Anthroposophy, An Introduction
GA 234
27 January 1924, Dornach
3. The Transition from Ordinary Knowledge to the Science of Initiation
Today I should like to give another transitional lecture and indicate, from a certain aspect, the relation between exoteric and esoteric life; or, in other words, the transition from ordinary knowledge to knowledge attained through initiation. In this connection we must bear in mind what I have already explained in the News Sheet for Members when describing the Free College of Spiritual Science, namely: that the content of the Science of Initiation, expressed in appropriate words, can certainly be understood by everyone who is sufficiently free from prejudice. One should not say that a person must first be initiated himself in order to understand what the Science of Initiation has to give. Today, however, I should like to discuss the relationship of Anthroposophy to its source, which is the Science of Initiation itself. These three lectures will then form a kind of introduction to the composition of man (physical body, etheric body, etc.) which will be given next in the lectures of the General Anthroposophical Society.
When we consider the consciousness of present-day man, we are led to say: He stands here on the earth, and looks out on the wide spaces of the cosmos, but does not feel any connection between these and himself and what surrounds him on the earth, just consider how abstractly the sun is described by all who claim today to be the representatives of sound science. Consider, too, how these same savants describe the moon. Apart from the fact that the sun warms us in summer and leaves us cold in winter, that the moon is a favourite companion of lovers under certain conditions, how little thought is given to any connection between man, as he lives on earth, and the heavenly bodies.
Nevertheless, to know such connections, one need only develop a little that way of looking at things of which I spoke in the lecture before last. One need only develop a little understanding of what men once knew who stood nearer to the cosmos than we do today, who had a naive consciousness and an instinct for knowledge rather than an intellectual knowledge, but were able to contemplate the connection between individual heavenly bodies and the life and being of man.
Now this connection between man and the heavenly bodies must enter human consciousness again. This will come about if Anthroposophy is cultivated in the right way.
Man believes today that his destiny, his ‘Karma’, is here on the earth, and does not look to the stars for its indications. It is for Anthroposophy to grasp man's part in the super-sensible world. All that surrounds him, however, really belongs in the first place to his physical, or at most his etheric body. However far we look into the starry worlds we see the stars by their light. Now light, and all that we perceive in the world by light, is an etheric phenomenon. Thus, no matter how far we look in the universe, we do not get beyond the etheric by merely turning our gaze this way or that.
Man's being, however, reaches out into the super-sensible. He carries his super-sensible being from pre-earthly existence into the earthly realm, and carries it out again at death—out of the physical and the etheric too.
In reality there is in the whole of our environment on the earth or in the cosmos nothing of those worlds where man was before descending to earth and where he will be after passing through the gate of death. There are, however, two gates which lead from the physical and etheric worlds to the super-sensible. One is the moon, the other the sun. We only understand the sun and moon aright when we realise that they are gates to the super-sensible world, and have very much to do with what man experiences as his destiny on earth.
Consider, in the first place, the moon. The physicist knows nothing about the moon, except that it shows us reflected sunlight. He knows that moonlight is reflected sunlight, and gets no further. He does not take into account that the cosmic body visible to our physical eye as the moon, was once united with our earth-existence.
The moon was once a part of the earth. In primeval times it separated off from the earth and became an individual cosmic body out there in cosmic space. That it became a separate body is not, however, the important point; after all, that can also be interpreted as a physical fact. The important point is something essentially different.
If anyone, in full earnestness, extends his studies of human civilisation and culture back into remote times, he finds a wide-spread primeval wisdom. From this is derived much that endures today and is really much cleverer than what our science can explore. And whoever studies, for example, the Vedas of India or the Yoga philosophy from this point of view, will feel deep reverence for what he finds. It is presented in a more poetic form to which he is not accustomed today, but it fills him with deeper reverence the more deeply he studies it. If one does not approach these things in the dry, prosaic manner of today, but lets them work upon him in their stirring, yet profound, way, one comes to understand, even from a study of the documents, that Spiritual Science, Anthroposophy, must say from its own cognition: There was once a widespread primeval wisdom, though it did not appear in an intellectual, but rather in a poetic form.
The man of today, however, is constrained by his physical body to understand, through the instrumentality of his brain, what confronts him as wisdom. Now this brain, as his instrument of understanding, has only evolved in the course of long periods of time. It did not exist when the primeval wisdom was here on earth. Wisdom was then the possession of beings who did not live in a physical body.
Such beings were once companions of men. They were the great, original teachers of humanity, who have since disappeared from the earth. It is not only the physical moon that went out into cosmic space; these beings went with it. One who looks at the moon with real insight will say: There above is a world with beings in it who once lived among us on earth, and taught us in our former earthly lives; they have retired to the colony of the moon. Only when we study things in this way do we attain to truth.
Now today, within his physical body, man is only able to contemplate a very weak infusion—if I may use this term—of the primeval wisdom. In ancient times, when these beings were his teachers, man possessed something of this wisdom. He received it, not with his understanding but with his instinct, in the way by which higher beings could reveal themselves to him.
Thus everything connected with the moon points to man's past. Now, for the man of today, the past is over and done with; he no longer possesses it. Nevertheless, he bears it within him. And though we do not, in our present condition between birth and death, really encounter those beings of whom I spoke just now who were once earth-beings but are now moon-beings, we do meet them in our pre-earthly life, in the life between death and rebirth. That which we bear within us and which is always pointing to our earlier existence before birth—which speaks from our subconscious life and never attains full intellectual clarity, but has, on this account, much to do with our feelings and emotional disposition—this directs to the moonlight, not only the instinct of lovers, but the man who can value these sub-conscious impulses of human nature.
Our subconscious life, then, directs us to the moon. This may witness to the fact that the moon, with the beings who dwell there, was once united with the earth. In this sense the moon is a gate to the super-sensible; and one who studies it rightly will find, even in its external, physical configuration, support for this statement.
Just try to recall the way the moon, with its mountains, etc., is described. It all indicates that these mountains cannot be like those on the earth. The whole configuration of the moon is different. It is always stressed that the moon has neither air nor water, for example. The configuration of the moon is, in fact, like that of the earth before it became quite mineral.
I should have to read you a large number of my books and many passages from the lecture-cycles if I had to draw together what I am here presenting as a result of what has been worked out here. I only want to sketch, in an introductory way, how Anthroposophy proceeds. It leads us, in the manner described, from the physical to the spiritual again. Through Anthroposophy we learn to think in accordance with Nature. This men cannot do today.
For instance, men know today that the physical substance of their bodies is often changed in the course of life. We are continually ‘peeling off’. We cut our nails, for example; but every-thing within us is moving towards the surface until, at last, what was in the centre of the body reaches the surface and peels off-You must not believe, my dear friends, that the flesh and blood—or any physical substance—sitting on your chairs today would have sat on these chairs had you been here ten years ago. That substance has all been exchanged. What has remained? Your psycho-spiritual being. Today, at least, it is known to everyone that the people sitting here today would not have had the same muscles and bones had they sat here ten or twenty years ago; only, this is not always borne in mind.
Now, when people look up at the moon, they are conscious, to a certain extent, of its external, physical substance, and believe this was the same millions of years ago. As a matter of fact, it was just as little the same then as your present physical body was the same twenty years ago. Of course, the physical substances of the stars are not exchanged so quickly; still, they do not require so long a time as our physicists estimate in the case of the sun. These calculations are absolutely accurate—but they are wrong. I have often referred to this. You see, you may measure, for example, the changes in the inner configuration of a man's heart from month to month. You may estimate them over a period of three years. You may then calculate, quite correctly, what the configuration of his heart was three hundred years ago, or what it will be in three hundred years' time. You can arrive at some fine numbers; your calculations may be quite correct—only, his heart was not there three hundred years ago, and will not be there in three hundred years to come.
Geologists calculate in this fashion today. They study the strata of the earth, estimate the changes occurring in the course of centuries, multiply their figures and say: Twenty millions of years ago the earth was so and so. This is just the same sort of calculation, and just as sensible; for twenty million years ago all these strata were not yet there, and will no longer be in twenty million years to come.
However, apart from this, all the heavenly bodies are subject to metabolism, as man is. The substances we see when we look up at the moon were just as little there a certain number of centuries ago, as your own substances were on these chairs ten years ago. It is the beings themselves who sustain the moon, just as it is the psycho-spiritual in you that maintains your body. True, the physical moon once went out into cosmic space; but what went out is continually changing its substance, while the beings who inhabit the moon remain. It is these who form the permanent element of the moon—quite apart from their passage through repeated moon-lives.—But we will not go into that today.
When you study the moon in this way you acquire a kind of ‘science of the moon’. This science becomes inscribed in your heart, not merely in your head. You establish a relationship to the spiritual cosmos, and regard the moon as one gate thereto. Everything present in the depths of our being—not only the indefinite feelings of love, to mention these once again, but every-thing in the subconscious depths of our souls that results from earlier lives on earth—is connected with this ‘moon-existence’. From this we free ourselves in all that constitutes our present life. We are continually doing so. When we see or hear outer things with our senses, when we exercise our understanding—i.e. when we disregard what comes from the depths of our soul life and is clearly recognised as part of an active past, and turn to what draws us again and again into the present—then we are directed to the ‘sun-existence’, just as we are directed by the past to the moon-existence. Only, the sun works on us by way of our physical bodies. If we want to acquire independently, of our own free will, what the sun gives us, we have to exert that will: we must set our intellect in action. Yet, with all that we human beings of today understand through our busy intellect and our reason, we do not get nearly so far as we do instinctively—simply through there being a sun in the universe.
Everyone knows, or can, at least, know, that the sun not only wakens us every morning, calling us from darkness to light, but is the source of the forces of growth within us, including those of the soul. That which works in these soul-forces from out of the past is connected with the moon, but that which works within the present and which we shall only really acquire in the future through our own free choice, depends on the sun.
The moon points to our past, the sun to the future. We look up to the two luminaries, that of the day and that of the night, and observe the relationship between them, for they send us the same light. Then we look into ourselves and observe all that is woven into our destiny through past experiences undergone as men; in this we see our inner moon-existence. And in all that continually approaches us in the present and determines our destiny, in all that works on from the present into the future we see the sun-element. We see how past and future are weaving together in human destiny.
