Man and the World of Stars
GA 219
17 December 1922, Dornach
VI. Spiritualization of Knowledge of Space. The Mission of Michael
I have often referred to the fact that since about the first third of the fifteenth century, human evolution has entered upon a special epoch. It can be said that the age which began approximately in the eighth century B.C. and continued into the first third of the fifteenth century was the age of Græco-Latin culture and that the most recent phase of time in which we are still living today, began at the point I have indicated. Today we will consider the tasks of present-day humanity in connection with this fact.
We know—particularly from the lectures given here lately—that between birth and death man bears in his physical, psychical and spiritual development on Earth the heritage of what he has experienced in pre-earthly existence. And recently we heard in what sense social and moral life is the heritage of that condition between death and rebirth when man lives in intimate communion with the Beings of the Higher Hierarchies. From this communion—it is experienced, as I have described, in rhythmic alternation with another condition—man brings with him the power of love, and this power of love is the foundation of morality on Earth. The other condition is the one in which man withdraws into himself, when, as it were, he lifts himself out of this communion with the Beings of the Hierarchies. And as the heritage of this condition he brings with him to Earth the power of memory, the power of remembrance, which on the one side comes to expression in his egoism, but on the other side predisposes him for freedom, for everything that makes for inner strength and independence.
Until the Graeco-Latin epoch, the faculties that enabled man to shape his civilization from within were in a certain respect still a heritage of pre-earthly existence.
If we go back to still earlier times in the evolution of humanity, to the Old Indian, the Old Persian and the Egyptian epochs, we find evidence everywhere of knowledge, of ideas, which flow as it were out of man's inner being but are also connected with the life between death and rebirth. In the Old Indian epoch man has a clear consciousness that he belongs to the same ‘race’ to which the divine-spiritual Beings of the Hierarchies belong. A man of knowledge in ancient Indian civilization feels himself less a citizen of the Earth than of the world to which these divine-spiritual Beings belong. He feels that he has been sent down to the Earth from the ranks of these divine-spiritual Beings. And he considers that the civilization he spreads over the Earth is there in order that the earthly deeds of man and even the objects and beings of the Earth may conform with the nature of the divine-spiritual Beings to whom he feels himself related.
In the man of ancient Persia this feeling of kinship has already lost some of its former intensity but he too still feels his real home to be what he called the Kingdom of Light, the Kingdom to which he belongs between death and rebirth, and he desires to be a warrior on the side of the spirits of this Kingdom of Light. He wishes to fight against those beings who come from the darkness of the Earth so that the spirits of the Kingdom of Light may not be hampered by these dark beings; he dedicates all his activity to the service of the spirits of the Kingdom of Light. And if we then pass on to the Egyptian and Chaldaean peoples we see how their science is full of knowledge relating to the movements of the stars. The destinies of men are read from what the stars reveal. Before anything is done on Earth, the stars are asked whether it would or would not be justified. This science, according to which all earthly life is regulated, is likewise felt to be a heritage of man's existence between death and rebirth, when his experiences are of a kind that make him one with the movements and laws of the stars, just as here on Earth between birth and death he is one with the beings of the mineral, plant and animal kingdoms.
In the fourth post-Atlantean, the Graeco-Latin epoch, beginning in the eighth century B.C. and lasting until the fifteenth century A.D., men already feel themselves to be true citizens of the Earth. They feel that in their world of ideas between birth and death there are no longer very distinct echoes of experiences in pre-earthly existence. They strive to be at home on the Earth. And yet, if we penetrate deeply into the spirit of Greek and even of early Roman civilization we can say something like the following. The men who are founding science in that age are intent upon learning to know all that goes on in the three kingdoms of Nature upon Earth, but to know it in such a way that this knowledge also has some relation to extra-terrestrial existence. Among the Greeks there is a strong feeling that through the knowledge applied by man on the Earth and in the light of which he regulates his earthly deeds, he should at the same time have a dim remembrance of the divine-spiritual world. The Greek knows that he can gain his knowledge only from observation of the earthly world; but he has a clear feeling that what he perceives in the minerals, in the plants, in the animals, stars, mountains, rivers, and so forth, must be a reflection of the Divine-Spiritual which he can experience in a world other than the world of the senses.
This is the case because in that epoch man still feels that with the best part of his being he belongs to a supersensible world. This supersensible world has, to be sure, become darkened for human observation—that is how man puts it to himself—but during earthly existence too he must strive to illumine it. True, in the Graeco-Latin epoch men can no longer regulate the ordinary deeds of humanity in accordance with the courses of the stars, since their mastery of the science of the stars is not on a par with that of the Chaldaean and the Egyptians; but at all events they still endeavor, rather gropingly, through studying expressions of the will of the divine-spiritual Beings, to bring something of the Divine-Spiritual into the earthly world.
In places of the Oracles and in Temples, men sought to ascertain the will of the Gods from priestesses and prophetesses, as you know from history. And we see how these endeavors to ascertain the will of the divine-spiritual Beings with whom man himself is one during pre-earthly existence, were also customary in other regions of Europe at the time when Graeco-Roman culture was in its prime in the South. In the Germanic regions of Middle Europe, for example, priestesses and prophetesses were highly venerated; pilgrimages were made to them and in ecstatic states of consciousness, the will of the Gods was made known to men so that their deeds on Earth might be in conformity with this will. We can see quite clearly how up to the twelfth and thirteenth centuries—although the urge is by then less intense—man strives to formulate the knowledge he seeks in such a way that it contains within it the will of the divine-spiritual world. Through these centuries of the Middle Ages, right up to the twelfth and thirteenth, we can find places which at that time were still considered sacred and later became our laboratories—we can find places where the so-called alchemists were investigating the forces of substances and of Nature-processes; we can peruse writings which still give a faint picture of the kind of thinking that was applied in those old centres of research and we shall everywhere discover evidence of the striving to bring the substances themselves into such combinations or mutual interaction that the Divine-Spiritual can work in the phial, in the retort.
In Goethe's Faust there is an echo of this attitude of soul, in the scene where Wagner is working in his laboratory to produce Homunculus. It is really not until the turn of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries in Western civilization that the desire arises in man to lay the foundations of a science in complete independence, without bringing his ideas into any direct connection with a divine-spiritual will by which the world is ruled. A purely human form of knowledge arises for the first time during this period; it is knowledge that is emancipated from the divine-spiritual will. And it is this purely human knowledge, emancipated from the divine will of which the science of Galileo and Copernicus is composed. It is science through which the universe is presented to man in the abstract picture current today, the picture of a vault—as Giordano Bruno was the first to envisage—with the stars circling in it as purely material bodies, or even in a condition of rest taking their share in cosmic happenings. This picture of the universe makes us imagine that a vast mechanism works in upon the Earth from cosmic space. And even in the investigation of earthly things people confine themselves fundamentally to what can be calculated and measured and so be part of an abstract mechanism. This, however, is a world of conceptions and ideas which man can spin out of himself with the help of external observation and experiment, where the physical substances alone are believed to affect each other, the Nature-processes to become manifest and where the Divine-Spiritual is no longer sought in the world of Nature.
There is a vast difference between this conceptual world and the kind of thought that preceded it in human evolution. It is only since the first third of the fifteenth century that man's concepts and ideas have become purely human. And it is the spatial with which man has mainly concerned himself since this period began.
If you go back still farther to the times of the Old Indian, the Old Persian, the Egypto-Chaldaean culture, everywhere you will find that world-conceptions refer to World Ages. They point back to an ancient epoch when mankind still had intercourse with the Gods, to a Golden Age. They point back to another epoch when man still experienced on Earth at least the sun-reflection of the Divine—a Silver Age, and so on. Time and the course of Time play a conspicuous role in the world-pictures of early evolutionary phases. Likewise, when you consider the Greek epoch, and indeed the world-picture that was current at the same time in the more Northerly and Middle European regions, you will find that everywhere the idea of Time plays an essential part. The Greek points back to that primeval Age when cosmic happenings are the outcome of interaction between Uranus and Gaia. He points to the next Age, to Chronos and Rhea, then to the Age when Zeus and the other Gods known in Greek Mythology rule the Cosmos and the Earth. And it is the same in Germanic Mythology. Time plays the most essential role in all these world-pictures.
A much less important part is played by Space. The spatial element is still obscure in the Norse and Germanic world-pictures with the World Ash, the Giant Ymir and so forth. That something is taking place in Time is quite clear, but the idea of Space is only dimly dawning; it is a factor of no great significance. It is not until the age of Galileo, of Copernicus, of Giordano Bruno, that Space actually begins to play its great role in the picture of the universe. Even in the Ptolemaic system which admittedly is concerned with Space, Time is a more essential factor than it is in the world-picture familiar to us since the fifteenth century, in which Time actually plays a secondary part. The present distribution of the stars in cosmic space is taken as the starting-point and through calculation conclusions are reached as to what the world-picture was like in earlier times. But the conception of Space, the spatial world-picture, becomes of chief importance. And the result is that all human judgments are based on the principle of Space. Modern man has elaborated this element of Space in his external world-picture, elaborated it too in all his thinking. And today this thinking in terms of Space has reached its zenith.
Think how difficult it is for a man of the present day to follow an exposition purely of Time. He is happy if Space is brought in at least to the extent of drawing something on the blackboard. But if the feeling of Space is conveyed by means of photographs, then the modern man is verily in his element! “Illustration”—and by this he means expression in terms of Space—is what man of today strives to achieve in every exposition. Time, inasmuch as it is in perpetual flow, has become something that causes him discomfort. He still attaches value to it in music; but even there the tendency towards the spatial is quite evident.
We need only consider something that has become a definite feature of modern life and this mania of modern man to cleave to the spatial is at once apparent. In the cinema he is utterly indifferent to the element of Time in the picture. He is content with the merest fraction of the Time element and is entirely given up to the element of Space.
This orientation of the soul to the spatial is very characteristic of the present time and whoever observes modern culture and civilization with open eyes will find it everywhere.
On the other hand, in anthroposophical Spiritual Science we are striving, as you know, to get away from the spatial. To be sure, we meet the desire for it in that we too try to give tangible form to the spiritual, and that is justifiable in order to strengthen the faculty of ideation. Only we must always be conscious that this is purely a means of illustration and that what is essential is to strive, at least to strive, to transcend the spatial.
Space ‘devotees’ among us often cause difficulties by making diagrams of the consecutive epochs of Time, writing “First Epoch with Sub-Epochs,” and so on. Then follow a great many captions and what is sequential in Time is dragged into a spatial picture.
