looked upon this period of 72 years as very important), this apparent revolution of the Vernal point is connected with the life and death of Man in the Universe—with the life and death, that is, of the Macrocosm. And the laws of the life and death of Man are something that we are compelled to follow. We have already found how nutation points to another world; as our sense-perception world points to one world, so nutation points to another, the breathing world. And now through what present-day astronomy calls ‘precession’, we have something we may again call a transition, a transition this time to a state of deep sleep, a transition to still another, a third world. We have thus three worlds, interpenetrating one another, inter-related; but we must not attempt simply to combine these worlds from the point of view of causality. Three worlds, a three-fold world, as Man is a three-fold being; one, the world of sense surrounding us, the world we perceive; a second world whose presence is indicated by the motions of the Moon; and a third which makes itself known to us by the motion of the equinoctial point, or we might say, by the path of the Sun. This third world indeed remains about as unknown to us as the world of our own Will is unknown to our ordinary consciousness.
It is important therefore to search everywhere for correspondences between the human Microcosm and the Macrocosm. And when today the Oriental, if only in a decadent way, seeks to acquire breathing consciousness, as was done in the ancient Oriental wisdom, it is the manifestation of the desire to stray across into this other world which otherwise he could only recognise through what the Moon, so to speak, wills in our world. But in those times when there was still an ancient wisdom coming to man in a different way from that by which we have today to seek wisdom—in those times man also knew how to see this working of inner law in other connections and correspondences.
In the Old Testament the Initiates, who were familiar with these matters, used always a certain image or picture—the picture, namely, of the relation between Moon-light and Sun-light. This we can find also in a certain sense in the Gospels, as I have recently shown you.
We generally speak of the Moon-light being reflected Sunlight. I am speaking now in the sense of physics, and I shall have to show later on that these expressions are really very inaccurate. The Moon-light represented in the Old Testament the Jahve or Jehovah power. This power was conceived as a reflected power, and the Initiates—though not of course the orthodox Rabbis of the Old Testament—knew: The Messiah, the Christ will come, and He will be the direct Sun-light. Jahve is only His advance reflection. Jahve is the Sun-light, but not the direct Sun-light. Of course, here we are speaking not of physical sunlight, but of the spiritual reality.
Christ entered into human evolution, He who had been present previously only in reflection, in an indirect way in the form of Jehovah. And there arose the necessity to think of the Christ, who lived in Jesus, as the result of a different set of laws from those appertaining to ordinary natural science. But if we do not admit this other set of laws, if we believe that the world exists only as the result of cause and effect, then there is no place for That which is the Christ. His place must be prepared for Him by our recognition of three interpenetrating worlds. Then there is created the possibility of being able to say: It may be that in this world of sense everything is related through the law of cause and effect as maintained by natural science, but another world permeates this one, and to this other world belongs everything that has happened in the world that has connection with the Mystery of Golgotha.
In our times, when the desire for an understanding of these matters is becoming more and more manifest, it is important to realise that this understanding must be sought through the recognition of these three interpenetrating worlds, which exist simultaneously and are entirely different one from another. This means that we must seek not for one system of laws only, but for three; and we must seek for them within Man himself.
If you consider well what I have just said, you will see that it will not do to adopt the methods of the Copernican system, and simply draw ellipses intended to show the path of Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Earth, Venus and Mercury and lastly of the Sun. That is not what is wanted at all. What is wanted is rather to look at the laws that are active in the worlds that are physically perceptible and see how these laws are cut across by an altogether different set of laws; and that especially the present Moon, in her motion, presents something that is in no way causally connected with the rest of the Stellar System, such as would be the case were the Moon a member of that System, like the other planets. The Moon however is to be referred to quite another world, which is, as it were, inserted into ours, and which indicates the breathing process of our Universe, as the Sun indicates the interpenetration of our Universe by the Ether.
Before one engages in Astronomy, one must educate oneself in a qualitative sense concerning that which moves in space, concerning the things that are interdependent in space. For one must be quite clear that Sun matter and any other matter—Earth matter for instance—can under no circumstances be brought into a simple relationship; because the matter of the Sun is, in comparison with the matter of the Earth, something absorbing and sucking, while the latter exerts pressure. The motions which express themselves in nutation are motions proceeding from the astral world, and not from anything that can be found in Newton's principles. It is just this Newtonism that has driven us so far into materialism, because it seizes on the uttermost abstractions. It speaks of a force of gravitation. The Sun, it says, attracts the Earth, or the Earth attracts the Moon; a force of attraction exists between these bodies, like some invisible cable. But if really nothing but this force of attraction existed, there would be no cause for the Moon to revolve round the Earth, or the Earth round the Sun; the Moon would simply fall on to the Earth. This would indeed have happened ages ago, if gravitation alone were acting; or the Earth would have fallen into the Sun. It is therefore quite impossible for us to look to gravitation alone for the means of explaining the imagined or actual motions of celestial bodies. So what do they do? Let us see! Here we have a Planet imbued with a constant desire to fall into the Sun—supposing we were to have the law of gravitation alone. But now we will suppose that this planet has at some time or other been given another force, a tangential force. This impetus acts with such and such a power, and the force of gravitation acts at the same time with such and such a power, so that eventually the planet does not fall into the Sun, but has to move along a line resulting from both forces.
You see that Newton's theory finds it necessary to assume some kind of original impetus, some kind of first push in the case of each planet, of each moving celestial body. There must always be some extra-mundane God somewhere, who gives this impetus, who imparts this tangential force. This is always presupposed; and remember, this assumption was made at a time when we had lost all idea of bringing the material and the spiritual into any kind of connection, when we were incapable of conceiving of anything but a perfectly external ‘push’.
Here we have an instance of the inability of materialism to understand matter. I have repeatedly drawn your attention to this of late. It follows, that therefore materialism is also unable to understand the motions of matter, and is compelled to give quite an anthropomorphic explanation of them, picturing God as a being with wholly human attributes, who simply gives the Moon a push and the Earth a push. The Earth and Moon then ‘attract’ each other—and behold, from these two forces, the push and the attraction, we have their movements in the heavens.
It is from ideas of this kind that the Solar system is constructed today. But to get a real understanding of the Universe it is absolutely necessary to look for the connection between that which lives in Man, and that which lives in the Macrocosm. For Man is an actual Microcosm in the Macrocosm. Of this we will speak further tomorrow.
Vierter Vortrag
[ 1 ] In Wirklichkeit kann die Konstitution des Weltenalls gar nicht betrachtet werden, ohne daß man fortwährend auf den Menschen Bezug nimmt, gewissermaßen immer versucht, dasjenige im Weltenall draußen aufzusuchen, was sich auch in irgendeiner Weise im Menschen findet. Wir wollen diese Vorträge dazu benützen, um gerade von diesem Gesichtspunkte aus vielleicht wenigstens nach einer Richtung hin eine Art plastisch geschlossenen Weltenbildes zu bekommen, das uns dann zu der Beantwortung der Frage führen kann: Wie verhalten sich im Menschen Moral und Naturgesetzmäßigkeit?
[ 2 ] Wenn wir - ich wiederhole da nur Dinge, die von den verschiedensten Standpunkten aus besprochen, beschrieben worden sind den Menschen studieren, so gliedert er sich uns ja zunächst in alles dasjenige, was wir als den oberen Menschen bezeichnen, dann dasjenige, was wir als den unteren Menschen bezeichnen, und dann alles dasjenige, was verbindet zwischen beiden, der rhythmische Mensch, der den Ausgleich zwischen diesen beiden Gliedern, dem oberen und dem unteren Menschen, bewirkt.