Further: we can study this connection between past and future more closely. Suppose two people come together for some common task at a certain time of life. One who does not think deeply about such things may say: He and I were both at Müllheim (let us say), and we met there. He thinks no more about it. But one who thinks more deeply may follow up the lives of these two who came together when one was, perhaps, thirty years of age and the other twenty-five. He will see in what a wonderful and extraordinary way the lives of these two people have developed, step by step, from birth onwards, so as to bring them together at this place. One may say, indeed, that people find their way to one another from the most distant places to meet about half-way through their lives. It is as if they had arranged all their ways with this end in view. Of course, they could not have done this consciously, for they had not seen one another before—or, at least, had not formed such a judgment of one another as would make their meeting significant. All these things take place in the unconscious. We travel paths leading to important turning points, or periods in our lives, and do so in deep unconsciousness. It is from these depths that—in the first place—destiny is woven. (Now we begin to understand people like Goethe's friend Knebel, whose experience of life was deep and varied and who said in his old age: On looking back on my life it seems as if every step had been so ordained that I had to arrive finally at a definite point.) Then the moment comes, however, when the relationship between these two people takes place in full consciousness. They learn to know one another, one another's temperament and character, they feel sympathy or antipathy for one another, etc. Now, if we examine the connection between their relationship and the cosmos, we find that moon-forces were active on the paths taken by these two people up to the moment of meeting. At this point the action of the sun begins. They now enter, to a certain extent, the bright light of the sun's activity. What follows is accompanied by their own consciousness; the future begins to illuminate the past, as the sun the moon. At the same time the past illuminates man's future, as the moon the earth with reflected light.
But the question now is, whether we can distinguish the solar from the lunar in man's life. Well, even our feelings can distinguish much, if we study them more deeply. Even in childhood and early life we come into contact with people whose relation-ship to us remains external; we ‘pass them by’ as they us, even though they may have a good deal to do with us. You all went to school, but only very few of you can say you had teachers with whom you had any deeper relationship. Still, there will be one or two of you who can say: Yes, I had a teacher who made such an impression on me that I wanted to be like him; or: He made such an impression on me that I wished him off the face of the earth. It may have been either sympathy or antipathy.
There are others, again, who only affect our understanding, so to speak, or our aesthetic sense at most. Just think how often it happens that we learn to know somebody and, meeting others who know him too, we all agree that he is a splendid fellow—or a terrible person. This is an aesthetic judgment, or an intellectual one. But there is another kind of judgment. There are human relationships that do not merely run their course in the above two ways, but affect the will; and this to such an extent that we do not merely say, as in childhood, that we would like to become like this person or that we wish him off the face of the earth—to mention extreme cases—but we are affected in the unconscious depths of our will life, and say: We not only look upon this man as good or bad, clever or foolish, etc., but we would like to do, of our own accord, what his will wills; we would rather not exert our intellect in order to judge him. We would like to translate into action the impression he has made upon us.
Thus there are these two kinds of human relationships: those that affect our intellect, or, at most, our aesthetic sense; and those that affect our will, acting on the deeper life of our soul. What does that mean? Well, if people act on our will, if we do not merely feel strong sympathy or antipathy towards then but would like to give expression to our sympathy or antipathy through our will, they were somehow connected with us in our previous life. If people only impress our intellect or our aesthetic sense, they are entering our life without such a previous connection.
You can see from this that in human life, especially in human destiny, past and present work together into the future. For what we experience with others, even though they have no effect on our will, will come to expression in a future life on earth.
Just as the sun and moon circle in the same path and are interrelated, so, in the human being, are past and future, moon element and sun-element. And we can come to look upon the sun and moon, not as external luminaries, but as mirrors reflecting, in the wide spaces of the cosmos, the interweaving of our destiny. Past and future continually interpenetrate and interweave in our destinies, just as moonlight passes into sunlight, and sunlight into moonlight. Indeed, the interweaving takes place in every case of human relationship.
Consider the paths travelled by two people, the one for thirty years, the other for twenty-five. They meet here, let us say. All they have passed through until now belongs to the moon-element in man. Now, however, through learning to know one another, through confronting one another consciously, they enter the sun-element of destiny, and weave past and future together, thus forming their destiny for future lives on earth.
Thus, from the way destiny approaches man we may see how, in the one case, a person acts on another through intellect or aesthetic sense, in another case through the will and the life of feeling connected therewith.
As I have said, I only want today to sketch these things in a brief, fragmentary way in order to show you the path of Anthroposophy and of its source—the Science of Initiation. We shall study the details in the future. As far as I have gone at present however, everyone can have direct, first-hand knowledge of these things. He can study his destiny with understanding. That peculiar, intimate, inner relationship in which another person speaks from within us—as it were—indicates tics of destiny from the past. If I feel that someone ‘grips’ me, not merely in my senses and intellect but inwardly, so that my will is engaged in the very way he grips me, he is connected with me by ties of destiny from the past. Such ties can be felt with a finer, more intimate sense.
One experiences this in an essentially different way, however, when one attains a certain stage of the path described in my book Knowledge of the Higher Worlds and Its Attainment, or in the second part of my Occult Science. When one attains initiation another person with whom one has ties of destiny is not only experienced in such a way that one says: He acts on my will, he acts in my will. One actually experiences the other personality as really within oneself. If an initiate meets another person with whom he has ties of destiny, this other person is present within him with independent speech and gestures—speaks from out of him, as one who stands beside us speaks to us. Thus the tics of destiny, which are usually felt only in the will, take such a form for the initiate that the other person speaks from out of the initiate himself. For one possessing the Science of Initiation a karmic encounter means, then, that the other person works not only on his will, but as strongly as a man standing beside him.
You see, what ordinary consciousness can only surmise by way of feeling and will, is raised for higher consciousness to full reality. You may say: That means that the initiate walks about with a group of people inside him with whom he is connected through destiny. That is actually the case. The attainment of knowledge is not a mere matter of learning to say more than other people while talking just as they do; it really means enlarging one's world.
Thus, if one intends to speak on the way Karma operates in human lives, fashioning mutual destiny, one must be able to confirm what one says from a knowledge of how others speak in one, how they really become a part of oneself.
If we then describe these things, they need not remain out of reach of one who has not been initiated; for he can and—if sane and healthy—will say: True, I don't hear a person speaking within me, if we are connected through destiny; but I feel him in my will, in the way he stirs it. One learns to understand this effect on the will. One learns to understand what is experienced in ordinary consciousness but cannot be understood unless we hear it described, in its true concrete significance, out of the Science of Initiation.
It was my special concern today to explain that this feeling of karmic connection with another, which otherwise enters consciousness in a kind of nebulous way, becomes a concrete experience for the initiate. And all that the Science of Initiation can achieve, can be described in this way.
There are many other indications of our karmic connections with other people. Some of you will know, if you study life, that we meet many people of whom we do not dream; we can live long with them without doing so. We meet others, however, of whom we dream constantly. We have hardly seen them when we dream of them the next night, and they enter our dreams again and again.
Now dreams play a special part in the subconscious life. When we dream of people on first meeting them, there is certainly a karmic connection between us. People of whom we cannot dream make only a slight impression on our senses; we meet them but have no karmic connection with them.
What lives in the depths of our will is, indeed, like a waking dream; but it becomes concrete, fully conscious experience for the initiate. Hence he hears those with whom he has a karmic connection speaking from within him. Of course he remains sensible and does not walk about speaking, as an initiate, from out of others when he converses with all sorts of people. Nevertheless, he does accustom himself, under certain conditions, to hold converse with persons connected with him through Karma. This converse takes place in a quite concrete way, even when he is not with them in space, and things of real significance come to light. However, I shall describe these things at some future time.
Thus we can deepen our consciousness on looking out into the wide spaces of the cosmos, and on looking into man himself. And the more we look into man himself, the more we learn to understand what the wide cosmic spaces contain. Then we say to ourselves: I no longer see merely shining discs or orbs in stellar space, but what I see in the outer cosmos appears to me as cosmically woven destiny. Human destinies on earth are now seen to be images of cosmically woven destinies. And when we realise clearly that the substance of a heavenly body is changing—is being exchanged, just as is the bodily substance of man—we know there is no sense in merely speaking of abstract laws of Nature. These abstract laws must not be regarded as giving us knowledge. It is just as in life insurance companies. To what do these owe their existence? To the fact that they can calculate a man's ‘expectation of life’. One takes a certain number of people aged twenty-five and, from the number of these who reach the age of thirty, etc., one can calculate the probable number of years a man of thirty will live. He is insured accordingly. Now, one gets on quite well with such insurance, for the laws of insurance hold. But it would not occur to anyone to apply these laws to his innermost being; otherwise he would say: I insured myself at the age of thirty, because my ‘probable death’ would occur at the age of fifty-five. I must die at fifty-five. He would never draw this conclusion and act accordingly, although the calculation is quite correct. The correctness of the reasoning has no significance for actual life.
Now we only arrive at laws of nature by calculations. They are good for technical applications; they enable us to construct machines, just as we can insure people in accordance with certain natural laws. But they do not lead us into the true essence of things, for only real cognition of the beings themselves can do that.
The laws of Nature, as calculated by astronomers for the heavens, are like insurance laws in human life. What a real Science of Initiation discovers about the being of the sun or moon is like my funding someone still living in ten years' time when, according to his insurance policy, he should have died long before. It lay in his inner being to live on.
Fundamentally speaking, actual events have nothing at all to do with the laws of Nature. These laws are good for applying natural forces; real Being, however, must be known through the Science of Initiation.
This concludes the third of the lectures in which I only wanted to indicate what the tone of Anthroposophy should be. We shall now begin to describe the constitution of man somewhat differently from the way it is done in my “Theosophy.” In doing this we shall build up an Anthroposophical Science, an Anthroposophical Knowledge from its foundations. You may regard the three lectures I have just given as illustrations of the difference in tone between the speech of ordinary consciousness and the speech of that consciousness which leads into the real being of things.