Our aim, however, is to transcend the spatial. We are striving to penetrate into the temporal and also into the super-temporal, into the element that leads beyond what is physically perceptible. The physically perceptible exists in its crudest form in the world of Space and there thought is led in a certain direction. I have often spoken of the real intentions of anthroposophical Spiritual Science. It certainly does not belittle, let alone reject, the mode of thinking engendered in the age of Galileo, Copernicus, Giordano Bruno. The validity of this mode of thinking in which, as you know, Space is the essential element, is fully recognized by anthroposophical Spiritual Science. Therefore it ought to be able to shed light into every domain of scientific thought. It must not adopt an amateurish attitude to these domains of scientific thought but must shed light into them by its way of looking at things.
But over and over again it must be stressed that anthroposophical Spiritual Science is endeavoring to guide back again to the Divine-Spiritual this purely human knowledge that is based almost entirely on the element of Space and is emancipated from the Divine-Spiritual. We do not hark back to ancient conditions but we desire to guide the modern attitude of soul into the spiritual, away from its preoccupation with what is purely spatial and material. In other words, we want to learn to talk about spiritual things, as people in the Galileo-Copernican age grew accustomed to talk about substances, about forces. With its methods of study and observation, this Spiritual Science is to be a match for the kind of knowledge that has been developing in connection with the things and processes of the material world since the first third of the fifteenth century. Its aim is the attainment of spiritual knowledge that is related to this Nature-knowledge, although since the former is concerned with the supersensible, the contrast is very apparent.
Inwardly considered, what is it that we are seeking to achieve? If we transfer ourselves in thought into the position of the divine-spiritual Beings in whose ranks we live between death and rebirth, and discern how they direct their gaze downwards, and through the various means I have described observe the course of events on Earth, then we find that these Beings looked down to the Earth in the earlier ages of human evolution—in the Old Indian, Old Persian, Old Chaldaean-Egyptian epochs—and beheld what men were doing, what views they held of Nature and of their own social life. And then—if I may put it so—the Gods were able to say to themselves concerning the deeds and thoughts of men: Their deeds and their thoughts are a result of their memory of, or are an echo of, what they experienced among us in our world.—In the case of the Chaldaeans or Egyptians it was still quite evident that the primary wish of men below on the Earth was to carry out what the Gods above had thought or were thinking. When the Gods looked down to the Earth they beheld happenings that were in keeping with their intentions; and it was the same when they looked into the thoughts of men—as Gods are able to do. Since the first third of the fifteenth century this has changed. Since then, the divine-spiritual Beings have looked down to the Earth, and especially when they look down at the present time, they find that things everywhere are fundamentally alien to them, that men are doing things on the Earth which they themselves have planned in accordance with the phenomena and processes of earthly existence. And to the Gods with whom men live between death and rebirth, this is an entirely alien attitude.
When an alchemist in his laboratory was endeavoring to ascertain the divine-spiritual will through the combination and separation of the Elements, a God would have beheld something akin to his own nature in what the alchemist was doing. If a God were to look into a modern laboratory, the methods and procedure adopted there would be intensely alien to him. It can be said with absolute truth that since the first third of the fifteenth century, the Gods have felt as if the whole human race had fallen away from them in a certain respect, as if men down on the Earth were engaged in self-made trivialities, in things which the Gods are unable to understand,—certainly not the Gods who still guided the hands and minds of men in their scientific pursuits in Graeco-Latin times. These divine-spiritual Beings have no active interest in what is done in modern laboratories, let alone in modern hospitals. I was obliged on a previous occasion to say that when the Gods look down through windows, as I called them, what interests them least of all on Earth is the kind of work carried out by professors. What goes to the very heart of one who has genuine insight into modern Initiation Science is that he is obliged to say to himself: In recent times we men have become estranged from the Gods; we must seek again for bridges to connect us with the divine-spiritual world.—And it is this that quickens the impulse for anthroposophical Spiritual Science. Its desire is to transform the scientific ideas and concepts that are unintelligible to the Gods in such a way that they are spiritualized and are thus able to provide a bridge to the Divine-Spiritual.
It should be realized that light, for example, is something in which divinity is present. This was strongly felt in ancient Persian culture, but today when, for example, attempts are made to indicate by all sorts of lines how the rays from a lens are broken, this is a language that the Gods do not understand; it means nothing at all to them. All these things must be approached by an attitude of soul that enables the bridge to the Divine to be found once again. To realize this means a great deepening of insight into the kind of task that is incumbent upon the present age in the matter of transforming and metamorphosing our unspiritual ideas.
A cosmic truth of deep significance underlies these things. The conception of Space is an entirely human conception. The Gods with whom man lives together in the most important period of his life between death and a new birth have a vivid conception of Time but no conception of Space such as man acquires on Earth. This conception of Space is entirely human. Man really enters into Space for the first time when he descends from the divine-spiritual world into the physical world of the Earth. True, as seen from here, every thing appears in spatial perspective. But thinking in dimensions, if I may put it so, is something that belongs entirely to the Earth.
In Western civilization this conception of Space has become ingrained in man since the fifteenth century. But when through the spiritualizing of purely spatial knowledge, bridges to the divine world have been found again, then what man has gained from the science of Space—in the very period when he has emancipated his thought most drastically from the divine world, i.e. since the fifteenth century—all the spatial knowledge he has gained will become important for the divine-spiritual world as well. And man can conquer a new portion of the universe for the Gods if he will but bring the spirit again into the conception of Space.
You see, what I have described in the book Occult Science—the periods of Old Saturn, Old Sun, Old Moon, Earth and the future periods of Jupiter, Venus, Vulcan—is only present to the Gods in the sequence of Time. Here on Earth, however, it all lives itself out in terms of Space. We are living today in the Earth period proper but in happenings on the Earth there still linger the echoes of the periods of Old Moon, Old Sun and Old Saturn.
If you will steep yourselves in the description of the Old Saturn period given in Occult Science, you will say: The Saturn period is past but the effects of its warmth are still present in our earthly existence. Saturn, Sun, Moon, Earth are within one another; they exist simultaneously. The Gods see them in the sequence of Time. Although in earlier ages, even during Chaldaean times they were seen in their succession, now we see them within one another, spatially within one another. Indeed this leads very much farther and if we study these things in detail, we shall discover what really lies behind them.
Imagine that you stretch out your left hand. The Divine lives in everything terrestrial. In your muscles, in your nerves, lives the Divine. Now with the fingers of your left hand you touch the fingers of your right hand—this can only be done in Space. The fact that you feel your right hand with your left, your left hand with your right—this is something which the divine-spiritual Beings do not follow. They follow the left hand and right hand up to the point of contact, but the feeling that arises between the two is an experience which the faculties possessed by the Gods do not make possible; it is something that arises only in Space. Just as little as the Gods behold Saturn, Sun, Moon and Earth simultaneously but only in succession, in Time, so they have none of the purely spatial experiences known to man. When you look with your left and right eyes and have the lines of vision from right and from left, the activity of the Gods is present in the vision from the right eye and again in the vision from the left eye, but in the meeting of the two lines of vision lies the purely human element. Thus we experience as men, because we have been placed into the world of Space, something that is experienced in a state of emancipation from the activity of the Gods.
You need only extend this imagery of the right and left hands to other domains in the life of earthly man, and you will find a great many human experiences that fall right away from the Gods' field of vision. It is really only since the first third of the fifteenth century that man has brought ideas of a purely human kind into these domains. Hence human thinking has become less and less intelligible to the Gods when they look down to the Earth. And with this in mind we must turn our attention to that most important event in the last third of the nineteenth century which may be characterized by saying that the rulership of the Spiritual Being known as Gabriel was succeeded by the rulership of that other Spiritual Being known as Michael.
In the last third of the nineteenth century the Spiritual Being we call Michael became the Ruler, as it were, of everything of a spiritual character in human events on the Earth. Whereas Gabriel is a Being orientated more to the passive qualities of man, Michael is the active Being, the Being who as it were pulses through our breath, our veins, our nerves, to the end that we may actively develop all that belongs to our full humanity in connection with the Cosmos. What stands before us as a challenge of Michael is that we become active in our very thoughts, working out our view of the world through our own inner activity. We only belong to the Michael Age when we do not sit down inactively and desire to let enlightenment from within and from without come to us, but when we co-operate actively in what the world offers us in the way of experiences and opportunities for observation. If a man carries out some experiment, it does not fundamentally involve activity; there is not necessarily any activity on his part; it is just an event like any other event in Nature, except that it is directed by human intelligence. But all happenings in Nature have also been directed by intelligence! How is man's mental life nowadays affected by experiments? There is no active participation, for he simply looks on and tries to eliminate activity as much as possible; he wants to let the experiment tell him everything and regards as fanciful anything that is the outcome of his own inner activity. It is precisely in their scientific ideas that men are least of all in the Michael Age.
But humanity must enter into the Michael Age. If we put the question to ourselves: What does it actually mean in the whole cosmic setting that Gabriel should have passed on the sceptre to Michael?—then we must answer: It means that of all the Beings who spiritually guide humanity, Michael is the Spirit who is the first to draw near to what men here on Earth are doing as the result of this emancipation of knowledge since the first third of the fifteenth century. Gabriel stands in utter perplexity before the ideas and notions of a cultured man of the modern age. Michael, who is closely connected with the forces of the Sun, can at least instil his activity into such thoughts of man as can be impulses for his free deeds. Michael can work, for instance, into what I have called in Occult Science, free, pure thinking, which must be the true impulse for the individual will of man acting in freedom in the new age. And with the deeds of man which spring from the impulse of love, Michael has his own particular relationship.
Hence he is the messenger whom the Gods have sent down so that he may receive what is now being led over from knowledge emancipated from spirit into spiritualized knowledge. The science which as anthroposophical Spiritual Science again spiritualizes spatial thinking, lifts it again into the supersensible—this Spiritual Science works from below upwards, stretches out its hands as it were from below upwards to grasp the hands of Michael stretching down from above. It is then that the bridge can be created between man and the Gods. Michael has become the Regent of this Age because he is to receive what the Gods wish to receive from what man can add to the Time-concept through the Space-concept—for this augments the knowledge possessed by the Gods.
The Gods picture Saturn, Sun, Moon, Earth, in the succession of Time. If man rightly develops the latest phase of his life of thought, he sees this in terms of Space. The Gods can picture the outstretching of the left and of the right hand, but the actual contact is a purely human matter. The Gods can live in the line of vision of the left eye, in the line of vision of the right eye. Man envisages in terms of Space how the vision of the left eye meets that of the right eye. Michael directs his gaze down upon the Earth. He is able, by entering into connection with what men develop in pure thought and objectify in pure will, to take cognisance of what is acquired by the citizens of Earth, by men, as the fruit of thinking in terms of Space, and to carry it up into divine worlds.