[ 3 ] Nun müssen wir uns ja sagen, daß zunächst eine völlige Verschiedenheit herrscht in bezug auf die Gesetzmäßigkeit des oberen Menschen und die Gesetzmäßigkeit des unteren Menschen. Diese Verschiedenheit kann sich uns schon dadurch vor die Seele stellen, daß wir darauf Rücksicht nehmen, wie der obere Mensch, der von der Hauptesplastik aus beherrscht wird, zustande kommt durch die Gesetze, möchte ich sagen, einer völlig anderen Welt als unsere Sinneswelt. Dasjenige, was wir hier aus der Sinneswelt haben, aus der Sinneswelt an uns tragen als unseren Gliedmaßenmenschen, das haben wir durch eine Metamorphose, natürlich nicht in bezug auf die äußere Substantialität, aber in bezug auf die Formgestaltung, hindurchzuführen, eine Metamorphose, die ja erst wirkt zwischen dem Tode und einer neuen Geburt. Dasjenige, was hier unser Gliedmaßenmensch ist, es wird völlig umgestaltet in seinen Kräften. In seiner übersinnlichen Konstitution wird es umgestaltet zwischen dem Tode und einer neuen Geburt und erscheint dann aus dem Weltenall unserer Hauptesorganisation eingestaltet in unserem neuen Erdenleben. Daran hängt sich, gewissermaßen aus der Welt der Sinne heraus gebildet, der übrige Mensch. Das ist etwas, was heute klar und deutlich schon aus der Embryologie nachgewiesen werden könnte, wenn man nur vernünftig die embryologischen Tatsachen zusammendächte. Dadurch aber ist in alledem, was zusammenhängt mit unserer Hauptesorganisation, etwas von einer Gesetzmäßigkeit drinnen, die ganz und gar nicht dieser Welt eigentlich angehört, die nur in ihrem Beginne, nämlich insoweit sie in der früheren Inkarnation schon da war, dieser Welt angehört. Aber alles das, was umgestaltet hat unseren Gliedmaßenmenschen zu dem Hauptesmenschen, wirkt ja in einer völlig anderen Welt, in der Welt, in der wir uns befinden zwischen dem Tode und einer neuen Geburt. Da ragt also eine andere Welt in diese Welt herein. Wenn wir den Menschenkopf, das Menschenhaupt ansehen, so ist in ihm verkörpert eine andere Welt. Dieser anderen Welt entspricht aber in einer gewissen Weise dadurch, daß das Haupt die hauptsächlichsten Sinne öffnet nach außen, die Welt, die da draußen im Raume ausgebreitet ist und die in der Zeit verfließt. Denn sie nehmen wir durch unsere Wahrnehmungen auf; sie dringt durch unsere Sinne in uns ein; sie gehört also gewissermaßen doch zu unserer Hauptesorganisation. Dagegen verhalten wir uns zu unserem Gliedmaßenmenschen eigentlich schlafend. Ich habe ja öfter von dieser schlafenden Beziehung des Menschen zu seiner Willensnatur, also zu alledem, was in dem Gliedmaßenmenschen lebt, gesprochen. Wir wissen nicht, wie wir unsere Glieder bewegen, wie der Wille hineinschießt in die Bewegungen, die wir ja nur nachher, geradeso wie ein äußeres Ding, durch Wahrnehmungen für uns erkunden. Wir schlafen in unserem Gliedmaßenmenschen, wir schlafen so in ihm, wie wir im Weltenall schlafen vom Einschlafen bis zum Aufwachen.
[ 4 ] Nun, da sind wir eigentlich vor eine völlig andere Welt gestellt. Und wollen wir uns schematisch einmal diese andere Welt, diesen ganzen Tatbestand vor die Seele rücken, so müssen wir eigentlich sagen: hier ist irgendwie eine Welt (Tafel 7, Mitte unten; rote Partie, von welcher der horizontale rote Pfeil nach links in rote Bögen weist), die nach außen hin dasjenige offenbart, was zu unseren Sinnen spricht. Das, was da zu unseren Sinnen spricht, das nehmen wir durch unsere Augen, durch unsere Ohren und so weiter wahr. Das witd unsere Welt, insofern wir Hauptesmenschen sind. Aber diejenige Welt, die dahinterliegt, der gehören wir auch an, als Gliedmaßenmensch (blau, rechts von rot; Pfeil abwärts und absteigende Bögen blau). Aber in sie schlafen wir nur hinein. In diese Welt schlafen wir hinein, gleichgültig, ob wir in unsere Willensnatur hineinschlafen oder ob wir in das Weltenall hineinschlafen zwischen dem Einschlafen und dem Aufwachen.
[ 5 ] Diese zwei Welten sind in der Tat so, daß die eine uns gewissermaßen zugekehrt ist; die andere ist uns abgekehrt; sie liegt hinter der Welt der Sinne, aber wir sind aus ihr. Man hat gerade in älteren Zeiten gefühlt und man fühlt noch im Orient, daß eine Vermittelung zwischen diesen beiden Welten besteht. Wir im Abendlande suchen diese Vermittelung auf andere Weise, wie Sie wissen. Aber im Orient versucht man heute noch, obwohl es schon antiquiert ist für die gegenwärtige Menschheit, diese Vermittelung auch bewußt, relativ bewußt aufzusuchen. Wenn wir essen, dann ist es der blaue Strich, der unser Essen eigentlich symbolisiert. Denn indem wir die Speisen zu uns nehmen, geht ein durchaus in der Schlafens-Sphäre sich abspielender Vorgang vor sich. Sie wissen natürlich nicht, was da vor sich geht, wenn Sie irgend etwas, ein Ei oder einen Kohlkopf, verzehren. Das liegt geradeso im Unbewußten, wie die Vorgänge des Schlafes im Unbewußten zunächst liegen. Der Kohlkopf und das Ei wenden die Außenseite der Sinneswahrnehmung zu. Das ist aber die völlig andere Welt. Aber die Vermittelung ist da in unserem Atmen.
[ 6 ] Unser Atmen bleibt allerdings auch bis zu einem gewissen Grade unbewußt, nicht so stark unbewußt wie unser Essen. Aber trotzdem das Atmen nicht so bewußt wird, wie das Sehen oder das Hören bewußt werden, so ist es doch bewußter als der Vorgang des Verdauens zum Beispiel. In der Regel wird auch im Oriente heute nicht mehr aufgesucht, was ja in alten Zeiten durchaus der Fall war: den Vorgang des Verdauens heraufzubringen ins Bewußtsein. Die Schlangen tun es, wenn sie verdauen. Sie bringen den ganzen Vorgang des Verdauens in ihr Bewußtsein, das aber natürlich nicht ein Menschenbewußtsein ist. Der Wiederkäuer tut es auch, der Mensch nicht. Im Oriente wird aber in einer gewissen Weise ins Bewußtsein heraufgebracht der Vorgang des Atmens. Es gibt eine gewisse Trainierung des Atmens, da das Atmen so vollzogen wird, daß es in einem gewissen Sinne verfließt wie eine Sinneswahrnehmung. Sie sehen, es ist das Atmen hineingestellt zwischen die bewußte Sinneswahrnehmung und das ganz Unbewußte des menschlichen Stoffwechsels. So daß der Mensch in der Tat drei Welten angehört: der Welt, die ihm bewußt vorliegt, der Welt, die ganz unbewußt bleibt, und der Welt, die den Vermittler bildet, der Welt des Atmens.
[ 7 ] Nun, es ist ja in der Tat auch eine Art von Stoffwechsel, wenigstens sind es stoffliche Vorgänge, aber in Verfeinerungen, die im Atmungsprozesse vor sich gehen. Es ist das Atmen durchaus ein Mittelstadium zwischen dem eigentlichen Stoffwechsel und dem Sinneswahrnehmungsprozeß, dem ganz bewußten Erleben der äußeren Welt.
[ 8 ] Wenn wir zwischen dem Einschlafen und dem Aufwachen sind, dann spielt sich in der dann vorliegenden Umgebung des Ich für das heutige gewöhnliche Bewußtsein nur dasjenige ab, was in Träumen erlebt wird, in Träumen sich widerspiegelt. Aber im ganzen kann man doch sagen, daß der Mensch da schon gewissermaßen hinüberspringt in die Welt, die ich hier in diesem Schema (die vorige Zeichnung) als das Blaue dargestellt habe. Der Mensch dringt hinüber in diese andere Welt, und gerade die Träume sind es, die schon durch ihre Natur verraten, wie da der Mensch hinüberspringt. Denken Sie nur einmal, wie verwandt die Träume sind dem Atmungsprozesse, dem Rhythmus des Atmens, wie sie den Rhythmus des Atmens, überhaupt den Rhythmus oftmals nachwirken fühlen, wenn Sie träumen. Der Mensch überschreitet gewissermaßen eine Grenze, die ihm sonst gezogen ist in seiner bewußten Welt, indem er in die Welt, in der er ist im Schlafe, wenigstens hineinnippt, wenn er träumt. Die Welt der Imaginationen liegt ja auch da drüben, nur ist sie dann eine vollkommen bewußte - ein wirklich bewußtes Wahrnehmen in derjenigen Welt, an der der Mensch sonst bloß nippt, wenn er träumt.
[ 9 ] Nun handelt es sich darum, daß ja ein völliges Entsprechen stattfindet in einer gewissen Beziehung, zunächst durch Zahlen. Ich habe schon oftmals auf dieses Entsprechen aufmerksam gemacht zwischen dem Menschen und der Welt, in der der Mensch und auch die Menschheit sich entwickelt. Ich habe Sie aufmerksam darauf gemacht, wie der Mensch ja in seinem Atmungsthythmus - 18 Atemzüge in der Minute - etwas hat, was in einer merkwürdigen Übereinstimmung steht mit anderem im Weltenall. Wir haben 18 Atemzüge, die ausgerechnet für den Tag, wie ich Ihnen ja öfter schon erwähnt habe, 25 920 tägliche Atemzüge ergeben. Das ist aber dieselbe Zahl, die man bekommt, wenn man ausrechnet, wieviel Tage eine so normale Lebensdauer von etwa 72 Jahren hat. Auch das sind ungefähr 25920 Tage. So daß in einem Tag irgend etwas ausatmet unseren astralischen Leib und unser Ich, und wiederum einatmet beim Aufwachen, aber nach demselben Zahlenrhythmus.