Dritter Vortrag
Heute möchte ich noch einen der Vorträge halten, in dem ich hinweisen möchte von einem gewissen Gesichtspunkte aus auf die Beziehung des exoterischen Lebens zu dem esoterischen Leben, ich könnte auch sagen, auf den Übergang vom gewöhnlichen Wissen zu der Initiationserkenntnis, wobei das durchaus gilt, was ich bei der Beschreibung der Freien Hochschule für Geisteswissenschaft, in dem Mitteilungsblatt für Mitglieder, schon vorgebracht habe: daß nämlich alles, was Initiationswissenschaft ist, wenn es in die entsprechenden Ideen gebracht wird, durchaus von jedem Menschen, der nur vorurteilslos genug ist, eingesehen werden kann. So daß man nicht sagen kann, man müsse erst selber der Initiation teilhaftig werden, um dasjenige zu durchschauen, was von seiten der Initiationswissenschaft gesagt werden kann. Aber ich möchte heute die Beziehung desjenigen, was als Anthroposophie auftritt, zu dem, was ihre Quelle, die Quelle der Anthroposophie, die eigentliche Initiationswissenschaft ist, das möchte ich heute einmal erörtern, und dann werden die drei Vorträge, die ich nun mit dem heutigen zusammen zu halten habe, eine Art Einleitung bilden zu dem, was nun das nächste Mal kommen wird als Vorträge in der Allgemeinen Anthroposophischen Gesellschaft: die Gliederung des Menschen nach physischem Leib, Ätherleib und so weiter.
Wenn wir uns das heutige Bewußtsein des Menschen ansehen, so müssen wir sagen: Er steht auf der Erde da, schaut in die Weiten des Kosmos hinaus, ohne bei sich zu fühlen eine Beziehung desjenigen, was ihn auf der Erde umgibt, und seiner selbst zu diesen Weiten des Kosmos. Denn man nehme nur einmal, wie abstrakt beschrieben wird, was Sonne ist, von all denjenigen, die heute Anspruch darauf machen, gültige Erkenntnis zu vertreten. Man nehme, wie alles das beschrieben wird von den gleichen Menschen, was Mond ist, wie wenig eigentlich daran gedacht wird, ob denn, abgesehen davon, daß einem die Sonne im Sommer warm macht, im Winter einen kalt läßt, daß der Mond ein beliebter Genosse von Liebenden ist in gewissen Verhältnissen, ob abgesehen davon, an die Beziehung des Menschen, der auf der Erde hier wandelt, zu den Weltenkörpern gedacht wird.
Und dennoch, man braucht, um diese Beziehungen zu erkennen, nur ein wenig jenen Blick in sich zu entwickeln, von dem ich Ihnen in der vorletzten Stunde hier sprach, den Blick für das, was Menschen einmal gewußt haben, Menschen, die näher standen der großen Welt als die heutigen Menschen, Menschen, die ein naives Bewußtsein gehabt haben, mehr einen Erkenntnisinstinkt gehabt haben als eine verstandesmäßige Erkenntnis, die aber dennoch zu sinnen wußten über die Beziehung der einzelnen Gestirne zum Wesen und Leben des Menschen.
Nun, diese Beziehung des Menschen zu den Gestirnen und damit zu dem ganzen Weltenall, sie muß wiederum in das Bewußtsein der Menschen hinein. Und sie wird hineinkommen, wenn Anthroposophie in der richtigen Weise gepflegt wird.
Der Mensch vermeint heute, sein Schicksal, sein Karma hier auf der Erde zu haben; er blickt nicht nach den Sternen hinauf, um in ihnen Andeutungen für dasjenige zu finden, was Menschengeschick ist. Anthroposophie soll eben den Anteil des Menschen an der übersinnlichen Welt ins Auge fassen. Aber alles, was den Menschen zunächst umgibt, gehört ja eigentlich nur zu seinem physischen Leib und höchstens zu seinem Ätherleib. Und wenn wir noch so weit hinausschauen in die Sternenwelten, wir sehen die Sterne durch ihr Licht. Licht ist eine Äthererscheinung. Alles was wir in der Welt wahrnehmen durch das Licht, ist eine Äthererscheinung. So daß wir noch so weit hinausblicken können im Weltenall, über das Ätherische kommen wir, indem wir einfach den Blick herumschweifen lassen, nicht hinaus.
Aber das menschliche Wesen geht ins Übersinnliche. Der Mensch trägt sein übersinnliches Wesen aus dem vorirdischen Dasein in das irdische herein, und er trägt es nach dem Tode wiederum hinaus, dieses übersinnliche Wesen, sowohl aus dem physischen wie aus dem ätherischen Wesen.
Im Grunde genommen ist nichts von den Welten, die der Mensch betreten hat, bevor er auf die Erde herabgestiegen ist, die er betreten wird, wenn er durch die Pforte des Todes gegangen sein wird, es ist nichts von diesen Welten im weiten Umkreise, der um uns herum auf der Erde oder im Kosmos draußen ist.
Aber zwei Tore sind, die hinausführen aus der Welt des Physischen und aus der Welt des Ätherischen in das Übersinnliche hinein. Das eine Tor ist der Mond, das andere Tor ist die Sonne. Und wir verstehen Mond und Sonne nur im rechten Sinne, wenn wir uns bewußt werden, daß sie Tore sind zur übersinnlichen Welt, Tore zur übersinnlichen Welt, die sehr viel zu tun haben mit dem, was der Mensch als sein Schicksal hier auf der Erde erlebt.
Betrachten wir von diesem Gesichtspunkte aus zunächst einmal das Mondendasein. Der Physiker weiß nichts über dieses Mondendasein, als daß durch den Mond das zurückgeworfene Sonnenlicht erscheint. Er weiß: Mondenlicht ist ein zurückgeworfenes Sonnenlicht. Aber dabei bleibt er stehen. Er berücksichtigt nicht, daß dasjenige, was als solcher Weltenkörper vor unserem physischen Auge als Mond sichtbar wird, einmal verbunden war mit unserem Erdendasein.
Der Mond war einmal eingegliedert in das Erdendasein; er war ein Stück Erde. Er hat sich in Urzeiten von der Erde losgetrennt und wurde ein eigener Weltenkörper draußen im Himmelsraume. Aber nicht nur das, daß er ein eigener Weltenkörper im Himmelsraume wurde, was zuletzt ja doch auch als eine physische Tatsache ausgelegt werden kann, ist der Fall, sondern noch etwas wesentlich anderes.
Wer mit vollem Ernste zurückgeht in der Betrachtung der Menschheitszivilisation und Menschheitskultur, der findet, wie in alten Zeiten über die Erde eine Urweisheit verbreitet war, eine Urweisheit, von der eigentlich vieles abstammt von dem, was noch in unsere Zeiten hereinragt und eigentlich viel gescheiter ist als dasjenige, was heute durch die Wissenschaft erkundet werden kann. Und wer sich von diesem Gesichtspunkte aus zum Beispiel einmal die Veden Indiens oder die Jogaphilosophie betrachtet, der wird vor allen Dingen eine tiefe Ehrfurcht bekommen vor dem, was ihm da mehr in dichterischer Form, in einer heute ungewohnten Form entgegentritt, was aber noch eigentlich um so mehr Ehrfurcht einflößen muß, je mehr er sich darein vertieft. Und wenn man nicht mit der heutigen trockenen, nüchternen Art an diese Dinge herantritt, sondern wenn man sie in all ihrer innerlich aufrüttelnden und doch tiefen Weise auf sich wirken läßt, dann kommt man eben dazu, auch aus äußeren Dokumenten es begreiflich zu finden, wenn Geisteswissenschaft, Anthroposophie, sagen muß aus ihren Erkenntnissen heraus: Es hat einmal eine, wenn auch nicht in Form des Verstandes auftretende, sondern mehr in dichterischer Form über unsere Erde sich ausbreitende Urweisheit gegeben.
Aber der gegenwärtige Mensch ist ja durch seinen physischen Leib darauf angewiesen, dasjenige, was ihm an Weisheit entgegentritt, immerhin so zu begreifen, daß das Werkzeug dieses Begreifens das Gehirn ist. Dieses Gehirn als Werkzeug des Begreifens hat sich erst im Laufe langer Zeiten entwickelt. In der Zeit, als die Urweisheit auf Erden war, war ein heutiges Gehirn nicht vorhanden. Die Weisheit war dazumal Geschöpfen eigen, die nicht in einem physischen Leib lebten.
Es gab einmal Genossen der Menschen auf der Erde, die nicht in einem physischen Leib lebten. Und das waren die großen Urlehrer der Menschheit, die von der Erde verschwunden sind. Nicht nur daß der physische Mond in den Weltenraum hinausgegangen ist, diese Wesenheiten sind mit dem Monde in das Weltenall hinausgegangen. So daß derjenige, der mit wirklicher Einsicht nach dem Monde hinsieht, sich sagt: Da droben ist eine Welt, welche Wesen in sich hat, die einmal hier auf Erden unter uns lebten, uns gelehrt haben in unseren früheren Erdenleben, und die sich jetzt nach der Mondenkolonie zurückgezogen haben. Nur dann, wenn man in dieser Art die Dinge betrachtet, kommt man auf die Wahrheit.
Nun, der Mensch innerhalb seines physischen Leibes kann heute eigentlich nur, wenn ich so sagen darf, in ganz schwachem Aufguß dasjenige betrachten, was einmal Urweisheit war. Er besaß etwas von dieser Urweisheit in uralten Zeiten, wo eben diese Urweisheitslehrer die Lehrer der Menschen waren. Da nahm er auf mit seinem Instinkt, nicht mit dem Verstande, diese Urweisheit auf denjenigen Wegen, durch die höhere Wesenheiten ihm sich offenbaren konnten, als nur solche Wesenheiten, die in einem physischen Leibe sind.
Und so weist uns all dasjenige, was mit dem Monde zusammenhängt, auf die menschliche Vergangenheit. Diese menschliche Vergangenheit ist für den heutigen Menschen abgestreift. Er hat sie nicht mehr. Aber er trägt sie doch in sich. Und während wir zwischen unserer Geburt und unserem Tode mit jenen Wesenheiten, von denen ich eben gesprochen habe, die einstmals Erdenwesen waren, jetzt Mondenwesen geworden sind, während wir in unserem heutigen Zustande zwischen Geburt und Tod mit diesen Wesenheiten nicht eigentlich uns begegnen, begegnen wir ihnen sehr wohl im vorirdischen Dasein, in dem Dasein zwischen dem Tode und einer neuen Geburt. Und dasjenige, was wir in uns tragen und was uns immer weist über unsere Geburt hinaus in ein früheres Dasein, was herauftönt aus unserem Unterbewußtsein, nicht zur vollen verstandesmäßigen Klarheit kommt, was daher vielfach mit Gemüt und Gefühl des Menschen zu tun hat, das weist nicht nur den Instinkt der Liebenden nach dem Mondenschein hin, sondern das weist gerade denjenigen nach dem Mondenschein hin, der auf diese unterbewußten Impulse der menschlichen Natur einen Wert legen kann.