If men were merely to develop Space-knowledge and not spiritualize it, if they were to stop short at Anthropology and were not willing to advance to Anthroposophy, then the Michael Age would go by. Michael would retire from his rulership and would bring this message to the Gods: Humanity desires to separate itself from the Gods.—If Michael is to bring back the right message to the world of the Gods, he must speak to this effect: During my Age, men have raised to the Supersensible what they have already developed in the way of thinking purely in terms of Space; and we can therefore accept men again, for they have united their thought with ours.—If human evolution proceeds in the right way, Michael will not have to say to the Gods: Men have become accustomed to stare at everything spatially; they have learnt to despise what lives only in Time.—If human beings are resolved to achieve their earthly goal, Michael will say: Men have made efforts to bring Time and the Supersensible again into the Spatial; therefore those who are not content merely to stare at the Spatial, who are not content to accept everything in such a material form as was customary at the beginning of the twentieth century, can be regarded as having linked their lives directly to the life of the Gods.—
If we genuinely pursue Anthroposophy in the light of Initiation Science, it means that we concern ourselves with cosmic affairs, with affairs which humanity has to work out in harmony with the world of the Gods. And in the present age very much is at stake; it is a matter of whether we shall or shall not sow the seed for true communion in the future with the divine-spiritual world.
When you realize the tremendous significance of this issue, you will be able to measure the earnestness and inner steadfastness needed by the soul if Anthroposophy is to be the content of its life of thought.
Sechster Vortrag
Ich habe es des öfteren erwähnt, wie ungefähr seit dem ersten Drittei des 15. Jahrhunderts eine besondere Zeit in der Menschheitsentwickelung angebrochen ist. Man kann sagen, daß die Zeit, die etwa im 8. vorchristlichen Jahrhundert begonnen hat und die dann bis in das erste Drittel des 15. Jahrhunderts herein gedauert hat, die Zeit der griechisch-lateinischen Kulturentwickelung war, und daß die neueste Zeitphase, in der wir jetzt noch immer drinnenstehen, in dem angegebenen Zeitpunkte begonnen hat. Wir wollen heute von einem gewissen Gesichtspunkte aus die Aufgaben der Menschheit in der Gegenwart in Anknüpfung an diese Tatsache ein wenig betrachten.
Wir wissen ja und wissen es namentlich aus den Vorträgen, die ich in der letzten Zeit hier gehalten habe, wie der Mensch während seiner Erdenentwickelung, also zwischen der Geburt und dem Tode, sowohl in seiner physischen, wie seelischen, wie geistigen Entwickelung die Erbschaft dessen in sich trägt, was er im vorirdischen Dasein durchgemacht hat. Und wir haben insbesondere vorgängig gesehen, wie das sozial-moralische Leben die Erbschaft jenes Zustandes zwischen Tod und neuer Geburt ist, in welchem der Mensch im innigen Zusammenhange mit den Wesenheiten der höheren Hierarchien lebt. Der Mensch bringt sich aus diesem Zusammenleben, das er — wie ich dargestellt habe - rhythmisch in Abwechslung mit einem andern Zustande erlebt, die Fähigkeit, die Kraft des Liebens mit, und diese Kraft des Liebens ist die Grundlage der Moralität auf Erden. Der andere Zustand, der mit diesem abwechselt, ist der, wo sich der Mensch auf sich selbst zurückzieht, wo er gewissermaßen sich herausholt aus dem Zusammenleben mit den Wesen der höheren Hierarchien. Und als Erbschaft dieses Zustandes bringt er sich die Kraft der Erinnerung, die Kraft des Gedächtnisses mit, welche allerdings auf der einen Seite in seinem Egoismus zum Ausdrucke kommt, auf der andern Seite aber auch die Veranlagung für die Freiheit, für alles dasjenige ist, was dem Menschen innere Festigkeit und Selbständigkeit gibt. Das aber, wodurch der Mensch von innen heraus seine Zivilisation geordnet hat, war auch bis in diesen griechisch-lateinischen Zeitraum, von dem ich vorhin gesprochen habe, in gewisser Beziehung eine Erbschaft des vorirdischen Daseins.
Wenn wir auf noch ältere Zeiten der Menschheitsentwickelung zurückgehen, in den urindischen Zeitraum, in den urpersischen, den ägyptischen Zeitraum, so finden wir überall ein Wissen derMenschheit, ein Vorstellungsleben der Menschheit, welches aus dem Innern des Menschen herausquillt, das aber auch mit dem Leben zwischen dem Tode und einer neuen Geburt zusammenhängt. Wir finden in der urindischen Zeit, wie der Mensch ein deutliches Bewußtsein hat, daß er eigentlich, man möchte sagen, demselben Geschlechte angehört, dem die göttlich-geistigen Wesenheiten der übrigen Hierarchien angehören. Der Wissende der alten indischen Kultur fühlt sich viel weniger als ein Erdenbürger denn als ein Bürger jener Welt, dem diese göttlich-geistigen Wesen angehören. Er fühlt sich gewissermaßen heruntergeschickt aus der Reihe dieser göttlich-geistigen Wesen auf die Erde, und was er auf Erden als Zivilisation ausbreitet, von dem fühlt dieser Urinder, daß es geschieht, um die Erdentaten der Menschen, auch die Erdengegenstände, die Erdenwesen, so zu gestalten, wie es den göttlich-geistigen Wesen, denen er sich verwandt fühlt, angemessen ist.
Schon etwas abgedämmert ist dieses Zusammengehörigkeitsgefühl bei dem urpersischen Menschen, aber auch er fühlt noch deutlich als seine eigentliche Heimat das, was er das Lichtreich nennt, dem er zwischen dem Tode und einer neuen Geburt angehörte, und er will sich zum Kämpfer für die Geister dieses Lichtreiches machen. Er will gewissermaßen diejenigen Wesen bekämpfen, die von der Finsternis der Erde herkommen, so daß diese finsteren Wesen nicht etwas im Gefolge der Geister des Lichtreiches sein können, und er stellt seine ganze Aufgabe in den Dienst dieser Geister des Lichtreiches. Und wenn wir dann vorrücken zu der ägyptischen und chaldäischen Bevölkerung, so sehen wir die Wissenschaft dieser Ägypter und Chaldäer ganz und gar von dem durchzogen, was sich auf die Bewegungen der Sterne bezieht. Die Schicksale der Menschen werden an dem abgemessen, was sich in den Sternen zeigt. Was auf Erden getan wird, wird so getan, daß man vorher die Sterne befragt, ob man dies oder jenes tun soll. Auch diese Wissenschaft, die alles irdische Leben regelt, wird als eine Erbschaft dessen empfunden, was der Mensch zwischen dem Tode und einer neuen Geburt erlebt hat, in welcher Zeit seine Erlebnisse solcher Art sind, daß er mit den Bewegungen, mit den Gesetzmäßigkeiten der Sterne eins ist, so wie er hier auf Erden zwischen der Geburt und dem Tode eins ist mit den Wesen des mineralischen, des pflanzlichen, des tierischen Reiches.
Als dann der vierte nachatlantische, der griechisch-lateinische Zeitraum eintritt, der zwischen dem 8. vorchristlichen und dem 15. nachchristlichen Jahrhundert liegt, da allerdings fühlen sich die Menschen bereits durchaus als Erdenbürger. Sie fühlen, daß in ihrer Vorstellungswelt in der Zeit zwischen der Geburt und dem Tode nicht mehr in einer intensiven Weise ein Nachklang desjenigen vorhanden ist, was im vorirdischen Dasein erlebt wird. Die Menschen streben gewissermaßen dahin, auf dieser Erde heimisch zu sein. Aber wenn man so recht in den Geist der griechischen, auch noch der frühlateinischen Zivilisation eindringt, so ist es doch sc, daß man etwa das Folgende behaupten kann. Die Menschen, welche in jener Zeit ein Wissen begründen, sagen sich: Wir wollen alles das kennenlernen, was hier auf Erden in den drei Reichen der Natur sich vollzieht, aber wir wollen es so kennenlernen, daß unser Wissen doch eigentlich etwas ist, was sich auch im außerirdischen Dasein zeigen kann. - Es ist bei den Griechen durchaus das Gefühl vorhanden: durch das Wissen, das den Menschen auf Erden dient, durch das der Mensch auf Erden seine Taten regelt, soll der Mensch zu gleicher Zeit noch etwas wie eine dunkle Erinnerung an die göttlich-geistige Welt haben. Der Grieche weiß zwar, er kann sein Wissen nur aus der Betrachtung der irdischen Welt gewinnen, aber er hat ein deutliches Gefühl davon: was er in den Mineralien, in den Pflanzen, in den Tieren, was er in den Sternen, Bergen, Flüssen und so weiter betrachtet, soll ihm ein Abglanz des Göttlich-Geistigen sein, das er in einer andern Welt als der sinnlichen erleben kann.
Das ist deshalb so, weil der Mensch in jener Zeit noch fühlt, er gehört mit dem besten Teil seines Wesens einer übersinnlichen Welt an. Diese übersinnliche Welt hat sich allerdings für die menschliche Beobachtung verdunkelt, so stellt der Mensch sich vor, aber man soll auch während des Erdendaseins nach einer Erhellung des Verdunkelten streben. Und wenn man auch in jenen Zeiten nicht mehr, wie zum Beispiel im alten Ägypten oder im alten Chaldäa, die gewöhnlichen Taten der Erdenmenschheit nach dem Sternenlauf regeln kann, weil man die Sternenwissenschaft nicht in derselben Weise wie die Chaldäer und wie die Ägypter beherrscht, ist man wenigstens doch in einer etwas dunklen Weise bestrebt, durch Erforschung der Willensäußerungen der göttlich-geistigen Wesen etwas Göttlich-Geistiges in die irdische Welt hereinzutragen.
In den Orakelstätten, in den Tempelstätten wird durch die entsprechenden Priesterinnen, Weissagerinnen, auf die Weise, die Ihnen aus der Geschichte bekannt ist, der Wille der Götter erforscht. Und wir sehen, wie dieses Erforschen des göttlich-geistigen Willens, in dem der Mensch selbst im vorirdischen Dasein drinnensteht, in jener Zeit, in welcher im Süden Europas die griechisch-lateinische Kultur ist, auch im übrigen Europa üblich ist. Wir sehen zum Beispiel, wie innerhalb der germanisch-mitteleuropäischen Welt Priesterinnen, Prophetinnen hochverehrt werden, wie man zu ihnen pilgert, und wie aus ihrer ekstatischen Seelenverfassung heraus der Wille des Göttlichen dem Menschen kundwerden soll, damit der Mensch sich bei seinen Erdentaten nach diesem Willen richte. Ja, man möchte sagen, wenn auch durchaus abgeschwächt, sehen wir dennoch in deutlicher Weise den Menschen bis in das 12., 13. Jahrhundert herauf während des Mittelalters alles, was er an Wissen sucht, so gestalten, daß dieses Wissen eigentlich den Willen der göttlich-geistigen Welt in sich enthält. Wir können für alle diese Jahrhunderte, noch bis zum 12,, 13. Jahrhundert, in jene Stätten hineinschauen, die dazumal noch als eine Art heiliger Stätten galten, die dann zu unseren abstrakten Laboratorien oder zu unseren abstrakten physikalischen Kabinetten geworden sind. Wir können in jene Stätten hineinschauen, in denen die sogenannten Alchimisten versuchten, die Kräfte der Stoffe und die Kräfte der Naturvorgänge zu ergründen. Wir können diejenigen Schriften aufschlagen, die noch in einer schwachen Weise eine Art von Darstellung der Denkweise enthalten, die in jenen alten Forscherstätten entfaltet wurde, und wir werden überall finden, daß der Wille vorhanden ist, die Stoffe selbst so miteinander in Verbindung und in Wechselwirkung zu bringen, daß Geistig-Göttliches in der Phiole, in der Retorte wirkt.