[ 10 ] Und wiederum, wenn wir die Zahl der Jahre nehmen, welche die Sonne braucht, wenn sie, scheinbar oder wirklich, darauf kommt es jetzt nicht an, vorrückt in ihrem Frühlingsaufgangspunkte — immer schreitet sie um ein Stückchen vor jedes Jahr -, so braucht sie 25 920 Jahre, um einmal ihren Frühlingsaufgangspunkt um den ganzen Himmel herumzuführen: ein platonisches Jahr.
[ 11 ] Es ist eigentlich dieses menschliche Leben bis ins Kleinste, bis in den Atemzug und bis in seine irdische Begrenzung zwischen Geburt und Tod nachgebilder den Gesetzen des Weltenalls. Und indem wir da hineinschauen in ein Gebiet des Entsprechens zwischen dem Makrokosmos und dem Mikrokosmos Mensch, sehen wir ja doch in dasjenige hinein, was offenkundig da liegt. Aber es gibt noch andere, sehr bedeutende Entsprechungen. Überlegen Sie sich nämlich einmal das Folgende - ich will Sie heute eben gerade durch die Zahl auf das führen, worauf ich Sie gern aufmerksam machen möchte. Nehmen Sie die 18 Atemzüge in der Minute, das gibt in der Stunde 1080, in 24 Stunden 25 920 Atemzüge. Das heißt, wir mußten multiplizieren 18 mit 60 mal 24, um 25920 Atemzüge im Tage zu bekommen.
[ 12 ] Nehmen wir das aber als den Umlauf des Frühlingspunktes um den Himmel. Würden wir das nun dividieren durch 60 mal 24, so würden wir natürlich wiederum 18 bekommen. Wir würden 18 Jahre bekommen. 18 Jahre, was würde denn das eigentlich sein? Überlegen wir uns das einmal, was diese 18 Jahre bedeuten würden. Die 25920 Atemzüge entsprechen einem 24stündigen Menschentag, beziehungsweise sagen wit, dieser 24stündige Menschentag ist also der Tag des Mikrokosmos. 18 Atemzüge entsprechen der Einheit des Rhythmus.
[ 13 ] Nehmen wir jetzt einmal - scheuen wir uns dessen nicht - den ganzen Umlauf des Frühlingspunktes um den Himmel als einen großen Himmelstag, nicht bloß als das platonische Jahr, sondern als einen großen Himmelstag. Nehmen wir ihn als Himmelstag oder Weltentag, wie Sie wollen, als Tag des Makrokosmos. Wenn wir die Atemzüge aufsuchen würden im Makrokosmos, die entsprechen würden den Atemzügen des Menschen in einer Minute, wie lange müßten die denn dauern? Es müßten diese Atemzüge 18 Jahre dauern. Ein 18jähriges Atmen, ausgeführt von demjenigen Wesen, das dem Makrokosmos entspricht.
[ 14 ] Wenn Sie die heutigen Angaben der Astronomie nehmen - was sie bedeuten, darüber werden wir noch sprechen -, so wollen wir einmal dasjenige betrachten, was die Astronomen heute die Nutation der Erdachse nennen. Sie wissen, die Erdachse steht schief zur Ekliptik, und die Astronomen reden von einem Pendeln der Erdachse um diese Lage herum und nennen das Nutation. Die Erdachse dreht sich um diese Lage herum just in 18 Jahren, annähernd wenigstens - es sind genauer 18 Jahre 7 Monate, doch wir brauchen die Bruchteile nicht zu berücksichtigen, sie ließen sich aber auch durchaus in richtiger Weise errechnen. Aber mit diesen 18 Jahren hängt etwas anderes zusammen. Nicht nur geschieht dasjenige, was die Astronomen diese Nutation, dieses Erzittern der Erdachse, dieses Drehen der Erdenachse in einem Doppelkegel um den Mittelpunkt der Erde nennen, nicht nur verläuft dieses in 18 Jahren, sondern mit dem gleichzeitig geschieht etwas anderes. Der Mond nämlich, der erscheint ja jedes Jahr an einem anderen Orte. Ebenso wie die Sonne, auf- und absteigend in der Ekliptik, eine Art pendelnder Bewegung vom Äquator fort und zum Äquator zurück durchläuft, so der Mond. Er braucht 18 Jahre, um wieder an der Stelle am Himmel anzukommen, wo er vor 18 Jahren erschienen ist. Sie sehen, diese Nutation hängt mit dem Himmelsgang des Mondes zusammen, so daß man sagen kann: diese Nutation zeigt überhaupt nichts anderes an als den Himmelsgang des Mondes. Diese Nutation ist nur die Projektion dieser Bewegung des Mondes. Wir können also tatsächlich das Atmen des Makrokosmos beobachten. Wir brauchen nur den Gang der Mondenbahn während 18 Jahren zu beobachten, beziehungsweise die Nutation der Erde zu beobachten (Tafel 8, links oben). Die Erde tanzt, und sie tanzt so, daß ihre Achse einen Kegel, einen Doppelkegel beschreibt in 18 Jahren. Dieses Tanzen, das spiegelt ab das Atmen des Makrokosmos. Es ist im platonischen Jahr gerade so oft vorhanden, wie 18 menschliche Atemzüge in einem Tag. Sie haben also eigentlich ein einminutiges Atmen in dieser Nutationsbewegung. So daß wir sagen können: wir schauen in das Atmen des Makrokosmos hinein durch diese Nutations- beziehungsweise Mondbewegung. Da haben wir das Entsprechende für das Atmen. Aber was besagt denn dieses? Das besagt, daß geradeso wie wir, indem wir in das Schlafen hinübergehen oder beziehungsweise nur von dem völlig Wachen in das Träumen hinübergehen, wie wir da in eine andere Welt hinübergehen, so liegt uns - gegenüber den gewöhnlichen Gesetzmäßigkeiten von Tag, Jahr und so weiter, auch dem platonischen Jahr - in diesem Hereinstellen einer Mondregelmäßigkeit etwas vor, was sich verhält im Makrokosmos, wie sich das Atmen, also das Halbbewußte zu unserem Vollbewußten verhält. Wir haben es also nicht bloß zu tun mit einer Welt, die sich da ausbreitet, sondern mit einer zweiten Welt, die da hereinragt, und die die unsrige durchdringt. Geradeso wie wir ein zweites Glied der menschlichen Wesenheit, nämlich den rhythmischen Menschen, im Atmungsprozesse vor uns haben gegenüber dem Wahrnehmungsmenschen, so haben wir in dem, was als Mondbewegung, JahresMondbewegung erscheint, eben ein Jahr dann wie einen einjährigen Atemzug. Das haben wir da als eine zweite Welt in die unsrige hereinragend vor uns.
[ 15 ] Es kann sich also gar nicht darum handeln, daß wir in unserer Umgebung nur eine einzige Welt haben. Wir haben in unserer Umgebung diejenige Welt, die wir als die Welt der Sinne verfolgen können; dann aber eine Welt, der eine andere Gesetzmäßigkeit zugrunde liegt, die zu der unsrigen sich verhält wie unser Atmen zu unserem Bewußtsein und die sich uns verrät, wenn wir in der richtigen Weise die Mondbewegung zu deuten verstehen, respektive ihren Ausdruck, die Nutation der Erde.
[ 16 ] Sehen Sie, daraus sollen Sie entnehmen, daß es unmöglich ist, die Gesetzmäßigkeiten, die in der Welt sich uns offenbaren, nur in eindeutiger Weise zu suchen. Der heutige materialistische Denker sucht eine Gesetzmäßigkeit der Welt. Er geht irre, denn er sollte sagen: Alles dasjenige, was Welt der Sinne ist, das ist ja wohl eine Welt, in die wir eingebettet sind, zu der wir gehören, das ist die Welt, die uns unsere Naturwissenschaft nach Ursache und Wirkung auseinandersetzt. Aber da ragt eine andere Welt herein, die andere Gesetzmäßigkeiten hat. (Tafel 7, rechts in der Mitte, schräge Schraffur gelb, horizontale blau). Beide Welten durchdringen sich nur. Beiden Welten muß eine eigene Gesetzmäßigkeit zugeschrieben werden. Solange man der Meinung ist, eine einzige Art von Gesetzmäßigkeit genüge für unsere Welt, alles hänge nur an dem Faden von Ursache und Wirkung, solange gibt man sich greulichen Irrtümern hin. Nur wenn man an so etwas, wie es die Nutation der Erde und die Mondbewegungen sind, ermessen kann, daß in der Tat eine andere Welt da hereinragt, dann kommt man zurecht.