Dasjenige, was wir unbewußt in uns tragen, das weist uns nach dem Monde hin. Und ein Zeugnis dafür mag uns schon das sein, daß eben der Mond einmal mit der Erde vereinigt war, und die Wesen, die ihn bewohnen, auch einmal mit der Erde vereinigt waren. In dieser Art ist der Mond ein Tor zum Übersinnlichen. Und wer ihn richtig studiert, der wird auch aus seiner äußeren physischen Beschaffenheit einen Anhaltspunkt dafür gewinnen, daß er ein Tor zum Übersinnlichen ist.
Denn versuchen Sie nur einmal, sich die Art zu vergegenwärtigen, in der der Mond mit seinen Bergen und so weiter beschrieben wird. All das weist Sie darauf hin, daß diese Berge, diese ganze Mondenkonfiguration, so nicht sein können, wie sie auf der Erde sind. Es wird ja immer betont, daß der Mond keine Luft, kein Wasser hat zum Beispiel. Es ist anders. Es ist eben so mit der Mondenkonfiguration, daß sie ist, wie die Erdenkonfiguration einmal war, ehe sie ganz mineralisch geworden ist.
Ich führe Ihnen das heute aphoristisch an. Ich müßte eine ganze Anzahl meiner Bücher vorlesen, müßte manches aus Zyklen vorlesen, wenn ich das zusammenfassen sollte als Ergebnis desjenigen, was hier schon entwickelt worden ist, was ich jetzt vorbringe. Aber ich will zunächst nur charakterisieren, einleitend, wie Anthroposophie vorgeht. Sie führt in der Art, wie ich es gezeigt habe, aus dem Physischen wiederum hinaus in das Geistige. Und naturgemäß denken lernt der Mensch durch Anthroposophie, während er ja heute gar nicht naturgemäß denken kann.
Sehen Sie, der Mensch weiß heute, daß die physische Substanz seines Leibes oftmals in seinem Erdenleben ausgewechselt wird. Wir schuppen fortwährend ab. Wir schneiden uns die Nägel. Aber so geht alles aus dem Inneren nach der Oberfläche, und schließlich ist dasjenige, was im Zentrum unseres Leibes ist, an der Oberfläche. Wir schuppen es ab. Und keiner von Ihnen, meine lieben Freunde, darf glauben, daß dasjenige, was von Fleisch und Blut, überhaupt von physischer Substanz heute hier auf diesem Stuhle sitzt, auch da gesessen hätte, wenn Sie vor zehn Jahren dagewesen wären. Das alles ist ausgetauscht. Was ist denn geblieben? Ihr Seelisch-Geistiges ist geblieben. Davon weiß man heute wenigstens, wenn man es auch nicht immer bedenkt, daß alle die Menschen, die heute hier auf ihren Stühlen sitzen, nicht dieselben Muskeln und dieselben Knochen gehabt hätten vor zehn oder zwanzig Jahren, wenn sie hier gesessen hätten.
Wenn die Leute nach dem Mond hinaufschauen, so haben sie so ungefähr das Bewußtsein: dasjenige, was die äußere physische Substanz des Mondes ist, war vor Jahrmillionen schon so. Es war nämlich ebensowenig so, wie der heutige physische Leib des Menschen vor zwanzig Jahren so war. Allerdings, die physischen Substanzen der Sterne tauschen sich nicht so schnell aus. Aber so lange brauchen sie nicht dazu, als die Physiker heute für die Sonne berechnen. Diese Rechnungen stimmen todsicher, aber sie sind falsch. Ich habe das früher schon öfter erwähnt. Sehen Sie, ich sagte, Sie können berechnen, wie sich die innere Konfiguration Ihres Herzens zum Beispiel verändert, sagen wir, von Monat zu Monat. Nun rechnen Sie es aus durch drei Jahre hindurch. Und Sie rechnen dann ganz exakt, wie nun diese Konfiguration des Herzens vor dreihundert Jahren war, oder wie es in dreihundert Jahren sein wird. Sie kriegen sehr schöne Zahlen heraus. Die Rechnung ist absolut richtig. Rechnungen können ganz richtig sein, aber das Herz war ja noch nicht da vor dreihundert Jahren, wird auch nach dreihundert Jahren nicht da sein.
So rechnen aber heute die Geologen. Sie beobachten die Schichten der Erde, rechnen aus, wie sich diese Schichten im Laufe der Jahrhunderte verändern, multiplizieren die Sache und sagen: Nun ja, vor zwanzig Millionen Jahren war es so! Es ist genau dieselbe Rechnung mit demselben Sinn — nur war alles das von der Erde vor zwanzig Millionen Jahren noch nicht da und wird nach zwanzig Millionen Jahren wieder nicht da sein.
Aber ganz davon abgesehen: Geradeso wie der Mensch dem Stoffwechsel unterliegt, so unterliegen alle Himmelskörper dem Stoffwechsel. Und wenn Sie hinaufsehen nach dem Monde: vor einer gewissen Anzahl von Jahrtausenden war die Substanz, die wir heute sehen, ebensowenig in dem Monde drinnen, wie Ihre Substanz vor zehn Jahren auf dem Stuhl gesessen hat. Dasjenige, was den Mond erhält, das sind die Wesenheiten, das ist das Geistig-Seelische in ihm; geradeso wie das Geistig-Seelische in Ihnen das ist, was Sie erhält.
Und erst, wenn wir wissen, daß einmal der physische Mond hinausgegangen ist in den Weltenraum! Aber dasjenige, was da physisch hinausgegangen ist, das wechselt fortwährend seine Substanz, diejenigen Wesenheiten aber, die den Mond bewohnen, sie bleiben auf ihm, die sind das Bleibende, ganz abgesehen nun von ihrem Wandel auch durch wiederholte Mondenleben und so weiter; aber darauf wollen wir heute nicht eingehen.
Wenn man den Mond derart betrachtet, so bekommt man schon eine Art Wissenschaft vom Monde, die sich nicht nur in den Kopf, die sich in das Herz des Menschen einschreibt. Man bekommt eine Beziehung zu dem geistigen Kosmos, betrachtet den Mond als das eine der Tore zu dem geistigen Kosmos. Alles was in den Tiefen unseres Wesens drunten vorhanden ist, nicht nur die unbestimmten Liebesgefühle, um es nochmals zu erwähnen, sondern alles was in den unterbewußten Tiefen der Seele vorhanden ist, was das Ergebnis ist früherer Erdenleben, hängt mit dem Mondendasein zusammen. Mit demjenigen, was unser gegenwärtiges Dasein ist, mit dem entreißen wir uns dem Mondendasein. Fortwährend entreißen wir uns dem Mondendasein. Wenn wir durch unsere Sinne nach außen sehen oder hören, wenn wir mit unserem Verstande denken, wenn wir also dasjenige, was nicht aus den Tiefen des Seelenlebens heraufkommt und was wir deutlich als ein Vergangenes, das in uns wirkend war, erkennen, wenn wir nicht das betrachten, sondern wenn wir betrachten, was uns immer wieder in die Gegenwart hereinreißt, dann werden wir ebenso an das Sonnendasein gewiesen, wie wir durch das Vergangene an das Mondendasein gewiesen werden. Nur daß die Sonne auf uns wirkt auf dem Umwege durch den physischen Menschenleib. Wenn wir uns selbständig durch unsere Willkür dasjenige aneignen wollen, was uns die Sonne gibt, so müssen wir eben diese Willkür, diesen Verstand in Erregung bringen. Und mit dem, was wir Menschen heute durch unseren regsamen Verstand einsehen, durch unsere Vernunft, kommen wir lange nicht so weit, als wir instinktiv dadurch kommen, daß einfach eine Sonne im Weltenall ist.
Ein jeder weiß, oder kann es wenigstens wissen, daß die Sonne nicht nur uns jeden Morgen aufweckt, um uns aus der Finsternis zum Licht zu rufen, sondern daß die Sonne in ihm Quell der Wachstumskräfte ist, aber auch Quell der seelischen Wachstumskräfte.
Dasjenige, was in diesen seelischen Kräften aus der Vergangenheit herüberwirkt, hängt mit dem Monde zusammen, dasjenige, was in der Gegenwart wirkt, aber wozu wir uns eigentlich durch unsere Willkür erst entwickeln werden in der Zukunft, das hängt von der Sonne ab.
Ebenso wie der Mond auf unsere Vergangenheit weist, so weist uns die Sonne auf die Zukunft. Und wir blicken hinauf zu den beiden Gestirnen, zu dem des Tages, zu dem der Nacht, und blicken oben auf die Verwandtschaft dieser beiden Gestirne, denn sie senden uns beide dasselbe Licht. Und wir blicken in uns, blicken auf all dasjenige, was in unser Schicksal einverwoben ist durch das, was wir in der Vergangenheit durchgemacht haben als Menschen und erblikken in diesem in unser Schicksal als Vergangenes Einverwobenes unser inneres Mondendasein. Und wir erblicken in dem, was immerzu als Schicksal bestimmend herantritt in der Gegenwart, das Sonnenhafte, nicht nur dasjenige, was in der Gegenwart wirkt, sondern was in die Zukunft hineinwirkt. Und wir sehen, wie sich Vergangenes und Zukünftiges im Menschenschicksal ineinanderwebt.
Und wir können im Menschenleben dieses näher betrachten, wie also Vergangenes und Zukünftiges zusammenhängt. Nehmen wir an, zwei Menschen finden sich zu irgendeiner Lebensgemeinschaft in einem gewissen Lebensalter. Wer nicht nachdenkt über so etwas, wer nicht nachsinnt, nun, der sagt: Da war ich, da war der andere, da war der Ort, zum Beispiel Müllheim, und in Müllheim haben wir uns gefunden. — Er denkt nicht weiter darüber nach.