Wir sehen ja, wie Goethe noch in seinem «Faust» etwas von dieser Seelenverfassung nachklingen läßt da, wo Wagner in seinem Laboratorium an der Darstellung des Homunkulus arbeitet. Wir können sehen, wie eigentlich erst um die Wende des 14. zum 15. Jahrhundert in der abendländischen zivilisierten Welt jene Stimmung entsteht, durch welche der Mensch, auf sich selbst gestützt, ohne seine Vorstellungen in einen unmittelbaren Zusammenhang mit einem göttlich-geistigen Willen zu bringen, der die Welt durchwaltet, ein Wissen für seine Zivilisation begründen will. Wir sehen gewissermaßen erst um diese Zeit ein rein menschliches, ein von dem göttlich-geistigen Willen emanzipiertes Wissen entstehen. Und dieses rein menschliche, von dem göttlich-geistigen Willen emanzipierte Wissen, ist dasjenige, was wir das galileisch-kopernikanische Wissen nennen müssen. Jenes Wissen, dutch das die Welt sich dem Menschen in einem so abstrakten Bilde darstellt, wie das heutige Weltenbild ist, durch das wir uns einen Raum vorstellen, wie ihn etwa Giordano Bruno zuerst im Sinn hatte: in welchem die Sterne als bloß materielle Körper kreisen, oder auch in der Ruhe am Weltengeschehen ihren Anteil nehmen. Dutch dieses Weltenbild stellt man sich vor, daß ein ungeheurer Mechanismus von dem kosmischen Raum herein auf die Erde wirkt, und man bleibt im Grunde genommen auch bei der Betrachtung des Irdischen bei dem stehen, was sich errechnen und ermessen läßt, was also sich auch in einen abstrakten Mechanismus eingliedert. Das aber ist eine Vorstellungswelt, die der Mensch aus sich selber herausspinnen kann im Zusammenhange mit der äußeren Beobachtung und mit dem Experimente, durch das, ich möchte sagen, nur die Stoffe selbst aufeinander wirken sollen, die Vorgänge selbst sich darstellen sollen, die in der Natur sind, und nichts Göttlich-Geistiges mehr in der Natur erforscht werden soll.
Es ist ein grandioser Unterschied in dieser Vorstellungswelt von allem Früheren in der Menschheitsentwickelung. Erst in dieser Zeit seit dem ersten Drittel des 15. Jahrhunderts ist die menschliche Vorstellungswelt bloß menschlich geworden, und was seit dieser Zeit von den Menschen in ihrer Vorstellungswelt hauptsächlich herausgearbeitet worden ist, das ist das Räumliche.
Wenn Sie noch in jene Zeiten zurückgehen, auf die ich auch heute hingedeutet habe, in die Zeiten der urindischen, der urpersischen, der ägyptisch-chaldäischen Kultur, überall werden Sie finden: in diesen Weltanschauungen wird auf Weltenalter verwiesen. Man weist zurück in ein altes Zeitalter, wo die Menschen noch mit den Göttern verkehrt haben, gewissermaßen in ein Goldenes Zeitalter. Man weist in ein anderes Zeitalter zurück, wo die Menschen wenigstens auf Erden noch den Sonnenglanz des Göttlichen erlebt haben, ein Silbernes Zeitalter und so weiter. Die Zeit und ihr Verlauf spielen eine mächtige Rolle in dem Weltbilde der älteren Menschheitsentwickelung. Und auch, wenn Sie noch das griechische Zeitalter betrachten, ja, wenn Sie das Weltbild betrachten, das in der mehr nördlich-mitteleuropäischen Welt gleichzeitig mit diesem griechischen Weltbilde vorhanden war, so werden Sie finden: überall spielt die Zeitvorstellung eine große Rolle. Der Grieche weist auf jenes alte Zeitalter zurück, wo Uranos und Gäa in der Wechselwirkung die Geschehnisse des Kosmos bewirkt haben. Er weist auf das nächste Zeitalter zurück, auf Kronos und Rhea, dann auf das Zeitalter, in dem Zeus mit den übrigen Göttern, die aus der griechischen Mythologie bekannt sind, den Kosmos und das Irdische regelt. Und ebenso finden Sie das in der germanisch-europäischen Mythologie. Die Zeit spielt überall in diesen Weltbildern eine mächtige Rolle.
Eine viel geringere Rolle spielt in diesen Weltbildern der Raum. Wie dunkel bleibt das Räumliche, wenn wir etwa nur das nordisch-germanische Weltenbild mit der Weltesche, mit dem Riesen Ymir und so weiter nehmen. Daß da in der Zeit etwas vor sich geht, ist ganz klar. Aber die Raumesvorstellung dämmert erst herauf. Mit dem Zeitalter des Galilei, des Kopernikus, des Giordano Bruno beginnt eigentlich erst der Raum seine große Rolle in dem Weltenbilde zu spielen. Auch das ptolemäische Weltensystem, das zwar schon mit dem Raum arbeitet, ist dennoch mehr auf die Zeit abgestellt, als dasjenige Weltenbild, das man seit dem 15. Jahrhundert hat, in dem die Zeit eigentlich eine sekundäre Rolle spielt. Wovon man ausgeht, ist die gegenwärtige Verteilung der Sterne im Weltenraume, und man schließt durch Rechnung auf die Art und Weise zurück, wie dieses Weltenbild früher gestaltet war. Zur Hauptsache aber wird das räumliche Vorstellen, das räumliche Weltenbild, und davon wird alles Urteilen des Menschen überhaupt auf den Raum abgestellt.
Der moderne Mensch hat immer mehr und mehr dieses Abstellen nach dem Raum hin ausgebildet, ausgebildet in bezug auf sein äußeres Weltenbild, ausgebildet aber auch in bezug auf alles Denken, und wir stehen eigentlich heute, ich möchte sagen in einem Hochpunkt dieses räumlichen Vorstellens. Denken Sie sich doch, wie schwer es den Menschen der heutigen Zeit wird, rein zeitlich einer Auseinandersetzung zu folgen. Die Menschen sind schon froh, wenn man den Raum dadurch wenigstens zuhilfe nimmt, daß man irgend etwas auf die Tafel zeichnet. Wenn man aber gar noch mit Lichtbildern den Raum herbeizieht, dann empfindet das der moderne Mensch fast so, als ob da überhaupt erst die Anständigkeit des Lehrens beginnen würde. Veranschaulichung, man meint eigentlich Verräumlichung, das ist es, was eigentlich der moderne Mensch für alle Auseinandersetzungen anstrebt. Das Zeitliche, indem es so hinfließt, ist ihm etwas . Unbehagliches geworden. Er läßt es noch eben im musikalischen Elemente gelten, aber sogar im musikalischen Elemente strebt er durchaus nach dem Räumlichen hin.
Wir brauchen nur auf ein ganz bestimmtes Element in der Gegenwart hinzuschauen, dann werden wir schon diese Sucht des modernen Menschen sehen, sich an das Räumliche anzulehnen. Im Kino ist es ihm eigentlich schon ganz gleichgültig, ob da etwas Zeitliches zugrunde liegt. Er begnügt sich mit möglichst wenig von dem, was zeitlich zugrunde liegt. Er geht ganz in einer räumlichen Welt auf. Dieses Abgestelltsein der ganzen Seele auf das Räumliche ist die Charakteristik der Gegenwart. Wir haben auf der einen Seite heute diese Sehnsucht nach einer solchen Abstellung auf das Räumliche. Wer mit offenen Augen die gegenwärtige Kultur und Zivilisation betrachtet, wird überall dieses Abgestelltsein auf das Räumliche finden.
Aber auf der andern Seite erstreben wir mit dem, was wir die anthroposophische Geisteswissenschaft nennen, ein Herauskommen aus dem Räumlichen. Wir kommen allerdings dem räumlichen Sehnen entgegen, indem wir das Geistige auch versinnlichen. Das kann schon sein, nicht wahr, um zu Hilfe zu kommen dem Vorstellungsvermögen. Allein wir müssen uns doch immer bewußt bleiben, daß dieses nur ein Versinnlichen ist, und daß eigentlich das, worauf es ankommt, ein Streben ist, wenigstens ein Streben sein müßte, aus dem Räumlichen herauszukommen. Manchmal beirren uns allerlei unter uns lebende Raumesfexen, indem sie die aufeinanderfolgenden Zeitalter in allerlei Schemen bringen, aufzeichnen: erstes Zeitalter mit Unterzeitaltern und so weiter, und da stehen dann viele Worte und das Aufeinanderfolgende ist dann ins Räumliche gebracht. Wir streben aber heraus aus diesem Räumlichen. Wir streben in das Zeitliche und auch in das Überzeitliche hinein, in das, was aus dem Sinnlichen überhaupt herausführt.
Nun ist das Sinnliche in seiner gröbsten Form in dem Räumlichen vorhanden, das geht aber nach einer gewissen Richtung hin. Ich habe es oft charakterisiert, was anthroposophische Geisteswissenschaft eigentlich will. Sie will durchaus nicht geringachten oder gar abweisen, was an menschlicher Denkweise durch das Galileisch-KopernikanischGiordano-Brunosche-Zeitalter heraufgekommen ist. Dieses Urteil, das nach dem Raum hin orientiert ist, will unsere anthroposophische Geisteswissenschaft durchaus gelten lassen. Sie will damit rechnen. Deshalb soll sie auch in alle wissenschaftlichen Vorstellungsgebiete hineinleuchten können. Sie soll sich nicht in laienhafter Weise zu diesen wissenschaftlichen Vorstellungsgebieten verhalten, sondern mit ihrer Art, die Dinge anzusehen, in diese Vorstellungsgebiete hineinleuchten. Aber immer wieder müssen wir betonen, wie durch die anthroposophische Geisteswissenschaft angestrebt wird, dieses auf den Raum hin abgestellte Urteil, dieses rein menschliche Wissen, dieses vom Göttlich-Geistigen emanzipierte Wissen wiederum zu dem Göttlich-Geistigen hinüberzuleiten. Wir wollen nicht zu den alten Seelenverfassungen zurückstreben, sondern wir wollen gerade die neueste Seelenverfassung aus dem Hängen an dem bloßen räumlichen Materiellen in das Geistige hinüberleiten. Wir wollen, mit andern Worten, lernen, so wie man gewohnt worden ist im galileisch-kopernikanischen Zeitalter über Stoffe, über Kräfte zu reden, nun über Geistiges zu reden. So daß tatsächlich diese Geisteswissenschaft durch ihre Art der Betrachtungsweise gewachsen ist der besonderen Art desjenigen, was sich für die äußeren sinnlichen Dinge und Vorgänge seit dem ersten Drittel des 15. Jahrhunderts eben als Vorstellungsweise herausgebildet hat. Es wird also ein geistiges Wissen angestrebt, das diesem Naturwissen verwandt ist, wenn es ihm auch, weil es auf das Übersinnliche geht, entgegengesetzt ist.
