The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Lecture I

[ 1 ] In every esoteric course, it is important to learn how to look at the things around us. Of course, every person feels something when they see a flower or anything else in their environment. But it is important to gain a higher perspective, to look deeper, to connect certain insights with each thing. This is the basis, for example, of Paracelsus' profound medicine. He sensed, felt, and saw the power of a particular plant and the relationship of this power to a corresponding power in humans. For example, he saw which organ in the human body was affected by the power of Digitalis purpurea (red foxglove).

[ 2 ] Let us illustrate this way of looking at things with a special example. All religions have symbols. Today, we hear a lot about these symbols, but much of it is only an arbitrary external interpretation. Deep religious symbols, however, are drawn from the essence of things themselves. Let us discuss, for example, the symbol of the serpent as it was communicated to Moses in the Egyptian mystery schools. Let us discuss what inspired him, what gave him his intuition.

[ 3 ] There is a fundamental difference between all animal creatures that have a spine and those that, like beetles, mollusks, worms, and so on, do not have a spine. The entire animal kingdom is divided into the main divisions of vertebrates and invertebrates. With invertebrates, one can now ask the question: Where do these animals have their nerves? After all, the main nerve cord usually runs through the spine. However, invertebrates also have a nervous system, which is found in humans as well as in vertebrates. In vertebrates, it runs along the outside of the spine until it spreads out into the body cavity. This is called the sympathetic nervous system with the solar plexus. It is the same system that invertebrates have, only that it is less important in vertebrates and humans. This system is much more closely connected to the rest of the world than the nervous system in the human head and spinal cord. The activity of the latter can be suppressed in a trance state, and then the sympathetic nervous system becomes active. This is what happens, for example, in somnambulists. Somnambulistic consciousness extends to the whole life of the environment and merges with the other beings around us. Somnambulists feel things within themselves. The life ether is the element that flows around us everywhere. It is mediated by the solar plexus. If we could perceive only with the solar plexus, we would live in intimate communion with the whole world. This intimate communion exists in invertebrate animals. Such an animal feels a flower within itself, for example. The invertebrate animal is something similar in the earth system to the human eye and ear. It is part of the organism. There is indeed a communal spiritual organism that perceives, sees, hears, and so on through invertebrate animals. The Earth spirit is such a communal organism. Everything we have around us is a body for this communal spirit. Just as our soul creates eyes and ears to perceive the world, this communal Earth soul creates invertebrates as eyes and ears to see and hear into the world.

[ 4 ] In the development of the earth, there came a time when a specialization occurred in the communal life and weaving of the Earth Spirit. A part closed off, as if into a tube. Only when this moment arrived was it possible for beings to arise that could also become special beings. The others are members of an Earth soul. Only now does a special degree of separation begin. Only now does the possibility arise that something can one day say “I” to itself. This fact, that there are two epochs on Earth, first the epoch in which there were still no animals on Earth with a nervous system enclosed in a bone tube, and second the epoch in which such animals then came into being, is expressed in a special way in all religions. The serpent first encloses the selfless, undifferentiated vision of the Earth spirit in a tube, thus forming the basis for the ego. The esoteric teachers impressed this upon their students so that they could feel it: when you look at the serpent, you see the mark of your ego. In doing so, they had to feel vividly that the independent ego and the serpent belong together. In this way, this feeling for the meaning of the things around us was developed. In this way, the students permeated every natural being with the right feeling. Moses was also equipped with this feeling when he left the Egyptian secret schools, and so he established the serpent as a symbol. In those schools, learning was not as abstract as it is today, but rather one learned to understand the world from one's own inner experience.