Derjenige der tiefer nachdenkt, verfolgt das Leben des einen, der vielleicht dreißig Jahre alt geworden ist, das des anderen, der vielleicht fünfundzwanzig Jahre alt geworden ist, als sie sich gefunden haben. Er wird sehen können, wie merkwürdig, wie wunderbar das Leben dieser beiden Menschen von ihrer Geburt auf Erden an, Schritt für Schritt sich so entwickelt hat, daß sie zuletzt an diesem Ort sich zusammengefunden haben. Man kann schon sagen: Von den entferntesten Orten finden sich die Leute dann irgendwo einmal in der Mitte des Lebens zusammen. Und es ist so, als ob sie alle ihre Wege so angeordnet hätten, daß sie sich zusammenfinden.
Aber das alles können sie ja nicht mit Bewußtsein voneinander gemacht haben, denn sie hatten sich noch gar nicht gesehen, oder wenigstens nicht so beurteilt, daß sie in einer solchen Weise sich finden. Das alles verläuft im Unbewußten. Wir machen die Wege zu wichtigen Lebensabschnitten, zu wichtigen Lebenspunkten im tiefsten Unbewußten. Und aus diesem Unbewußten heraus wird das Schicksal zunächst gewoben.
Wenn wir dann solch einen Menschen hören wie Goethes Freund Knebel, der im höchsten Alter gesagt hat: Schaue ich zurück in mein Leben, so kommt es mir vor, als ob jeder Schritt derart angeordnet gewesen wäre, daß ich an einem bestimmten Punkte zuletzt ankommen mußte -, so fangen wir an, solche lebenserfahrenen Leute zu verstehen.
Dann aber tritt der Moment ein, wo dasjenige, was nun zwischen diesen Menschen sich abspielt, in vollem Bewußtsein sich abspielt. Sie lernen sich kennen, sie lernen ihre Eigenschaften, Temperamente, Charaktere kennen, sie finden Sympathien oder Antipathien miteinander und so weiter.
Prüfen wir nun, wie das mit dem Weltenall zusammenhängt, so finden wir: Dasjenige, was Mondenkräfte sind, war wirksam in den Wegen, die die Menschen genommen haben bis zu dem Momente, wo sie sich gefunden haben. Dann beginnt die Sonnenwirkung. Da treten sie gewissermaßen in das helle Licht der Sonnenwirkung ein. Da sind sie mit ihrem eigenen Bewußtsein immer dabei und da beginnt Zukunft die Vergangenheit zu beleuchten, wie draußen im Weltenall die Sonne den Mond beleuchtet. Und indem die Zukunft die Vergangenheit beleuchtet, erhellt wiederum die Vergangenheit die Zukunft des Menschen, wie der Mond die Erde mit zurückgeworfenem Lichte beleuchtet.
Nun frägt es sich aber, ob wir im Leben auch unterscheiden können zwischen den Dingen, die sonnenhaft im Menschen sind, und denen, die mondenhaft im Menschen sind. Schon das Gefühl kann manches doch unterscheiden, wenn man es tiefer und nicht oberflächlich nimmt. Schon in der Kindheit, schon in der Jugend des Menschen begegnet dieser anderen Menschen, die nur in ein äußeres Verhältnis zu ihm treten, an denen er vorübergeht, die an ihm vorübergehen, vielleicht aber trotzdem recht viel mit ihm zu tun haben. Sie alle waren in der Schule; der geringste Teil von Ihnen kann sagen, daß er Lehrer gehabt hat, zu denen er tiefere Beziehungen gehabt hat; aber es wird immerhin den einen oder den anderen geben, der sich sagen wird: O ja, da war ein Lehrer, der hat auf mich einen solchen Eindruck gemacht, daß ich habe werden wollen wie er; oder auch, er hat auf mich einen solchen Eindruck gemacht, daß ich ihn am liebsten von der Erde wegwünschte. Es kann Antipathie sein, es kann Sympathie sein.
Und auch im späteren Leben tritt das so ein. Wir finden andere Menschen. Sie beschäftigen sozusagen unseren Verstand nur, höchstens den ästhetischen Sinn. Denken Sie nur, wie oft kommt es vor, daß jemand einen anderen Menschen kennengelernt hat; trifft er dann da oder dort Menschen, die den auch kennen, so verständigt man sich miteinander, indem man ihn für einen Prachtskerl oder einen ekelhaften Kerl erklärt. Es ist ein ästhetisches Urteil, oder aber es ist ein verstandesmäßiges Urteil. Es gibt aber anderes. Es gibt menschliche Beziehungen, die nicht bloß im Verstande oder im ästhetischen Urteil sich erschöpfen, sondern die auf den Willen gehen, und zwar sehr stark auf den Willen gehen, wo wir nicht bloß in der Kindheit sagen, wir möchten so werden wie dieser, oder wir möchten ihn wegwünschen von der Erde - wenn ich die radikalen Dinge anführe -, sondern wo wir im tiefsten Unterbewußten in unserem Willen berührt werden, wo wir sagen: Der Mensch, der uns da begegnet, ist nicht nur von uns angeschaut worden so, daß wir ihn gut oder böse, gescheit oder töricht finden und dergleichen mehr, sondern wir möchten gerne das tun aus uns heraus, was sein Wille will, und wir möchten gar nicht den Verstand anstrengen, um ihn zu beurteilen; wir möchten all das, was er als Eindruck auf uns gemacht hat, in unseren Willen aufnehmen.
Es gibt diese zwei Verhältnisse zu den Menschen. Die einen wirken auf unseren Verstand oder höchstens auf den ästhetischen Sinn; die anderen wirken auf unseren Willen, in unsere tiefere seelische Wesenheit hinein. Wofür ist das ein Zeugnis? Sehen Sie, wirken Menschen auf unseren Willen, fassen wir nicht nur eine starke Antipathie oder Sympathie, sondern möchten wir willentlich das, was wir als Sympathie und Antipathie empfinden, ausleben, dann waren diese Menschen mit uns im vorigen Erdenleben irgendwie verbunden. Machen die Menschen nur einen Eindruck auf unseren Verstand oder ästhetischen Sinn, dann treten sie in unser Leben herein, ohne mit uns im vorigen Erdenleben verbunden gewesen zu sein.
Aber schon daraus sehen Sie: Im Menschenleben, im menschlichen Schicksal namentlich, wirken zusammen Vergangenheit und Gegenwart in die Zukunft hinein. Denn dasjenige, was wir nun mit den Menschen erleben, trotzdem sie nicht in unseren Willen hineinsprechen, das wird im folgenden, im zukünftigen Erdenleben wiederum zum Ausdruck kommen.
So wie in derselben Bahn Sonne und Mond kreisen, miteinander eine Beziehung haben, so haben im Menschenwesen Vergangenheit: Menschen-Mondenhaftes, und Zukunft: Menschen-Sonnenhaftes miteinander zu tun. Und wir können schon dazu kommen, zu Sonne und Mond hinaufzuschauen und in ihnen nicht nur die äußeren Lichtkörper zu sehen, sondern das, was uns in den Weiten des Kosmos draußen unser eigenes Schicksal in seinem Ineinanderverwobenwerden abspiegelt. Wie zu gewissen Zeiten das Mondenlicht in das Sonnenlicht, das Sonnenlicht in das Mondenlicht übergeht, so gehen in unsere Schicksale immer Vergangenheit und Zukunft ineinander über, verweben sich ineinander. Ja, im einzelnen Falle der Menschenbeziehung verweben sie sich ineinander.
Nehmen wir die Wege, die die Menschen durchgemacht haben, der eine durch dreißig Jahre, der andere durch fünfundzwanzig Jahre. Sie treffen sich. Alles, was sie durchgemacht haben, der eine bis zum fünfundzwanzigsten Jahre, der andere bis zum dreißigsten Jahre, gehört dem Mondenhaften im Menschen an. Jetzt aber, indem sie sich kennenlernen, indem sie sich bewußt gegenübertreten, treten sie in das Schicksalmäßig-Sonnenhafte ein und verweben nun Zukunft und Vergangenheit miteinander, um wiederum weiter das Schicksal zu weben für künftige Erdenleben.
Und so sieht man an der Art und Weise, wie das Schicksalhafte an den Menschen herantritt, wie in dem einen Falle Mensch auf Mensch wirkt nur auf den Verstand, auf den ästhetischen Sinn, im anderen Falle aber auf den menschlichen Willen und das mit dem Willen verbundene Gefühl.
Sehen Sie, so weit, als ich Ihnen bisher die Dinge erzählt habe wie gesagt, ich will heute nur aphoristisch erzählen, um Ihnen den Weg der Anthroposophie und den Weg ihrer Quelle, der Initiationswissenschaft, darzulegen, wir werden es in der Zukunft in allen Einzelheiten genau machen -, so weit kann dieses durch unmittelbare Erkenntnis von jedem erlebt werden. Und man kann erkennend auf das Schicksal hinblicken. Jenes eigentümliche, innere intime Herauftauchen des anderen Menschen in einem selbst weist auf vergangenes Karma hin. Wenn ich einen Menschen so empfinde, daß er eigentlich mich innerlich ergreift, nicht nur in den Sinnen und im Verstande, sondern innerlich erfaßt, daß mein Wille daran engagiert ist, wie er mich erfaßt, ist er karmisch aus der Vergangenheit mit mir verknüpft. Mit einem etwas feineren, intimeren Sinne kann der Mensch also fühlen, wie ein anderer mit ihm karmisch verknüpft ist.
Wenn nun aber dasjenige eintritt, was als eine gewisse Stufe beim Menschen kommen kann, wenn er durchmacht, was ich beschrieben habe in «Wie erlangt man Erkenntnisse der höheren Welten?» oder im zweiten Teil meiner «Geheimwissenschaft im Umriß», dann erlebt er die ganze Sache noch in wesentlich anderer Weise. Wenn also beim Menschen die Initiation eintritt, dann erlebt er nicht nur den anderen Menschen, mit dem er karmisch verknüpft war, in der Art, daß er sich sagt: Er wirkt auf meinen Willen, er wirkt in meinem Willen -, sondern er erlebt den anderen Menschen tatsächlich persönlich in sich. Und tritt einer, der initiiert ist, einem anderen Menschen, mit dem er karmisch verbunden ist, entgegen, dann ist dieser andere Mensch so in ihm mit einer selbständigen Sprache, mit selbständigen Außerungen und Offenbarungen, daß er aus ihm spricht, wie sonst ein Mensch, der neben uns steht, zu uns spricht. Was also sonst nur gefühlt wird im Willen, die karmische Verbindung, die tritt für den Initiierten so auf, daß der andere Mensch aus ihm redet, wie sonst ein neben ihm stehender Mensch. So daß also für den mit Initiationswissenschaft Ausgestatteten das karmische Gegenübertreten bedeutet: der andere Mensch wirkt nicht nur auf seinen Willen, sondern er wirkt in ihm so stark, wie sonst ein neben ihm stehender Mensch wirkt.