Innerlich betrachtet, was wird dadurch zu erreichen gesucht? Nun, wenn wir uns einmal in Gedanken in die Lage der göttlich-geistigen Wesen versetzen, in deren Reihen wir zwischen dem Tode und einer neuen Geburt leben, wie diese, ich möchte sagen, ihr Geistesauge herunterwenden — ich habe das vor einiger Zeit gerade hier beschrieben - und durch die verschiedenen Mittel, die ich beschrieben habe, den Verlauf des Irdischen betrachten, dann finden wir, daß diese Wesenheiten für die älteren Zeiträume der Menschheitsentwickelung, für das urindische, für das urpersische, für das chaldäisch-ägyptische Zeitalter, auf die Erde herunterschauten, was da die Menschen taten und wie die Menschen dasjenige anschauten, was in der Natur und in ihrem eigenen sozialen Leben vorhanden ist. Und da konnten sich die Götter, wenn ich mich so ausdrücken darf, gegenüber dem, was die Menschen taten und vorstellten, sagen: Sie machen da unten dasjenige, was sich ihnen aus der Erinnerung oder aus dem Nachklang dessen ergibt, was sie unter uns hier oben erlebt haben. — Es war noch unter den Chaldäern und bei den Ägyptern ganz klar, daß die Leute unten auf Erden eigentlich nur das ausführen wollten, was oben die Götter gedacht haben oder weiterdenken. Die Götter sahen, wenn sie auf die Erde herunterblickten, gewissermaßen ihnen Verwandtes auf der Erde geschehen, und sie sahen, wenn sie in die Gedanken der Menschen hineinschauten — und Götter können die Gedanken der Menschen durchschauen -, ihnen Verwandtes.
Das ist anders geworden seit dem ersten Drittel des 15. Jahrhunderts. Wenn seit dieser Zeit und insbesondere in der Gegenwart die göttlich-geistigen Wesen auf die Erde herunterschauen, so finden sie im Grunde genommen überall ihnen Fremdes. Die Menschen machen da unten auf der Erde etwas, was sie selber sich aus den Vorgängen und Dingen der Erde zusammenkombinieren. Es ist das den Göttern, mit denen die Menschen zwischen dem Tode und einer neuen Geburt leben, ein fremdes Element.
Wenn der Alchimist in seinem Laboratorium noch versuchte, den göttlich-geistigen Willen im Zusammenziehen und Trennen der Elemente zu erforschen, so sah gewissermaßen der Gott noch so in das Laboratorium hinein, daß er etwas Verwandtes in den Taten dieses Alchimisten sah. Wenn der Gott heute in ein Laboratorium hineinschaut, so ist ihm eigentlich alles, was da getrieben wird, furchtbar fremd. Dies ist schon durchaus eine Wahrheit, daß unter Göttern, wenn ich mich so ausdrücken darf, die Ansicht umgeht seit dem ersten Drittel des 15. Jahrhunderts, als ob ihnen das ganze Menschengeschlecht entfallen wäre in einem gewissen Sinne, als ob die Menschen da unten ihre eigenen Allotria auf der Erde trieben, Dinge, welche die Götter eigentlich gar nicht mehr in der richtigen Weise verstehen können - diejenigen Götter ganz gewiß nicht, die noch im griechisch-lateinischen Zeitraum sozusagen die Hand und den Verstand der Menschen gelenkt haben, der Menschen, die unten wissenschaftlich geforscht haben oder dergleichen. Diese göttlich-geistigen Wesenheiten haben ein reges Interesse, aber nicht an demjenigen, was in den heutigen Laboratorien oder gar auf den heutigen Kliniken getan wird. Ich habe bei einer vorhergehenden Betrachtungsweise darauf hinweisen müssen, daß durch die Fenster, wie ich es dazumal genannt habe, die Götter herunterschauen und daß sie da am allerwenigsten dasjenige interessiert, was die Professorenschaft auf der Erde treibt. Aber gerade das ist es, was demjenigen, der in die moderne Initiationswissenschaft hineinschaut, ganz besonders tief zu Herzen geht. Er sagt sich: Wir Menschen sind eigentlich in diesem letzten Zeitraum götterfremd geworden. Wir müssen wiederum nach Verbindungsbrücken zu der göttlich-geistigen Welt hinauf suchen. Und das ist es, was, wenn wir die Dinge innerlich betrachten, den Impuls für die anthroposophische Geisteswissenschaft abgibt. Wir wollen wieder die den Göttern unverständlichen Wissenschaftsvorstellungen so verwandeln, daß sie vergeistigt werden, damit sie wiederum eine Brücke abgeben zu dem Göttlich-Geistigen hin.
Man sollte schon durchaus sich dessen bewußt sein, daß - in der urpersischen Kulturwelt tritt das besonders stark hervor - das Licht zum Beispiel etwas ist, in dem ein Göttliches lebt. Aber wenn heute der Mensch eine Linse aufzeichnet, einen Lichtpunkt, und dann durch allerlei Linien feststellen will, wie da die Strahlen sich brechen, so ist das eine Raumessprache, die kein Gott versteht, die ganz und gar außergöttlich und ungöttlich ist, die für Götter nicht den geringsten Sinn hat. Das alles muß wiederum zurückgeführt werden in eine solche menschliche Seelenverfassung, daß die Brücke zum Göttlichen wiedergefunden werden kann. Es vertieft sich, wenn man die Sache so betrachtet, ungeheuer das Gefühl dafür, was für eine Aufgabe dem gegenwärtigen Zeitalter mit der Umgestaltung, mit der Metamorphosierung des ungeistigen Vorstellungswesens obliegt.
Nun beruht aber dieses Ganze auf einer außerordentlich wichtigen kosmischen Tatsache. Die Raumesanschauung nämlich ist überhaupt eine menschliche Anschauung. Die Götter, mit denen der Mensch in seiner wichtigsten Zeit zwischen dem Tode und einer neuen Geburt zusammenlebt, haben zwar eine ausgesprochene Zeitanschauung, aber diese Raumesanschauung, die der Mensch auf der Erde erwirbt, haben sie überhaupt nicht. Das ist ein spezifisch Menschliches, diese Raumesanschauung. Der Mensch tritt eigentlich erst in den Raum ein, indem er aus der göttlich-geistigen Welt in die physische Erdenwelt heruntergeht. Gewiß, von hier aus angesehen erscheint alles in einer räumlichen Perspektive, aber das Urteil in Dimensionen ist etwas durchaus Irdisches.
Im höchsten Maße hat sich der Mensch in der abendländischen Kulturentwickelung seit dem 15. Jahrhundert in dieses Raumesanschauen hineingefunden. Aber wenn es in der richtigen Weise erfaßt wird, dieses Raumesanschauen, wenn also in der eben geschilderten Weise durch die Vergeistigung des reinen Raumeswissens die Brücken zu der göttlichen Welt wiederum geschlagen werden, dann wird das, was der Mensch - gerade in der Zeit, wo er sich am meisten von seiner göttlichen Welt emanzipiert hat, eben seit dem 15. Jahrhundert - an Raumeswissen erworben hat, auch wichtig für die göttlich-geistige Welt. Und der Mensch kann für die Götter ein neues Weltstück erobern, wenn er es in der richtigen Weise tut, wenn er nicht beim Raum stehenbleibt, sondern in die Raumesanschauung wiederum das Geistige hineinbringt. Denn, was geschieht denn da?
Für die Götter ist eigentlich nur in der Zeitenlinie vorhanden, was ich in meiner «Geheimwissenschaft im Umriß» auseinandergesetzt habe: alte Saturnzeit, Sonnenzeit, Mondenzeit, Erdenzeit, die künftigen Zeiten: Jupiter-, Venus-, Vulkanzeit. Das ist für die Götter in der Zeitenfolge vorhanden. Hier auf Erden lebt sich das alles aber auch räumlich aus. Wir leben heute im Erdenzeitalter, das ist richtig. Aber in diesem Geschehen, das der Erde angehört, stecken auch noch die Nachklänge des Monden-, des Sonnen-, des Saturnzeitalters darinnen. Versuchen Sie einmal, die Beschreibung der Saturnzeit, wie ich sie in der «Geheimwissenschaft» gegeben habe, auf sich wirken zu lassen. Da werden Sie sagen: Wir haben allerdings keine Saturnzeit mehr, aber ihre Wärmewirkungen sind auch in unserem Erdengeschehen darinnen. - Es stecken Saturn, Sonne, Mond, Erde ineinander, sie sind gleichzeitig da. Die Götter sehen sie nacheinander. Wir sehen sie gerade, nachdem wir sie früher, auch noch während der chaldäischen Zeit, in ihrem Nacheinander gesehen haben, wir sehen sie jetzt ineinanderstecken, räumlich ineinanderstecken. Ja, das geht noch viel weiter, und gerade wenn wir diese Dinge in den Einzelheiten betrachten, dann kommen wir darauf, was eigentlich hinter diesen Dingen steckt.
Nehmen Sie an, Sie strecken Ihre linke Hand aus. In allem Irdischen lebt das Göttliche darinnen. In Ihren Muskeln, in Ihren Nerven lebt das Göttliche. In Ihrem Handausstrecken lebt das Göttliche. Sie berühren jetzt mit den Fingern Ihrer linken Hand die Finger der rechten Hand — das kann nur im Raume ausgeführt werden. Dieses, daß Sie Ihre linke Hand mit der rechten, Ihre rechte Hand mit der linken Hand spüren, das verfolgen die göttlich-geistigen Wesen nicht. Sie verfolgen die linke und die rechte Hand bis zu der Berührung, aber das Gefühl, das zwischen beiden sich abspielt - das Spüren der linken Hand mit der rechten Hand, der rechten mit der linken Hand -, das haben die Götter durch ihre eigenen Fähigkeiten nicht; das ist etwas, was erst durch den Raum herauskommt. Geradesowenig wie die Götter Saturn, Sonne, Mond, Erde zugleich schauen, sondern nur nacheinander schauen, in der Zeit schauen, so haben die Götter alles das nicht, was der Mensch gerade in räumlichster Weise erlebt. Wenn Sie mit Ihrem linken und Ihrem rechten Auge schauen und die Blickrichtung von rechts und von links haben, so haben Sie in dem Blick von rechts die Götterwirkung, in dem Blick von links die Götterwirkung; die Begegnung ist das rein Menschliche. Wir erleben also als Menschen gerade dadurch, daß wir in den Raum herausgestellt sind, etwas, was in Emanzipation von der Götterwirkung erlebt wird.