[ 5 ] There is a description of the human being based on the external examination of the individual parts of his organism. But in ancient mystical and occult works, one can also find descriptions of the human being. However, these descriptions came about in a completely different way than through anatomical examinations. They are even far more accurate and correct than what today's anatomists describe, for they describe only the corpse. The ancient descriptions were obtained in such a way that the students became visible to themselves through meditation and inner enlightenment. Through the so-called Kundalini fire, human beings can observe themselves from within. There are different stages of this observation. The precise, correct observation first occurs symbolically. For example, when a person concentrates on their spinal cord, they always see the snake. They may also dream of the serpent, because it is the being that was transferred outward into the world when the spinal cord was formed and remained at this stage. The serpent is the external spinal cord that has been transferred into the world. This pictorial way of seeing things is astral vision (imagination). But it is only through mental vision (inspiration) that the complete meaning emerges.

[ 6 ] This path of knowledge leads people to recognize the connection between the microcosm and the macrocosm, that they can divide themselves into nature, that they can say to which part of the world each of their organs belongs. The ancient Germanic myth divides the giant Ymir in this way. His skull becomes the vault of heaven, his bones become mountains, and so on. This is the mythological representation of inner vision. In every part of the world, the esotericist sees a connection with something within himself. The inner relationship then emerges. This vision must be intensively trained. All religions point to such intensive training. This is also pointed out in the Gospels. The esotericist says to himself: All things in the environment, stones, plants, and animals, are signs of my own development; I could not be if these realms did not exist. This awareness fills us not only with the feeling that we have risen above these realms, but also with the realization that we could not be without them.

[ 7 ] There are seven degrees of human consciousness: trance consciousness, deep sleep consciousness, dream consciousness, waking consciousness, psychic consciousness, superpsychic consciousness, and spiritual consciousness. Actually, there are twelve degrees of consciousness in all; the other five are creative degrees of consciousness. These are the levels of the creators, the creative gods. They are connected with the twelve signs of the zodiac. Human beings must pass through these twelve levels one after the other. They rose through trance consciousness, deep sleep consciousness, and dream consciousness to today's bright daytime consciousness. On the following planetary stages of development, they will reach even higher levels of consciousness. All the stages he has already passed through are also within him. The physical body has the dull trance consciousness that was acquired by humans on ancient Saturn. The etheric body of the human being has the consciousness of dreamless sleep, as it arose on the ancient Sun. The astral body dreams, just as it dreams in sleep. Dream consciousness originates from the ancient Moon. On the present Earth, human beings attain waking consciousness. The ego has bright daytime consciousness.

[ 8 ] Higher development consists in what is in the being being put out, just as human beings put out the serpent and thereby retain the serpent at a higher level in their spinal cord. In a further stage of development, humans will not only project stones, plants, and animals into the world, but also levels of consciousness. In a beehive, for example, there are three kinds of beings that have a common soul. Beings that appear to be completely separate work together. This will also be the case with humans one day; they will separate their organs. They will have to consciously direct all the individual brain molecules from outside. Then they will have become a higher being. It will be the same with the levels of consciousness. One can imagine a high being that has separated all twelve levels of consciousness from itself. It will then exist as the thirteenth and will say to itself: I could not be what I am if I had not separated these twelve stages of consciousness from myself. We have this case in Christ with the twelve apostles. The twelve apostles represent the stages of consciousness through which Christ passed. This can be seen in the Gospel of John in the description of the washing of the feet in the thirteenth chapter, which suggests that Christ owes it to the apostles that he has reached the higher level of consciousness: Truly, remember this, the servant is never to be esteemed higher than the master. The more highly developed being has left the others behind on the path and has now become the servant of the others himself. Not many people understand the meaning of these words, but when they hear this story, they are prepared to understand through their feelings. For example, in the first centuries after Christ, we were prepared for this through these stories. Otherwise, our causal body would not be prepared to receive the truth now. The soul is prepared through the figurative form. That is why the great sages of old told people fairy tales with a broad view of the future. Even today, teachers already have an idea of what will be achieved in the future through the teachings of theosophy. Today, human beings have both good and evil within them. In the future, this will manifest externally as a realm of good and a realm of evil. And how the good will one day treat the evil is predisposed in the soul through the theosophical concepts of today. First, people were given images; now they are receiving the concepts, and in the future they will have to act practically according to them.