Sie sehen, dasjenige, was sonst in einer unbestimmten, bloß willens- und gemütshaften Weise sich ankündigt für das gewöhnliche Bewußtsein, das wird für das höhere Bewußtsein zur völligen Konkretheit erhoben. Sie werden sagen: Ja, dann geht aber derjenige, der initiiert ist, in sich mit dem Bündel all der Leute herum, mit denen er karmisch verbunden ist. — Es ist aber auch so. Erkenntnis erlangen beruht eben nicht bloß darauf, daß man etwas mehr reden lernt, als die anderen Leute reden, aber geradeso redet wie diese, sondern es ist wirklich das Erwerben eines anderen Stückes Welt.
Will man also reden darüber, wie Karma in den Menschen wirkt, so daß ihr gegenseitiges Schicksal gezimmert wird, so muß man die Bekräftigung seiner Rede hernehmen können von dem Wissen, wie die anderen Menschen in einem reden, wie sie wirklich zu einem Stück des eigenen Menschen werden.
Stellt man das aber dann dar, so braucht es für den, der nicht initiiert ist, nichts Jenseitiges zu bleiben, sondern er kann sich sagen und wird es sich bei gesunden Sinnen sagen: Gewiß, sprechen höre ich den, der mit mir karmisch verbunden ist, nicht in mir; aber ich fühle ihn. Ich fühle ihn in meinem Willen und in der Art und Weise, wie mein Wille aufgerüttelt wird durch ihn. — Und man lernt verstehen diese Aufrüttelung des Willens. Man lernt dasjenige verstehen, was man im gewöhnlichen Bewußtsein erlebt, und was man durch nichts anderes verstehen kann als dadurch, daß man es hört aus der Initiationswissenschaft schildern in seiner wahren konkreten Bedeutung.
Worauf es mir aber heute ganz besonders ankam, das ist dies, daß nun wirklich das, was sonst in einer gewissen nebulosen Art in das Bewußtsein eintritt, dieses Gefühl von karmischer Verknüpftheit mit dem anderen, für den Initiierten ein konkretes Erlebnis wird. Und so wie man das für das Karma, für das Schicksal des Menschen schildern kann, so kann man das schildern für alles dasjenige, was Initiationswissenschaft wirken kann.
Es kann noch manches andere dem Menschen ankündigen, wie er karmisch mit einem anderen verbunden ist. Einzelne von Ihnen werden wissen, wenn sie das Leben betrachten: Man begegnet Menschen im Leben, von denen man nicht träumt; man kann lange mit ihnen zusammenleben, man kann nicht von ihnen träumen. Anderen Menschen begegnet man — man kriegt sie aus dem Traume gar nicht wieder los. Kaum hat man sie gesehen, so träumt man schon in der nächsten Nacht von ihnen, und immer wieder und wiederum treten sie in den Träumen auf.
Träume sind dasjenige, was im Unterbewußten besonders figuriert. Menschen, von denen wir gleich träumen, wenn wir sie erleben, das sind sicher solche, mit denen wir karmisch verbunden sind. Menschen, von denen wir nicht träumen können, machen nur einen oberflächlichen Eindruck auf unsere Sinne; wir begegnen ihnen im Leben, ohne daß wir karmisch mit ihnen verbunden sind.
Was in den Tiefen unseres Willens lebt, ist wie ein wacher Traum. Und für den Initiierten wird dieser wache Traum eben ein vollinhaltliches Bewußtsein. Daher hört er denjenigen, der karmisch mit ihm verbunden ist, aus sich sprechen. Selbstverständlich bleibt er immer vernünftig, so daß er nicht herumgeht und mit allen möglichen Leuten, die mit ihm sprechen, dann auch aus diesen als Initiierter spricht; aber er gewöhnt sich unter Umständen auch an, in ganz konkreter Weise, auch wenn er ihnen nicht räumlich gegenübersteht, die Menschen, die mit ihm karmisch verbunden sind und aus ihm sprechen, wie im Zwiegespräch richtig anzusprechen, wobei durchaus Dinge zutage treten, die auch eine reale Bedeutung haben. Doch das sind Dinge, die ich dann in der Zukunft einmal schildern werde.
So kann man das Bewußtsein des Menschen vertiefen beim Hinaufschauen in die Weiten des Kosmos, so kann man es vertiefen beim Hineinschauen in den Menschen. Und je mehr man in den Menschen selber hineinschaut, desto mehr lernt man dasjenige verstehen, was in den Weiten des Kosmos ist. Man sagt sich dann: Ich blicke nicht mehr in der Weise bloß in die Gestirnswelt hinein, daß ich da leuchtende Scheiben oder leuchtende Kugeln sehe, sondern es erscheint mir das, was im Kosmos draußen ist, als kosmisch gewobenes Schicksal. Die menschlichen Schicksale auf der Erde sind dann die Abbilder der kosmisch gewobenen Schicksale. Und wenn man gründlich weiß, daß sich die Substanz in einem Weltenkörper ändert, austauscht, wie die Substanz des Menschen, dann wird man wissen, daß es gar keinen Sinn hat, von abstrakten Naturgesetzen bloß zu reden. Diese Gesetze sind ja ganz gut, aber nicht für die Erkenntnis. Man darf die Naturgesetze nicht als etwas ansehen, was Erkenntnis gibt. Es ist damit geradeso wie bei Versicherungsgesellschaften. Man versichert dort sein Leben. Wodurch können solche Versicherungsgesellschaften bestehen? Dadurch, daß man eines Menschen wahrscheinliche Lebensdauer ausrechnet. Aus der Anzahl derjenigen Menschen, die von so und so viel Fünfundzwanzigjährigen das dreißigste Lebensjahr erreichen und so weiter, kann man dann ausrechnen, wie viele Jahre wahrscheinlich ein Dreißigjähriger noch lebt; danach versichert man ihn. Und man kommt gut durch mit der Versicherung. Das Versicherungsgesetz gilt. Aber keinem Menschen würde es einfallen, das mit seinem innersten Wesen nun in Einklang zu bringen. Sonst müßte er doch sagen: Ich bin dazumal mit dreißig Jahren versichert worden, weil mein wahrscheinlicher Tod mit fünfundfünfzig Jahren eintritt. Er müßte sich sagen: Jetzt muß ich doch sterben mit fünfundfünfzig Jahren. Er wird niemals die Konsequenz daraus ziehen, trotzdem die Rechnung durchaus stimmt; aber die Konsequenz bedeutet gar nichts für das wirkliche Leben.
Naturgesetze sind auch nur errechnet. Sie sind gut dafür, daß wir sie technisch verwenden können; sie sind gut dazu, Maschinen machen zu können, wie wir die Menschen versichern können nach Versicherungsgesetzen; aber in das Wesen der Dinge führen sie nicht hinein. In das Wesen der Dinge führt nur das wirkliche Erkennen der Wesenheiten selber hinein.
Was die Astronomen ausrechnen an Naturgesetzen des Himmels, das ist im Menschenleben wie die Versicherungsgesetze. Was eine wirkliche Initiationswissenschaft über das Wesen dessen, was da als Sonne und Mond ist, erkundet, das ist so, wie wenn ich denjenigen, der nach seiner Police lange gestorben sein müßte, nach zehn Jahren doch noch finde. Es lag in seinem Wesen, weiterzuleben.
Das wirkliche Geschehen hat im Grunde genommen gar nichts mit den Naturgesetzen zu tun. Die Naturgesetze sind gut für die Anwendung der Kräfte. Aber die Wesenheit muß durch Initiationswissenschaft erkannt werden.
Nun, damit habe ich Ihnen den dritten der Vorträge gegeben, durch die ich eigentlich nur andeuten wollte, wie der Ton sein soll in der Anthroposophie. Wir werden nun beginnen, die Konstitution des Menschen in etwas anderer Weise zu schildern, als es in meiner «Theosophie» geschehen ist, aufbauend eben eine anthroposophische Wissenschaft, eine anthroposophische Erkenntnis aus den Fundamenten heraus. Sehen Sie die drei Vorträge, die ich bisher gehalten habe, gewissermaßen als Probe an, wie anders als das gewöhnliche Bewußtsein dasjenige Bewußtsein spricht, das in die wirkliche Wesenheit der Dinge hineinführt.
Third Lecture
Today I would like to give another lecture in which I would like to point out from a certain point of view the relationship of the exoteric life to the esoteric life, I could also say, to the transition from ordinary knowledge to initiatory knowledge, whereby what I have already said in the description of the School of Spiritual Science, in the newsletter for members, is quite valid: namely, that everything which is initiatory science, if it is brought into the corresponding ideas, can certainly be seen by every human being who is only unprejudiced enough. So that one cannot say that one must first participate in initiation oneself in order to see through what can be said on the part of initiation science. But today I would like to discuss the relationship of that which appears as anthroposophy to that which is its source, the source of anthroposophy, the actual science of initiation, and then the three lectures which I now have to give together with today's will form a kind of introduction to what will now come next time as lectures in the General Anthroposophical Society: the division of the human being into physical body, etheric body and so on.
If we look at man's consciousness today, we must say that he stands there on earth, looking out into the vastness of the cosmos, without feeling any relationship between what surrounds him on earth and himself to this vastness of the cosmos. For just take the abstract description of what the sun is by all those who today claim to represent valid knowledge. Take how all this is described by the same people, what the moon is, how little thought is actually given to whether, apart from the fact that the sun makes you warm in summer, leaves you cold in winter, that the moon is a favorite companion of lovers in certain circumstances, whether apart from this, thought is given to the relationship of man, who walks here on earth, to the world bodies.