Sie brauchen dieses Bild, das ich von der rechten und linken Hand gebraucht habe, nur auszudehnen auf weiteres Geschehen im irdischen Menschheitsumkreis, und Sie werden vieles finden, was von den Erlebnissen der Menschen aus den Götteranschauungen herausfällt. Auf alle diese Gebiete, die rein menschlicher Art sind, ist der Mensch in seinem Vorstellen eigentlich erst so recht seit dem ersten Drittel des 15. Jahrhunderts gekommen, so daß in der Tat für die Götter das Menschheitsvorstellen, wenn sie herunterschauen, immer unverständlicher und unverständlicher geworden ist. Und gerade, wenn wir dies ins Auge fassen, müssen wir auf jenes durchschlagende, wichtige Ereignis im letzten Drittel des 19. Jahrhunderts hinweisen, von dem wir öfter schon gesprochen haben und das sich so ausdrückt, daß wir sagen: Die Herrschaft jener geistigen Wesenheit, die man als Gabriel bezeichnet, ist abgelöst worden durch die Herrschaft jener andern geistigen Wesenheit, die man als Michael bezeichnet.
Im letzten Drittel des 19. Jahrhunderts wird jene geistige Wesenheit, die man als Michael bezeichnet, gewissermaßen Herrscher in allem Geistigen, dem das Menschengeschehen auf der Erde entspricht. Während jenes Gabriel-Wesen mehr ein Wesen ist, das auf die passiven Eigenschaften der Menschen orientiert ist, ist Michael das aktive Wesen, dasjenige Wesen, das gewissermaßen unseren Atem, unsere Adern, unsere Nerven durchpulst, auf daß wir unser Menschheitliches im kosmischen Zusammenhang erarbeiten, aktiv erwerben. Das ist es, was gewissermaßen als eine Aufforderung des Michael vor uns steht, daß wir bis in unsere Gedanken hinein aktiv werden, so daß wir uns unsere Weltanschauung durch innerliche Aktivität als Menschen erarbeiten. Dadurch erst gehören wir dem Michael-Zeitalter an, daß wir uns nicht untätig hinsetzen und über uns kommen lassen wollen die äußeren und inneren Erleuchtungen, sondern daß wir aktiv mitarbeiten an dem, was sich uns an Beobachtungen, an Erlebnissen aus der Welt darbietet.
Wenn einer ein Experiment zusammenstellt, so ist das im Grunde genommen keine Tätigkeit, nicht eine Tätigkeit seines Geistes, sondern es ist ein Geschehen wie ein anderes Naturgeschehen, nur daß es von dem menschlichen Verstande orientiert wird. Aber vom Verstande ist auch alles Naturgeschehen orientiert worden. Aber wie benützt der Mensch heute für sein Vorstellen das Experiment? Nicht mit Aktivität, denn er guckt hin und will so wenig wie möglich aktiv sein, er will sich alles von dem Experiment sagen lassen, er findet alles gleich phantastisch, was aus innerer Aktivität hervorgeht. Er ist so wenig wie möglich gerade in seinen wissenschaftlichen Vorstellungen im Michael-Zeitalter drinnen. Er muß hinein in das Michael-Zeitalter, denn dieses Zeitalter hat ein ganz gewisses wichtiges Charakteristikum. Wenn wir uns die Frage stellen: Welchen Sinn hat es denn eigentlich im ganzen kosmischen Zusammenhange, daß, wenn ich so sagen darf, Gabriel das Zepter abgegeben hat an Michael? - so müssen wir uns sagen: Es hat diesen Sinn, daß Michael der Geist ist, der von all den Wesenheiten, die in der Menschheit geistig führend sein können, am ehesten heran kann an das, was die Menschen hier auf Erden in dieser Emanzipation des Wissens seit dem ersten Drittel des 15. Jahrhunderts treiben.
Gabriel steht ganz betroffen vor demjenigen, was irgendwie ein heutiger, gebildeter Mensch zu seinem Vorstellungsinhalt hat. Michael, der den Kräften der Sonne außerordentlich verwandt ist, kann seine Tätigkeit wenigstens in das hineinversetzen, was der Mensch an Gedanken ausarbeitet, die als Impulse für sein freies Handeln bestehen. In all das kann Michael hineinarbeiten, was ich zum Beispiel in meiner «Geheimwissenschaft» das freie, das reine Denken genannt habe, das für das individuelle Wollen des Menschen in Freiheit in der neueren Zeit der eigentliche Impuls sein muß. Und für dasjenige Handeln, das aus dem Impuls der Liebe entspringt, für das hat Michael seine besondere Verwandtschaft. Daher ist er der Sendbote, den die Götter heruntergeschickt haben, damit er gewissermaßen entgegennimmt, was nun herübergeleitet wird aus dem emanzipierten Wissen in das vergeistigte Wissen hinein. Die Wissenschaft, die als anthroposophische Geisteswissenschaft das Raumesurteil wiederum vergeistigt, wiederum übersinnlich macht, arbeitet von unten nach oben, streckt gewissermaßen die Hände von unten nach oben aus, um die von oben nach unten ausgestreckten Hände des Michael zu erfassen. Denn da kann die Brücke geschaffen werden zwischen den Menschen und den Göttern. Und Michael ist der Regent dieses Zeitalters geworden aus dem Grunde, weil er entgegennehmen soll, was die Götter entgegennehmen wollen aus dem, was die Menschen dem bloßen Zeitvorstellen durch das Raumesvorstellen zu dem Götterwissen hinzufügen können.
Wir können sagen, die Götter stellen vor: Saturn, Sonne, Mond, Erde in der Zeitenfolge; der Mensch sieht es, wenn er in der richtigen Weise die neueste Phase seines Vorstellens ausbildet, räumlich. Die Götter können vorstellen die linke Hand in ihrem Vorwärtsstrecken, die rechte Hand in ihrem Vorwärtsstrecken. Die Menschen eignen sich an die Berührung. Die Götter können in der Blickrichtung des linken Auges, in der Blickrichtung des rechten Auges leben. Der Mensch stellt räumlich vor, wie sich die Blickrichtung des rechten Auges, die Blickrichtung des linken Auges finden. Michael richtet sein Auge herunter auf die Erde. Er ist imstande, durch Anknüpfung an dasjenige, was die Menschen im reinen Denken ausbilden, im reinen Wollen verwirklichen, Kenntnis zu nehmen von dem, was aus dem Raumesvorstellen hier von den Erdenbürgern, von den Menschen erobert wird, um es in göttliche Welten hinaufzutragen.
Würden die Menschen bloß das Raumeswissen ausbilden, würden sie es nicht vergeistigen, würden sie bei der Anthropologie bleiben und nicht zur Anthroposophie kommen wollen, dann würde das Michael-Zeitalter vorübergehen. Michael würde von seiner Herrschaft abtreten und würde den Göttern die Botschaft bringen: Die Menschheit will sich von den Göttern trennen. — Soll Michael die rechte Botschaft zurückbringen an die Götterwelt, so wird er sagen müssen: Die Menschen haben während meines Zeitalters das, was sie abseits von der göttlich-geistigen Welt an reinen Raumesurteilen ausgebildet haben, in ein Übersinnliches heraufgehoben, und wir können die Menschen wiederum annehmen, denn sie haben ihr Denken, ihr Vorstellen mit unserem Denken, unserem Vorstellen verbunden. — Ja, Michael wird nicht sagen dürfen zu den Göttern, wenn die Menschen ihre richtige Entwickelung durchmachen wollen: Die Menschen haben sich angewöhnt, alles nur räumlich anzuglotzen, sie haben verachten gelernt dasjenige, was nur in der Zeit lebt. - Sondern er wird sagen sollen, wenn die Menschen ihr Erdenziel erreichen wollen: Die Menschen haben sich bemüht, in das Räumliche wiederum das Zeitliche, das Übersinnliche hineinzubringen, und dadurch können die Menschen, die nicht bloß das Räumliche anglotzen wollen, die nicht bloß solche Versinnlichungen hinnehmen wollen, wie man sie im Beginne des 20. Jahrhunderts liebt, wiederum so erfaßt werden, daß ihr Leben an das Götterleben unmittelbar anknüpft.
Wenn man aus dem Geiste der Initiationswissenschaft heraus wirklich Anthroposophie treibt, so ist das ein Sich-Kümmern um kosmische Angelegenheiten, um etwas, was die Menschheit auszumachen hat an Angelegenheiten im Einklange mit der Götterwelt. Und es handelt sich im heutigen Zeitalter im Grunde genommen um vieles. Es handelt sich darum, ob wir den Keim legen wollen zu dem, was das richtige weitere Zusammenleben mit der göttlich-geistigen Welt ist, oder ob wir diesen Keim nicht legen wollen. Und wenn Sie bedenken, welch ungeheuer Bedeutungsvolles damit gesagt ist, dann werden Sie ermessen, mit welchem Ernst, mit welcher innerlichen Festigkeit jene Seelenverfassung begründet werden muß, die Anthroposophie zu ihrem Vorstellungsinhalt machen will.
Sixth Lecture
I have often mentioned how a special time in the development of mankind has dawned since about the first third of the 15th century. We can say that the period which began in about the 8th century B.C. and which then lasted until the first third of the 15th century was the period of Greco-Latin cultural development, and that the latest phase, in which we are still involved, began at the time indicated. Today we want to look at the tasks of humanity in the present from a certain point of view in connection with this fact.
We know, and know it especially from the lectures I have given here recently, how man during his development on earth, that is between birth and death, carries in his physical, mental and spiritual development the legacy of what he has gone through in the pre-earthly existence. And we have seen above in particular how the social-moral life is the inheritance of that state between death and new birth in which the human being lives in intimate connection with the beings of the higher hierarchies. From this coexistence, which - as I have described - he experiences rhythmically in alternation with another state, man brings with him the ability, the power of love, and this power of love is the basis of morality on earth. The other state, which alternates with this one, is that in which man withdraws into himself, in which he, so to speak, takes himself out of living together with the beings of the higher hierarchies. And as an inheritance of this state he brings with him the power of memory, the power of remembrance, which on the one hand is expressed in his egoism, but on the other hand is also the predisposition for freedom, for everything that gives man inner stability and independence. But that by which man has ordered his civilization from within was also, up to this Greco-Latin period of which I spoke earlier, in a certain sense a legacy of the pre-earthly existence.