[ 17 ] Und sehen Sie, hier liegen die Dinge, in denen sich Geistiges und Materielles, wie wir es nennen, oder sagen wir Seelisches und Materielles, berühren. Derjenige, welcher faktisch beobachten kann dasjenige, was im eigenen Selbst enthalten ist, der kommt auf das Folgende. Sehen Sie, meine lieben Freunde - auf solche Dinge muß die Menschheit allmählich aufmerksam werden -, ich glaube, viele sind unter Ihnen, die schon den Zeitpunkt von 18 Jahren und ungefähr 7 Monaten überschritten haben. Das war ein wichtiger Zeitpunkt. Mehrere sind wohl auch unter Ihnen, die 37 Jahre 2 Monate überschritten haben. Das war wiederum ein wichtiger Zeitpunkt. Und dann kommt wieder ein sehr wichtiger Zeitpunkt: 55 Jahre 9 Monate. Es kann in der Gegenwart noch nicht der einzelne Mensch, weil er ja nicht in der Weise erzogen wird, wie es sein sollte, diese Zeitpunkte ordentlich abpassen. Würde er sie ordentlich abpassen, dann würde er wahrnehmen, daß in der Tat in diesen Zeitpunkten Wichtigstes mit der Seele vor sich geht. Die Nächte, die der Mensch zu diesen Zeitpunkten durchlebt, sie sind die wichtigsten Nächte des menschlichen Lebens. Da ist es, wo der Makrokosmos seine 18 Atemzüge vollendet, eine Minute vollendet, und da ist es, wo der Mensch gewissermaßen ein Fenster geöffnet hat gegenüber einer ganz anderen Welt. Nun, ich sagte, der Mensch kann es heute nicht abpassen. Aber es könnte jeder versuchen, auf solche Zeitpunkte im menschlichen Leben zurückzublicken. Wer über 55 Jahre alt geworden ist, kann auf volle drei solche wichtige Abschnitte zurückblicken, manche auf zwei, die meisten unter Ihnen wohl auf einen. In solchen Etappen gehen die Dinge vor sich, die aus einer ganz anderen Welt hereinfließen in diese unsere Welt. Da öffnet sich unsere Welt einer anderen Welt.
[ 18 ] Sehen Sie, soll man genauer bezeichnen, wie sich da unsere Welt einer anderen Welt öffnet, so muß man sagen: da öffnet sich unsere Welt der astralischen Welt neu. Astralische Ströme fließen ein und aus. Allerdings, sie fließen jährlich ein und aus; aber wir haben es da gewissermaßen mit 18 Atemzügen in der Minute zu tun nach diesen 18 Jahren. Kurz, wir werden da gewissermaßen durch die Weltenuhr aufmerksam auf das Atmen des Maktokosmos, in das wir eingefügt sind. Dieses Kortespondieren mit einer anderen Welt, das sich gerade ausdrückt durch die Bewegungen des Mondes, das ist außerordentlich wichtig. Denn sehen Sie, diese Welt, die da hereinragt, sie ist ja gerade diejenige, in die wir hinüberschlafen, wenn wir mit unserem Ich und unserem astralischen Leibe herausgehen aus unserem physischen und unserem Ätherleib. Es ist nicht so, daß man sagen kann, die Welt, die uns umgibt, die ist nur abstrakt durchdrungen von der astralischen Welt, sondern sie atmet die astralische Welt, und wir können in ihren Atmungsprozeß, das Astralische, hineinschauen durch die Mondbewegung, beziehungsweise dutch die Nutation. Sehen Sie, jetzt haben Sie schon etwas außerordentlich Bedeutsames: Sie haben auf der einen Seite unsere Welt, wie sie gewöhnlich angeschaut wird, dazu den materialistischen Aberglauben, der zum Beispiel dazu sich versteigt, daß man hinaufschaut und meint, die Sonne da oben sei ein Gasball, wie man ihn ja beschrieben findet in den Büchern. Es ist Unsinn. Es ist kein Gasball, sondern es ist weniger als Raum dort (Tafel 7, rechts unten, noch ohne Strahlen), es ist ein Saugekörper dort, weniger als Raum, während gerade ringsherum noch dasjenige ist, was bis zu einem gewissen Grade drückt. So daß wir es mit dem, was von der Sonne kommt, nicht zu tun haben mit irgend etwas, was etwa durch Verbrennen in der Sonne entsteht oder so etwas, sondern es ist alles zurückgestrahlt (die Rückstrahlung wird eingezeichnet), was erst hingestrahlt ist aus dem Weltenall. Da ist es leerer als leer, wo die Sonne ist.
[ 19 ] Aber leerer als leer ist es überall im Weltenall, wo Äther ist. Deshalb wird es den Physikern so schwer, vom Äther zu sprechen, weil sie immer denken, der Äther ist auch Materie, aber dünner: dünner als die gewöhnliche Materie. Auf das Dünnere läßt sich der Materialismus noch ein, sowohl der naturwissenschaftliche Materialismus wie auch der theosophische Materialismus — aufs Dünnere, aufs immer Dünnere läßt er sich noch ein. Dichte Materie, die Äthermaterie ist dünner, die astralische Materie wieder dünner, und dann, nun dann sind da diese mentalischen Materien und was da alles ist immer dünner und dünner. Aufs Dünnere läßt sich dieser theosophische Materialismus ein, gerade wie der naturwissenschaftliche Materialismus, nur daß der eine etwas mehr Nummern aufzählt im Dünnerwerden als der andere. Aber es handelt sich beim Übergang von der gewöhnlichen wägbaren, gewichtigen Materie zum Äther gar nicht darum, daß es dünner wird. Wer da glaubt - ich möchte das Bild noch einmal vor Ihre Seele hinstellen -, daß es sich beim Äther nur um das Dünnerwerden der Materie handelt, der steht auf demselben Boden wie der, der sagt: Ich habe hier eine Schatulle voll Geld, nehme davon weg und nehme davon weg, das Geld wird immer weniger und weniger. Zuletzt wird es Null und man ist am Ende. — Aber nicht wahr, es kann ja noch weniger werden, wenn man Schulden macht. Da wird es weniger als Null. So wird die Materie nicht bloß leerer Raum, sondern sie wird negativ, sie wird weniger als nichts, sie wird saugend. Und der Äther ist saugend. Die Materie ist drückend, der Äther ist saugend. Die Sonne ist ganz ein Ball, der eigentlich saugt. Und überall, wo Äther ist, ist Saugekraft.
[ 20 ] Da kommt man hinüber in das andere des dreidimensionalen Raumes, aus dem Drückenden ins Saugende. Dasjenige, was zunächst uns in der Welt umgibt, woraus wir als physischer Mensch und als Äthermensch bestehen, das ist ein Drückendes und ein Saugendes. Auch wir selbst bestehen aus einem Drückenden und Saugenden. Nur sind wir eben gemischt aus Drückendem und Saugendem, während die Sonne bloß Saugendes ist, bloß Äther. Aber dieses Gewoge von Drückendem und Saugendem, von wägbarer Materie und Äther, das ist in lebendiger Organisation. Das atmet fortwährend, indem sich das Atmen ausdrückt durch die Mondbewegungen, durch die Nutation; das atmet fortwährend Astralisches. So daß wir also auch da nun schon gewissermaßen ahnen ein zweites Glied der Welt überhaupt, das eine Glied der Welt drückend und saugend, physisch und ätherisch, und dann ein zweites Glied der Welt: Astralisches. Das ist weder das Eine noch das Andere, sondern das wird ein- und ausgeatmet, und die Nutation kündigt uns das an.
[ 21 ] Nun, sehen Sie, es ist uralt, daß man eine gewisse astronomische Tatsache beobachtet hat. Viele tausend Jahre vor unserer Zeitrechnung war es den Ägyptern bekannt, daß nach 72 Jahren die Fixsterne in ihrer scheinbaren Bewegung der Sonne um einen Tag vorausgeeilt sind. Zunächst sieht es ja so aus, nicht wahr, daß die Fixsterne sich scheinbar drehen, die Sonne sich scheinbar dreht. Aber die Sonne dreht sich wesentlich langsamer als die Fixsterne, und nach 72 Jahren sind die Fixsterne schon ein Stück vorausgeeilt. Deshalb verschiebt sich ja der Frühlingspunkt, weil die Fixsterne vorauseilen. Wenn der Frühlingspunkt weiter und weiter rückt, dann müssen sich ja die Fixsterne gegenüber dem Stand der Sonne verschoben haben. Nun, die Sache ist so, daß nach 72 Jahren tatsächlich die Fixsterne der Sonne um einen Tag voraus sind. So findet man, daß nach 72 Jahren die Sterne Ende des 30. Dezember an einem bestimmten Punkte ankommen, die Sonne kommt erst Ende des 31. Dezember an demselben Punkte an. Sie ist also langsamer gegangen um einen Tag. Nach 25920 Jahren bleibt sie so weit zurück, daß der ganze Umkreis vollendet ist, daß sie wiederum an den Punkt zurückkommt, den wir vorher notiert haben. Nach 72 Jahren also ist die Sonne um einen Tag zurückgeblieben hinter den Fixsternen. Das ist aber eben ungefähr die normale Lebensdauer eines Menschen, das sind die 72 Jahre, die 25920 Tage sind.