And yet, in order to recognize these relationships, one only needs to develop a little of that view within oneself of which I spoke to you here in the hour before last, the view for what people once knew, people who stood closer to the great world than people today, people who had a naive consciousness, who had more of an instinct for knowledge than an intellectual knowledge, but who nevertheless knew how to reflect on the relationship of the individual celestial bodies to the being and life of man.
Now, this relationship of man to the celestial bodies and thus to the whole universe, it must again enter into the consciousness of man. And it will enter if anthroposophy is cultivated in the right way.
Today man thinks he has his destiny, his karma here on earth; he does not look up to the stars to find in them indications of that which is human destiny. Anthroposophy is meant to focus on man's share in the supersensible world. But everything that initially surrounds man actually belongs only to his physical body and at most to his etheric body. And no matter how far we look out into the starry worlds, we see the stars through their light. Light is an etheric phenomenon. Everything we perceive in the world through light is an etheric phenomenon. No matter how far we can look out into the universe, we cannot get beyond the etheric by simply letting our gaze wander.
But the human being goes into the supersensible. Man carries his supersensible being from the pre-earthly existence into the earthly, and after death he carries it out again, this supersensible being, both from the physical as well as from the etheric being.
In essence, none of the worlds that man has entered before he descended to earth, which he will enter when he has passed through the gate of death, there is nothing of these worlds in the wide circumference that is around us on earth or in the cosmos outside.
But there are two gates that lead out of the world of the physical and out of the world of the etheric into the supersensible. One gate is the moon, the other gate is the sun. And we only understand the moon and the sun in the right sense when we realize that they are gates to the supersensible world, gates to the supersensible world, which have a great deal to do with what man experiences as his destiny here on earth.
From this point of view, let us first consider the moon's existence. The physicist knows nothing about this lunar existence except that the reflected sunlight appears through the moon. He knows that moonlight is reflected sunlight. But he stops there. He does not take into account that what becomes visible as such a world body before our physical eye as the moon was once connected with our earthly existence.
The moon was once integrated into earth existence; it was a piece of earth. In primeval times it separated itself from the earth and became a separate world body outside in celestial space. But it is not only the case that it became a separate world body in heavenly space, which in the end can also be interpreted as a physical fact, but also something else that is essential.
Whoever goes back with full seriousness in the contemplation of human civilization and human culture will find how in ancient times a primordial wisdom was spread over the earth, a primordial wisdom from which actually much descends from that which still projects into our times and is actually much more intelligent than that which can be explored today through science. And whoever looks at the Vedas of India or the Yoga philosophy from this point of view, for example, will above all have a deep reverence for what confronts him in a more poetic form, in a form that is unfamiliar today, but which must actually inspire even more reverence the more he delves into it. And if one does not approach these things with today's dry, sober manner, but if one allows them to affect one in all their inwardly stirring and yet profound way, then one comes to find it understandable, even from external documents, when spiritual science, anthroposophy, must say from its insights: There was once a primordial wisdom, albeit not appearing in the form of understanding, but rather spreading over our earth in poetic form.
But the present human being is dependent on his physical body to comprehend the wisdom that confronts him in such a way that the tool of this comprehension is the brain. This brain as a tool of comprehension has only developed in the course of long ages. At the time when primordial wisdom was on earth, today's brain did not exist. At that time, wisdom belonged to creatures that did not live in a physical body.
There were once comrades of men on earth who did not live in a physical body. And these were the great original teachers of mankind who have disappeared from the earth. Not only has the physical moon gone out into the universe, these beings have gone out with the moon into the universe. So that he who looks at the moon with real insight says to himself: "There is a world up there which has beings in it who once lived among us here on earth, who taught us in our earlier lives on earth, and who have now withdrawn to the lunar colony. Only then, when you look at things in this way, do you arrive at the truth.
Now, man within his physical body today can actually only, if I may say so, consider in a very weak infusion that which was once primordial wisdom. He possessed something of this primal wisdom in ancient times, when these primal teachers of wisdom were the teachers of men. There he absorbed this primal wisdom with his instinct, not with his intellect, in those ways through which higher beings could reveal themselves to him than only those beings who are in a physical body.
And so all that which is connected with the moon points us to the human past. This human past has been stripped away for man today. He no longer has it. But he still carries it within him. And while between our birth and our death we do not actually meet with those beings of whom I have just spoken, who were once earth beings and have now become moon beings, while in our present state between birth and death we do not actually meet with these beings, we do meet them in the pre-earthly existence, in the existence between death and a new birth. And that which we carry within us and which always points us beyond our birth into a previous existence, which emerges from our subconscious, which does not come to full intellectual clarity, which therefore often has to do with the mind and feelings of man, not only points the instinct of lovers towards the moonlight, but points precisely that towards the moonlight which can place a value on these subconscious impulses of human nature.
What we unconsciously carry within us points us towards the moon. And the fact that the moon was once united with the earth, and the beings who inhabit it were also once united with the earth, may already be a testimony to this. In this way the moon is a gateway to the supersensible. And anyone who studies it properly will also gain an indication from its external physical constitution that it is a gateway to the supernatural.
For just try to visualize the way in which the moon is described with its mountains and so on. All this points out to you that these mountains, this whole lunar configuration, cannot be as they are on earth. It is always emphasized that the moon has no air, no water, for example. It is different. The moon's configuration is just like the earth's configuration used to be before it became completely mineral.
I am giving you this aphoristically today. I would have to read out a whole number of my books, I would have to read out some things from cycles, if I were to summarize this as the result of what has already been developed here, what I am now presenting. But first I will only characterize, by way of introduction, how anthroposophy proceeds. In the way I have shown, it leads out of the physical into the spiritual. And man learns to think naturally through anthroposophy, whereas today he cannot think naturally at all.
You see, man today knows that the physical substance of his body is often replaced during his life on earth. We are constantly shedding. We cut our nails. But in this way everything goes from the inside to the surface, and finally that which is in the center of our body is on the surface. We flake it off. And none of you, my dear friends, should believe that the flesh and blood, the physical substance in general, sitting here on this chair today would have been sitting there if you had been here ten years ago. All that has been replaced. What has remained? Your soul and spirit have remained. At least we know that today, even if we don't always think about it, that all the people sitting here in their chairs today would not have had the same muscles and the same bones ten or twenty years ago if they had been sitting here.
When people look up at the moon, they have the awareness that what is the outer physical substance of the moon was already like this millions of years ago. It was just as little like this as the present physical body of man was twenty years ago. However, the physical substances of the stars do not exchange so quickly. But they don't take as long as physicists calculate for the sun today. These calculations are dead right, but they are wrong. I've mentioned this several times before. You see, I said you can calculate how the internal configuration of your heart changes, for example, let's say from month to month. Now calculate it through three years. And then you calculate exactly how this configuration of the heart was three hundred years ago, or how it will be in three hundred years. You get very nice figures. The calculation is absolutely correct. Calculations can be quite correct, but the heart was not there three hundred years ago and will not be there after three hundred years.
But that's how geologists calculate today. They observe the layers of the earth, calculate how these layers change over the centuries, multiply the results and say: Well, twenty million years ago it was like this! It's exactly the same calculation with the same meaning - only none of the earth was there twenty million years ago and it won't be there again twenty million years later.
But quite apart from that: Just as man is subject to metabolism, so are all celestial bodies subject to metabolism. And if you look up at the moon: a certain number of millennia ago, the substance we see today was just as little inside the moon as your substance was sitting on the chair ten years ago. That which sustains the moon is the entities, that is the spiritual-soul in it; just as the spiritual-soul in you is that which sustains you.
And only when we know that once the physical moon has gone out into world space! But that which has physically gone out there continually changes its substance, but those entities that inhabit the moon, they remain on it, they are the permanent, quite apart from their change now also through repeated moon lives and so on; but we do not want to go into that today.
When you look at the moon in this way, you get a kind of science of the moon, which not only inscribes itself in your head, but in your heart. You get a relationship to the spiritual cosmos, you see the moon as one of the gates to the spiritual cosmos. Everything that is present in the depths of our being down below, not only the vague feelings of love, to mention it again, but everything that is present in the subconscious depths of the soul, which is the result of previous earth lives, is connected with the moon existence. With that which is our present existence, with that we snatch ourselves from the lunar existence. We are constantly snatching ourselves away from the moon existence. When we see or hear outwardly through our senses, when we think with our intellect, that is, when we look at that which does not come up from the depths of the soul life and which we clearly recognize as a past that was active in us, when we do not look at that, but when we look at that which again and again pulls us into the present, then we are directed to the existence of the sun just as we are directed to the existence of the moon through the past. The only difference is that the sun works on us in a roundabout way through the physical human body. If we want to acquire independently through our will what the sun gives us, then we must bring this will, this intellect, into excitement. And with what we humans today realize through our active intellect, through our reason, we do not get as far as we can instinctively get by the fact that there is simply a sun in the universe.
Everyone knows, or at least can know, that the sun not only wakes us up every morning to call us out of the darkness into the light, but that the sun is the source of the forces of growth in him, but also the source of the spiritual forces of growth.
That which works in these spiritual forces from the past is connected with the moon, that which works in the present, but what we will actually develop into in the future through our willfulness, depends on the sun.
Just as the moon points to our past, so the sun points us to the future. And we look up to the two heavenly bodies, to that of the day, to that of the night, and look up at the relationship of these two heavenly bodies, for they both send us the same light. And we look within ourselves, we look at all that which is interwoven into our destiny through what we have gone through in the past as human beings and we see our inner moon existence in that which is interwoven into our destiny as the past. And we see in that which constantly approaches us as determining destiny in the present, the solar nature, not only that which works in the present, but that which works into the future. And we see how the past and the future are interwoven in human destiny.
And we can take a closer look at this in human life, how the past and the future are connected. Let's assume that two people find themselves in a life partnership at a certain age. If you don't think about something like that, if you don't reflect, well, you say: I was there, the other person was there, the place was there, for example Müllheim, and we found each other in Müllheim. - They don't think about it any further.
The one who thinks more deeply follows the life of the one, who may have been thirty years old, and the life of the other, who may have been twenty-five years old when they found each other. He will be able to see how strangely, how wonderfully the lives of these two people have developed, step by step, from their birth on earth, so that they finally came together in this place. You could say that people from the most distant places come together somewhere in the middle of their lives. And it is as if they have all arranged their paths so that they come together.