If we go back to even older times in the development of mankind, to the primeval Indian period, the primeval Persian period, the Egyptian period, we find everywhere a knowledge of humanity, an imaginative life of mankind, which wells up from within man, but which is also connected with the life between death and a new birth. We find in primeval Indian times how man has a clear consciousness that he actually belongs, one might say, to the same race to which the divine-spiritual entities of the other hierarchies belong. The knower of the old Indian culture feels much less like a citizen of the earth than a citizen of the world to which these divine-spiritual beings belong. He feels, as it were, sent down from the ranks of these divine-spiritual beings to earth, and what he spreads on earth as civilization, this primal Indian feels that it is done in order to shape the earthly deeds of men, also the earthly objects, the earthly beings, in such a way as is appropriate to the divine-spiritual beings to whom he feels himself related.
This sense of belonging has already somewhat dimmed in the Primordial Persian human being, but he also still clearly feels that his actual home is what he calls the kingdom of light, to which he belonged between death and a new birth, and he wants to make himself a fighter for the spirits of this kingdom of light. To a certain extent he wants to fight those beings who come from the darkness of earth, so that these dark beings cannot be something in the wake of the spirits of the kingdom of light, and he puts his whole task at the service of these spirits of the kingdom of light. And when we then advance to the Egyptian and Chaldean population, we see the science of these Egyptians and Chaldeans completely permeated by that which relates to the movements of the stars. The destinies of men are measured by what is shown in the stars. What is done on earth is done in such a way that the stars are consulted beforehand as to whether one should do this or that. This science, which regulates all earthly life, is also perceived as an inheritance of what man has experienced between death and a new birth, in which time his experiences are such that he is one with the movements, with the laws of the stars, just as here on earth between birth and death he is one with the beings of the mineral, vegetable and animal kingdoms.
When the fourth post-Atlantean, the Greek-Latin period, which lies between the 8th century before Christ and the 15th century after Christ, then, however, people already feel themselves to be citizens of the earth. They feel that in the time between birth and death there is no longer an intense echo in their imagination of what they experienced in their pre-earthly existence. People strive, so to speak, to be at home on this earth. But if one really penetrates into the spirit of the Greek civilization, even the early Latin civilization, it is nevertheless true that one can assert the following. The people who founded knowledge at that time said to themselves: We want to know everything that takes place here on earth in the three realms of nature, but we want to know it in such a way that our knowledge is actually something that can also manifest itself in extraterrestrial existence. - The Greeks certainly have the feeling that through the knowledge that serves man on earth, through which man regulates his actions on earth, man should at the same time still have something like a dark memory of the divine-spiritual world. Although the Greek knows that he can only gain his knowledge from observing the earthly world, he has a clear sense of it: what he observes in the minerals, plants, animals, stars, mountains, rivers and so on should be a reflection of the divine-spiritual, which he can experience in a world other than the sensual world.
This is because man at that time still feels that he belongs with the best part of his being to a supersensible world. This supersensible world has, however, darkened for human observation, so man imagines, but one should also strive for an illumination of the darkened during one's earthly existence. And even if in those times one can no longer, as for example in ancient Egypt or in ancient Chaldea, regulate the ordinary deeds of earthly mankind according to the course of the stars, because one has not mastered the science of the stars in the same way as the Chaldeans and the Egyptians, one at least strives in a somewhat dark way to bring something divine-spiritual into the earthly world by researching the expressions of will of the divine-spiritual beings.
In the oracle sites, in the temple sites, the will of the gods is investigated by the corresponding priestesses, diviners, in the way that is known to you from history. And we see how this exploration of the divine-spiritual will, in which man himself is involved in the pre-earthly existence, is also common in the rest of Europe at that time, in which the Greek-Latin culture is in the south of Europe. We see, for example, how priestesses and prophetesses are highly revered in the Germanic-Central European world, how pilgrimages are made to them, and how the will of the divine is supposed to be made known to man from their ecstatic state of soul, so that man may act according to this will in his earthly deeds. Yes, one might say, even if it is quite attenuated, we nevertheless see in a clear way that up to the 12th and 13th centuries during the Middle Ages, man shaped everything he sought in knowledge in such a way that this knowledge actually contained the will of the divine-spiritual world within it. For all these centuries, right up to the 12th, 13th century, we can look into those places which were then still regarded as a kind of holy place, which then became our abstract laboratories or our abstract physical cabinets. We can look into those places where the so-called alchemists tried to fathom the forces of substances and the forces of natural processes. We can open those writings which still contain, in a weak way, a kind of representation of the way of thinking that was developed in those old places of research, and we will find everywhere that the will is present to bring the substances themselves into connection and interaction with each other in such a way that the spiritual-divine works in the vial, in the retort.
We can see how Goethe, in his “Faust”, still echoes something of this constitution of the soul where Wagner works in his laboratory on the representation of the homunculus. We can see how it was actually only around the turn of the 14th to the 15th century that that mood emerged in the Western civilized world through which man, relying on himself, without bringing his ideas into a direct connection with a divine-spiritual will that governs the world, wanted to establish knowledge for his civilization. To a certain extent, it is only around this time that we see the emergence of a purely human knowledge emancipated from the divine-spiritual will. And this purely human knowledge, emancipated from the divine-spiritual will, is what we must call Galilean-Copernican knowledge. That knowledge through which the world presents itself to man in such an abstract picture as the present-day world picture is, through which we imagine a space such as Giordano Bruno first had in mind: in which the stars revolve as mere material bodies, or also take their part in the events of the world in rest. In this picture of the world, one imagines that a tremendous mechanism from cosmic space acts upon the earth, and one basically remains with what can be calculated and measured when contemplating the earthly, that which can also be integrated into an abstract mechanism. But this is a world of ideas that man can spin out of himself in connection with external observation and with experimentation, through which, I would like to say, only the substances themselves should interact, the processes themselves should be represented, which are in nature, and nothing divine-spiritual should be explored in nature.
There is a grandiose difference in this world of conception from all earlier ones in the development of mankind. It is only in this period, since the first third of the 15th century, that the human world of imagination has become merely human, and what people have mainly worked out in their world of imagination since this time is the spatial.
If you go back to those times to which I have also referred today, to the times of the primeval Indian, the primeval Persian, the Egyptian-Chaldean cultures, you will find everywhere that in these world views reference is made to world ages. They point back to an ancient age when people still consorted with the gods, to a golden age, so to speak. One points back to another age when people at least on earth still experienced the sunshine of the divine, a Silver Age and so on. Time and its course play a powerful role in the world view of the older development of mankind. And even if you look at the Greek age, indeed, if you look at the world view that existed in the more northern-central European world at the same time as this Greek world view, you will find that the concept of time plays a major role everywhere. The Greek points back to that ancient age when Uranos and Gaea interacted to bring about the events of the cosmos. He points back to the next age, to Kronos and Rhea, then to the age in which Zeus, together with the other gods known from Greek mythology, governs the cosmos and the earthly. And you will also find this in Germanic-European mythology. Time plays a powerful role everywhere in these worldviews.
Space plays a much smaller role in these world views. How obscure space remains if we only take the Nordic-Germanic world view with the world ash tree, the giant Ymir and so on. It is quite clear that something is going on in time. But the concept of space is only just dawning. With the age of Galileo, Copernicus and Giordano Bruno, space actually begins to play a major role in the world view. Even the Ptolemaic world system, which already works with space, is nevertheless more focused on time than the world view that has existed since the 15th century, in which time actually plays a secondary role. What is assumed is the present distribution of the stars in the universe, and by calculation one deduces the way in which this image of the world was formed earlier. The main thing, however, is spatial imagination, the spatial view of the world, and all human judgment is based on space.
Modern man has increasingly developed this orientation towards space, developed it in relation to his external view of the world, but also developed it in relation to all thinking, and today we are actually, I would like to say, at a high point of this spatial imagination. Just think how difficult it is for people today to follow an argument purely in terms of time. People are already happy if you at least use space to help you by drawing something on the blackboard. But if you even draw the room with light pictures, then modern people almost feel as if that is where the decency of teaching begins. Visualization, one actually means spatialization, that is what modern man actually strives for in all discussions. The temporal, in that it flows in this way, has become something . something uncomfortable. He still accepts it in the musical element, but even in the musical element he strives for the spatial.
We need only look at a very specific element in the present to see this addiction of modern man to lean towards the spatial. In the cinema he is actually quite indifferent as to whether there is anything temporal underlying it. He is content with as little as possible of what is temporal. He is completely absorbed in a spatial world. This dependence of the whole soul on the spatial is the characteristic of the present. On the one hand, today we have this longing for such a focus on the spatial. Anyone who looks at contemporary culture and civilization with open eyes will find this focus on the spatial everywhere.
But on the other hand, with what we call anthroposophical spiritual science, we are striving to emerge from the spatial. However, we meet the spatial longing by also sensualizing the spiritual. That can be done, can't it, to help the imagination? But we must always remain aware that this is only a sensualization, and that actually what is important is a striving, or at least should be a striving, to get out of the spatial. Sometimes we are misled by all sorts of spatial fairies living among us, by bringing the successive ages into all sorts of schemes, drawing them up: first age with sub-ages and so on, and then there are many words and the successive ages are then brought into the spatial. But we strive out of this three-dimensionality. We strive into the temporal and also into the supratemporal, into that which leads out of the sensual altogether.
Now the sensual is present in its coarsest form in the spatial, but it goes in a certain direction. I have often characterized what anthroposophical spiritual science actually wants. It does not want to minimize or even reject the human way of thinking that has come up through the Galilean-Copernican-Giordano-Bruno age. Our anthroposophical spiritual science certainly wants to accept this judgment, which is oriented towards space. It wants to reckon with it. That is why it should be able to shine a light into all scientific fields of imagination. It should not relate to these scientific fields of imagination in a layman's way, but should shine into these fields of imagination with its way of looking at things. But again and again we must emphasize how anthroposophical spiritual science strives to lead this judgment based on space, this purely human knowledge, this knowledge emancipated from the divine-spiritual, back to the divine-spiritual. We do not want to strive back to the old soul constitutions, but we want to lead the newest soul constitution from its attachment to the merely spatial material into the spiritual. In other words, we want to learn to talk about the spiritual in the same way as we used to talk about substances and forces in the Galilean-Copernican age. So that this spiritual science, through its way of looking at things, has actually grown out of the particular way of looking at external sensory things and processes that has developed since the first third of the 15th century. A spiritual knowledge is thus sought that is related to this knowledge of nature, even if it is opposed to it because it relates to the supersensible.