[ 22 ] Und nehmen wir diese 72 Jahre 360 mal, dann haben wir, eben wenn wir das Menschenleben als einen Tag betrachten und 360 Weltentage annehmen, in denen die Sonne einmal herumgeht, da haben wir dann das Menschenleben als einen Tag des Makrokosmos - der Mensch gleichsam ausgeatmet aus dem Makrokosmos -, das Menschenleben als einen Tag im makrokosmischen Jahr.
[ 23 ] Auf dieses ganze scheinbare Umlaufen des Frühlingspunktes haben tausende von Jahren vor unserer Zeitrechnung die Ägypter hingewiesen, denn sie haben in der 72jährigen Periode etwas sehr Wichtiges gesehen, und sie haben damit auf dieses makrokosmische Jahr hingedeutet. In diesem Herumgehen des Frühlingspunktes zeigt sich uns wiederum etwas an, was zu tun hat mit Leben und Sterben des Menschen im Weltenall draußen, also Leben und Sterben des Makrokosmos. Das Gesetz des Lebens und Sterbens des Menschen ist etwas, was wir ja verfolgen müssen. Auch dasjenige, was Nutation ist, weist uns ja auf eine andere Welt hin, so wie uns unsere Wahrnehmungswelt auf die Atmungswelt hinweist. Was Sie in der gegenwärtigen Astronomie als Präzession finden, das Vorrücken der Tag- und Nachtgleichen also, in dem finden Sie wiederum etwas wie den Übergang zum vollständigen Schlafen, den Übergang zu einer dritten Welt, die ich nun wiederum als eine andere, hereinragend in diese (Tafel 7, Zeichnung rechts, Mitte, 2. horizontale Schraffur, tot) zeichnen müßte. Drei Welten, die sich gegenseitig durchdringen, gegenseitig auch aufeinander beziehen, die man aber nicht einfach unter dem Gesichtspunkte der Kausalität zusammenfassen darf - drei Welten, das heißt eine dreigliedrige Welt, wie einen dreigliedrigen Menschen. Eine erste Welt, die Welt, die uns umgibt, die wir wahrnehmen; eine zweite Welt, die sich herein ankündigt durch die Bewegungen des Mondes; eine dritte Welt, die sich herein ankündigt durch die Bewegungen des Aufgangspunktes der Sonne, also in gewissem Sinne, müssen wir sagen: dutch den Weg des Sonnenweges. Da sehen wir auf eine dritte Welt hin, die allerdings so unbekannt bleibt, wie die Welt unseres Willens dem gewöhnlichen Bewußtsein unbekannt bleibt.
[ 24 ] Es handelt sich also darum, daß wir überall solche Entsprechungen suchen, solches Bezogensein des menschlichen Mikrokosmos auf den Makrokosmos. Und wenn im Orient heute noch, allerdings in der Dekadenz, aber früher in der Blüte der alten orientalischen Weisheit, ein Atmungsbewußtsein gesucht wurde, so war es das Bedürfnis, hinüberzuschlüpfen in diese andere Welt, die sich sonst nur ankündigt durch dasjenige, möchte ich sagen, was der Mond in unserer Welt will. Aber man hat auch in anderer Beziehung auf diese innere Gesetzmäßigkeit wohl hinzuweisen gewußt in den Zeiten, in denen es noch eine, in anderer Art, als wir sie suchen müssen, zum Menschen gekommene Urweisheit gab. Im Alten Testamente gebrauchte man bei den Eingeweihten, die diese Dinge wußten, immer ein Bild, das Sie ja auch in einer gewissen Weise - ich habe auch darauf schon einmal früher aufmerksam gemacht - in den Evangelien finden, man brauchte das Bild von dem Mondenlichte im Verhältnis zum Sonnenlichte. Es ist ja so, nicht wahr, daß man das Mondenlicht ansieht als in gewisser Beziehung nur Sonnenlicht zurückstrahlend. (Tafel 8, unten, rot; der kleine Kreis links blau). Jetzt spreche ich im Sinne der Physik - ich werde ja wohl auch davon noch zu sprechen haben, daß diese Ausdrücke sehr wenig genau sind -, wir sprechen im Sinne der Physik, denn sie lag ja auch den Vorstellungen zugrunde, die da waren. Dieses Mondenlicht das galt im Alten Testament als der Repräsentant der Jahve-Kraft. Die Jahve-Kraft stellte man sich vor als zurückgeworfene Kraft, und die Eingeweihten, natürlich nicht die orthodoxen Rabbiner des Alten Testaments, aber die Eingeweihten sagten: Der Messias, der Christus wird kommen, der wird das direkte Sonnenlicht sein, Jahve ist bloß die vorhergehende Reflexion. Das ist dasselbe, aber es ist nicht das direkte Sonnenlicht. — Es ist natürlich, daß jetzt nicht das physische Sonnenlicht gedacht werden darf, sondern das Spirituelle dabei in Betracht kommt.
[ 25 ] Nun trat Christus in der Zeit in die Menschheitsentwickelung ein, und dasjenige trat ein, was früher nur in der Reflexion, nur indirekt in der Jahve-Gestalt da war. Zunächst war daher eine Notwendigkeit vorliegend, den Christus, der in Jesus lebte, nach einer anderen Gesetzmäßigkeit zu denken, als nach der Gesetzmäßigkeit, welche der gewöhnlichen Naturerkenntnis vorliegt. Wenn man aber eine solche Gesetzmäßigkeit nicht gelten läßt, wenn man glaubt, die Welt hänge nur nach Ursachen und Wirkungen zusammen und sei eine kausal zusammenhängende Welt, da ist kein Platz für dasjenige, was der Christus ist. Man muß erst vorbereiten den Platz für den Christus, indem man die drei sich ineinander gliedernden Welten ins Auge faßt. Dann gibt es auch eine Möglichkeit, zu sagen: Wenn auch in der Welt, die unsere Sinne vor sich haben, überall alles nach Ursache und Wirkung so zusammenhängt, wie die Naturwissenschaft es faßt - eine andere Welt durchdringt diese. Da hinein gehört dasjenige, was das Geschehen ist, das sich an das Ereignis von Golgatha anknüpft. Wenn in unserer Zeit immer mehr das Bedürfnis auftauchen wird, Verständnis zu bekommen für diese Dinge, so handelt es sich darum, daß dieses Verständnis eben gesucht werden muß durch eine Anerkenntnis der ineinander sich gliedernden Welten, die aber durchaus von einander verschieden sind. Es handelt sich darum, daß man dreierlei Gesetzmäßigkeiten sucht, nicht eine bloß. Und diese dreierlei Gesetzmäßigkeiten werden wir eben im Menschen zu suchen haben. Aber wenn Sie dies ins Auge fassen, was ich jetzt gesagt habe, dann werden Sie verstehen, daß es sich darum handelt, nicht bloß so, wie es das kopernikanische, galileische Weltensystem macht, aufzuzeichnen irgendwelche Ellipsen (Tafel 7, links unten; rot), die darstellen sollen die Bahnen von Saturn, Jupiter, Mars; von Erde, Venus, Merkur und dann Sonne. Darum kann es sich nicht handeln; sondern es handelt sich darum, die Gesetze, die zunächst da walten, wo die Welt vorliegt, die sich uns durch das sinnlich Wahrnehmbare ausdrückt, daß wir diese durchkreuzt uns denken müssen von anderer Gesetzmäßigkeit, und daß vor allen Dingen unser jetziger Mond in seiner Bewegung etwas darstellt, was nun seinerseits gar nicht zusammenhängt kausal mit dem übrigen Sternensystem. Er gehört nicht dazu wie die anderen Planeten. Er deutet auf eine Welt, die in die unsrige eben hereingeschoben ist. Er deutet auf den Atmungsprozeß unseres Weltensystems, wie die Sonne hindeutet auf das Durchdrungensein von dem Äther.