But they could not have done all this consciously, because they had not yet seen each other, or at least not judged each other in such a way that they would find each other. All this takes place in the unconscious. We make the paths to important stages of life, to important points in life in the deepest unconscious. And it is out of this unconscious that destiny is initially woven.
When we then hear a person like Goethe's friend Knebel, who said in his old age: "When I look back on my life, it seems to me as if every step had been arranged in such a way that I had to arrive at a certain point in the end - then we begin to understand such life-experienced people.
But then comes the moment when what is happening between these people takes place in full consciousness. They get to know each other, they get to know their qualities, temperaments, characters, they find sympathies or antipathies with each other and so on.
If we now examine how this is connected with the universe, we find that That which are lunar forces was effective in the paths taken by human beings up to the moment when they found each other. Then the effect of the sun begins. Then they enter, as it were, into the bright light of the sun's action. There they are always present with their own consciousness and there the future begins to illuminate the past, just as the sun illuminates the moon outside in the universe. And as the future illuminates the past, the past in turn illuminates the future of man, just as the moon illuminates the earth with reflected light.
But now the question is whether we can also distinguish in life between the things that are solar in man and those that are lunar in man. Even our feelings can distinguish some things if we take them more deeply and not superficially. Even in childhood, even in a person's youth, he encounters other people who only enter into an external relationship with him, whom he passes by, who pass him by, but who may nevertheless have a great deal to do with him. You were all at school; the least of you can say that you had teachers with whom you had a deeper relationship; but there will always be one or the other who will say to himself: Oh yes, there was a teacher who made such an impression on me that I wanted to become like him; or again, he made such an impression on me that I would have liked to wish him away from the earth. It can be antipathy, it can be sympathy.
And this also happens in later life. We find other people. They only occupy our minds, so to speak, at most the aesthetic sense. Just think how often it happens that someone has got to know another person; if he then meets people here or there who also know him, they communicate with each other by declaring him to be a good fellow or a disgusting fellow. It is an aesthetic judgment, or it is an intellectual judgment. But there are other things. There are human relationships which are not exhausted merely in the intellect or in aesthetic judgment, but which go to the will, and indeed go very strongly to the will, where we do not merely say in childhood that we would like to become like him, or we would like to wish him away from the earth - if I cite the radical things - but where we are touched in our will in the deepest subconscious, where we say: The person we meet there has not only been looked at by us in such a way that we find him good or bad, clever or foolish and the like, but we would like to do out of ourselves what his will wants, and we would not at all like to strain our intellect to judge him; we would like to take into our will all that he has made as an impression on us.
There are these two relationships with people. The one works on our intellect or at most on our aesthetic sense; the other works on our will, into our deeper spiritual being. What is this a testimony to? You see, if people have an effect on our will, if we not only feel a strong antipathy or sympathy, but also want to willfully live out what we feel as sympathy and antipathy, then these people were somehow connected with us in our previous life on earth. If people only make an impression on our intellect or aesthetic sense, then they enter our life without having been connected to us in the previous earthly life.
But you can already see from this: In human life, in human destiny in particular, past and present work together into the future. For that which we now experience with people, even though they do not speak into our will, will be expressed again in the following, future earthly life.
Just as the sun and moon revolve in the same orbit and have a relationship with each other, so in the human being past: human-moonlike, and future: human-sunlike have to do with each other. And we can already come to look up to the sun and moon and see in them not only the outer bodies of light, but also that which reflects our own destiny in its interweaving in the vastness of the cosmos outside. Just as at certain times the moonlight merges into the sunlight, the sunlight into the moonlight, so in our destinies past and future always merge and interweave. Yes, in the individual case of human relationships, they interweave with one another.
Let us take the paths that people have gone through, one through thirty years, the other through twenty-five years. They meet. Everything they have gone through, one up to the age of twenty-five, the other up to the age of thirty, belongs to the lunar nature of man. But now, by getting to know each other, by consciously facing each other, they enter the fateful-sunlike and now weave future and past together in order to continue to weave fate for future earthly lives.
And so you can see from the way in which the fateful approaches the human being how in one case the human being acts on the human being only on the intellect, on the aesthetic sense, but in the other case on the human will and the feeling connected with the will.
You see, as far as I have told you things so far, as I have said, I will only tell you aphoristically today in order to explain to you the path of anthroposophy and the path of its source, the science of initiation, we will do it in detail in the future - so far this can be experienced by everyone through direct cognition. And one can look at destiny with recognition. That peculiar, inner, intimate emergence of the other person in oneself points to past karma. If I feel a person in such a way that he actually takes hold of me inwardly, not only in the senses and in the mind, but inwardly grasps me, that my will is involved in how he grasps me, he is karmically linked to me from the past. With a somewhat finer, more intimate sense, man can therefore feel how another is karmically linked to him.
But when that occurs which can come as a certain stage in man, when he goes through what I have described in “How does one attain knowledge of the higher worlds?” or in the second part of my “Secret Science in Outline”, then he experiences the whole thing in a substantially different way. So when initiation occurs in a person, he not only experiences the other person with whom he was karmically linked in such a way that he says to himself: He works on my will, he works in my will - but he actually experiences the other person personally within himself. And if someone who has been initiated meets another person with whom he is karmically connected, then this other person is in him with an independent language, with independent utterances and revelations, so that he speaks from him, as otherwise a person standing next to us speaks to us. So what is otherwise only felt in the will, the karmic connection, occurs for the initiate in such a way that the other person speaks out of him, as otherwise a person standing next to him would. So that for the one equipped with initiation science the karmic confrontation means: the other person not only works on his will, but he works in him as strongly as a person standing next to him would otherwise work.
You see, that which otherwise announces itself to the ordinary consciousness in an indeterminate, merely volitional and emotional way, is raised to complete concreteness for the higher consciousness. You will say: Yes, but then the one who is initiated walks around inside himself with the bundle of all the people with whom he is karmically connected. - But it is also like this. Gaining knowledge is not just a matter of learning to talk a little more than other people talk, but to talk just like them, but it really is the acquisition of another part of the world.
So if you want to talk about how karma works in people so that their mutual destiny is carved out, you must be able to take the confirmation of your speech from the knowledge of how other people talk in you, how they really become a piece of your own person.
But if one then presents this, it need not remain something otherworldly for the one who is not initiated, but he can say to himself and will say it to himself with healthy senses: "Certainly, I do not hear the one who is karmically connected to me speaking in me; but I feel him. I feel him in my will and in the way my will is shaken up by him. - And one learns to understand this shaking up of the will. One learns to understand that which one experiences in ordinary consciousness and which one can understand through nothing else than by hearing it described in its true concrete meaning from the science of initiation.
What I was particularly interested in today, however, is that what otherwise enters the consciousness in a certain nebulous way, this feeling of karmic connection with the other, now really becomes a concrete experience for the initiate. And just as this can be described for karma, for the destiny of man, so it can be described for everything that initiation science can do.
It can announce many other things to the human being, how he is karmically connected with another. Some of you will know this when you look at life: You meet people in life that you do not dream of; you can live with them for a long time, you cannot dream of them. You meet other people - you can't get them out of your dreams. No sooner have you seen them than you dream of them the next night, and they appear again and again in your dreams.
Dreams are what figure in the subconscious in particular. People we dream of immediately when we experience them are certainly those with whom we are karmically connected. People we cannot dream about only make a superficial impression on our senses; we encounter them in life without being karmically connected to them.
What lives in the depths of our will is like a waking dream. And for the initiate, this waking dream becomes a full consciousness. Therefore he hears the one who is karmically connected to him speak from within himself. Of course he always remains sensible, so that he does not go around and speak to all kinds of people who speak to him, and then also speaks from them as an initiate; but under certain circumstances he also gets used to addressing the people who are karmically connected to him and speak from him in a very concrete way, even if he is not physically opposite them, as if in a dialog, whereby things definitely come to light that also have a real meaning. But these are things that I will describe in the future.
This is how one can deepen the consciousness of the human being when looking up into the vastness of the cosmos, this is how one can deepen it when looking into the human being. And the more one looks into man himself, the more one learns to understand that which is in the vastness of the cosmos. You then say to yourself: I no longer merely look into the celestial world in such a way that I see luminous disks or luminous spheres, but what is outside in the cosmos appears to me as a cosmically woven destiny. The human destinies on earth are then the images of the cosmically woven destinies. And if one knows thoroughly that the substance in a world body changes, exchanges, like the substance of man, then one will know that there is no point in merely talking about abstract laws of nature. These laws are all very well, but not for knowledge. One must not regard the laws of nature as something that gives knowledge. It's just like with insurance companies. You insure your life there. How can such insurance companies exist? By calculating the probable lifespan of a person. From the number of people who reach the age of thirty out of so and so many twenty-five-year-olds and so on, you can then calculate how many years a thirty-year-old is likely to live; then you insure him. And you get away with the insurance. The insurance law applies. But it would never occur to anyone to reconcile that with their innermost nature. Otherwise he would have to say: I was insured at the age of thirty because I am likely to die at the age of fifty-five. He would have to say to himself: Now I have to die at the age of fifty-five. He will never draw the consequences of this, even though the calculation is correct; but the consequence means nothing for real life.
Laws of nature are also only calculated. They are good for us to be able to use them technically; they are good for making machines, as we can insure people according to insurance laws; but they do not lead into the essence of things. Only the real recognition of the entities themselves leads into the essence of things.
What astronomers calculate in the natural laws of the heavens is like the laws of insurance in human life. What a real science of initiation discovers about the essence of what is there as sun and moon is like finding someone who, according to his policy, should have died a long time ago, but after ten years I still find him. It was in his nature to live on.
The real events basically have nothing to do with the laws of nature. The laws of nature are good for the application of forces. But the essence must be recognized through initiatory science.
Well, with this I have given you the third of the lectures, through which I actually only wanted to indicate what the tone should be in Anthroposophy. We will now begin to describe the constitution of the human being in a somewhat different way than was done in my “Theosophy”, building up an anthroposophical science, an anthroposophical knowledge from the foundations. Consider the three lectures I have given so far as a sample, so to speak, of how the consciousness that leads into the real essence of things speaks differently from ordinary consciousness.