Internally speaking, what is it trying to achieve? Well, if we put ourselves in the position of the divine-spiritual beings in whose ranks we live between death and a new birth, how they, I would like to say, turn down their spiritual eye - I have just described this here some time ago - and observe the course of the earthly through the various means I have described, then we find that for the older periods of human development, for the primeval Indian, for the primeval Persian, for the Chaldean-Egyptian age, these beings looked down upon the earth, what men were doing there and how men looked at what was present in nature and in their own social life. And then the gods, if I may put it this way, could say to themselves in relation to what people did and imagined: they do down there what arises for them from the memory or from the echo of what they have experienced among us up here. - It was still quite clear among the Chaldeans and the Egyptians that the people down on earth actually only wanted to carry out what the gods above had thought or continued to think. When the gods looked down to earth, they saw, as it were, things related to them happening on earth, and when they looked into the thoughts of men - and gods can see through the thoughts of men - they saw things related to them.
This has changed since the first third of the 15th century. Since that time, and especially in the present, when the divine-spiritual beings look down to earth, they basically find strange things everywhere. Down there on earth, people do something that they themselves combine from the processes and things on earth. It is a foreign element to the gods with whom humans live between death and a new birth.
When the alchemist in his laboratory was still trying to explore the divine-spiritual will in combining and separating the elements, the god still looked into the laboratory in such a way that he saw something related in the actions of this alchemist. When the god looks into a laboratory today, everything that is done there is actually terribly strange to him. It is quite true that since the first third of the fifteenth century, if I may put it this way, there has been a view among the gods as if the whole human race had slipped from their minds in a certain sense, as if men down there were doing their own allotria on earth, things which the gods can no longer really understand in the right way - certainly not those gods who still guided the hands and minds of men, so to speak, in the Greco-Latin period, men who did scientific research or the like down there. These divine-spiritual entities have a keen interest, but not in what is done in today's laboratories or even in today's clinics. In a previous observation I had to point out that the gods look down through the windows, as I called it then, and that they are least interested in what the professors are doing on earth. But it is precisely this that goes to the heart of those who look into modern initiation science. He says to himself: We humans have actually become alienated from the gods in this last period. We must again search for connecting bridges to the divine-spiritual world. And that is what, when we look at things inwardly, provides the impetus for anthroposophical spiritual science. We want to transform scientific concepts that are incomprehensible to the gods in such a way that they become spiritualized, so that they in turn provide a bridge to the divine-spiritual.
We should certainly be aware of the fact that light, for example, is something in which the divine lives - this is particularly evident in the ancient Persian cultural world. But if today man draws a lens, a point of light, and then wants to determine by all kinds of lines how the rays are refracted there, this is a spatial language which no god understands, which is entirely extra-divine and ungodly, which has not the slightest meaning for gods. All this must be brought back into such a human state of soul that the bridge to the divine can be found again. If one looks at the matter in this way, the feeling deepens tremendously for what a task is incumbent upon the present age with the transformation, with the metamorphosis of the unspiritual conceptual being.
Now, however, this whole thing is based on an extraordinarily important cosmic fact. The conception of space is in fact a human conception. The gods, with whom man lives in his most important time between death and a new birth, have a distinct view of time, but they do not have this view of space at all, which man acquires on earth. This view of space is specifically human. Man actually only enters space when he descends from the divine-spiritual world into the physical earth-world. Certainly, viewed from here, everything appears in a spatial perspective, but the judgment in dimensions is something quite earthly.
In the Western cultural development since the 15th century, man has found his way into this spatial perspective to the highest degree. But if it is grasped in the right way, this spatial perception, if therefore in the way just described the bridges to the divine world are again built through the spiritualization of pure spatial knowledge, then that which man has acquired in spatial knowledge - precisely at the time when he has emancipated himself most from his divine world, precisely since the 15th century - also becomes important for the divine-spiritual world. And man can conquer a new part of the world for the gods if he does it in the right way, if he does not stop at space, but brings the spiritual into the spatial view. For what happens there?
For the gods there is actually only in the timeline what I have set out in my “Secret Science in Outline”: old Saturn time, sun time, moon time, earth time, the future times: Jupiter time, Venus time, volcano time. This exists for the gods in the sequence of times. Here on earth, however, all this is also expressed spatially. We are living in the earth age today, that is true. But in this event, which belongs to the earth, there are also the echoes of the lunar, solar and Saturnian ages. Try to let the description of the Saturnian age, as I have given it in the “Secret Science”, sink in. You will say: We no longer have Saturn's time, but its thermal effects are also present in our earthly events. - Saturn, the sun, moon and earth are intertwined, they are there at the same time. The gods see them one after the other. We see them one after the other, after we saw them one after the other earlier, even during the Chaldean period, we now see them interlocked, spatially interlocked. Yes, this goes much further, and it is precisely when we look at these things in detail that we discover what is actually behind them.
Suppose you stretch out your left hand. The divine lives in everything earthly. The divine lives in your muscles, in your nerves. The divine lives in your outstretched hand. You are now touching the fingers of your right hand with the fingers of your left hand - this can only be done in space. This, that you feel your left hand with your right hand, your right hand with your left hand, is not pursued by the divine-spiritual beings. They follow the left and the right hand up to the point of contact, but the feeling that takes place between the two - the feeling of the left hand with the right hand, the right hand with the left hand - the gods do not have that through their own abilities; that is something that only comes out through space. Just as the gods do not see Saturn, sun, moon and earth at the same time, but only see one after the other, see in time, so the gods do not have everything that man experiences in the most spatial way. If you look with your left and your right eye and look from the right and from the left, you have the effect of the gods in the view from the right and the effect of the gods in the view from the left; the encounter is purely human. As human beings, we experience something that is experienced in emancipation from the effect of the gods precisely because we are placed in space.
You only need to extend this image I have used of the right and left hand to other events in the earthly human environment and you will find much that falls outside of the gods' views of human experience. Man's conception of all these areas, which are of a purely human nature, has actually only really come about since the first third of the 15th century, so that in fact, when the gods look down, their conception of mankind has become more and more incomprehensible and incomprehensible. And precisely when we consider this, we must point to that resounding, important event in the last third of the 19th century, of which we have often spoken and which is expressed in such a way that we say: The rule of that spiritual entity, which is called Gabriel, has been replaced by the rule of that other spiritual entity, which is called Michael.
In the last third of the 19th century that spiritual entity, which is called Michael, becomes so to speak ruler in all spiritual, to which the human events on earth correspond. While the Gabriel being is more a being that is oriented towards the passive qualities of human beings, Michael is the active being, the being that pulsates through our breath, our veins, our nerves, so to speak, so that we actively acquire our humanity in the cosmic context. This is what stands before us, so to speak, as an invitation from Michael, that we become active right down to our thoughts, so that we acquire our world view through inner activity as human beings. Only in this way do we belong to the Michael Age, that we do not sit down idly and let the outer and inner enlightenments come over us, but that we actively participate in what is presented to us in observations and experiences from the world.
When someone puts together an experiment, it is basically not an activity, not an activity of his spirit, but it is an event like another natural event, only that it is oriented by the human intellect. But all natural events have also been oriented by the intellect. But how does man today use the experiment for his imagination? Not with activity, for he looks and wants to be as little active as possible, he wants to let the experiment tell him everything, he finds everything immediately fantastic that emerges from inner activity. He is as little as possible in his scientific ideas in the Michael age. He must enter the Michael age, for this age has a certain important characteristic. If we ask ourselves the question: What sense does it actually make in the whole cosmic context that, if I may say so, Gabriel has handed over the sceptre to Michael? - then we must say to ourselves: It has this meaning, that Michael is the spirit who, of all the beings who can be spiritual leaders in humanity, can come closest to what people have been doing here on earth in this emancipation of knowledge since the first third of the 15th century.
Gabriel stands quite affected before that which somehow a modern, educated person has to his imagination. Michael, who is extraordinarily related to the forces of the sun, can at least transfer his activity into that which man works out in thoughts that exist as impulses for his free action. Michael can work into all that which, for example, I have called free, pure thinking in my “Secret Science”, which must be the actual impulse for man's individual volition in freedom in modern times. And for that action which springs from the impulse of love, Michael has his special affinity. That is why he is the messenger sent down by the gods to receive, as it were, what is now being transmitted from emancipated knowledge into spiritualized knowledge. Science, which as anthroposophical spiritual science again spiritualizes the spatial judgment, again makes it supersensible, works from the bottom up, in a sense stretches out its hands from the bottom up in order to grasp Michael's hands stretched out from the top down. For there the bridge can be created between humans and the gods. And Michael has become the regent of this age for the reason that he is to receive what the gods want to receive from what men can add to the knowledge of the gods through the mere conception of time through the conception of space.
We can say that the gods imagine: Saturn, sun, moon, earth in the order of time; man sees it, if he forms the latest phase of his imagination in the right way, spatially. The gods can imagine the left hand in its forward stretching, the right hand in its forward stretching. Humans adapt to touch. The gods can live in the direction of vision of the left eye, in the direction of vision of the right eye. Man imagines spatially how the direction of vision of the right eye and the direction of vision of the left eye are found. Michael directs his eye down to the earth. He is able, through connection to that which people form in pure thinking, realize in pure volition, to take note of that which is conquered here from the spatial imagination by the earthlings, by people, in order to carry it up into divine worlds.
If people were merely to develop spatial knowledge, if they did not spiritualize it, if they remained with anthropology and did not want to come to anthroposophy, then the Michael age would pass. Michael would step down from his reign and would bring the message to the gods: Humanity wants to separate itself from the gods. - If Michael is to bring the right message back to the world of the gods, he will have to say: During my age men have lifted up into a supersensible that which they have formed apart from the divine-spiritual world in pure spatial judgments, and we can in turn accept men, for they have connected their thinking, their imagination with our thinking, our imagination. - Yes, Michael will not be allowed to say to the gods if people want to undergo their proper development: People have become accustomed to looking at everything only spatially, they have learned to despise that which lives only in time. - Instead, he should say, if people want to reach their goal on earth: People have endeavoured to bring the temporal, the supersensible, into the spatial, and thereby people who do not merely want to stare at the spatial, who do not merely want to accept such sensualizations as are loved at the beginning of the 20th century, can again be grasped in such a way that their lives are directly linked to the life of the gods.
If one truly practises anthroposophy out of the spirit of initiation science, then this is a concern for cosmic matters, for something that humanity has to make out in matters in harmony with the world of the gods. And in today's age it is basically about many things. It is a question of whether we want to lay the seed for what is the right further coexistence with the divine-spiritual world, or whether we do not want to lay this seed. And if you consider what tremendously significant things are being said here, then you will appreciate with what seriousness, with what inner firmness that constitution of soul must be founded which anthroposophy wants to make its conceptual content.