[ 26 ] Ehe man also Astronomie treibt, sollte man vor allen Dingen sich qualitativ über dasjenige unterrichten, was sich da im Raum bewegt und was im Raum von einander abhängig ist. Denn man sollte sich klar sein, daß man nicht einfach miteinander in Beziehungen bringen darf Sonnenmaterie und irgendeine andere Materie, irgendeine Erdenmaterie. Die Sonnenmaterie ist im Verhältnis zur Erdenmaterie eine saugende, während die Erdenmaterie eine drückende ist. Und die Bewegungen, die sich ausdrücken in der Nutation, sind Bewegungen, die von der Astralität herrühren, nicht von irgend etwas, was durch Newtonsche Prinzipien aufgesucht werden darf. Aber dieser Newtonismus, er ist gerade dasjenige, was uns in so furchtbarer Weise in den Materialismus hineingeschmettert hat, denn er hat zur äußersten Abstraktion gegriffen. Er redet von einer Gravitationsktaft: Die Sonne zieht die Erde an, oder die Erde zieht den Mond an - eine Kraft, eine Anziehungskraft von dem Monde zur Erde hin, oder von der Erde zur Sonne hin, so irgendein unsichtbarer Strick (Tafel 7, rechts oben). Aber bestände bloß diese Anziehungskraft, so wäre ja kein Grund vorhanden, daß sich etwa der Mond um die Erde, oder die Erde um die Sonne dreht, sondern es wäre nur ein Grund vorhanden, daß der Mond auf die Erde herunterfiele — er wäre schon längst heruntergefallen, wenn bloß die Gravitationskraft da wäre - oder die Erde in die Sonne hineinfiele. Das geht also doch nicht, daß man bloß die Gravitation annimmt, um die gedachten oder wirklichen Bewegungen der Himmelskörper zu erklären. Also was tut man? Man sagt so: Nehmen wir an, hier ist ein Planet (dieselbe Tafel, Mitte oben), er möchte eigentlich fortwährend in die Sonne hineinfallen, wenn bloß die Anziehungskraft wäre. Aber es ist ihm eine Kraft, eine Tangentialkraft, ein mächtiger Stoß einmal verliehen worden, und da wirkt hier der Stoß so stark, die Anziehungskraft vielleicht so stark; nun, da bewegt er sich eben nicht so, daß er hereinfällt, sondern er bewegt sich dann in der resultierenden Linie.
[ 27 ] Sie sehen, dieser Newtonismus hat nötig, daß jeder Planet, überhaupt jeder bewegte Himmelskörper, einen Urstoß erhalten hat. Da muß also immer ein extramundaner Gott da sein, der da stößt, der da die Tangentialkraft gibt. Das ist überall vorausgesetzt. Diese Annahme ist aber in einer Zeit gemacht, wo man gar keine Ahnung mehr hatte, wie man das Geistige mit dem Materiellen in irgendeine Verbindung bringen sollte, wo man beim alleräußersten Anstoß stehen geblieben war. Darinnen spricht sich schon dieses DieMaterie-nicht-Begreifenkönnen des Materialismus aus. Das ist es ja, worauf ich in der letzten Zeit so häufig hingewiesen habe. Er kann daher auch nicht die Bewegungen des Materiellen verstehen, sondern er muß sie ganz anthropomorphistisch erklären, indem er sich den Gott ganz als Mensch denkt und - hups - bekommt der Mond einen Stoß, dann die Erde, dann ziehen sich die an, und dann resultieren aus dem Hups-Stoß und aus der Anziehungskraft die Bewegungen.
[ 28 ] In diesen Dingen stehen wir heute darinnen. Aus diesen Dingen heraus konstruieren wir uns unser Weltensystem. Aber zum Begreifen desjenigen, was ist, ist mehr notwendig; dazu ist notwendig, daß man in einer solchen Weise überall die Verbindungen verstehen lernt zwischen dem, was im Menschen lebt und dem, was draußen im Makrokosmos lebt. Denn der Mensch ist ein wirklicher Mikrokosmos im Makrokosmos. Davon dann morgen weiter.
Fourth lecture
[ 1 ] In reality, the constitution of the universe cannot be considered without constantly referring to human beings, in a sense always trying to find in the universe outside what is also found in some way within human beings. We want to use these lectures to perhaps gain, from this point of view, at least a direction toward a kind of plastically closed world picture that can then lead us to answer the question: How do morality and natural law relate to each other in human beings?
[ 2 ] If we study human beings – and I am only repeating things that have been discussed and described from a wide variety of perspectives – we initially divide them into everything we call the upper human being, then everything we call the lower human being, and then everything that connects the two, the rhythmic human being, who brings about the balance between these two members, the upper and lower human beings.
[ 3 ] Now we must say to ourselves that there is initially a complete difference between the laws governing the upper human being and those governing the lower human being. This difference can already be seen in the fact that we take into account how the upper human being, who is dominated by the head sculpture, comes into being through the laws of, I would say, a completely different world than our sensory world. What we have here from the sensory world, what we carry within us from the sensory world as our limb-man, we have to undergo a metamorphosis, not in terms of external substance, of course, but in terms of form, a metamorphosis that only takes effect between death and a new birth. What is here our limb-human being is completely transformed in its powers. In its supersensible constitution, it is transformed between death and a new birth and then appears from the universe of our head organization, integrated into our new earthly life. The rest of the human being attaches itself to this, formed, as it were, out of the world of the senses. This is something that could already be clearly proven today from embryology, if only the embryological facts were thought through reasonably. But this means that in everything connected with our head organization there is something of a lawfulness that does not actually belong to this world at all, that belongs to this world only in its beginning, namely insofar as it was already there in the earlier incarnation. But everything that has transformed our limb-human being into the head-human being operates in a completely different world, the world in which we find ourselves between death and a new birth. So another world protrudes into this world. When we look at the human head, we see another world embodied in it. This other world corresponds in a certain way to the fact that the head opens the most important senses to the outside world, the world that is spread out there in space and flows in time. For we take it in through our perceptions; it penetrates us through our senses; it therefore belongs, in a sense, to our head organization. In contrast, we are actually asleep in relation to our limb-human being. I have often spoken of this sleeping relationship of man to his will nature, that is, to everything that lives in the limb-man. We do not know how we move our limbs, how the will shoots into the movements, which we only discover afterwards, just like an external thing, through perceptions. We sleep in our limb-human, we sleep in it just as we sleep in the universe from falling asleep to waking up.
[ 4 ] Now we are actually faced with a completely different world. And if we want to schematically bring this other world, this whole state of affairs, before our soul, we must actually say: here is somehow a world (plate 7, bottom center; red section, from which the horizontal red arrow points to the left in red arcs) that reveals to the outside what speaks to our senses. What appeals to our senses, we perceive through our eyes, our ears, and so on. This becomes our world insofar as we are head-people. But we also belong to the world that lies behind it, as limb-people (blue, to the right of red; arrow pointing downwards and descending arcs in blue). But we only sleep into it. We sleep into this world, regardless of whether we sleep into our will nature or whether we sleep into the universe between falling asleep and waking up.
[ 5 ] These two worlds are in fact such that one is, as it were, turned toward us; the other is turned away from us; it lies behind the world of the senses, but we are from it. In earlier times, people felt, and people in the East still feel, that there is a mediation between these two worlds. We in the West seek this mediation in other ways, as you know. But in the East, although it is already antiquated for contemporary humanity, people still try to seek this mediation consciously, relatively consciously. When we eat, it is the blue line that actually symbolizes our food. For when we take food into ourselves, a process takes place that is entirely in the sphere of sleep. Of course, you do not know what is going on when you eat something, an egg or a cabbage. This lies in the unconscious, just as the processes of sleep initially lie in the unconscious. The cabbage and the egg turn toward the outside of sensory perception. But that is a completely different world. However, the connection is there in our breathing.
[ 6 ] Our breathing, however, also remains unconscious to a certain extent, though not as unconscious as our eating. But even though breathing does not become as conscious as seeing or hearing, it is still more conscious than the process of digestion, for example. As a rule, even in the Orient today, people no longer seek to bring the process of digestion into consciousness, as was certainly the case in ancient times. Snakes do this when they digest. They bring the entire process of digestion into their consciousness, which is of course not human consciousness. Ruminants do this too, but humans do not. In the East, however, the process of breathing is brought into consciousness in a certain way. There is a certain training of breathing, in which breathing is carried out in such a way that it flows in a certain sense like a sensory perception. You see, breathing is placed between conscious sensory perception and the completely unconscious human metabolism. So that human beings actually belong to three worlds: the world that is consciously present to them, the world that remains completely unconscious, and the world that forms the mediator, the world of breathing.
[ 7 ] Well, it is indeed a kind of metabolism, at least it is a material process, but one that takes place in a refined form in the breathing process. Breathing is definitely an intermediate stage between actual metabolism and the process of sensory perception, the fully conscious experience of the external world.
[ 8 ] When we are between falling asleep and waking up, then only what is experienced in dreams, what is reflected in dreams, takes place in the environment of the ego that is then present for today's ordinary consciousness. But on the whole, one can say that the human being already jumps over into the world that I have represented here in this diagram (the previous drawing) as the blue. The human being penetrates into this other world, and it is precisely dreams that, by their very nature, reveal how the human being jumps over there. Just think how closely dreams are related to the process of breathing, to the rhythm of breathing, how you often feel the rhythm of breathing, indeed the rhythm itself, continuing after you have dreamed. In a sense, humans cross a boundary that is otherwise drawn in their conscious world by at least dipping into the world in which they are when they sleep, when they dream. The world of imagination also lies over there, only it is then a completely conscious one—a truly conscious perception in that world, which humans otherwise only dip into when they dream.
[ 9 ] Now it is a matter of the fact that there is a complete correspondence in a certain relationship, initially through numbers. I have often drawn attention to this correspondence between man and the world in which man and also humanity develop. I have drawn your attention to how human beings, in their breathing rhythm—18 breaths per minute—have something that is in a remarkable correspondence with something else in the universe. We have 18 breaths, which, as I have often mentioned to you, add up to 25,920 breaths per day. But this is the same number you get when you calculate how many days a normal lifespan of about 72 years has. That is also approximately 25,920 days. So in one day, something exhales from our astral body and our ego, and then inhales again when we wake up, but according to the same numerical rhythm.
[ 10 ] And again, if we take the number of years that the sun needs, when it advances, apparently or actually, it does not matter now, in its spring equinox — it always advances a little bit each year — it needs 25,920 years to complete its spring equinox once around the entire sky: a Platonic year.
[ 11 ] It is actually this human life, down to the smallest detail, down to the breath and down to its earthly limitation between birth and death, that is reproduced according to the laws of the universe. And when we look into this area of correspondence between the macrocosm and the microcosm of man, we see what is obviously there. But there are other, very significant correspondences. Consider the following: I would like to use numbers to draw your attention to something today. Take the 18 breaths per minute, which makes 1,080 per hour and 25,920 breaths in 24 hours. That means we had to multiply 18 by 60 times 24 to get 25,920 breaths per day.
[ 12 ] But let us take this as the orbit of the vernal equinox around the sky. If we were to divide this by 60 times 24, we would of course get 18 again. We would get 18 years. 18 years, what would that actually be? Let's think about what these 18 years would mean. The 25,920 breaths correspond to a 24-hour human day, or, in other words, this 24-hour human day is the day of the microcosm. 18 breaths correspond to the unity of the rhythm.
[ 13 ] Let us now take – let us not shy away from this – the entire orbit of the vernal equinox around the sky as a great heavenly day, not merely as the Platonic year, but as a great heavenly day. Let us take it as a heavenly day or a world day, as you will, as the day of the macrocosm. If we were to seek out the breaths in the macrocosm that correspond to the breaths of a human being in one minute, how long would they have to last? These breaths would have to last 18 years. An 18-year breath, carried out by the being that corresponds to the macrocosm.
[ 14 ] If you take today's astronomical data — we will talk about what it means later — let us consider what astronomers today call the nutation of the Earth's axis. You know that the Earth's axis is tilted relative to the ecliptic, and astronomers talk about the Earth's axis oscillating around this position and call this nutation. The Earth's axis rotates around this position in exactly 18 years, or at least approximately — it is more precisely 18 years and 7 months, but we do not need to take the fractions into account, although they could be calculated correctly. But there is something else connected with these 18 years. Not only does what astronomers call nutation, this trembling of the Earth's axis, this turning of the Earth's axis in a double cone around the center of the Earth, take place in 18 years, but something else happens at the same time. The moon appears in a different place every year. Just as the sun rises and sets in the ecliptic, in a kind of pendulum movement away from the equator and back to the equator, so does the moon. It takes 18 years to return to the point in the sky where it appeared 18 years ago. You see, this nutation is related to the moon's path across the sky, so that one can say: this nutation indicates nothing other than the moon's path across the sky. This nutation is only the projection of this movement of the moon. So we can actually observe the breathing of the macrocosm. We only need to observe the path of the moon's orbit over 18 years, or rather observe the nutation of the Earth (plate 8, top left). The Earth dances, and it dances in such a way that its axis describes a cone, a double cone, in 18 years. This dancing reflects the breathing of the macrocosm. In the Platonic year, it occurs as often as 18 human breaths in a day. So you actually have one minute of breathing in this nutation movement. So we can say that we are looking into the breathing of the macrocosm through this nutation or moon movement. There we have the equivalent for breathing. But what does this mean? It means that just as we pass into sleep or, rather, pass from complete wakefulness into dreaming, just as we pass into another world, so too, in contrast to the ordinary laws of day, year, and so on, also the Platonic year — in this introduction of a lunar regularity, something that behaves in the macrocosm as breathing, that is, the semi-conscious, behaves in relation to our full consciousness. So we are not merely dealing with a world that spreads out before us, but with a second world that protrudes into it and permeates ours. Just as we have a second member of human nature, namely the rhythmic human being, in the process of breathing, as opposed to the perceiving human being, so we have, in what appears as the movement of the moon, the annual movement of the moon, a year like a one-year breath. We have this as a second world protruding into ours.
[ 15 ] So it cannot be a question of our having only one world in our environment. We have in our environment the world that we can follow as the world of the senses; but then there is another world based on a different set of laws, which relates to ours as our breathing relates to our consciousness, and which reveals itself to us when we understand how to interpret the movement of the moon, or rather its expression, the nutation of the earth.
[ 16 ] You see, from this you should conclude that it is impossible to seek the laws that reveal themselves to us in the world in an unambiguous way. Today's materialistic thinker seeks a law of the world. He is mistaken, because he should say: Everything that is the world of the senses is indeed a world in which we are embedded, to which we belong; it is the world that our natural science explains to us in terms of cause and effect. But there is another world that intrudes, a world with different laws. (Plate 7, right center, diagonal yellow hatching, horizontal blue). Both worlds merely interpenetrate each other. Both worlds must be attributed their own laws. As long as one believes that a single type of law is sufficient for our world, that everything hangs only on the thread of cause and effect, one is indulging in terrible errors. Only when one can measure something like the nutation of the Earth and the movements of the Moon, and realize that another world does indeed intrude here, can one come to terms with it.
[ 17 ] And you see, this is where the spiritual and the material, as we call them, or let us say the soul and the material, touch each other. Those who can actually observe what is contained within themselves come to the following conclusion. You see, my dear friends—humanity must gradually become aware of such things—I believe that many of you have already passed the age of 18 years and about 7 months. That was an important time. Several of you have probably also passed the age of 37 years and 2 months. That was another important moment. And then another very important moment comes: 55 years and 9 months. At present, the individual human being cannot yet properly mark these moments, because he is not educated in the way he should be. If he did mark them properly, he would perceive that something very important is indeed happening to the soul at these moments. The nights that people experience at these points in time are the most important nights of human life. This is where the macrocosm completes its 18 breaths, completes a minute, and this is where people have, in a sense, opened a window to a completely different world. Now, I said that people today cannot time it. But everyone could try to look back on such moments in their lives. Those who have reached the age of 55 can look back on three such important periods, some on two, and most of you probably on one. It is during such stages that things from a completely different world flow into our world. Our world opens up to another world.
[ 18 ] You see, if we want to describe more precisely how our world opens up to another world, we have to say that our world opens up anew to the astral world. Astral currents flow in and out. However, they flow in and out annually; but after these 18 years, we are dealing with 18 breaths per minute, so to speak. In short, we are made aware by the world clock, as it were, of the breathing of the macrocosm into which we are inserted. This correspondence with another world, which is expressed precisely through the movements of the moon, is extremely important. For you see, this world that protrudes into ours is precisely the one into which we sleep when we leave our physical and etheric bodies with our ego and our astral body. It is not that we can say that the world around us is only abstractly permeated by the astral world, but rather that it breathes the astral world, and we can see into its breathing process, the astral, through the movement of the moon, or rather through nutation. You see, now you have something extremely significant: on the one hand, you have our world as it is usually viewed, along with the materialistic superstition that, for example, leads people to look up and think that the sun up there is a ball of gas, as described in books. This is nonsense. It is not a ball of gas, but rather less than space (plate 7, bottom right, still without rays); it is a suction body, less than space, while all around it is that which presses to a certain degree. So that what comes from the sun has nothing to do with anything that is created by burning in the sun or anything like that, but rather everything that was first radiated from the universe is reflected back (the reflection is shown in the diagram). Where the sun is, it is emptier than empty.
[ 19 ] But it is emptier than empty everywhere in the universe where there is ether. That is why physicists find it so difficult to talk about ether, because they always think that ether is also matter, but thinner: thinner than ordinary matter. Materialism can still accept the thinner, both scientific materialism and theosophical materialism—it can still accept the thinner, the ever thinner. Dense matter, etheric matter is thinner, astral matter is even thinner, and then, well then, there are these mental matters, and everything there is gets thinner and thinner. This theosophical materialism can be applied to the thinner, just like scientific materialism, except that one lists a few more numbers in the becoming thinner than the other. But in the transition from ordinary weighable, heavy matter to ether, it is not at all a question of it becoming thinner. Anyone who believes—I would like to present this image to your mind once again—that ether is merely matter becoming thinner stands on the same ground as someone who says: I have a box full of money here; I take some out and take some out, and the money becomes less and less. Eventually it becomes zero and you are left with nothing. — But isn't it true that it can become even less if you run up debts? Then it becomes less than zero. Thus matter does not merely become empty space, but it becomes negative, it becomes less than nothing, it becomes sucking. And ether is sucking. Matter is pressing, ether is sucking. The sun is entirely a ball that actually sucks. And wherever there is ether, there is suction.
[ 20 ] This takes us over into the other side of three-dimensional space, from the pressing into the sucking. What initially surrounds us in the world, what we consist of as physical human beings and as etheric human beings, is a pressing and a sucking force. We ourselves also consist of a pressing and a sucking force. Only we are mixed from pressure and suction, while the sun is merely suction, merely ether. But this surging of pressure and suction, of weighable matter and ether, is in living organization. It breathes continuously, expressing itself through the movements of the moon, through nutation; it breathes continuously astral. So that we now already have a certain inkling of a second member of the world, one member of the world that is pushing and pulling, physical and ethereal, and then a second member of the world: the astral. This is neither one nor the other, but is breathed in and out, and nutation announces this to us.
[ 21 ] Now, you see, it is ancient knowledge that a certain astronomical fact has been observed. Many thousands of years before our era, the Egyptians knew that after 72 years, the fixed stars in their apparent movement are one day ahead of the sun. At first glance, it appears that the fixed stars are rotating and the sun is rotating. However, the sun rotates much more slowly than the fixed stars, and after 72 years, the fixed stars are already a little ahead. This is why the vernal equinox shifts, because the fixed stars are ahead. If the vernal equinox moves further and further back, then the fixed stars must have shifted relative to the position of the Sun. Now, the fact is that after 72 years, the fixed stars are actually one day ahead of the Sun. Thus, after 72 years, the stars arrive at a certain point at the end of December 30, while the sun does not arrive at the same point until the end of December 31. It has therefore moved one day slower. After 25,920 years, it has fallen so far behind that it has completed its entire orbit and returns to the point we noted earlier. After 72 years, therefore, the sun has fallen behind the fixed stars by one day. But this is just about the normal lifespan of a human being, which is 72 years, or 25,920 days.
[ 22 ] And if we take these 72 years 360 times, then we have, even if we consider human life as one day and assume 360 world days in which the sun goes around once, we then have human life as one day of the macrocosm—human beings, as it were, exhaled from the macrocosm—human life as one day in the macrocosmic year.
[ 23 ] Thousands of years before our calendar, the Egyptians pointed to this whole apparent revolution of the vernal equinox, because they saw something very important in the 72-year period and used it to point to this macrocosmic year. This movement of the vernal equinox reveals something to us that has to do with the life and death of human beings in the universe, that is, the life and death of the macrocosm. The law of human life and death is something we must pursue. Nutation also points us to another world, just as our world of perception points us to the world of breathing. What you find in present-day astronomy as precession, the advancing of the equinoxes, you find again as something like the transition to complete sleep, the transition to a third world, which I would now have to draw as another world protruding into this one (plate 7, drawing on the right, center, 2nd horizontal hatching, dead). Three worlds that interpenetrate each other, that also relate to each other, but which cannot simply be summarized from the point of view of causality—three worlds, that is, a threefold world, like a threefold human being. A first world, the world that surrounds us, which we perceive; a second world, which announces itself through the movements of the moon; a third world, which announces itself through the movements of the rising point of the sun, so in a certain sense, we must say: through the path of the sun. There we see a third world, which remains as unknown as the world of our will remains unknown to ordinary consciousness.
[ 24 ] It is therefore a matter of seeking such correspondences everywhere, such relationships between the human microcosm and the macrocosm. And if in the Orient today, albeit in decadence, but earlier in the heyday of ancient Oriental wisdom, a consciousness of breathing was sought, it was the need to slip over into this other world, which otherwise only announces itself through what, I would say, the moon wants in our world. But in other respects, too, people knew how to point to this inner lawfulness in times when there was still a kind of primordial wisdom that had come to humanity, albeit in a different form than we must seek today. In the Old Testament, an image was always used for the initiates who knew these things, an image which you also find in a certain way—I have already pointed this out before—in the Gospels: the image of the light of the moon in relation to the light of the sun. It is true, is it not, that we regard the light of the moon as, in a certain sense, merely sunlight reflected back? (Plate 8, bottom, red; the small circle on the left is blue). Now I am speaking in terms of physics — I will probably have to mention that these expressions are very imprecise — we are speaking in terms of physics, because that was the basis for the ideas that existed at the time. This moonlight was regarded in the Old Testament as the representative of the power of Yahweh. The power of Yahweh was imagined as a reflected power, and the initiates, not the orthodox rabbis of the Old Testament, of course, but the initiates said: The Messiah, the Christ, will come, he will be the direct sunlight, Yahweh is merely the preceding reflection. It is the same thing, but it is not direct sunlight. — It is natural that we should not think of physical sunlight here, but rather of the spiritual aspect.
[ 25 ] Now Christ entered into human evolution at that time, and what had previously existed only in reflection, only indirectly in the form of Yahweh, came into being. Therefore, it was necessary to think of the Christ who lived in Jesus according to a different law than the law that exists in ordinary knowledge of nature. But if one does not accept such a law, if one believes that the world is held together only by causes and effects and is a causally connected world, then there is no place for what Christ is. One must first prepare a place for Christ by considering the three worlds that are interrelated. Then it is also possible to say: even if in the world that our senses perceive, everything is connected everywhere according to cause and effect, as natural science understands it, another world permeates this one. This is where the events connected with the events of Golgotha belong. If in our time there is an increasing need to understand these things, then this understanding must be sought through a recognition of the worlds that are interrelated but nevertheless completely different from one another. It is a matter of seeking three kinds of laws, not just one. And we will have to seek these three kinds of laws in the human being. But if you consider what I have just said, you will understand that it is not a matter of simply recording, as the Copernican-Galilean world system does, some ellipses (plate 7, bottom left; red) that are supposed to represent the orbits of Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Earth, Venus, Mercury, and then the Sun. That cannot be the point; rather, it is a matter of thinking that the laws that initially prevail where the world exists, which express themselves to us through what is perceptible to the senses, must be crossed by other laws, and that, above all, our present moon in its movement represents something that is not causally connected with the rest of the star system. It does not belong to it like the other planets. It points to a world that has just been pushed into ours. It points to the respiratory process of our world system, just as the sun points to the permeation of the ether.
[ 26 ] Before studying astronomy, one should therefore above all learn about the qualitative nature of what moves in space and what is interdependent in space. For one should be clear that one cannot simply bring solar matter into relation with any other matter, any earthly matter. Solar matter is sucking in relation to earthly matter, while earthly matter is pushing. And the movements that express themselves in nutation are movements that originate from astrality, not from anything that can be sought through Newtonian principles. But this Newtonianism is precisely what has smashed us so terribly into materialism, because it has resorted to extreme abstraction. It speaks of a gravitational force: the sun attracts the earth, or the earth attracts the moon—a force, an attraction from the moon to the earth, or from the earth to the sun, like some invisible string (plate 7, top right). But if only this force of attraction existed, there would be no reason for the moon to revolve around the earth, or the earth around the sun; there would only be a reason for the moon to fall down onto the earth—it would have fallen down long ago if only the force of gravity existed—or for the earth to fall into the sun. So it is not possible to assume gravity alone to explain the imagined or real movements of the heavenly bodies. So what do we do? We say: Let us assume that there is a planet (same plate, top center) that would actually fall into the sun continuously if it were only for the force of attraction. But it has been given a force, a tangential force, a powerful push, and this push is so strong that it is perhaps as strong as the gravitational force; now, it does not move in such a way that it falls in, but moves along the resulting line.
[ 27 ] You see, this Newtonianism requires that every planet, indeed every moving celestial body, has received an initial push. So there must always be an extramundane God who pushes, who gives the tangential force. This is assumed everywhere. However, this assumption was made at a time when people had no idea how to connect the spiritual with the material, when they had stopped at the very beginning. This already expresses the inability of materialism to comprehend matter. This is what I have pointed out so often recently. Therefore, he cannot understand the movements of matter, but must explain them in a completely anthropomorphic way, thinking of God as a human being, and — oops — the moon gets a push, then the earth, then they attract each other, and then the movements result from the oops-push and the force of attraction.
[ 28 ] This is where we stand today. From these things we construct our world system. But to understand what is, more is necessary; it is necessary to learn to understand everywhere the connections between what lives in man and what lives outside in the macrocosm. For man is a real microcosm in the macrocosm. More on this tomorrow.